> "If you knew that this was likely a lab-enhanced pathogen, there are so many things you could have done differently" I'm curious - if we knew in March 2020 that covid came from a lab, what _would_ we have done differently?
Literally nothing.
First people sickened by Covid-19 were scientists at WIV: US government sources
691–700 of 792 posts
Re: First people sickened by Covid-19 were scientists at WIV: US government sources
#692Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's weird how many smart people still haven't realized they are being lied to by the legacy media and establishment figures. Even after repeatedly discrediting themselves. Taibbi and Shellenberger aren't perfect either, but they are more reliable and honest. Taibbi is still the investigative journalist he's always been.
Often new, independent journalists will claim that the mainstream media is lying to the citizens and when I replace "mainstream media" with "my competitors" it makes a lot more sense. "My competitors are lying to you" is a variation of the "my competitors have a bad product" claim that I imagine many small businesses make to discredit the market leader. Does it mean that the market leaders have a better product? Not…
[dead]
Re: First people sickened by Covid-19 were scientists at WIV: US government sources
#693Earlier quoted context omitted.
This list of articles is right out of a conspiracy theorists fever dream. Great intellectual content here HN, thanks for sharing. Now go outside and take a walk before you go off the deep end.
The whole "lab leak" thing was one of those conspiracies that got you censored on facebook, reddit and many other sites. Three years later, it's becoming a mainstream discussion and it became a realistic possibility.
So this list is perfectly sane then I suppose, it’s as simple as that. I think the reason so many people like this stuff is they get to pretend they’re smarter than everyone and have the real information. You see, they did the research. They are big brained and everyone else is too stupid to understand. A convenient fit for a “smartest person in the room” fantasy. Authors like this provide fuel for that fantasy.
Re: First people sickened by Covid-19 were scientists at WIV: US government sources
#694Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Taibbi is clearly a partisan hack that only attacks one side, ever. You should probably expand your reading to his articles in Rolling Stone, particularly those from 4-5 years ago. You would not say “ever” if you did that. But…for a writer that admittedly leans left in his politics, he is willing to call out that side when a story leads there. He is much like Glenn Greenwald in that respect. Both he and Glenn get a…
[flagged]
Lol. Yes and Noam Chomsky too. All fascists. /s
Re: First people sickened by Covid-19 were scientists at WIV: US government sources
#695Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Taibbi is clearly a partisan hack that only attacks one side, ever. You should probably expand your reading to his articles in Rolling Stone, particularly those from 4-5 years ago. You would not say “ever” if you did that. But…for a writer that admittedly leans left in his politics, he is willing to call out that side when a story leads there. He is much like Glenn Greenwald in that respect. Both he and Glenn get a…
[flagged]
[dead]
Re: First people sickened by Covid-19 were scientists at WIV: US government sources
#696Earlier quoted context omitted.
> if you look at the investors[0] in Substack FFS this is like claiming you are funded by BoA or JPM if your salary is deposited there. They are literally paid by their subscribers, Substack is a mere payment & publication tool. Substack do not pay them. Moreover w.r.t. Taibbi he has picked fights with his employers and quit at the first hint of them trying to influence his work. His credibility on that front is actu…
Claiming that a private company with significant investment in it has "owners" is not controversial. It's unclear to me why this bothers you so much. This isn't intended as an attack on Taibbi whatsoever, it is just plain wrong to say that a for-profit company funded by some of the largest SV funds is not an owned entity. You can make the case that because Substack writers do not have an editorial process and fact ch…
Taibbi is paid by his subscribers. The end. He's not influenced by the vendors of his pen or his pc or any of his other suppliers. Each of those supplier companies has owners and nobody need care.
If substack the company don't like his writing and try /anything/ at all, he takes _his_ business away from substack. Substack work for Taibbi. Taibbi is the customer. Substack have as much influence on the stories he reports as your bank rep does on your work. Substack's owners are wholly irrelevant.
The point is that Substack is completely, totally and utterly beside the point when it comes to journalistic influence & integrity. It's unclear to me how you are missing this point. The ownership of substack has zero relevance here. None. As opposed the ownership of the WSJ and Fox News (or msnbc, cnn, nyt, etc) which clearly and obviously is extremely relevant to the output of any journalist /employed/ by those companies.
Re: First people sickened by Covid-19 were scientists at WIV: US government sources
#697Instead of replying in spirit the same message to various comments here, I generalized the skepticism in one. To people commenting that "experts had repeatedly suggested that it is unlikely to be a leak." Experts, that is people studying in biochemistry/biology/virology labs were and will always be saying that it is likely. Working in such a lab without accidents would be a historical miracle. That is one of the reas…
And SARS 1 itself was leaked from a lab four times. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SARS#Laboratory_accidents
Re: First people sickened by Covid-19 were scientists at WIV: US government sources
#698Earlier quoted context omitted.
[flagged]
hmmm. maybe? What specifically is the actual conspiracy around "Hunter Bidens laptop"? I am not trying to be dense. I just don't understand I think where the conspiracy is.
Sibling comment is flagged and should not be.
Would be interesting to know the process and details that led to that.
Re: First people sickened by Covid-19 were scientists at WIV: US government sources
#699I don't trust this article at all . > Sources within the US government say that three of the earliest people to become infected with SARS-CoV-2 were Ben Hu, Yu Ping, and Yan Zhu. All were members of the Wuhan lab suspected to have leaked the pandemic virus. > It is unclear who in the U.S. government had access to the intelligence about the sick WIV workers, how long they had it, and why it was not shared with the pub…
You could have skipped reading entirely; it's conspiracy clickbait. To the puzzle-solving mind, an anomalous clue is the unicorn you spend your whole life chasing. There is a well-known conspiracy community around covid. It follows that this is trying to harvest a couple thousand in revenue by baiting people who are playing with covid conspiracies, by enticing them with the false promise of an anomalous clue. I hope…
Grow up.
Re: First people sickened by Covid-19 were scientists at WIV: US government sources
#700> "If you knew that this was likely a lab-enhanced pathogen, there are so many things you could have done differently" I'm curious - if we knew in March 2020 that covid came from a lab, what _would_ we have done differently?
I had personally decided by April 2020 that there was sufficient information for me to believe that Covid was a lab-enhanced pathogen that was accidentally released by researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. My "source" was mainly common sense (the simplest solution is usually the right one, and guilty people doth protest too much), an understanding of probability (there is a lab studying the pathogen right n…
Common sense says that these pandemics happen cyclically, and are of natural origin. Just like all the other ones that happen every 20-100 years.