Covid: Summary of lab-origin hypothesis • Hacker News Board

Re: Covid: Summary of lab-origin hypothesis

#461

Post by endgame » Tue, Sep 06, 2022, 9:17 PM UTC

dmix wrote: post #314

sinecure wrote: post #274

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…

Another big one is how they purposefully lied about masks not working at first to protect supplies (or at least didn’t bother recommending them), then turned to everyone should use cloth masks, then cloth masks don’t work, and then masking kids all day long at school was pointless, etc. The whole back and forth, unquestioning compliance at all costs strategy, and purposeful deception just makes everyone exhausted, sk…

http://web.archive.org/web/20200301001854/https://twitter.co...

U.S. Surgeon-General on Twitter, 2022-02-29:

> Seriously people- STOP BUYING MASKS!

> They are NOT effective in preventing general public from catching #Coronavirus, but if healthcare providers can’t get them to care for sick patients, it puts them and our communities at risk!

Re: Covid: Summary of lab-origin hypothesis

#462

Post by fullshark » Tue, Sep 06, 2022, 9:18 PM UTC

kurupt213 wrote: post #450

bigodbiel wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree, I hope that lableak confirmation will push for a reassessment on the risk reward ratios for research. It may slow down scientific process, but we can now see that the dangers, if catastrophic enough, even if minimal, may not warrant it.

I can’t believe anyone would seriously say ‘it doesn’t matter how it happened.’ That’s like the NTSB holding a press conference and saying it doesn’t matter why the 747 crashed and killed 500 people. They have to determine what happened so they can do root cause analysis and institute procedures to make this less likely to occur again.

People will rationalize any argument as long as their sacred cows are protected (we must defend SCIENCE it's under attack from the ignorant!) or enemies eviscerated.

Re: Covid: Summary of lab-origin hypothesis

#463

Post by glofish » Tue, Sep 06, 2022, 9:18 PM UTC

fzeroracer wrote: post #378

pnf wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I specifically said that no conspiracy is required, that the mechanism is baked into the system. As for the rest of the world, all the information is NOT accessible and public. Far from it. China is notoriously secretive and the US bio-security industry certainly isn't more forthcoming. Second, who says there isn't a control mechanism for non-US research science? Where does funding come from outside the US and how is…

Everything you're doing and alleging is conspiracy. That there is some greater will censoring anything that would reveal it was a lab leak. There's no point in arguing with you because anything can be contorted to fit this narrative you've crafted to fit everything neatly into this conspiracy. In reality hiding something like this on a global scale is quite literally impossible. That's simply a fact of how informatio…

That is not at all what the reply stated. In fact they explicitly stated that "the mechanism is baked into the system". Then go on to methodically explain what they mean.

It exceedingly well argued and articulated point of view - and that goes to pnf's all other replies.

I salute the author pnf for being able to put into words what I would not be able to.

Re: Covid: Summary of lab-origin hypothesis

#464

Post by namose » Tue, Sep 06, 2022, 9:19 PM UTC

rtikulit wrote: post #412

sinecure wrote: post #274

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…

Are you claiming that all authorities, organizations, businesses and experts acted (and are continuing to act) largely in bad faith?

It seems pretty clear to me that regarding the origin of the virus specifically, there has been bad-faith dismissal of the lab leak theory due to the politicization of GoF research.

Re: Covid: Summary of lab-origin hypothesis

#465

Post by r3trohack3r » Tue, Sep 06, 2022, 9:19 PM UTC

ausbah wrote: post #316

sinecure wrote: post #274

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…

>CDC's ever changing guidelines this was much more of a presentation problem then anything. of course the science will change in the middle of new viral outbreak, people's perception of science just isn't that. >liability-free, fast tracked vaccine that doesn't actually mitigate transmission of course you'll fast track a solution when you have a global pandemic? seems like a no brainer? and I don't recall transmissio…

Science is a deeply personal philosophy that guides how an individual interacts with the rest of society. Skepticism, reproducibility, and verification. It is fundamentally _not_ trust based. The body of scientific knowledge is distinct from other forms of knowledge in that it is documented in such a way that you are able to independently validate it to reach the same conclusions yourself. Anything short of that is not science. If you are not able to review the methodology and data yourself - it is not science from where you are standing. If you are not able to reproduce the results - it is not scientifically true from where you are standing.

What I perceived during the pandemic was a conflation of _trust_ with science. When a high ranking public official went on television and said "trust the science" - what they meant was "trust me when I say some people are following the philosophy of science, and that everyone along the chain of trust between me and those people have assured me that the conclusions they've reached are sound enough to base policy on. You should trust me, and by proxy everyone between me and those people practicing science."

What they were _not_ saying was "you should follow the philosophy of science yourself."

