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it's not xenophobic, but xenophobic people really love to talk about it. that's the problem with the discourse. of course the irony is that it doesn't even ma

it's not xenophobic, but xenophobic people really love to talk about it. that's the problem with the discourse. of course the irony is that it doesn't even matter. We already know China (1) tried to cover it up, screwing the rest of the world, and (2) has poor wet market sanitation practices that seem designed to cultivate these kinds of diseases. Those issues are already bad enough.

nicoburns 6y ago
It does matter in the context of deciding whether we ought to fund gain of function research going forwards.
throwaway0a5e 6y ago
>it's not xenophobic, but xenophobic people really love to talk about it. that's the problem with the discourse. People love to talk about stuff that supports their world view.
SubiculumCode 6y ago
The opposition to the idea comes down to one thing 1)Donald Trump et al supported this hypothesis, and thus disagreeing with the hypothesis becomes reflexive for many.
- fermienrico 6y ago
  Just shows how politics have divided us. No one seems to be thinking independently and that includes myself - I try but often the first reaction is otherwise. You can despise someone deeply, but if they are citing facts, reason, logic, etc - have no association, they stand on their own. Doesn't matter who uttered it.
abecedarius 6y ago
> xenophobic people really love to talk about it Guilt by association + Overton Window enforcement. I guess you're pointing this out and not endorsing it?
- metalliqaz 6y ago
  that's correct
- kolbe 6y ago
  Which is obviously a problem. The US more or less has two sides, and both are routinely responsible for(or at least align with) morally reprehensible things. It should not be a problem to choose truth regardless of where if falls in a political spectrum. And no one who wants to just find the truth should have to second guess their findings because they're politically inconvenient for someone.
brigandish 6y ago
> but xenophobic people really love to talk about it All too often I see this used as the standard for labelling someone a xenophobe and it becomes a classic case of begging the question. Since we all agree it's not xenophobic to speak about it, perhaps it's time we wait for actual xenophobia before making what should be serious accusations?
- lazide 6y ago
  Since some of the very first discussion of the topic in public was by the president using it as a political football alongside a trade war with China and a nontrivial amount of public fear and aversion to random people that happened to look Chinese, that well is pretty solidly poisoned at this point?
- s5300 6y ago
  I'm not sure if I'm reading this incorrectly and misinterpreting... But Asian hate crimes are waaay up since the beginning of Covid-19 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-56218684 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-56218684 Do you not call this xenophobia? It would be my elementary understanding that this rise in hate crime against Asians may be related to the President of the U.S. aggressively referring to the virus as the "china virus" and broadcasting that this was all China's fault during this time.
  - kolbe 6y ago
    Causal inference may not be important to media campaigns, but it is to reality. Can you honestly say that you have found causal evidence that people earnestly talking about a Wuhan having a lab leak is the cause of 24 extra hate crimes in a city of 8 million people?
  - lurquer 6y ago
    Strange how Asian is equated with Chinese. How insulting. It’s often the typical virtue-signaling liberals who group disparate languages, races, religions, and cultures in one monolithic block. What do you mean by Asian that would encourage one to use the term synonymously with “Chinese”? Are you referring to “people with slanty eyes”? White urban liberals do this a lot... to them, all “brown” people are the same. A person from Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala, etc... they’re all equivalent and exchangeable. Sad to see this same racist mindset used now for all of Asia.
lhorie 6y ago
> has poor wet market sanitation practices Honest question: Is that a fair/accurate generalization to make? If Hell's kitchen episodes and accounts from food industry workers are any indication, sanitation practices in food handling establishments elsewhere are not necessarily always stellar either. And surely China has some equivalent of WholeFoods? One ought to be careful not to attribute a characteristic differently depending on whether they belong to the class of people in question[0]. If it turns out that reality is that some chinese establishments have poor sanitation practices just like some US establishments do, and it just so happens that they got unlucky (perhaps partially due to not-so-directly-related aspects like zoning law differences or propensity for higher bat populations due to local fauna/flora ecosystems), the us-vs-them blaming game doesn't necessarily have as strong legs to stand on. [0] https://xkcd.com/385/ https://xkcd.com/385/
- lancebeet 6y ago
  >If Hell's kitchen episodes and accounts from food industry workers are any indication, sanitation practices in food handling establishments elsewhere are not necessarily always stellar either. The issue with wet markets isn't the sanitary practices of their workers so much as the fact that meat and other food is handled in very close proximity to live animals being slaughtered, and this combined with a large volume of foot traffic. Granted, I haven't seen all episodes of Kitchen Nightmares, but I've never seen slaughter of any kind taking place at a restaurant in that show, let alone at a restaurant that is visited by tens of thousands of people each day.
- lazide 6y ago
  Have you seen a easy Asian wet market in person before? If you’re comparing it to Whole Foods I’m not sure you have? The term itself is somewhat ambiguous [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wet_market https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wet_market] in that it can cover both cases. However the style common in many places in China (and many other areas in east Asia) is one where there is no refrigeration or adequate sanitation. To avoid spoilage, animals are brought in live and slaughtered as needed to provide meat. It can be when a customer picks it, or when needed to stock a counter. These styles of market are problematic disease wise because it brings many species of animals together in crowded and often unsanitary conditions, high stress, with humans in close contact with them, and lots of people and animals coming and going constantly. If you’re looking for a way to encourage Zoonotic disease, it’s hard to do better.
draw_down 6y ago
> it's not xenophobic, but xenophobic people really love to talk about it. that's the problem with the discourse. AKA, "you're not allowed to say that". The problem with the discourse is that it exists; its existence is problematic. (Considered problematic, I'm not claiming that)
2OEH8eoCRo0 6y ago
I suspect that the Chinese government actively works to conflate criticism as xenophobia. This same strategy is exactly why it's so hard to discuss Israel in anything other than a positive light.
hef19898 6y ago
Regarding 1), local authorities tried to cover it up. Or did we all forget how fast China built hospitals in late 2019? I just want to add, so, that SARS-Cov 2 was found in blood samples from November 2019 in Europe. And also, what does it matter anymore where it came from? We don't need the host to develop a cure, we have a couple of working vaccines by now.
dang 6y ago
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26751680 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26751680.

