4 ms·

The accidental lab leak theory proven would actually be great news, as the alternative is that civilization has reached the threshold where we have a hyper conn

The accidental lab leak theory proven would actually be great news, as the alternative is that civilization has reached the threshold where we have a hyper connected population in contact with so many natural disease reservoirs that pandemics are emerging spontaneously. If it’s a lab leak we change pathogen containment practices, otherwise we curtain our freedom of movement and association

cdot2 5y ago
We can have all of the best possible pathogen containment practices but if they're not followed then they're of no use. We would also need a way to ensure that they're followed
kadoban 5y ago
I mean, that's obviously happening anyway, and it's not only a modern occerance. Pandemics have a long and varied history, no? I guess this would modify how often we think that happens?
ocschwar 5y ago
For persons of average intelligence or more, it is indeed good news. For persons of Asian appearance, living in physical proximity to persons of lower than average intelligence, it's dangerous news, unfortunately.
- encryptluks2 5y ago
  Can you provide recent statistical data during the pandemic about actual hate crimes to back that up, specifically about the race committing the crime?
  - snypher 5y ago
    https://www.csusb.edu/sites/default/files/FACT%20SHEET-%20Anti-Asian%20Hate%202020%203.2.21.pdf https://www.csusb.edu/sites/default/files/FACT%20SHEET-%20An... https://secureservercdn.net/104.238.69.231/a1w.90d.myftpupload.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/210312-Stop-AAPI-Hate-National-Report-.pdf https://secureservercdn.net/104.238.69.231/a1w.90d.myftpuplo...
    - cudgy 5y ago
      Increase from 49 to 122 is certainly a big increase, but these are extremely small numbers, considering they are derived from cities with combined populations of tens of millions of residents.
slg 5y ago
That might be great from a public health standpoint, but I'm not so sure from an overall global perspective. Proof of a lab leak and subsequent coverup would be a hugely destabilizing political event that could have severe consequences as there would be people pushing for some type of retribution for the millions of deaths. At the very least that would lead to further political division and racial animosity in places like the US. At the worst, it is the first domino on the way to WWIII. EDIT: Just to get in front of the responses that are already popping up, this isn't an endorsement of a coverup. It is just recognition that if a coverup did occur and was revealed that wouldn't be "great news".
- aabhay 5y ago
  Unfortunately that outcome is happening already, from just the hearsay
  - encryptluks2 5y ago
    Well the heresay comes from people like Donald Trump and the longer the Democrats ignore the theory the more credibility they lose and give to him, even if the way he said it was inflammatory. Seems like it would be far less destructive to bring it out into the open now than to just let people think that someone calling it the Kung Flu was more transparent than the political party that pretended like the lab leak is just a racist conspiracy theory.
    - cudgy 5y ago
      The Democrats (and the many “gullible” reporters like the one that wrote the referenced link) are simply waiting this out in hopes the average reader forgets that Trump and others including a few brave scientists pointed towards the obvious possibility of a lab leak early in the pandemic.
      - whipaway 5y ago
        They've played an interesting game where they called Trump illegitimate from the beginning of his presidency, entertained the idea of flipping electors, entertained conspiracy theories about him being a Russian agent, and now he's the evil one for trying to "subvert democracy". Likewise with the pandemic, essentially any observation was weaponized against him. My favorite is the ventilator crisis which has been essentially lost to history now. He was cast as a murderer, only for us to find out that ventilators were leading to more deaths.
umanwizard 5y ago
Are you claiming that Covid is particularly severe relative to historical pandemics, or that Covid-level issues are a particularly modern phenomenon? In fact the opposite is true. If it had emerged in any other century, Covid would barely even be on anyone’s radar.
- caspper69 5y ago
  >If it had emerged in any other century, Covid would barely even be on anyone’s radar. Surely you can't be serious. I mean, I think we would have noticed. In fact, it would have been on a lot of people's radar. They definitely would have noticed in India, Italy & Brazil. I mean, are comments like this hyperbolic, and I'm just not in on the joke?
  - somethingor 5y ago
    Not intending to make the case that Covid-19 would barely be on anyone's radar, but here is a comparison with some past pandemics that went relatively unnoticed (afaik): 1957-1958 H2N2 pandemic[1] - 1.1 million deaths worldwide (0.04% of world population of 2.9 billion) - 116,000 deaths in the US (0.07% of US population of 174.9 million) 1968 H3N2 pandemic[2] - 1 million deaths worldwide (0.03% of world population of 3.5 billion) - 100,000 deaths in the US (0.05% of US population of 200 million) Covid pandemic (so far) - 3.39 million deaths worldwide (0.04% of world population of 7.9 billion) - 586,000 deaths in the US (0.18% of US population of 330 million) --- [1] https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/1957-1958-pandemic.html https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/1957-1958-pandemi... [2] https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/1968-pandemic.html https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/1968-pandemic.htm...
    - thu2111 5y ago
      I suspect some readers are thinking ok, so it's ~6x worse, surely that's noticeable. But the COVID numbers are seriously inflated relative to past epidemics by the enormous testing programme, and the way mass PCR testing has cut doctors out of the loop. These numbers of deaths are deaths in which a positive PCR test was roughly temporally co-present, regardless of what an expert on the ground said the cause of death was, which is a much weaker standard than was previously used for ascribing a cause of death. Another way to look at this is overall mortality levels. In the UK, which has a reasonably high death rate, COVID raised overall mortality (per million) to around the level it was in the year 2000. Nobody was worried about that mortality level at the time, it was normal. Nor has anyone really noticed or commented on the general improvements in mortality since then. In Sweden age-adjusted mortality went back all the way to 2012 levels, and that with quite minor restrictions. This is suggestive that we perceive the impact as large because it tends to be phrased in terms of deviation from a 5-year model baseline, and because of the general expectations created by enormous 'expert' predictions. Having sacrificed so much via such extreme measures, people need to view it as an extreme event to justify a worldview of 'experts are generally honest and correct' (which can be seen in this article as a very, very strong prevailing world view at the NYT!)
peteretep 5y ago
> The accidental lab leak theory proven would actually be great news For humanity, yes, for the CCP, not so much.

