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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

#371

Post by burfog »

monkeycantype wrote: post #365
burfog wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The story is that "they made a mistake in a lab"... 1. while doing research that has been banned in other nations due to the extreme hazard 2. despite having a history of lab virus escapes that killed people 3. and then they covered it up BTW, the virus is at least sort of man made. The lab was breeding viruses. There is no evidence that gene editing technology was used, but we do know that the lab has published mult…

> the lab has published multiple research papers about making coronaviruses more infectious in humans. that's frightening. Do you have any more information about those papers?

Here is China making a coronavirus like the one causing the pandemic, even acting on the ACE2 receptor and testing it in human cells, publishing it in early 2008:

https://jvi.asm.org/content/82/4/1899

Here they are again, years later, still playing with extremely hazardous coronaviruses that act on the ACE2 receptor in humans:

https://www.nature.com/articles/nature12711

This one gene-edits the host cells to have both human and bat traits, making it easier to breed bat viruses into becoming human viruses:

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00705-010-0729-6

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

#372

Post by burfog »

jml7c5 wrote: post #337
burfog wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Neither extreme seems likely. We know that the lab was adding functionality to bat coronaviruses, making them able to infect human cells. This can be done without gene editing technology. We've been doing that in the opposite direction for decades, passing viruses through non-human cells in order to make weakened ones for live-virus vaccines. To make a virus worse for humans, simply pass it through human cells. This…

>We know that the lab was adding functionality to bat coronaviruses, making them able to infect human cells. Source?

Here, because somebody else asked the same thing:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22875438

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

#373

Post by shadowprofile77 »

banads wrote: post #246
nikkwong wrote: post #235

I'm trying to be a good bayesian reasoner here but the particulars of this specific case are all so tangled and piecemeal. The conspiracy theorists among us are having an absolute field day with the current events and it's easy to see why. According to my bayesian analysis, I believe that the most likely cause of this virus is a wet-market infection, followed by a slip-up at a lab, with—by high margin, in very very l…

>I can't reconcile that there's not much for the CCP to gain on the world stage by releasing this thing. Is causing the social, political, and economic collapse of an arch rival nation state not the natural perogative of empire scale nations?

Not when whatever is happening also causes the political, social and economic collapse of your own nation state. There are simpler ways to compete with a rival superpower, ways much less prone to exploding in any perpetrator's face. One of them is simply, well, doing nothing but outpacing them economically through more or less usual means. Not too hard to consider for a productive country with 5 times the population of its main rival.

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

#374

Post by light_cone »

dirtyid wrote: post #357
light_cone wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 i…

The Wuhan lab leak theory has as much credible endorsement as Fort Detrik - i.e. none. Both are replete with connect the dot sources conjured by Chinese /r/conspiracy equivalents, the latter complete with corresponding proof drawn from US media sources. And if you believe CIA's recent allegations evidence of virus in Wuhan dating back to November... then the timeline actually syncs up with the US military games theor…

You accept the validity of arguments based on who the speaker is, I accept them based on the documentation.

You can say he is bitter or a nutcase, it does not make it so.

About the video, so far you are only able to say that laowhy86 is a youtuber, and therefore he wrong.

So far I've said that the documents linked in the video description corroborates the theory, making this theory credible.

How long will you continue to shoot the messengers instead of listening to what is said? Apart saying gratuitously that youtubers cannot possibily be right, you have not addressed the content of the video. I guess when you can't criticize the content, criticize the form, it is easier.

I will stop now, because I believe you are not writing in good faith. If a youtuber's documented demonstration does not deserve anyone's consideration by nature, because he is necessarily wrong, then certainly by your logic, as stranger writing on hacker news, you don't either deserve anyone's consideration, and you are wrong too.

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

#375

Post by dang »

surge wrote: post #370
dang wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please don't use HN for nationalistic flamewar. Or ideological flamewar. Also in the site guidelines ( https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html ): please don't post insinuations about astroturfing to HN. The data is clear that this is almost always in the eye of the beholder, i.e. people imagine it as an explanation for things they dislike, and they're far more likely to notice those than other things. For a…

https://www.npr.org/2020/04/14/828565428/bloomberg-news-kill... I didn't realize such selectively enforced standards were a thing? Should I report any post that criticizes government actions for nationalism? So is criticizing a any government's actions in an comment section about an article criticizing the same government is nationalism? I didn't realize being in support of common human rights was a controversial ide…

Everyone who feels passionately on a topic accuses us of selectively enforcing standards against them. That's the bias I linked to upthread. If you look at those examples, the pattern is quite plain. For example, if you held the opposite view you'd be accusing me of anti-China racism (people have done so) rather than pro-Communist shillage or whatever.

