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China clamping down on coronavirus research, deleted pages suggest

theguardian.com

341–350 of 385 posts

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

#341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 credibl…

You are saying that both theory have the same credibility. I don't agree, because you can actually go see the sources linked in the video description. So why don't you go see the sources? Is your claim that laowhy86 is divorced, and that his judgement is clouded, substantiated? I didn't think so, so to me it looks like plain old smear.

This lab accident, on the contrary, is NOT unsubstantiated claims, and acting as it is some frivolous theory is unfair at best. I, while perhaps inducing worryingly staggering feelings to you, looked at the sources and concluded that the info was credible. So it has nothing to with the occupation of laowhy86.

You are appealing to the authority of billions poured into NGO, as if corruption never happens, as if money magically makes people competent, as if organizations never suffered from political bloat. As if for example there was no video proof that the WHO was ignoring Taiwan input for policial reasons – a country that has better epidemics statistics than the majority of us–. Are we also all stupid to entertain the idea that, when a WHO leader does not hear the journalist on skype exactly when she asks a question about taiwan, this is just a bad stratagem to elude the question?

Please.

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

#342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that Daily Mail should not be used as source in informed contexts, however the thebulletin.org link has very well informed comments (at least).

Can anybody explain the downvotes? Daily Mail is a well-known unreliable source, pretty much a tabloid. The article mentioned it poor, as a matter of fact.

The Mail Online is constantly dissed in left-leaning forums like this one, but if you just go read the articles and check the claims they're not usually any less accurate than any other news source (this doesn't mean they're very accurate of course, just that other sources are no better).

This article consists of some publicly known facts, along with some anonymous sources in the British government's emergency committee (the Cabinet leaks like a sieve so this is entirely plausible). It also cites an academic, some report from Beijing News (whilst noting that the report was retracted) and an academic paper that was uploaded and then deleted. It's written in a pretty neutral tone and explicitly calls out cases where its sources may have issues. The article is no different to the sort of speculation routinely found in Bloomberg, the WSJ, NYT, the Guardian etc.

What we're seeing here is just another day in no-platforming land. To the left what is said doesn't matter, who says it is everything. Based on prior experience I'd be willing to bet that virtually none of the people spitting fire over a Daily Mail or National Review link here have even read the articles, let alone rigorously apply the same purported standards to every news link they see posted.

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

#343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> why would you deliberately release a bioweapon in a densely populated part of your own country? doesn't make sense. Historically, China has not been above harming their own citizens. There is probably still a substantial "Greater Good" philosophy there. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1989_Tiananmen_Square_protests

I can understand the logic to shutting down pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen if you're a party member and your political system is at stake. This type of thing (sadly) happens all around the world. But I don't see what was to be gained. Take in mind there are a not insignificant number of people who believe that the US planned 9/11 and Pearl Harbor as well. It just seems like in all these cases (9/11, Pearl Harbor…

I agree it seems incredibly illogical and unlikely that China would deliberately do something like this. But putting on my devil's advocate hat, the "no political motive" angle isn't as strong a rebuttal as it could be. The Chinese government has a long track record of fearing problems that this sort of virus would solve, problems like:

1. A heavy dependency on economic growth for legitimacy, threatened by an impending demographic "time bomb" of the elderly:

https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/asia/article/21...

2. Also, a long standing fear of general over-population (one child policy)

3. An absolute fear of people gathering in large groups outside to protest and organise via non-electronic means that can't be monitored

From a Machiavellian perspective a virus that leaves the productive workforce untouched, kills primarily the old/infirm, is unlikely to be reliably vaccinatable, which can be used to justify near-endless waves of house arrest, which motivates neighbours to enforce house arrest against each other and in which the only information about whether there's an active resurgence comes via state controlled media .... doesn't look too bad as a tool for controlling the populace.

Actually I have to admit, I only came to understand just how perfect such a virus profile is for a totalitarian regime whilst writing out this comment. Devil's advocacy can take thoughts in surprising directions. I suppose that's why conspiracy theories play out as they do.

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

#344
post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was under the impression that they started intentionally calling it the Wuhan virus only after the Chinese government started making propaganda that the virus came form aboard.

My understanding is that intentionally misnaming the virus/disease is done to mock perceived political correctness. Particularly after the WHO officially named it SARS-CoV2/COVID-19, if someone on twitter referred to the virus/disease as "Chinese coronavirus"/"Wuhan virus"/etc, someone would usually respond saying that such language was xenophobic. This happens to a few prominent people, screenshots are made, screens…

Bear in mind also, China put out a video in Italy just before the outbreak encouraging Italians to hug Chinese tourists because they were suffering from "xenophobia" due to the virus:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNMdg4morQs&feature=youtu.be

That video ... didn't age well, shall we say.

And here's a virologist claiming political correctness slowed Italy's response to the virus:

https://www.theblaze.com/news/italy_political_correctness_ch...

Conservatives in general have developed into an opposition to globalism ("one world government"), a cause the left has championed since the earliest days of the COMINTERN. It's not a huge surprise that they'd emphasise the origins of the virus and nature of the local government there, especially given the recommended course of action is strong border control.