cdot2 5y ago

We can have all of the best possible pathogen containment practices but if they're not followed then they're of no use. We would also need a way to ensure that they're followed

kadoban 5y ago

I mean, that's obviously happening anyway, and it's not only a modern occerance. Pandemics have a long and varied history, no? I guess this would modify how often we think that happens?

ocschwar 5y ago

For persons of average intelligence or more, it is indeed good news. For persons of Asian appearance, living in physical proximity to persons of lower than average intelligence, it's dangerous news, unfortunately.

encryptluks2 5y ago
Can you provide recent statistical data during the pandemic about actual hate crimes to back that up, specifically about the race committing the crime?
- snypher 5y ago
  https://www.csusb.edu/sites/default/files/FACT%20SHEET-%20Anti-Asian%20Hate%202020%203.2.21.pdf https://www.csusb.edu/sites/default/files/FACT%20SHEET-%20An... https://secureservercdn.net/104.238.69.231/a1w.90d.myftpupload.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/210312-Stop-AAPI-Hate-National-Report-.pdf https://secureservercdn.net/104.238.69.231/a1w.90d.myftpuplo...
  - cudgy 5y ago
    Increase from 49 to 122 is certainly a big increase, but these are extremely small numbers, considering they are derived from cities with combined populations of tens of millions of residents.

slg 5y ago

That might be great from a public health standpoint, but I'm not so sure from an overall global perspective. Proof of a lab leak and subsequent coverup would be a hugely destabilizing political event that could have severe consequences as there would be people pushing for some type of retribution for the millions of deaths. At the very least that would lead to further political division and racial animosity in places like the US. At the worst, it is the first domino on the way to WWIII. EDIT: Just to get in front of the responses that are already popping up, this isn't an endorsement of a coverup. It is just recognition that if a coverup did occur and was revealed that wouldn't be "great news".

