6 ms·

Just wow. We have a bunch of guys knowingly playing with fire. Then out of nowhere a major inferno starts within spitting distance from their playground. And t

by pacala 6y ago

Just wow. We have a bunch of guys knowingly playing with fire. Then out of nowhere a major inferno starts within spitting distance from their playground. And the US tax payers have the moral duty to fund foreign nationals to enact this charade in a foreign country?

petre 6y ago
It doesn't matter much where it originated now, the lab or the market. US tax payers should not fund such research. China tried to cover up the incident and has failed to stop the virus escape to other countries. They should be held accountable for this. The US is one of the few countries in the position to issue punitive measures. Others may follow. I am going to refrain from buying goods from the PRC after this.
- gregwebs 6y ago
  I disagree with this point of view. It only encourages covering things up. The US frequently has it's own lab incidents including even with anthrax (this was reported in some of the Newsweek articles). There's no indication of carelessness or violations of lab procedures in the Chinese labs yet. This could have happened anywhere in the world. The problem now is that there is no real investigation into the true source of the outbreak. That is all we should be demanding right now. And if it turns out to have escaped from the lab that does not imply a need for punishment beyond perhaps the lab director and those in an oversight position. What is more important is probably to recognize how dangerous it is to work with bats and that much greater safety precautions be taken with them even when not working on gain of function research. And the entire world needs to learn how to research infectious diseases in a safer way that doesn't create outbreaks.
  - petre 6y ago
    Maybe you're right, but what about the CCP culture of covering things up and finding scapegoats? Do you trust the CCP to conduct this investigation? Because I do not. And I doubt they would let a board of international experts conduct it and cooperate with them. They'll just cover things up like they're used to, punish some innocent people for spreading rumors or alleged negligence or who knows what. Let's not forget that he CCP is a totalitarian state actor which throws innocent people in reeducation camps, harvests organs from Falun Gong practitioners and sells them abroad, abducts people critical of its regime, claims that Taiwan is part if China etc. The only thing we can do is handle it like we handle Iran or North Korea. They only get a free pass because they're the PRC and we build stuff cheaply there with their blessing and the blood sweat and tears of Chinese people working in subhuman conditions.
    - perl4ever 6y ago
      "culture of covering things up and finding scapegoats" That sounds bad, doesn't it?
    - twelve40 6y ago
      > The only thing we can do is handle it like we handle Iran or North Korea That sounds like a great way to _never_ find out what really happened, and boycott 1.4 billion people in the process.
      - petre 6y ago
        We already know what happened: messing around with wildlife. Wildlife smuggling. Open air markets where meat is processed near potentially sick wild animals that are kept in cages. Bushmeat (Ebola). Caring for camels who got it from bats (MERS). Preparing monkeys for dinner, whoops a knife cut (AIDS). Habitat destruction (Lyme). There's a reason they're called zootonic diseases. Maybe another accidental lab escape. Does it really matter? Then what? Wildlife smuggling should have been banned anyway but I guess "lab escape" sounds more pressworthy. I realize there are people who have no other option or education in Africa but China is quite a different story.
Barrin92 6y ago
> Then out of nowhere a major inferno starts within spitting distance from their playground Instead of descending into conspiracy logic, two things need to be pointed out. 1. This virus did not come "out of nowhere", zoonotic corona viruses are common, and as you probably know at this point have started pandemics multiple times over recent years. This was not an unexpected event, it was a matter of time, which is why people like Gates as well as the scientific community have been warning us for years. 2. That labs studying those diseases are found in close proximity to the locations where they're prone to break out doesn't imply anything. Fire stations tend to be close to the places where fires are common, doesn't mean they cause them. It's sad to see that the blind tribalism in the absence of any evidence is even taking place on this site.
- tanzbaer 6y ago
  Firefighters are designed to be close to places that could burn down so that they can respond quickly. A research institution has no such incentive.
- gregwebs 6y ago
  I agree that this outbreak was expected, but I don't think it was expected to occur a block away from a lab that studies bats. These labs obtained bats from hundreds of miles away. Those areas (with huge bat populations) seem like more likely sources of an outbreak even if there are bats in cities as well. I believe this is strong enough circumstantial (not conspiratorial) evidence that we should be demanding an investigation into whether the labs could have accidentally released the virus.
  - DarthGhandi 6y ago
    > but I don't think it was expected to occur a block away Have you actually looked on a map or simply repeating what tabloids say? They aren't close at all it's nearly an hour's walk away. It's entirely conspiratorial, it's the textbook definition of conspiracy, where's the evidence apart from heresay and feelings? Personally think that the US needs something to deflect from its disastrous handling of the pandemic. Plenty of scientists have looked into it, along with investigative reporters, feel free to read: https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/04/23/841729646/virus-researchers-cast-doubt-on-theory-of-coronavirus-lab-accident https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/04/23/8417296... https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3079391/bat-virus-bioweapon-what-science-says-about-covid-19-origins https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3079391/bat-... https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jan/31/bat-soup-dodgy-cures-and-diseasology-the-spread-of-coronavirus-bunkum https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jan/31/bat-soup-dodgy... https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2020/01/29/experts-debunk-fringe-theory-linking-chinas-coronavirus-weapons-research/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2020/01/29/experts-debu... > Immunologist Vincent Racaniello stated that virus leaking theory "reflect a lack of understanding of the genetic make-up of Sars-CoV-2 and its relationship to the bat virus". He states that the bat virus researched in the institution "would not have been able to infect humans – the human Sars-CoV-2 has additional changes that allows it to infect humans."
twelve40 6y ago
Even if it did start there by negligence - or even malice - I as s US taxpayer would still be extremely interested in keeping as many threads going as possible to understand what happened, even if it involves input from foreign nationals with possible agendas of their own, if it helps us get closer to the truth.
dang 6y ago
Please don't take HN threads further into flamewar. This comment is a noticeable and gratuitous step down in quality from the parent. It's fine to disagree, of course, but do so substantively and not with battle rhetoric. Edit: I've detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23052700 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23052700. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- pacala 6y ago
  I responded in kind to the OP title, claiming that to cut funding to an incredibly dangerous practice is a ‘horrible precedent’. Quote from none other than a business partner of the principal in question. For balance, consider crafting a less inflammatory title.
  - dang 6y ago
    Responding to inflammation with firestarter is exactly the wrong thing to do. You should respond with flame retardant instead, or not at all. Do the site guidelines not make that clear? https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Usually quotation marks in a title act as insulation. I can see how that wasn't the case here, but it's still your responsibility to be a good citizen of the community, rather than breaking the rules and pointing a finger. If you were responding to the title, you shouldn't have hijacked the top comment by replying to it. I've detached it from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23052700 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23052700 now.
    - pacala 6y ago
      I didn't 'hijack' anything. You still didn't fix the inflammatory title, either. Excuse us for calling out the activity of the science 'Gods' in China doing extremely questionable activity, aka 'playing with fire'. The reasons of why this is extremely questionable being unfolded in the thread you censored, in a polite manner, by the community at large. This is a pretty big scandal. Turns out the Chinese researchers did engage in creating human transmissible coronaviruses. Read this paper from https://www.nature.com/articles/nm.3985 https://www.nature.com/articles/nm.3985. I don't know where SARS-Cov-2 came from, and I don't think there is any malicious intent involved. But, in light of the COVID19 pandemic, it's extremely disconcerting to learn people engage in this kind of activity and that US sponsors it. A classic: latch on a couple of conversation opening words that you stretch as 'inflammatory', ignore that your own site uses inflammatory editorial content to begin with, ignore the main point and the polite debate around it, and bring in the ban hammer. Have a great day. I hope your debate censoring attempts have short legs.

