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Peter Daszak of Eco Health Alliance Faces Calls to Quit

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Re: Peter Daszak of Eco Health Alliance Faces Calls to Quit

#11

Post by klyrs »

systemvoltage wrote: post #10
klyrs wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reasoning I saw was that regardless of origin, finger-pointing was counterproductive to the primary goal of dealing with the immediate concerns of the pandemic. Firefighters do their job first, then the forensics team comes in after. Now is the appropriate time for investigating how it happened.

Both could have happened in parallel. The fact that it is a lab leak vs. something else wouldn't have any effect on pandemic containment. What it did is sow incredible distrust in our institutions. It lead to long lasting damage which was compounded by institutions going on full defensive mode, doubling down on their old premises instead of adopting humility and compassion, admitting to mistakes. Those that continue…

Meanwhile Trump and his followers were out there making racist comments and saber-rattling at China. That astoundingly boneheaded diplomatic failure unnecessarily ratcheted international tensions to the point where, no, we absolutely were not able to simultaneously research the cause and also collaborate on mitigating the impact of the virus. That diplomatic tension was repeatedly highlighted as a specific reason that investigation would not be tenable. If you're going to talk about the erosion of trust, be honest and look at how the conspiracy theorists have been contributing to that erosion.

Re: Peter Daszak of Eco Health Alliance Faces Calls to Quit

#13

Post by TechBro8615 »

systemvoltage wrote: post #9
rcme wrote: post #3

This guy always cracks me up: > A Freedom of Information Request has shown that Daszak organized a letter to squash rumors that COVID leaked from a lab, in a way that did not link back to collaborations between WIV and EHA. Before his organizing role was revealed, Daszak called the lab leak theory terms such as "preposterous," "baseless," and "pure baloney," and claimed the WIV wasn't culturing viruses similar to SAR…

Lab leak theory proponents were flagged on HN in 2020. So much for us trying to say this, comes off as rich. I just wish we could be a bit more self-critical and introspective.

I posted a link [0] to project-evidence.github.io [1] in April 2020. I think it got flagged at the time, but a year later somebody vouched for it when I complained about the previous flagging in a comment on another thread just like this one.

It's an unbiased document that has aged pretty well, IMO.

FWIW, I also think many (not all) of the tweets from @EthicalSkeptic have aged well. But he's definitely not for everyone (and his - or their - pseudonymity does reduce trust, regardless of how understandable it is in this climate... after all, I'm using a pseudonym for the same reasons!).

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22912353

[1] https://project-evidence.github.io/

Re: Peter Daszak of Eco Health Alliance Faces Calls to Quit

#14

Post by credit_guy »

systemvoltage wrote: post #9
rcme wrote: post #3

This guy always cracks me up: > A Freedom of Information Request has shown that Daszak organized a letter to squash rumors that COVID leaked from a lab, in a way that did not link back to collaborations between WIV and EHA. Before his organizing role was revealed, Daszak called the lab leak theory terms such as "preposterous," "baseless," and "pure baloney," and claimed the WIV wasn't culturing viruses similar to SAR…

Lab leak theory proponents were flagged on HN in 2020. So much for us trying to say this, comes off as rich. I just wish we could be a bit more self-critical and introspective.

The system is imperfect, but how do you design a better system?

It's easy to design a system that prevents the flagging in this particular case, but will it be better overall?

I feel that it's quite inevitable in a community like HN for this theory to get flagged. It's undesirable, but the alternative is worse.

Why? Because at its core, the HN community is a polite, considerate one. We try to apply the charitable interpretation when possible.

The postings about the lab-leak theory could be interpreted in a charitable way too, but unfortunately, the lab-leak theory has a dark undercurrent: "China is bad". Of course, lots of people on HN are smart enough to understand that the lab leak was a joint China-US fiasco (of stupendous proportions). But they also understand that these nuances will be lost in translation. "China bad" is the only thing that comes out.

For more than half a year there were numerous attacks on Asian people in the US. This was not just a theoretical exercise, it resulted in actual hate in the US.

So flagging the lab-leak postings was in line with the HN's tendency to go for the charitable interpretation.

Re: Peter Daszak of Eco Health Alliance Faces Calls to Quit

#15

Post by nradov »

credit_guy wrote: post #14
systemvoltage wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lab leak theory proponents were flagged on HN in 2020. So much for us trying to say this, comes off as rich. I just wish we could be a bit more self-critical and introspective.

The system is imperfect, but how do you design a better system? It's easy to design a system that prevents the flagging in this particular case, but will it be better overall? I feel that it's quite inevitable in a community like HN for this theory to get flagged. It's undesirable, but the alternative is worse. Why? Because at its core, the HN community is a polite, considerate one. We try to apply the charitable int…

But the Chinese government is bad regardless of whether they played any role in starting the COVID-19 pandemic (we have no hard evidence on that). There should be no doubt among us that the Chinese Communist Party is an enemy to all of humanity.