The WHO is an especially clear example of what "one world government" looks like, and there's an established history of criticism of the WHO from conservatives dating back long before COVID-19. For instance in this article:

https://www.forbes.com/2010/02/05/world-health-organization-...

it's alleged that the WHO changed its own definition of pandemic so swine flu would qualify, massively exaggerated its impact and deadliness vs normal flu, lied about its own change of definitions and that its chief gave a speech using swine flu to promote various hard-left ideas in e.g. this quote (but there are others from the same speech)

https://www.who.int/dg/speeches/2009/euro_regional_committee...

"Leaders in sectors with far more clout than health are making a similar point. At the April G20 summit in London, world leaders called for a fundamental re-engineering of the international systems to incorporate a moral dimension and make them responsive to genuine social values and concerns. They voiced a need to invest these systems with values like community, solidarity, equity, and social justice. While this is welcome new thinking for world leaders, this is a familiar vocabulary for public health"

I don't think it actually makes sense to use names based on where a virus was first detected, but it's also pretty common and of course diseases named after the people who first found them is even more common. But there's far more background to this than mere reaction against over-sensitivity. Respiratory viruses have a history of being exaggerated and used to push for certain political ideas.

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

#345
post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many times do we need to repeat this... everyone assumes that “came from a lab” means “engineered bioweapon”. No! Also, people quickly forget that humans have been selectively evolving plants and animals for thousands of years without touching the actual genomes.

How did it come from a lab? I've heard "workers got sprayed with blood and infected", "someone screwed up"(vague), "mishandled lab waste". Just saying it "came from a lab", makes it sound man made. If you don't want misunderstandings, you need spell it out and make it absolutely clear. It doesn't even sound like there is a clear narrative about how it "escaped from the lab", just a lot of rumors. Rumors about a rumor…

This article from 2014 (it is untainted by coronavirus politics) documents the long history of viral outbreaks from labs throughout the world. This is a known and relatively common phenomena, appearing to occur once every few years.

https://thebulletin.org/2014/03/threatened-pandemics-and-lab...

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

#346
post #309

This is basically the end game for China. Either they buy off everything while their economy is still running, or they face isolation. They fd us all way too hard this time

People want cheap goods. They don't care if their Nike shoes come from a slaveshop, just like we don't really give much thought that most of the milk we drink come from cows in very miserable conditions. It's business as usual for China. As long as they keep on making those affordable goods, other countries will consume. If Apple moves off their entire production from China to US, and still is competitive, then I'll…

It is not about ethics, it is about risk

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

#347
post #292
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

a few weeks ago CCP issued a new law to manage virology labs, and yes historically virus escaped its labs multiple times.

I simply stated a fact which is easily verifiable by checking news from its government, so why the downvotes, I hope it's not that we have CCP watchers here at HN.

We are getting a small influx of CCP troll commenters in these comments now, so I would not be surprised if a few CCP (or CCP sympathetic) accounts have enough karma to downvote.

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

#348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think dailymail or nationalreivew are reputable source other than presenting a story. There is an article on Nature one month ago on this topic: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-0820-9 > Our analyses clearly show that SARS-CoV-2 is not a laboratory construct or a purposefully manipulated virus

That doesn't mean it didn't come from a lab though. "Coming from a lab" does not = man made. If they were doing research on the bats in this lab, looking to identify potential scary viruses to be ready, it is entirely possible the virus jumped from bat to researcher there and that was our patient 0.

Yeah but the story matters only if it's man made. However what's the story ? "they made a mistake in a lab" ? great.

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

#349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can anybody explain the downvotes? Daily Mail is a well-known unreliable source, pretty much a tabloid. The article mentioned it poor, as a matter of fact.

The Mail Online is constantly dissed in left-leaning forums like this one, but if you just go read the articles and check the claims they're not usually any less accurate than any other news source (this doesn't mean they're very accurate of course, just that other sources are no better). This article consists of some publicly known facts, along with some anonymous sources in the British government's emergency commit…

Well said. It's a disturbing trend throughout the internet that the Left completely disregards publications that don't follow the accepted narrative. Those individuals and publications that do follow the narrative - very often entities that the public has placed a significant amount of trust in - are all too eager to agree and encourage this sort of delegitimization.

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

#350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a shame that China's covering something up, which will only fuel the most outlandish theories.

There's little evidence to support the cover-up charge https://old.reddit.com/r/geopolitics/comments/fnvvh8/some_th...

Since that post was made, there has been widespread reporting that US intelligence agencies are quite sure that China's numbers regarding the infection have been fabricated and underreported by quite a large amount. [0]

Keep in mind that the Chinese government doesn't have to be pursuing a centralized disinformation campaign for it to occur. It would appear that at least a decent amount of the misinformation is occurring because local officials are covering up the extent of the damage from the party for fear of retaliation. In this case, its entirely plausible for large-scale cover-up to be occuring in China, without the national CCP driving it or even being aware of the extent that its occuring.

[0] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/02/us/politics/cia-coronavir...

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