aabhay 5y ago
Unfortunately that outcome is happening already, from just the hearsay
- encryptluks2 5y ago
  Well the heresay comes from people like Donald Trump and the longer the Democrats ignore the theory the more credibility they lose and give to him, even if the way he said it was inflammatory. Seems like it would be far less destructive to bring it out into the open now than to just let people think that someone calling it the Kung Flu was more transparent than the political party that pretended like the lab leak is just a racist conspiracy theory.
  - cudgy 5y ago
    The Democrats (and the many “gullible” reporters like the one that wrote the referenced link) are simply waiting this out in hopes the average reader forgets that Trump and others including a few brave scientists pointed towards the obvious possibility of a lab leak early in the pandemic.
    - whipaway 5y ago
      They've played an interesting game where they called Trump illegitimate from the beginning of his presidency, entertained the idea of flipping electors, entertained conspiracy theories about him being a Russian agent, and now he's the evil one for trying to "subvert democracy". Likewise with the pandemic, essentially any observation was weaponized against him. My favorite is the ventilator crisis which has been essentially lost to history now. He was cast as a murderer, only for us to find out that ventilators were leading to more deaths.

umanwizard 5y ago

Are you claiming that Covid is particularly severe relative to historical pandemics, or that Covid-level issues are a particularly modern phenomenon? In fact the opposite is true. If it had emerged in any other century, Covid would barely even be on anyone’s radar.

caspper69 5y ago
>If it had emerged in any other century, Covid would barely even be on anyone’s radar. Surely you can't be serious. I mean, I think we would have noticed. In fact, it would have been on a lot of people's radar. They definitely would have noticed in India, Italy & Brazil. I mean, are comments like this hyperbolic, and I'm just not in on the joke?
- somethingor 5y ago
  Not intending to make the case that Covid-19 would barely be on anyone's radar, but here is a comparison with some past pandemics that went relatively unnoticed (afaik): 1957-1958 H2N2 pandemic[1] - 1.1 million deaths worldwide (0.04% of world population of 2.9 billion) - 116,000 deaths in the US (0.07% of US population of 174.9 million) 1968 H3N2 pandemic[2] - 1 million deaths worldwide (0.03% of world population of 3.5 billion) - 100,000 deaths in the US (0.05% of US population of 200 million) Covid pandemic (so far) - 3.39 million deaths worldwide (0.04% of world population of 7.9 billion) - 586,000 deaths in the US (0.18% of US population of 330 million) --- [1] https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/1957-1958-pandemic.html https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/1957-1958-pandemi... [2] https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/1968-pandemic.html https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/1968-pandemic.htm...
  - thu2111 5y ago
    I suspect some readers are thinking ok, so it's ~6x worse, surely that's noticeable. But the COVID numbers are seriously inflated relative to past epidemics by the enormous testing programme, and the way mass PCR testing has cut doctors out of the loop. These numbers of deaths are deaths in which a positive PCR test was roughly temporally co-present, regardless of what an expert on the ground said the cause of death was, which is a much weaker standard than was previously used for ascribing a cause of death. Another way to look at this is overall mortality levels. In the UK, which has a reasonably high death rate, COVID raised overall mortality (per million) to around the level it was in the year 2000. Nobody was worried about that mortality level at the time, it was normal. Nor has anyone really noticed or commented on the general improvements in mortality since then. In Sweden age-adjusted mortality went back all the way to 2012 levels, and that with quite minor restrictions. This is suggestive that we perceive the impact as large because it tends to be phrased in terms of deviation from a 5-year model baseline, and because of the general expectations created by enormous 'expert' predictions. Having sacrificed so much via such extreme measures, people need to view it as an extreme event to justify a worldview of 'experts are generally honest and correct' (which can be seen in this article as a very, very strong prevailing world view at the NYT!)

peteretep 5y ago

> The accidental lab leak theory proven would actually be great news For humanity, yes, for the CCP, not so much.