by pacala 6y ago

petre 6y ago

It doesn't matter much where it originated now, the lab or the market. US tax payers should not fund such research. China tried to cover up the incident and has failed to stop the virus escape to other countries. They should be held accountable for this. The US is one of the few countries in the position to issue punitive measures. Others may follow. I am going to refrain from buying goods from the PRC after this.

gregwebs 6y ago
I disagree with this point of view. It only encourages covering things up. The US frequently has it's own lab incidents including even with anthrax (this was reported in some of the Newsweek articles). There's no indication of carelessness or violations of lab procedures in the Chinese labs yet. This could have happened anywhere in the world. The problem now is that there is no real investigation into the true source of the outbreak. That is all we should be demanding right now. And if it turns out to have escaped from the lab that does not imply a need for punishment beyond perhaps the lab director and those in an oversight position. What is more important is probably to recognize how dangerous it is to work with bats and that much greater safety precautions be taken with them even when not working on gain of function research. And the entire world needs to learn how to research infectious diseases in a safer way that doesn't create outbreaks.
- petre 6y ago
  Maybe you're right, but what about the CCP culture of covering things up and finding scapegoats? Do you trust the CCP to conduct this investigation? Because I do not. And I doubt they would let a board of international experts conduct it and cooperate with them. They'll just cover things up like they're used to, punish some innocent people for spreading rumors or alleged negligence or who knows what. Let's not forget that he CCP is a totalitarian state actor which throws innocent people in reeducation camps, harvests organs from Falun Gong practitioners and sells them abroad, abducts people critical of its regime, claims that Taiwan is part if China etc. The only thing we can do is handle it like we handle Iran or North Korea. They only get a free pass because they're the PRC and we build stuff cheaply there with their blessing and the blood sweat and tears of Chinese people working in subhuman conditions.
  - perl4ever 6y ago
    "culture of covering things up and finding scapegoats" That sounds bad, doesn't it?
  - twelve40 6y ago
    > The only thing we can do is handle it like we handle Iran or North Korea That sounds like a great way to _never_ find out what really happened, and boycott 1.4 billion people in the process.
    - petre 6y ago
      We already know what happened: messing around with wildlife. Wildlife smuggling. Open air markets where meat is processed near potentially sick wild animals that are kept in cages. Bushmeat (Ebola). Caring for camels who got it from bats (MERS). Preparing monkeys for dinner, whoops a knife cut (AIDS). Habitat destruction (Lyme). There's a reason they're called zootonic diseases. Maybe another accidental lab escape. Does it really matter? Then what? Wildlife smuggling should have been banned anyway but I guess "lab escape" sounds more pressworthy. I realize there are people who have no other option or education in Africa but China is quite a different story.

