5 ms·
Not just the media, folks, also the rest of our "sense making apparatus". Wikipedia has been suppressing lab leak discussion, and still to this moment will not
by fsckboy 5y ago
Not just the media, folks, also the rest of our "sense making apparatus".
Wikipedia has been suppressing lab leak discussion, and still to this moment will not allow the old Lab Leak Hypothesis page back. It still redirects to a declared "Misinformation!" page https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=COVID-19_lab_leak_hypothesis https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=COVID-19_lab_leak...
And guess where else lab leak was suppressed? Here on HN. Yes, dang, you suppressed discussion of a perfectly reasonable hypothesis many times.
So, while I have your attention, the real problem vis a vis Covid19 is not the lab leak. The real problem is "gain of function" research, using gene splicing to make more virulent-to-humans pathogens. And don't read into anything I'm saying, please pay attention to literally what I say here; if you have to reword what I say to cast doubt, you're not playing fair.
This virus was likely man-made because gain of function man made viruses are quite common in research; and this is not a coverup conspiracy caused by the Chinese tendency for face-saving, swept under the carpet, "truths", though there is plenty of that. This scandal was caused by western experts: our best virologists are themselves engaging in gain of function research right here in our very own cities. If you ask them, as the media did, "what likely happened here", their answer is not going to point the finger at themselves, too much funding is at stake.
Good background and in-depth research on the gain of function and lab leak hypotheses was carried out and published on the web over a year ago by Yuri Deigin https://yurideigin.medium.com/lab-made-cov2-genealogy-through-the-lens-of-gain-of-function-research-f96dd7413748 https://yurideigin.medium.com/lab-made-cov2-genealogy-throug... and it was covered on Bret Weinstein's Dark Horse podcast https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5SRrsr-Iug https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5SRrsr-Iug
And surprisingly, it is easy for lay people to read/listen and follow because Yuri Deigan is not a virologist, just a really smart educated guy.
and it wasn't just the mainstream media and HN and wikipedia who suppressed the information from you all; sadly it was also because of the politicization, your politicization, of this crisis. If Trump said something, to most of you it just had to be wrong, and for some reason, opening our economy to the Chinese and disliking Russia were sacred cows to the Democrats, and anything Trump did that went the other way just had to be undone.
That is what covered up this most obvious and likely HYPOTHESIS from being discussed: that of a man made, gain of function virus escaping from a lab in Wuhan where the virus broke out.
Was there any Chinese military goal here, as a true conspiracy theory would allege? Sadly, frankly, there doesn't need to be. That's because advanced virology research is of deep interest to every military around the world. See the history of anthrax research. It is publicly acknowledged that it's part and parcel of germ warfare research both for defensive and offensive purposes.
- byset 5y ago"And guess where else lab leak was suppressed? Here on HN." And maybe is still getting suppressed? This post was #1 on HN one minute, and then, less than an hour later, it's down on page 3, ranked #88. Does the HN ranking algorithm really bury stuff that quickly?
- ximeng 5y agoYes it does bury stuff very quickly if it is flagged by sufficient numbers of users. I’m not sure it’s a good thing but it is a thing.
- FillardMillmore 5y agoWell it looks like this one got flagged. But why?
- ximeng 5y agoIt's a black box from an outside perspective, but generally I imagine it's factors such as appearing political or the sort of thing that would be reported in mainstream media (both of which are somewhat discouraged by site guidelines), or being repetitive (there have been a number of articles discussed recently on this topic). This is not a new issue. Here's a discussion on the subject: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13857086 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13857086
- dang 5y agoIt set off the flamewar detector as well as getting a lot of user flags. I've turned that off now. As for 'suppressed' please see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27309238 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27309238.
- byset 5y agoOk thx for the reply I was just dismayed to see the story sink so fast (but I get it now) — the article involves an interesting discussion of how scientific consensus is represented in the media and how it relates to social media, which seem like very HN-friendly topics… shame that so many are eager to flag something like this based on (as seems likely) some sort of forbidden-topic litmus test