231–240 of 631 posts
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.
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.
If a plane crash killed a few hundred people, no one would question the need for a thorough investigation, root cause analysis, and preventative measures for the future. Or consider the security reforms put in place after 9/11, which killed thousands. This pandemic killed millions.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nuke Game Theory all over again, with AGI to add too!
The fundamental difference with nuclear theory is that nukes don't self-assemble more nukes. The exponential replication of biological pandemics means there are very different optima. Whether that's in favor of GoF or anti-GoF, I can't say. It's a tradeoff between {increased risk of pandemic & more prepared for pandemic} vs {decreased risk of pandemic & less prepared for pandemic}. A sane response probably means we s…
It's worse than that: nukes don't learn to become even more powerful nukes while being used.
> BSL-4 (+) labs
One of the issues is that effective safety in labs is virtually impossible in reality (lab leaks that are effectively non-material events are relatively high frequency even from the best labs).
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.
It's an overused example, but it's a good one. Flying is extremely safe. Not because it's an inherently safe activity, but because every time something happens we stop and ask why. We don't accept simple answers like "the pilot screwed up" we try to find all of the root causes and contributing factors. Then for each of those we try to find a mitigation to avoid the problem in the future.
It's not unreasonable to want to know what caused this pandemic so we can try to avoid the next one.
The only thing that it proves is that regardless of how the outbreak happened, if it was a killer virus we would be f*ck. 2 years later, we know few about its origin and we still fight with basic stuff like vaccine, treatment and lockdown.. One could say "well, we learned a lot during this two years", but I doubt that if same happens again, we are able to respond it as we should. Damn, even the question about masks (…
> we still fight with basic stuff like vaccine, treatment What exactly are you hoping for?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't know how the law works where you live, but in my country, 'probably did it' isn't enough for a conviction. Even then, this isn't some spurious made up court trial, and the probabilities you're working with are easily inflated to suit the narrative you want. Conspiracy theorists will always say they have enough evidence for their theory, of course.
Concepts like “innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt” are more about protecting people’s individual liberties than establishing a baseline about whether or not to believe something.
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…
Did someone come up with a good explanation of why Peter Daszak and various affiliates of EcoHealth alliance were involved in nearly all the media "coverage" (dismissals) of the lab leak hypothesis when it first popped up? And why The Lancet published the initial letter dismissing lab leak, clearly coordinated by EcoHealth alliance? And why Daszak also was on the WHO investigation team? And why to this day no one apo…
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.