An appeal for an objective, open, transparent debate re: the origin of Covid-19 • Hacker News Board

Re: An appeal for an objective, open, transparent debate re: the origin of Covid-19

#331

Post by jackfoxy » Wed, Sep 22, 2021, 6:11 PM UTC

mbrodersen wrote: post #330

jackfoxy wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I change my mind when facts/reality change. What do you do? Exactly this. Which is why I remain skeptical. My elderly father had a massive stroke 3 days after receiving the second shot, which was administered right after he recovered from covid, which he contracted after the first shot . I'm also certain his care givers did not report this to the FDA's voluntary MedWatch database, which is the only way the governme…

Do you know the difference between Causality and Correlation?

Edit: Yes. And I know the difference between evidence and proof and even the difference between skepticism and certainty.

I also recognize ad hominem arguments.

Re: An appeal for an objective, open, transparent debate re: the origin of Covid-19

#332

Post by mbrodersen » Thu, Sep 23, 2021, 1:46 AM UTC

jackfoxy wrote: post #331

mbrodersen wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you know the difference between Causality and Correlation?

Edit: Yes. And I know the difference between evidence and proof and even the difference between skepticism and certainty. I also recognize ad hominem arguments.

So what evidence would you accept to prove you wrong? I have two injections and didn’t get a heart attack. Millions of people have two injections and didn’t die of heart attacks. If that doesn’t make you hesitate believing what you believe what would? If your answer is “nothing” then you are not being rational.

Re: An appeal for an objective, open, transparent debate re: the origin of Covid-19

#333

Post by oh_sigh » Thu, Sep 23, 2021, 2:35 AM UTC

Aeolun wrote: post #217

glitchc wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think what it really brings to light (at least for me) is the incompetence of the CCP in the matter. I have no qualms about China conducting research in this regard, other countries are doing it too and we would be naive to think otherwise. However, if it is proven to be true that gain of function research was being conducted at the Wuhan laboratory, it highlights the sheer stupidity of the government in thinking t…

> I think what it really brings to light (at least for me) is the incompetence of the CCP in the matter. Incompetence? I think the regime came out of this pretty well. They’ve completely disrupted literally every country in the world, and China itself has been only marginally affected, lacking any of the truly large waves that devastated the US and India.

If they were competent, wouldn't they have made it look like Israel or Iran or the US or Islamic terrorists were responsible for the outbreak?

Re: An appeal for an objective, open, transparent debate re: the origin of Covid-19

#334

Post by iammisc » Thu, Sep 23, 2021, 3:10 PM UTC

wolverine876 wrote: post #328

iammisc wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How could you possibly say democracy is the most successful government system in history? There is little reason to believe that. These sorts of kitschy phrases being substituted for real discourse is why were here. Democracy is nice, but historically it leads to very bad outcomes in a few hundred years. What remains to be seen is whether or not this democracy will sustain itself.

> How could you possibly say democracy is the most successful government system in history? Never in history have people been more free, had more economic self-determination, and been more safe and had more peace - for billions in every part of the world. What other system of government has even approached it?

Rome? The empires of china? Both of which brought peace to their known worlds for many thousands of years. America has only enforced pax Americans for about 70 years after WWII. Meanwhile, the empires of china regularly brought peace for thousands of years to their region.

This is just magical thinking. It's the same thinking behind the magical forms of american exceptionalism

Re: An appeal for an objective, open, transparent debate re: the origin of Covid-19

#335

Post by iammisc » Thu, Sep 23, 2021, 3:20 PM UTC

raxxorrax wrote: post #324

iammisc wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Democracies are not 'young'. Rome was a democracy for four hundred years before falling into autocracy and empire. As was Athens and some other Greek cities. Many 'barbarian' tribes were democracies as well. Democracy is not something invented in 1776. All experiments in democracy have so far failed. Most fail spectacularly and devolve into authoritarianism (see the 1st French Republic). There has never been a long-s…

Rome was a democracy like North Korea is a democracy. Sure, different time, but the pleb certainly had zero influence on policy direction. But in any case I wouldn't call it "not successful". Contrary to that England is a parliamentary democracy for nearly 200 years now and the monarch only has a representative role. But on that account every form of governance has failed. How many autocracies and monarchies have fai…

> I don't think the US constitution is full of anti-democratic rules at all. On the contrary, its intent is to grant rights

People make statements like this and I can only hope they're not american, because the idea you could be educated in an american school and come out believing this is too horrifying to ponder.

Our founders directly stated in contemporaneous documents their fear of unchecked democracy and how it can descend into tyranny.

There is a natural conflict between democracy (and any form of government) and individual rights.

The founders sought to create a republic (not even a democracy really) with heavy protections for individual rights which they saw as at risk from democratic forces

That you think individual rights and democracy are intertwined is only because of bad history linking the american constitution to some great creation story of democracy itself. Many democracies have been authoritarian nightmares for those in the minority

Some Americans wanted a monarchy after the civil war, but they still wanted individual rights protected. Democracy won out but not because of its human rights record. Indeed, the founders were familiar with democratic tyranny based on their classical studies.

The examples of the natural misalignment between democracy and human rights are numerous. Slavery, Jim crow laws, drug laws, all of which were highly popular in their day or are popular now, but agree or disagree obviously curtail individual rights.

Now to your points.... No the Roman republic was not at all like north Korea. The Roman republic was an actual republic, with elections, power transfers etc.

England has been a monarchy for a thousand years and still is. Parliament is a nice thingy but the queen can get rid of it if she wants and she knows that. That's why they behave themselves most of the time. In fact she did this in recent memory in Australia.

All governments fail, but some fail faster and more spectacularly than others.

(I don't have time to give you every thing said by the founders on the danger of democracy and it's nTueal tension with individual rights... Here's a good starting point https://finance.townhall.com/columnists/jimhuntzinger/2018/1...)