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China clamping down on coronavirus research, deleted pages suggest

theguardian.com

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Re: China clamping down on coronavirus research, deleted pages suggest

#221

Post by peteretep »

godelski wrote: post #210
Razengan wrote: post #90

Tinfoil hat: I'm not keeping active track, but I passively perceived a sheer drop in mentions of the fact that Wuhan has China's first "biosafety level 4" laboratory, coinciding with an increased lambasting of the US's handling of their infections in the general media (" The Wuhan virus is now the American virus "), along with a streak of random US-critical posts (" What is the worst thing the US government has done?…

I'm not so sure I buy the Reddit controlled by CCP (or heavily influenced) argument. Simply because in /r/China, /r/ChineseLanguage, and /r/HongKong I see frequent posts that are highly critical of the CCP and China in general. They have many upvotes and it doesn't look like people are being banned or posts are being removed. It is nowhere like /r/Sino. I'm not trying to defend the CCP here, but just trying to say th…

Honestly the much simpler explanation is coordinated voting. If the Donald Trump-related sub-Reddit can coordinate their voting sufficiently that Reddit needs to step in to stop it, then I'm sure a country with access to Project Management tools can get large numbers of state employees or patriots to click on voting buttons.

Re: China clamping down on coronavirus research, deleted pages suggest

#222

Post by nikofeyn »

2019-nCoV wrote: post #208
nikofeyn wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if that's your definition of biological warfare, then you need to consider to yourself that the u.s. government is then waging biological warfare against its own people. note that i don't agree with your definition.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biological_warfare > Biological warfare [...] is the use of biological toxins or infectious agents such as bacteria, viruses, insects, and fungi with the intent to kill or incapacitate humans, animals or plants as an act of war. Knowingly allowing the spread of a highly contagious, lethal virus fits the definition. The only point of contention is whether the party's actions were due to i…

the quoted definition is not the definition you posted.

and if you are so up in arms about this, what are you going to do about the u.s. waging biological warfare on its own people?

Re: China clamping down on coronavirus research, deleted pages suggest

#223

Post by godelski »

paulcole wrote: post #108
sergiotapia wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Take a look at reddit to see how legions of paid government actors are actively shaping the discussion on mainstream platforms.

I don’t buy this. Why would governments pay people to shitpost on Reddit when so many of us gladly do it for free?

You only need a small force to build the momentum to get people to shitpost for free. But they do it on every major website. I'm sure the US and other major countries do similar things on VK and Weibo. Only difference is VK and Weibo have more control by the government and our companies believe that they should not be in the business of determining what legally is free speech and what isn't.

Re: China clamping down on coronavirus research, deleted pages suggest

#224

Post by [deleted] »

godelski wrote: post #210
Razengan wrote: post #90

Tinfoil hat: I'm not keeping active track, but I passively perceived a sheer drop in mentions of the fact that Wuhan has China's first "biosafety level 4" laboratory, coinciding with an increased lambasting of the US's handling of their infections in the general media (" The Wuhan virus is now the American virus "), along with a streak of random US-critical posts (" What is the worst thing the US government has done?…

I'm not so sure I buy the Reddit controlled by CCP (or heavily influenced) argument. Simply because in /r/China, /r/ChineseLanguage, and /r/HongKong I see frequent posts that are highly critical of the CCP and China in general. They have many upvotes and it doesn't look like people are being banned or posts are being removed. It is nowhere like /r/Sino. I'm not trying to defend the CCP here, but just trying to say th…

[deleted]

Re: China clamping down on coronavirus research, deleted pages suggest

#225

Post by FriendlyNormie »

avs733 wrote: post #32
gnusty_gnurc wrote: post #8

In lieu of evidence that the “wet market” story is true, the accidental lab release is pretty compelling. Interesting to see how people react to it though - as though the idea is outlandish that a laboratory working with pathogens from actual bats could mishandle things. Is there even any evidence people ate bats at the wet market?

So...evidence? Stating it's compelling isn't evidence, just that it is an explanation that appeals to large populations of our species who are hold certain suspicions. There is, however, a long history of animal to human transmission of diseases. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. I have yet to see anyone provide evidence, only twitter rumors, and twitter rumors aren't even regular evidence.

You’re the one making extraordinary claims. The virus came from a bat sold at a wet market? Where is your evidence? What is the name of the merchant who sold the bat at the wet market? Where is the specific bat from that wet market which was recovered and tested positive for the coronavirus? What specific species of bat was it? Where is your proof that anyone ever sold bats at that wet market (many sources are saying they didn’t)? Why did the outbreak supposedly begin at a wet market 300 meters from a lab that specifically focused on studying coronaviruses? You’re implying that you have very convincing answers to all these questions. Do you?

Re: China clamping down on coronavirus research, deleted pages suggest

#226

Post by dirtyid »

light_cone wrote: post #203
adventured wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It probably walked out of a Wuhan lab, with a lab tech or equivalent as the unaware infected carrier; which doesn't make it a bioweapon at all. It may have been sampled by China's large effort to search their territory for viruses, and then it was studied in Wuhan. It's most likely a mistake of incompetence. There is precedence in that it has happened multiple times in China with SARS since the original outbreak in 2…

The most credible evidence has been gathered and presented in a youtube video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpQFCcSI0pU . The youtuber was a long time china immigrant before being forced to move abroad.

