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I've casually noticed something similar over the past ~18 months with posts related to COVID.
It seems like Trump said it from the start, and the media negated him based on political views, not facts. And now, only years later, there is a reconciliation with the facts.
Now, I'm not that aware of the politics or the media in the US. But I think the way I see it may be the way many others saw this story roll.
Whether or not it's true - it is a big reason that many people don't trust the media. And this may be the bigger story for us all going forward.
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I don't think it was tribalized by American media; I think covid hit when much of the world, not least the US, was embroiled in tribalism. I wanted to know whether it had come from a lab leak, but at the time a lot of the lab-leak rhetoric was packaged along with racist and nationalist vitriol, to the point where people who appeared to be of Asian descent were being attacked in the street.
So sensible people who suggested the virus may have come from a lab were out-shouted by people saying things like The election was stolen, Jews will not replace us, China virus, execute Fauci, being asked to wear a mask in Starbucks is like the Holocaust. I can forgive people for not wanting to try to pick out valid points from that particular torrent of bullshit. I think the resistance to the lab leak theory was less that people were dismissing science and more that the zone had been flooded and they were up to their neck in it.
Nothing seems certain at this point, but, let’s say the pandemic was actually caused by a lab leak. That’ll mean the world was brought to an economic standstill and millions of people died because of the errors and carelessness of some people…will there be consequences? What will be the assurance that such deadly mistake won’t occur again? If it was actually a lab leak, then it’ll definitely rank as the most costly a…
The only reason to not say it was a lab leak is to avoid embarrassing those responsible, China first and America second. But little by little people will start accepting that. What should the consequences be? At the very least a tightening of the controls around labs doing bio research. Of course, this amounts to nothing if someone is allowed to outsource research to labs in countries that don't follow the stringent…
We need treaties tightly regulating all biolabs around the world. Any countries not agreeing with the treaties should be blacklisted from entering entering or exiting countries that are part of the treaty, perhaps even restricting trade as well.
The decontamination protocols and entry / exit procedures for every biolab should be unified, worldwide, with strict and regular third-party circular auditing around the world. This allows labs to maintain their secrets; only the perimeter / filter are subject to this.
That would be the sensible course of action as a matter of Earth defense.
I'm fairly confident posts like these are artificially weighted to fall off the front page..that seems to happen when a COVID related post gets popular on HN. This post has more points and comments than the majority of stuff on the front page but it's currently on page 3. I've casually noticed something similar over the past ~18 months with posts related to COVID.
I'm fairly confident posts like these are artificially weighted to fall off the front page..that seems to happen when a COVID related post gets popular on HN. This post has more points and comments than the majority of stuff on the front page but it's currently on page 3. I've casually noticed something similar over the past ~18 months with posts related to COVID.
I'm fairly confident posts like these are artificially weighted to fall off the front page..that seems to happen when a COVID related post gets popular on HN. This post has more points and comments than the majority of stuff on the front page but it's currently on page 3. I've casually noticed something similar over the past ~18 months with posts related to COVID.
Many people flag these types of posts (including myself) because they get too toxic. I even flagged this one despite commenting on it.
Not unplausible at all. Has happened before https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_laboratory_biosecurity...
And this is precisely why BSL4 labs exist. And accidents also happen at BSL4 labs. But in the west, at least we have reasonably transparent and trustworthy governments, with some notion of accountability for enforcing rules.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What will make this information dangerous is if people misconstrue “lab leak” to mean “human designed”. The report specifically says it was not from a bioweapons program. I’m sure they took pains to verify that because the implications of THAT conclusion would be explosive.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man