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The real motive behind most of these kind of articles: "...loose talk about a lab leak elevates tensions between China and the United States, undermining the co

The real motive behind most of these kind of articles: "...loose talk about a lab leak elevates tensions between China and the United States, undermining the collaborative research we need to understand this pandemic and prevent the next one." Translation: "please shut up about this, it doesn't matter now and we need to get China calmed down, and this talk is making them defensive and therefore uncooperative." The rest of the article is mostly just FUD to try to provide a plausible excuse for ignoring the obvious fact that China is covering up, so that raises the possibility that there is a mistake for them to cover up. I would prefer the truth to be brought out. But, I have to admit, it may be that the "let's just pretend we don't realize they screwed up" policy is in fact the wiser one.

jstrong 5y ago
agree with your read on the article but not on your conclusion. in general, I don't think fudging the truth for strategic reasons ever turns out well in the long run, mostly because, we're not smart enough to anticipate what the long run impact of our strategic lying will be. secondly, the strategy itself, going out of our way, up to and including hiding the causes of a global pandemic, in order to avoid ever hurting china's feelings, just does not seem viable to me at all.
_cs2017_ 5y ago
I do think many people who write on this topic have a conscious or unconscious bias in favor of the natural origin hypotehsis. You provided one example of such bias. Here's a couple more: - Chinese nationalists (although they rarely author publications outside of China) - people who expressed strong opinion on this matter a year ago (based on the information they had then), and now don't like to admit they were wrong even in the face of new evidence. - people who think the lab origin hypothesis is an example of anti-Chinese racism, and therefore take the opposite the side to fight racism. On the other hand, I would argue that even more people who write on this topic outside of China are biased in favor of the lab origin hypothesis. This is because many groups of people would (consciously or subconsciously) like to use this opportunity to blame the Beijing government for this huge disaster. Examples: - those who dislike the communist ideology (e.g., those whose loved ones died to wars with the communists, or those who just dislike authoritarianism on general principles) - those of China's neighbors who dislike the Beijing government's aggressive policy towards them (India, Taiwan, Japan, Vietnam) - those who dislike the Chinese in general, for racist reasons - Americans who don't want to see China surpass the US in global power These biases are present even among journalists and scientists, since many of them cannot (or don't even bother trying to) separate their feelings as regular people from their role as unbiased reporters or researchers. Overall, this means it's very hard to take seriously anything written on this topic. Perhaps I would tend to trust: - An expert who has been consistently friendly to Bejing but argues in favor of the lab origin hypothesis; or - An expert who has been consistently unfriendly to Beijing but argues in favor the natural origin hypothesis. One of the rare examples of such people is Jeffrey Sachs, who chairs the Lancet Covid-19 origins commission. He has been at least somewhat friendly to Beijing (well as friendly as you can be in the West without committing a professional suicide). And yet, he says that there's at least enough evidence that both hypotheses are worth pursuing (that is, that it's not 100% obvious that it was a natural origin). Unfortunately, he's not an expert on this topic (he's an economist). Still, I would follow his comments with interest. https://www.project-syndicate.org/onpoint/finding-the-origins-of-covid19-by-jeffrey-d-sachs-2021-06?barrier=accesspaylog https://www.project-syndicate.org/onpoint/finding-the-origin...
lamontcg 5y ago
The real motive behind most of the lab leak articles: "Please shut up about zoonotic origins, we don't want to have to worry about factory farming of animals, and for fucks sake could you imagine a world where we had to admit the goddamn VEGANS were right? That certainly can't ever happen. They're already insufferable assholes, could you imagine?" (p.s. be very, very angry at China so you don't think about the US policy response that wound up with half a million Americans dead -- once you pin fault on someone that allows everyone later to neatly escape any guilt)
- rossdavidh 5y ago
  Hmmm...maybe there are articles that slant that way, but I haven't run across them. Can you cite an example?
  - lamontcg 5y ago
    Can you cite an example of an article which literally says "we need to shut up about this to calm China down?"
    - ncmncm 5y ago
      It says so right in the article linked at the top of this page. Which was, in fact, the point of his question. If you can't point at any articles like what you parody, then you have no point.
      - lamontcg 5y ago
        No it doesn't say that.
        ncmncm 5y ago
        So, you have no point.
commandlinefan 5y ago
They seem to be trying to insist that the virus didn't even originate in Wuhan at all, leak or no leak.
- mikem170 5y ago
  There is evidence pointing in that direction [0]: > Of 23 samples that came from Wuhan, only three were type A, the rest were type B, a version two mutations from A. But in other parts of China, Forster says, initially A was the predominant strain. For instance, of nine genome samples in Guangdong, some 600 miles south of Wuhan, five were A types. [0] https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/articles/2020-05-13/scientist-suggests-coronavirus-originated-outside-of-wuhan https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/articles/2020-05-...

