331–340 of 631 posts
What is the motivation behind research that makes viruses more suitable for humans anyway? I assume it's not strictly a military project, since there was international cooperation between countries that aren't allies. What is it we're tying to achieve?
WIV Worker - WIVW Janitor/intern/low paid employee - J
WIVW to J: Dispose of these bats J: Ok J takes bats to wet market J sells bats for 50 bucks J to WIVW: Got rid of the bats for you. WIVW to J: Thanks.
I'm wondering: what exactly is this virus research for anyways? Whether or not this lab leaked the virus and caused the pandemic, I'm wondering why they are interested in engineering new variants of SARS-like viruses in the first place? Are the detractors of the lab-leak theory saying "Yes, they engineered plenty of coronaviruses in the lab, there's just no evidence that any of them leaked out" or are they saying "No…
I'm wondering: what exactly is this virus research for anyways? Whether or not this lab leaked the virus and caused the pandemic, I'm wondering why they are interested in engineering new variants of SARS-like viruses in the first place? Are the detractors of the lab-leak theory saying "Yes, they engineered plenty of coronaviruses in the lab, there's just no evidence that any of them leaked out" or are they saying "No…
A reason may be so they can know how a similar naturally occurring virus may work.
I think covid's lasting impact will be one of vastly growing mistrust in the political and scientific organizations that society looks to for guidance. From the CDC's ever changing guidelines, the liability-free, fast tracked vaccine that doesn't actually mitigate transmission, the labeling of media pushed medical hypothesis as "science" and any debate as heresy, the effortless militarization of common citizens to so…
The CDC's ever changing guidelines were good, but their not admitting that at some point the had been wrong or worse were flat out lying did hurt societal trust a lot. The fact that social pressure on our neighbours and government recommendations failed to such an extent that we needed extra policing just to get people to keep to reasonable curfews sucked.
I don't know where you pull the "effortless militarization of common citizens .. who attack" from, but a. that didn't happen, and b. it was the people who did not follow government recommendations and social pressure that were out there militarizing and attacking their neighbours.
People are asking questions, that's how science works. But basing laws and regulations on established science and expert advice, that's how society is supposed to work. You can be angry about the state of science, or about the corrupting influence of pharmaceutical companies, but don't throw out the baby with the bath water. The fact that we've been able to respond swiftly based on expert advice and on established science is a good thing. Maybe next time we'll make sure those experts and scientists have more competence and better alignment to our ethical values.
I think covid's lasting impact will be one of vastly growing mistrust in the political and scientific organizations that society looks to for guidance. From the CDC's ever changing guidelines, the liability-free, fast tracked vaccine that doesn't actually mitigate transmission, the labeling of media pushed medical hypothesis as "science" and any debate as heresy, the effortless militarization of common citizens to so…
I think you’re leaving out the part where, for political or other reasons, there are and were groups motivated to sell distrust in American institutions as well as their political rivals. You cannot seriously have a debate about this mistrust without acknowledging the role of misinformation and motivated actors looking to sew mistrust. Remember when 5G causing Covid was trending? Or memes about how hot water in a net…
The conversations on HN about the lab leak hypothesis always leave this out. They often imply the politicization of covid came from scientists trying to protect themselves rather than from politicians. Maybe the lab leak theory is true, but you can't dismiss the fact that it first rose to public prominence because politicians pushed it as a way to shift the blame for the pandemic. Therefore the anti-lab leak argument was heavily political specifically because it was responding to an already politicized argument that had little evidence to support it.
If you click on the link in the thread, there's an editor's note clarifying that this paper is being used to prop up dodgy claims, for which there's no evidence. The main issue I have with the 'lab leak' theory is that I haven't seen much evidence one way or another. Hitchens' razor applies- what can be stated without evidence can be as easily dismissed without evidence. I personally don't see any issue with the idea…
I mean, the furan cleavage site certainly counts as evidence of a potential modification if it hasn't been observed in any of the natural coronaviruses and inserting it in the position it is was the subject of a grant proposal just a couple of years prior, at the institute in close proximity to the outbreak.
There's also the fact that US intelligence leaked that a couple of workers at WIV were hospitalized with COVID-like symptoms in November, before the outbreak was otherwise detected which is an unusual event for working-aged people. That is an extremely suspicious timing and location of an unusual event in more than one person, though we don't have confirmation of the causative agent.
Also, while we're back into speculative evidence, I found the behavior of the Chinese government was very suspicious throughout.
I found it very interesting that there was a nation-wide initiative in China toward enhancing lab safety at BSL labs which was rolled out relatively quietly a few months into the pandemic. They also pulled their viral genetic database offline after the outbreak. Non-transparency is expected, but a couple of those actions seem more damning.
In addition to having research the nearest known ancestor to sars-cov2, and proposing inserting the FCS that distinguishes sars-cov2 from it's ancestors, the project proposed treating bats in the wild with the humanized virus to make the bats immune to it.
It's about as close to mad science as you get outside of the movies.
I don't really know how much it matters if covid was directly caused by the lab leak when you can look at their actions and say that they would reasonably been expected to cause this outcome.
"Mom, I swear, I didn't cause the explosion! yes, I was maxing random chemicals I found in the garage, in violation against the established prohibitions, and the chemicals I was mixing happened to be the exact sort that caused the explosion. But it wasn't me!"
The fact that there was a moratorium on gain of function research means that even more of the culpable parties all the way up the funding chain are incentivized to lie about the whole thing.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
US officials also have the strong incentives to muddy the waters for lab-leak. I mean, if true, we likely funded it since Fauci's NIH was giving millions in grant money to Daszak/EcoHealth Alliance, which was studying bat corona viruses and arguing with the government over their gain of function research. Oddly Vanity Fair has done the best deep-dive I've seen on this. https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/03/the-viru…
Not only that but tensions are already high with China; you really want to collapse that wave function? I'm pretty OK with that not being public knowledge.
What I don't understand about this argument is why does it matter? Even if COVID was created in a lab in Wuhan they obviously didn't release it on purpose as a weapon (if they had they wouldn't have released it in Wuhan). There are any number of other labs around the world working on similarly dangerous research that could get released on accident.
For sure we should use this as a lesson to increase safe guards regardless. But discussing those measures would require actual domain specific knowledge, so you’ll never see it on HackerNews (to speak nothing of Twitter!)