This entire video is translating open-source conspiracy theories that Chinese netizens conjured up under lockdown. You know what else was conjured up under lock down? US engineered weapon from Fort Detrick disguised as vape pneumonia that later infected Wuhan via international military games. Both theories has exactly the same credibility and validity.

It's ridiculous that people think laowhy and serpenza are credible China-watchers. They're travel bloggers and now clickbait video generators. The amount of people who get all their information and opinions on China from these two is worryingly staggering. There is an incredible amount of subject matter experts that specialize and operate in China. Literal billions are poured into NGOs, think tanks and other intelligence sources with boots on the ground. Granted much of it is not great, but they're infinitely more reliable than a couple youtubers who got kicked out of China and have no professional prospects outside of click bait conspiracy theory.

Also notice how he has recent videos about China killing his dreams, his move out of China and his wife divorcing him. Do you think that would cloud his judgement? Why isn't there a video on netizens work on the US engineered virus conspiracy theory? Youtubers =/= credible sources.

Re: China clamping down on coronavirus research, deleted pages suggest

#227

Post by abc-xyz »

justicezyx wrote: post #88

Hi guys, As a Chinese living in US. Please be mindful that a lot of people do not distinguish China the government, and the Chinese people, living in or outside of China mainland. This type of news, are of course worth discussion. But meanwhile, please refrain from politicizing beyond the facts. Think about not letting what a few political figures have started, i.e., politicizing the event without considering the imp…

Foreigners all over the world are likely to be targeted as long as they stand out. For instance, in China, Africans are being kicked out of their homes and forced to sleep on the street (because no hotel/apartment will accept them), countless stores, including a McDonald’s restaurant, are refusing to serve foreigners (blacks are in particular targeted).

Please be mindful that it’s not just Chinese or Asians being targeted, and that the racism foreigners are experiencing in China right now is far worse than what the Chinese are experiencing elsewhere.

Re: China clamping down on coronavirus research, deleted pages suggest

#228

Post by nikofeyn »

hoot wrote: post #212
nikofeyn wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yes, indeed. however, you'll note by the downvotes no one here wants to be reasonable. it's a trend i've noticed on hacker news. this site claims a lot to be unbiased and evidence based, but i have noticed when it comes to china, all reason floats out the window. it's a dangerous effect because there are actual problems that are exacerbated and confused by propaganda and unfounded claims from the other side, which al…

I've noticed this as well. Does China have any stake in HN that would allow them to sway discussions?

i don't know regarding investments. but just to be clear, the trend i have noticed is a clear anti-chinese sentiment on hacker news. it comes up a lot.

i think it's simply because a lot of americans are on hacker news, and there is a gross level of anti-chinese sentiment in the united states in general, probably more-so from educated people.

Re: China clamping down on coronavirus research, deleted pages suggest

#229

Post by knzhou »

dlubarov wrote: post #200
knzhou wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now this is an interesting abuse of Bayes' theorem, because there's an extremely similar conspiracy theory going around in China of this form: it's known that CIA agents specifically visited Wuhan before the virus broke out, and the CIA claims to have known about this disease before anybody in China did. So... P(virus from CIA) = 0.01 P(outbreak in 14km radius | virus from CIA) = 1 P(outbreak in 14km radius | virus n…

What do you mean by P(virus from CIA)? Do you mean the probability that the CIA planted the virus in the WIV? If so, then > How can there both be a 97% chance that the CIA did it, and a 97% chance that WIV made it? There's no contradiction there. If the CIA planted the virus in the WIV, then it's simultaneously true that the CIA planted the virus and that the WIV was the source of the outbreak.

Why not both?

Using your exact logic three times:

- there's a 97% chance the CIA planted it in the seafood market

- there's a 97% chance the CIA planted it in the WIV

- there's a 97% chance the WIV made it

Now it's obvious that something is going wrong here. There is no conceivable way these probability assignments can make sense. But your math was formally correct! What a mystery.

Re: China clamping down on coronavirus research, deleted pages suggest

#230

Post by chaostheory »

adventured wrote: post #135
Medicalidiot wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm annoyed with the connection between SARS-CoV-2 and bioweapon. This is such a garbage bioweapon for two reasons: This doesn't kill military aged men and it cannot be readily shut off. American scientists have nailed down when the cross over event occurred and how it happened. The world's top virologists also have said multiple times that this is not a bioweapon, people who have studied viruses for decades. But peo…

It probably walked out of a Wuhan lab, with a lab tech or equivalent as the unaware infected carrier; which doesn't make it a bioweapon at all. It may have been sampled by China's large effort to search their territory for viruses, and then it was studied in Wuhan. It's most likely a mistake of incompetence. There is precedence in that it has happened multiple times in China with SARS since the original outbreak in 2…

There’s speculation that patient zero is Wuhan Institute of Virology researcher Huang YanLing 黃燕玲

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3050872/chin...

She’s still missing and her whereabouts are unknown

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