nicoburns 6y ago

It does matter in the context of deciding whether we ought to fund gain of function research going forwards.

throwaway0a5e 6y ago

>it's not xenophobic, but xenophobic people really love to talk about it. that's the problem with the discourse. People love to talk about stuff that supports their world view.

SubiculumCode 6y ago

The opposition to the idea comes down to one thing 1)Donald Trump et al supported this hypothesis, and thus disagreeing with the hypothesis becomes reflexive for many.

fermienrico 6y ago
Just shows how politics have divided us. No one seems to be thinking independently and that includes myself - I try but often the first reaction is otherwise. You can despise someone deeply, but if they are citing facts, reason, logic, etc - have no association, they stand on their own. Doesn't matter who uttered it.

abecedarius 6y ago

> xenophobic people really love to talk about it Guilt by association + Overton Window enforcement. I guess you're pointing this out and not endorsing it?

metalliqaz 6y ago
that's correct
kolbe 6y ago
Which is obviously a problem. The US more or less has two sides, and both are routinely responsible for(or at least align with) morally reprehensible things. It should not be a problem to choose truth regardless of where if falls in a political spectrum. And no one who wants to just find the truth should have to second guess their findings because they're politically inconvenient for someone.

brigandish 6y ago

> but xenophobic people really love to talk about it All too often I see this used as the standard for labelling someone a xenophobe and it becomes a classic case of begging the question. Since we all agree it's not xenophobic to speak about it, perhaps it's time we wait for actual xenophobia before making what should be serious accusations?