Users who post thoughtful, substantive comments on either side of this issue don't run into problems with moderation. The point is that this is a site for curious conversation, not ideological or political battle. We can't have both, for the same reason you can't have a tank battle in a flower garden.

I have zero idea what will please Y Combinator's investors. From my point of view, the only thing that matters is keeping Hacker News interesting, because that's what keeps the community thriving, and that's what's most in YC's interests. I realize that people have reason to be skeptical about such claims, but being able to run HN that way is why I'm willing to do this job. Most other places on the internet, this wouldn't be possible, because the site would need to make money directly (e.g. by selling ads) or to push growth at all costs, either of which would kill HN as we know it.

HN is in a sweet spot that way, compared to how other sites of its kind need to operate. The reason is mostly a historical accident of how HN and YC grew up together, plus the fact that YC's business benefits more from HN being the way it is than it would from a different sort of community. The aren't many businesses in whose interest it would be to fund a site like this.

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

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

#376

Post by banads »

shadowprofile77 wrote: post #373
banads wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I can't reconcile that there's not much for the CCP to gain on the world stage by releasing this thing. Is causing the social, political, and economic collapse of an arch rival nation state not the natural perogative of empire scale nations?

Not when whatever is happening also causes the political, social and economic collapse of your own nation state. There are simpler ways to compete with a rival superpower, ways much less prone to exploding in any perpetrator's face. One of them is simply, well, doing nothing but outpacing them economically through more or less usual means. Not too hard to consider for a productive country with 5 times the population…

You're assuming that political elites all care more about the general population (which as you've noted, there is a large, expendable surplus of) than consolidating and increasing their own power.

To clarify, I don't think COVID19 was a Chinese conspiracy, just making note of historically self evident incentive structures that others seem naively oblivious to.

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

#377

Post by JamesG124 »

bart_spoon wrote: post #367
JamesG124 wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. I'm well aware of that. Is that the only new evidence that's come to light since the piece I linked to though? Would have expected something more solid than unnamed sources from inside national security (see: big hack) 2. I'll grant that that's possibility in the exact same sense in which I grant the centralized cover-up theory to be a possibility, and in which I grant both the lab creation and the lab accident or…

> 1. I'm well aware of that. Is that the only new evidence that's come to light since the piece I linked to though? Would have expected something more solid than unnamed sources from inside national security (see: big hack) There are plenty of reasons to be skeptical of stories produced by national security forces, but there are far more reasons to be skeptical of stories being produced by the CCP. If it's a question…

May be of interest:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22881922

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

#378

Post by ekianjo »

boomboomsubban wrote: post #283
ekianjo wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is China reopening the wet markets if they know the virus came from there? I will let you ponder on that.

Because viruses jumping between species is a rare event? People didn't stop raising pigs after the swine flu, despite knowing the virus came from there.

The timing is unfortunate however. The pandemic is NOT being us. The global economy is still actively being destroyed (including China's) and the CCP's first thought is to re-open the wet markets as soon as possible? In what world does that even make sense?

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

#379

Post by [deleted] »

Klinky wrote: post #233
bb2018 wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the lettuce killed people and then everyone who interacted with the people who at the lettuce also got sick and the economy had to be shut down the United States would strictly ban selling lettuce immediately. If China can enforce the largest lockdown ever and enforce a one-child policy for decades, they can easily ban live animals at markets.

A) COVID-19 doesn't kill everyone it comes in contact with. Depending on where you live, more people in the last 3 months may have become seriously ill from a food-borne illness than from COVID-19. B)Food-borne illness actually does kill around 150,000 per year worldwide. It is a serious concern, and difficult to track/contain. There are also concerns around regulations being too lax, not enough inspectors, and livin…

[deleted]

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

#380

Post by ekianjo »

Klinky wrote: post #233
bb2018 wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the lettuce killed people and then everyone who interacted with the people who at the lettuce also got sick and the economy had to be shut down the United States would strictly ban selling lettuce immediately. If China can enforce the largest lockdown ever and enforce a one-child policy for decades, they can easily ban live animals at markets.

A) COVID-19 doesn't kill everyone it comes in contact with. Depending on where you live, more people in the last 3 months may have become seriously ill from a food-borne illness than from COVID-19. B)Food-borne illness actually does kill around 150,000 per year worldwide. It is a serious concern, and difficult to track/contain. There are also concerns around regulations being too lax, not enough inspectors, and livin…

> Depending on where you live, more people in the last 3 months may have become seriously ill from a food-borne illness than from COVID-19.

This is a ridiculous claim if I ever saw one as food poisoning or food related diseases have never overwhelmed hospitals anywhere in recent history. Unless you are talking about some remote place where COVID has not landed yet, in which case the comment has no point. And we are not even talking about the past, COVID19 is still pretty much active and killing people still as we speak. We'll draw comparisons when it's over, which is not now.

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