Barrin92 6y ago

> Then out of nowhere a major inferno starts within spitting distance from their playground Instead of descending into conspiracy logic, two things need to be pointed out. 1. This virus did not come "out of nowhere", zoonotic corona viruses are common, and as you probably know at this point have started pandemics multiple times over recent years. This was not an unexpected event, it was a matter of time, which is why people like Gates as well as the scientific community have been warning us for years. 2. That labs studying those diseases are found in close proximity to the locations where they're prone to break out doesn't imply anything. Fire stations tend to be close to the places where fires are common, doesn't mean they cause them. It's sad to see that the blind tribalism in the absence of any evidence is even taking place on this site.

tanzbaer 6y ago
Firefighters are designed to be close to places that could burn down so that they can respond quickly. A research institution has no such incentive.
gregwebs 6y ago
I agree that this outbreak was expected, but I don't think it was expected to occur a block away from a lab that studies bats. These labs obtained bats from hundreds of miles away. Those areas (with huge bat populations) seem like more likely sources of an outbreak even if there are bats in cities as well. I believe this is strong enough circumstantial (not conspiratorial) evidence that we should be demanding an investigation into whether the labs could have accidentally released the virus.
- DarthGhandi 6y ago
  > but I don't think it was expected to occur a block away Have you actually looked on a map or simply repeating what tabloids say? They aren't close at all it's nearly an hour's walk away. It's entirely conspiratorial, it's the textbook definition of conspiracy, where's the evidence apart from heresay and feelings? Personally think that the US needs something to deflect from its disastrous handling of the pandemic. Plenty of scientists have looked into it, along with investigative reporters, feel free to read: https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/04/23/841729646/virus-researchers-cast-doubt-on-theory-of-coronavirus-lab-accident https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/04/23/8417296... https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3079391/bat-virus-bioweapon-what-science-says-about-covid-19-origins https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3079391/bat-... https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jan/31/bat-soup-dodgy-cures-and-diseasology-the-spread-of-coronavirus-bunkum https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jan/31/bat-soup-dodgy... https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2020/01/29/experts-debunk-fringe-theory-linking-chinas-coronavirus-weapons-research/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2020/01/29/experts-debu... > Immunologist Vincent Racaniello stated that virus leaking theory "reflect a lack of understanding of the genetic make-up of Sars-CoV-2 and its relationship to the bat virus". He states that the bat virus researched in the institution "would not have been able to infect humans – the human Sars-CoV-2 has additional changes that allows it to infect humans."

twelve40 6y ago

Even if it did start there by negligence - or even malice - I as s US taxpayer would still be extremely interested in keeping as many threads going as possible to understand what happened, even if it involves input from foreign nationals with possible agendas of their own, if it helps us get closer to the truth.

dang 6y ago

Please don't take HN threads further into flamewar. This comment is a noticeable and gratuitous step down in quality from the parent. It's fine to disagree, of course, but do so substantively and not with battle rhetoric. Edit: I've detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23052700 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23052700. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

pacala 6y ago
I responded in kind to the OP title, claiming that to cut funding to an incredibly dangerous practice is a ‘horrible precedent’. Quote from none other than a business partner of the principal in question. For balance, consider crafting a less inflammatory title.
- dang 6y ago
  Responding to inflammation with firestarter is exactly the wrong thing to do. You should respond with flame retardant instead, or not at all. Do the site guidelines not make that clear? https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Usually quotation marks in a title act as insulation. I can see how that wasn't the case here, but it's still your responsibility to be a good citizen of the community, rather than breaking the rules and pointing a finger. If you were responding to the title, you shouldn't have hijacked the top comment by replying to it. I've detached it from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23052700 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23052700 now.
  - pacala 6y ago
    I didn't 'hijack' anything. You still didn't fix the inflammatory title, either. Excuse us for calling out the activity of the science 'Gods' in China doing extremely questionable activity, aka 'playing with fire'. The reasons of why this is extremely questionable being unfolded in the thread you censored, in a polite manner, by the community at large. This is a pretty big scandal. Turns out the Chinese researchers did engage in creating human transmissible coronaviruses. Read this paper from https://www.nature.com/articles/nm.3985 https://www.nature.com/articles/nm.3985. I don't know where SARS-Cov-2 came from, and I don't think there is any malicious intent involved. But, in light of the COVID19 pandemic, it's extremely disconcerting to learn people engage in this kind of activity and that US sponsors it. A classic: latch on a couple of conversation opening words that you stretch as 'inflammatory', ignore that your own site uses inflammatory editorial content to begin with, ignore the main point and the polite debate around it, and bring in the ban hammer. Have a great day. I hope your debate censoring attempts have short legs.