lazide 6y ago
Since some of the very first discussion of the topic in public was by the president using it as a political football alongside a trade war with China and a nontrivial amount of public fear and aversion to random people that happened to look Chinese, that well is pretty solidly poisoned at this point?
s5300 6y ago
I'm not sure if I'm reading this incorrectly and misinterpreting... But Asian hate crimes are waaay up since the beginning of Covid-19 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-56218684 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-56218684 Do you not call this xenophobia? It would be my elementary understanding that this rise in hate crime against Asians may be related to the President of the U.S. aggressively referring to the virus as the "china virus" and broadcasting that this was all China's fault during this time.
- kolbe 6y ago
  Causal inference may not be important to media campaigns, but it is to reality. Can you honestly say that you have found causal evidence that people earnestly talking about a Wuhan having a lab leak is the cause of 24 extra hate crimes in a city of 8 million people?
- lurquer 6y ago
  Strange how Asian is equated with Chinese. How insulting. It’s often the typical virtue-signaling liberals who group disparate languages, races, religions, and cultures in one monolithic block. What do you mean by Asian that would encourage one to use the term synonymously with “Chinese”? Are you referring to “people with slanty eyes”? White urban liberals do this a lot... to them, all “brown” people are the same. A person from Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala, etc... they’re all equivalent and exchangeable. Sad to see this same racist mindset used now for all of Asia.

lhorie 6y ago

> has poor wet market sanitation practices Honest question: Is that a fair/accurate generalization to make? If Hell's kitchen episodes and accounts from food industry workers are any indication, sanitation practices in food handling establishments elsewhere are not necessarily always stellar either. And surely China has some equivalent of WholeFoods? One ought to be careful not to attribute a characteristic differently depending on whether they belong to the class of people in question[0]. If it turns out that reality is that some chinese establishments have poor sanitation practices just like some US establishments do, and it just so happens that they got unlucky (perhaps partially due to not-so-directly-related aspects like zoning law differences or propensity for higher bat populations due to local fauna/flora ecosystems), the us-vs-them blaming game doesn't necessarily have as strong legs to stand on. [0] https://xkcd.com/385/ https://xkcd.com/385/

lancebeet 6y ago
>If Hell's kitchen episodes and accounts from food industry workers are any indication, sanitation practices in food handling establishments elsewhere are not necessarily always stellar either. The issue with wet markets isn't the sanitary practices of their workers so much as the fact that meat and other food is handled in very close proximity to live animals being slaughtered, and this combined with a large volume of foot traffic. Granted, I haven't seen all episodes of Kitchen Nightmares, but I've never seen slaughter of any kind taking place at a restaurant in that show, let alone at a restaurant that is visited by tens of thousands of people each day.
lazide 6y ago
Have you seen a easy Asian wet market in person before? If you’re comparing it to Whole Foods I’m not sure you have? The term itself is somewhat ambiguous [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wet_market https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wet_market] in that it can cover both cases. However the style common in many places in China (and many other areas in east Asia) is one where there is no refrigeration or adequate sanitation. To avoid spoilage, animals are brought in live and slaughtered as needed to provide meat. It can be when a customer picks it, or when needed to stock a counter. These styles of market are problematic disease wise because it brings many species of animals together in crowded and often unsanitary conditions, high stress, with humans in close contact with them, and lots of people and animals coming and going constantly. If you’re looking for a way to encourage Zoonotic disease, it’s hard to do better.

draw_down 6y ago

> it's not xenophobic, but xenophobic people really love to talk about it. that's the problem with the discourse. AKA, "you're not allowed to say that". The problem with the discourse is that it exists; its existence is problematic. (Considered problematic, I'm not claiming that)

2OEH8eoCRo0 6y ago

I suspect that the Chinese government actively works to conflate criticism as xenophobia. This same strategy is exactly why it's so hard to discuss Israel in anything other than a positive light.

hef19898 6y ago

Regarding 1), local authorities tried to cover it up. Or did we all forget how fast China built hospitals in late 2019? I just want to add, so, that SARS-Cov 2 was found in blood samples from November 2019 in Europe. And also, what does it matter anymore where it came from? We don't need the host to develop a cure, we have a couple of working vaccines by now.

dang 6y ago

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26751680 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26751680.