China clamping down on coronavirus research, deleted pages suggest • Hacker News Board

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

#381

Post by surge » Fri, Apr 17, 2020, 3:02 AM UTC

dang wrote: post #375

surge wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I had a problem with recent actions by their government, it was directly relevant to the discussion on the article.

Someone conflated that with race, which is holding an ethno-nationalist view of China, where as I differentiate between the government and the people. I've actually been to China, as such I have a personal investment in the place, and met a few of the minority groups and are aware its not one homogeneous culture, so to think all Chinese are the same or even the same race to me is ignorance. I called that out.

When I linked to several articles pointing out the hypocrisy of the CCP position, which was being echoed by who I was replying to, that all criticism is due to racism which is a propaganda position (https://www.cnbc.com/2019/11/29/chinas-latest-tactic-call-am...) and no sensible person would use that as a defense. So its not a thoughtful, or substantive comment to say all criticism is anti-Chinese or bigoted. But you're doing this one sided enforcement of rules?

I follow the stuff in China close to the ground, I'm hyper aware of the tactics used to counter criticism. I got turned on to the people to get on the ground reporting right here on Hacker News. To see moderators allowing shallow "any criticism of China is racism" but harp on me for pointing out obvious human rights violations, well it does call in to question the bias here.

So I ask you, why call out my statement, and not the person making blanket statements that people are anti-Chinese (as in race) when calling levying criticism. I fail to see that as thoughtful or substantive.

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

#382

Post by boomboomsubban » Fri, Apr 17, 2020, 5:25 AM UTC

ekianjo wrote: post #378

boomboomsubban wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I don't understand what you think keeping the wet market closed accomplishes. There isn't a significant threat that you could get coronavirus from another animal, and the host of other areas where a virus could pass between species weren't ever shut down.

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

#383

Post by abandonliberty » Sun, Apr 19, 2020, 5:14 PM UTC

burfog wrote: post #371

monkeycantype wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

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

It's not correct to call insertion of a plasmid to be gene editing of a host cell, though this could be arguably pedantic.

I'm curious how you concluded that what they did made it easier to breed bat viruses into becoming human viruses?

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

#384

Post by abandonliberty » Sun, Apr 19, 2020, 5:26 PM UTC

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?

I reviewed Burfog's claims.

While it's true that Chinese scientists were investigating SARS, the above assertion is not supported by the evidence provided.

My best guess of where the confusion came from was the insertion of a temporary mammalian plasmid into HeLa cells in order to produce bat ACE2 for study.

While this could potentially be viewed as adding functionality to human cells in order to make them susceptible to bat coronaviruses, the above assertion doesn't follow. (and unfortunately we have no ability to genome-edit humans)

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

#385

Post by throwaway50987 » Mon, Apr 20, 2020, 4:08 AM UTC

dirtyid wrote: post #366

coupdejarnac wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regarding laowhy86 and serpentza, you're being disingenuous at best. Everything you say about them is false. Their channels are not about view whoring conspiracy theories. It's pretty obvious why they've been negative recently: they are no longer living in China, because they were being harassed by police. When they lived in China, they had to watch everything they said, so they kept the message upbeat. I don't think…

I said this specific video is peddling conspiracy theory, otherwise they're nothing more than ex-travel bloggers who has recently pivoted to click-bait China bashing after they were pressured out of the country. Yes I was an expat in China in the mid 90s to mid 00s and still have ongoing dealings there. The point is they are not only not experts in infectious disease, they're not experts in any particular Chinese sub…

It’s unfortunate your comments are being downvoted for stating the truth.