Re: Peter Daszak of Eco Health Alliance Faces Calls to Quit

#17

Post by fakedang »

klyrs wrote: post #11
systemvoltage wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both could have happened in parallel. The fact that it is a lab leak vs. something else wouldn't have any effect on pandemic containment. What it did is sow incredible distrust in our institutions. It lead to long lasting damage which was compounded by institutions going on full defensive mode, doubling down on their old premises instead of adopting humility and compassion, admitting to mistakes. Those that continue…

Meanwhile Trump and his followers were out there making racist comments and saber-rattling at China. That astoundingly boneheaded diplomatic failure unnecessarily ratcheted international tensions to the point where, no, we absolutely were not able to simultaneously research the cause and also collaborate on mitigating the impact of the virus. That diplomatic tension was repeatedly highlighted as a specific reason tha…

Heh China, collaborate?

Do you think it is culturally okay in Communist China to admit wrongdoing? Hint hint, it isn't.

Re: Peter Daszak of Eco Health Alliance Faces Calls to Quit

#18

Post by fidgewidge »

credit_guy wrote: post #14
systemvoltage wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lab leak theory proponents were flagged on HN in 2020. So much for us trying to say this, comes off as rich. I just wish we could be a bit more self-critical and introspective.

The system is imperfect, but how do you design a better system? It's easy to design a system that prevents the flagging in this particular case, but will it be better overall? I feel that it's quite inevitable in a community like HN for this theory to get flagged. It's undesirable, but the alternative is worse. Why? Because at its core, the HN community is a polite, considerate one. We try to apply the charitable int…

> We try to apply the charitable interpretation when possible

To the people we're debating with, yes! That doesn't mean everyone needs to have wide-eyed naivety about every possible person, institution or event that could be discussed.

> the lab-leak theory has a dark undercurrent: "China is bad".

> So flagging the lab-leak postings was in line with the HN's tendency to go for the charitable interpretation.

This is a useful case study of why so many people have a problem with wokeness: "we can't allow any criticism of the Chinese government because someone, somewhere, might do generalize to all Chinese and do something bad". That's destructive to intellectual curiousity and honesty of all kinds.

Anyway it doesn't seem like the best possible explanation. It wasn't just China-related stuff like that which got reliably flagged and downvoted. It's anything that criticized any aspect of the response, unless the criticism was insufficiently aggressive response.

A different attempt: HN has many people who owe their status in society to confidence in the academic/scientific system. Anything that brings that system into disrepute gets attacked. Same pattern is seen on discussions of vaccines, climate change, anything where there is allegation of bad behaviors by public sector researchers or people who justify their stance through caring about the collective future. Ideology is also corrupting. A very common response to people posting evidence of problems with the natural origin theory or other non-COVID scientific dogmas is "that link is to a right wing site so I won't look at it at all". The justification for it being a right wing site? That it contains criticism of government science, a perfect ideological catch 22.

A simple alternative is to make people select one of a handful of reasons for flagging, and if the selected reason doesn't seem justifiable, those people lose flagging privs.

Re: Peter Daszak of Eco Health Alliance Faces Calls to Quit

#19

Post by tempera »

systemvoltage wrote: post #9
rcme wrote: post #3

This guy always cracks me up: > A Freedom of Information Request has shown that Daszak organized a letter to squash rumors that COVID leaked from a lab, in a way that did not link back to collaborations between WIV and EHA. Before his organizing role was revealed, Daszak called the lab leak theory terms such as "preposterous," "baseless," and "pure baloney," and claimed the WIV wasn't culturing viruses similar to SAR…

Lab leak theory proponents were flagged on HN in 2020. So much for us trying to say this, comes off as rich. I just wish we could be a bit more self-critical and introspective.

An open forum like Hacker News is taken care of such that opinions that go against the narrative on sensible topics like: covid, elections, inflation, crypto get massive downvotes and even more, there are task-forces that handle discussion and form opinion to give impression that a majority of people are woke :)

Re: Peter Daszak of Eco Health Alliance Faces Calls to Quit

#20

Post by credit_guy »

fidgewidge wrote: post #18
credit_guy wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The system is imperfect, but how do you design a better system? It's easy to design a system that prevents the flagging in this particular case, but will it be better overall? I feel that it's quite inevitable in a community like HN for this theory to get flagged. It's undesirable, but the alternative is worse. Why? Because at its core, the HN community is a polite, considerate one. We try to apply the charitable int…

> We try to apply the charitable interpretation when possible To the people we're debating with, yes! That doesn't mean everyone needs to have wide-eyed naivety about every possible person, institution or event that could be discussed. > the lab-leak theory has a dark undercurrent: "China is bad". > So flagging the lab-leak postings was in line with the HN's tendency to go for the charitable interpretation. This is a…

> select one of a handful of reasons for flagging

A version of this idea was discussed when the flagging feature was introduced [1]:

   A flag is enough. People around here are pretty smart. The reasons why will mostly be obvious.
> if the selected reason doesn't seem justifiable, those people lose flagging privs.

  It's in place right now, except for the selected reason. If the flagging does not seem justifiable, those people lose flagging rights. It's a tough call on the moderators though. 

  Is there a way to crowdsource the decision? Without increasing too much the complexity? Quite unlikely. 

 My take: HN is the best there is. It's not perfect, but few things in life are perfect.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=226400
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