jstrong 5y ago

agree with your read on the article but not on your conclusion. in general, I don't think fudging the truth for strategic reasons ever turns out well in the long run, mostly because, we're not smart enough to anticipate what the long run impact of our strategic lying will be. secondly, the strategy itself, going out of our way, up to and including hiding the causes of a global pandemic, in order to avoid ever hurting china's feelings, just does not seem viable to me at all.

_cs2017_ 5y ago

I do think many people who write on this topic have a conscious or unconscious bias in favor of the natural origin hypotehsis. You provided one example of such bias. Here's a couple more: - Chinese nationalists (although they rarely author publications outside of China) - people who expressed strong opinion on this matter a year ago (based on the information they had then), and now don't like to admit they were wrong even in the face of new evidence. - people who think the lab origin hypothesis is an example of anti-Chinese racism, and therefore take the opposite the side to fight racism. On the other hand, I would argue that even more people who write on this topic outside of China are biased in favor of the lab origin hypothesis. This is because many groups of people would (consciously or subconsciously) like to use this opportunity to blame the Beijing government for this huge disaster. Examples: - those who dislike the communist ideology (e.g., those whose loved ones died to wars with the communists, or those who just dislike authoritarianism on general principles) - those of China's neighbors who dislike the Beijing government's aggressive policy towards them (India, Taiwan, Japan, Vietnam) - those who dislike the Chinese in general, for racist reasons - Americans who don't want to see China surpass the US in global power These biases are present even among journalists and scientists, since many of them cannot (or don't even bother trying to) separate their feelings as regular people from their role as unbiased reporters or researchers. Overall, this means it's very hard to take seriously anything written on this topic. Perhaps I would tend to trust: - An expert who has been consistently friendly to Bejing but argues in favor of the lab origin hypothesis; or - An expert who has been consistently unfriendly to Beijing but argues in favor the natural origin hypothesis. One of the rare examples of such people is Jeffrey Sachs, who chairs the Lancet Covid-19 origins commission. He has been at least somewhat friendly to Beijing (well as friendly as you can be in the West without committing a professional suicide). And yet, he says that there's at least enough evidence that both hypotheses are worth pursuing (that is, that it's not 100% obvious that it was a natural origin). Unfortunately, he's not an expert on this topic (he's an economist). Still, I would follow his comments with interest. https://www.project-syndicate.org/onpoint/finding-the-origins-of-covid19-by-jeffrey-d-sachs-2021-06?barrier=accesspaylog https://www.project-syndicate.org/onpoint/finding-the-origin...

lamontcg 5y ago

The real motive behind most of the lab leak articles: "Please shut up about zoonotic origins, we don't want to have to worry about factory farming of animals, and for fucks sake could you imagine a world where we had to admit the goddamn VEGANS were right? That certainly can't ever happen. They're already insufferable assholes, could you imagine?" (p.s. be very, very angry at China so you don't think about the US policy response that wound up with half a million Americans dead -- once you pin fault on someone that allows everyone later to neatly escape any guilt)

rossdavidh 5y ago
Hmmm...maybe there are articles that slant that way, but I haven't run across them. Can you cite an example?
- lamontcg 5y ago
  Can you cite an example of an article which literally says "we need to shut up about this to calm China down?"
  - ncmncm 5y ago
    It says so right in the article linked at the top of this page. Which was, in fact, the point of his question. If you can't point at any articles like what you parody, then you have no point.
    - lamontcg 5y ago
      No it doesn't say that.
      - ncmncm 5y ago
        So, you have no point.

commandlinefan 5y ago

They seem to be trying to insist that the virus didn't even originate in Wuhan at all, leak or no leak.

mikem170 5y ago
There is evidence pointing in that direction [0]: > Of 23 samples that came from Wuhan, only three were type A, the rest were type B, a version two mutations from A. But in other parts of China, Forster says, initially A was the predominant strain. For instance, of nine genome samples in Guangdong, some 600 miles south of Wuhan, five were A types. [0] https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/articles/2020-05-13/scientist-suggests-coronavirus-originated-outside-of-wuhan https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/articles/2020-05-...