Science would require the data and methodology be published and readily available at the time of a press release encouraging independent verification from anyone and everyone. Folks who fail to generate the same results should be allowed to share those negative results for others to vet. Science would dictate that each individual person who receives the information start from a position of skepticism until the information has been vetted and validated on a personal level.

Some people - likely most people - will choose to substitute trust for science on a personal level; but anyone who dictates that decision for others is not practicing science.

Re: Covid: Summary of lab-origin hypothesis

#466

Post by peteradio » Tue, Sep 06, 2022, 9:20 PM UTC

BeetleB wrote: post #446

peteradio wrote: post #392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's what I'll admit, its shady as hell for a group of scientists (some with especially confounding conflicts) to come out and dismiss something as so unlikely as to be impossible when it was obviously still a plausible explanation. That was not a scientific position to take, but a political one. Lab leaks are not new or especially rare. There is a now public paper trail indicating they were trying to build the dam…

Let's stipulate that everything you say is true. It still doesn't address the content of the comment you are responding to: "it's not a good way to kick off a discussion of the subject in earnest. " And as someone who has no opinion on the issue at all, and hasn't researched it, and can easily believe it is/isn't of lab origin, I can say that the top level OP comment was a very quick "I don't want to spend a minute o…

Another comment addressing pure tone, while never addressing content, unbelievable! People conducting science need to behave ethically, those are reasonable probing ethical questions. If the initial discussion related to origins of a bad pandemic can be quelled by a handful of science bureaucrats with conflicted interests then I think an interested journalist would ask the grand-OPs questions. The fact we don't have answers is because either the journalists aren't asking the questions (except the intercept) or the questions aren't getting answered. The normal format of journalistic curiosity is getting short circuited and so all you get to see is dickheads asking quesitons to the void on the internet. Perhaps you entirely disagree because you don't think those questions need to be answered. But we are stuck on tone of grand-OPs argument because why? Are you interested in the questions, I kind of think not.

Re: Covid: Summary of lab-origin hypothesis

#467

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Sep 06, 2022, 9:20 PM UTC

nradov wrote: post #405

tinco wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The liability-free fast tracked vaccine that doesn't actually mitigate transmission greatly restored my belief that we might survive the next large event. It was rolled out quickly, and it actually greatly reduced mortality. Reducing transmission would've been epic, but we can't win them all. The CDC's ever changing guidelines were good, but their not admitting that at some point the had been wrong or worse were flat…

Imposing mandatory curfews was never reasonable. That was never justified on an evidence-based medicine basis, and it violated the fundamental human right of free assembly. Those involved in policing such policies should be ashamed of themselves.

[deleted]

Re: Covid: Summary of lab-origin hypothesis

#468

Post by 8f2ab37a-ed6c » Tue, Sep 06, 2022, 9:24 PM UTC

Curious how we'll go about preventing the NYT from shaming the population with racism next time something starts to not add up: https://www.thewrap.com/new-york-times-covid-lab-leak-apoorv... . I really doubt we've learned anything at all, even with flaccid left-leaning icon Jon Stewart pointing out the absurdity of the situation.

Re: Covid: Summary of lab-origin hypothesis

#469

Post by Moodles » Tue, Sep 06, 2022, 9:25 PM UTC

tedivm wrote: post #460

goatcode wrote: post #458

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In nature, it makes no sense for a virus to be both highly transmissible and highly deadly. Any such virus would cease to exist after having run amok in such a way in its hosts. Therefore, any extremely deadly virus should be looked at with similarly extreme criticism, especially if / when it adapts and becomes a better behaving parasite.

Nature, and evolution, don't follow motive based logic. Random mutations that are temporarily beneficial but are detrimental to the long term do happen. To put it another way, a cell mutates based off of random chance. It doesn't have desires. We only have to go back as far as 1918 to see an example of a virus that could not have been engineered and was highly transmissible and highly deadly. As you say, in the long…

Obviously the person you’re responding to doesn’t think covid is conscious and has motivations…

Re: Covid: Summary of lab-origin hypothesis

#470

Post by bialpio » Tue, Sep 06, 2022, 9:27 PM UTC

seydor wrote: post #6

Well I hope that at least the next lab-made pandemic will insert some beneficial mutations to humanity. In a way, the lab-leak hypothesis is comforting, because it means that nature with its own means did not manage to manufacture such a highly-transmissive disease, despite the facts of modern life, record human population and rates of travel. If it is not lab-made, then nature may do this again soon with another vir…

> (...) it means that nature with its own means did not manage to manufacture such a highly-transmissive disease (...)

I think I'm less optimistic than you in this matter. There's at least one counter-example to that statement: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_flu that has the same order of magnitude of deaths as COVID-19, but in a world where population was ~4x smaller and I'd expect less mobile / interconnected.