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Remember when the previous administration suggested looking into the Lab Leak theory and was laughed at? Remember how you would get banned from Facebook for su

Remember when the previous administration suggested looking into the Lab Leak theory and was laughed at? Remember how you would get banned from Facebook for suggesting that the lab leak theory was a possibility? Then major social networks and the medias reversed their positions. What changed in the meantime, other than the president?

mc32 5y ago
Tangentially related: there are no antifa burnings or endless videos of cops acting badly either. It’s not as though criminals stopped being criminals and cops stopped policing…
tlowrimore 5y ago
It is important to consider the context within which these suggestions were initially put forth. We had a president that claimed to have Coronavirus under control, that it was no worse than the flu and who openly and frequently cast doubt upon the only expert in the room. Perhaps had his behavior been a bit more tempered, he would have been taken more seriously.
- handmodel 5y ago
  I posted an article on HN at the time from a Chinese-born Harvard Public Health PHd who was writing in winter of 2020 he thought it could have come from the lab. It actually wasn't downvoted too much - plenty of people here found it plausible - but the amount of people saying I was stupid and gullible has really stuck with me. I was told I had no idea how viruses work (this is true enough - I don't have a degree in biology) but still felt extremely gaslit.
  - philliphaydon 5y ago
    I first heard about the lab leak theory late jan 2020, but I also was considered stupid and gullible too for believing it. Also mocked for wearing a mask from singapore to london in Feb 2020. :/
  - TMWNN 5y ago
    >I was told I had no idea how viruses work (this is true enough - I don't have a degree in biology) but still felt extremely gaslit. Similarly, on New Year's Eve 2015 I saw mention of the Cologne mass attacks on women by refugees as they were occurring on, yes, 4chan/pol/, and checked /r/worldnews and /r/europe to find out more. I didn't see anything, and assumed that it was another /pol/ "it's happening" dank maymayism. I only later realized that German media and those subreddits' mods had all worked to suppress news of the attacks until they could no longer be ignored. (Cue "/pol/ was right" couplet)
    - 908B64B197 5y ago
      > by refugees Was it confirmed these men were legitimate refugees? > I only later realized that German media and those subreddits' mods had all worked to suppress news of the attacks until they could no longer be ignored. Why would they do that?
      - vimy 5y ago
        Yes, it was confirmed. It’s to protect the narrative that immigration is good for Europe. Just like every time there is a religious terror knife attack they claim it’s someone with mental problems.
        908B64B197 5y ago
        I meant economic migrants and not true refugees, as defined by international laws. Like this https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/09/africa/fake-refugees-kenya-intl/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/09/africa/fake-refugees-kenya-in... https://abcnews.go.com/International/fake-syrian-passports-war-weary-fleeing-europe/story?id=33450833 https://abcnews.go.com/International/fake-syrian-passports-w... https://news.yahoo.com/migrants-using-fake-syrian-passports-enter-eu-border-094700556.html https://news.yahoo.com/migrants-using-fake-syrian-passports-...
  - 908B64B197 5y ago
    > I was told I had no idea how viruses work (this is true enough - I don't have a degree in biology) but still felt extremely gaslit. You don't need a degree to understand how a virus works.
  - s5300 5y ago
    >but the amount of people saying I was stupid and gullible has really stuck with me. The amount of people saying something about you on a mostly anonymous internet message board has really stuck with you? This is, probably for your own good, a decent indicator that you should stop visiting said website.
    - handmodel 5y ago
      I mean you are here now lol I like this website. I feel like I learn a lot - mostly on discussions about fields I only have outside knowledge of. Its not like I was personally offended but had the realization that it is possible for large groups of smart people to convince themselves of something even when it is not true (or at the very least, have no actual data to know if its true)
- philliphaydon 5y ago
  It doesn’t really matter who was president. The whole western world has handled Covid poorly. Including the current administration. The issue is no one has learned to not trust ccp. They lied about sars and tried to cover it up, and they lied about Covid from day 1 trying to cover it up.
- refenestrator 5y ago
  That makes the media look worse, not better. Their true inclination is to think one thing but they self censored so they wouldn't be seen as agreeing with the bad orange man?
  - blacktriangle 5y ago
    Come on man, Antifa's just an idea - some senile old idiot
  - tlowrimore 5y ago
    Perhaps. That does not change the fact that when you bloviate, demean and deflect, as did Trump, you will be disliked and distrusted. Reputation matters when making a claim that--in that moment--could not be supported with real evidence. Was it a plausible theory for the origin of the virus? Sure. But, when that message becomes entangled with a larger xenophobic rhetoric, then it just seems like, well, xenophobia. Again, the context matters.
    - refenestrator 5y ago
      I'm talking about the media's credibility. I'll give them "more credible than Trump" as a freebie but after that they have to earn it.
- ghostwriter 5y ago
  > We had a president that claimed to have Coronavirus under control, that it was no worse than the flu Could you remind us who was that person who went to SF’s Chinatown to hug random people and was urging others to “come and visit and enjoy Chinatown” during the first critical months of unknown risk?
  - tlowrimore 5y ago
    It was Nancy Pelosi.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
fxbe12 5y ago
I remember, and I am sure that many others do if they are honest with themselves. America needs to stand united. We have let politics drive a deep wedge between neighbors and families. We live at the peak of the information age but our natures have not changed. Both left and right need to focus on being unified, not strong-arming the other side.
- SamPatt 5y ago
  And people on "the left and right" need to remember that plenty of people don't believe in "sides" and just want to live their lives without being bullied around by whoever happens be in power or whatever ideas are popular at the moment. I don't want unity. People obsessed with politics think they just need consensus to solve any problem, despite the atrocious track record of political solutions. Just leave the rest of us alone.
  - iammisc 5y ago
    > I don't want unity And this sentiment is problematic, because other countries have unity and are not afraid to use it.
TMWNN 5y ago
>Then major social networks and the medias reversed their positions. What changed in the meantime, other than the president? Further, the above (reasonably) implies that, had the president not changed, the reversing of positions would not have occurred.
wadeparzival 5y ago
I remember when the previous President said he had evidence of a lab leak, but did not share it or have any corroboration from anyone else in the administration. It was obvious at the time that it was a political tool to drive a nationalist sentiment. The issue is not that people wanted to investigate a lab leak, the issue was that people presented their lab leak theory as a fact. Believing in a theory without any evidence to support it falls pretty squarely in the conspiracy theory bucket. Honestly, I haven't seen anything change in substance in the meantime. It still is a suspicious coincidence, but we don't have any clear indication of what actually happened. What has changed in the reporting is that people are expressing concerns about the lab (clearly theories, not fact), which is completely natural. We should investigate it so we can better prevent, detect, and respond to future outbreaks. But let's not make premature judgements from a coincidence.
- iammisc 5y ago
  We have hospitalization records of lab staff, which Trump kne about and was later declassified. We have e-mail evidence of lab employees explicitly asking reporters not to report on the potential. And we have a novel virus that appeared centered around a biomedical research lab doing gain of function research on closely related viruses. Simply due to the level of accusation and its implications, the claim deserved investigation from day one not out of hand dismissal. Imagine if someone is found with a gun right next to a shooting scene, and everyone around you insisted that he certainly could not be the one who did any wrong because... racism or something. And then later on, you find that that guys friends spoke privately with the police and asked them not to conduct an investigation. Shouldn't that arouse suspicion in normal people?
uses 5y ago
> Remember when the previous administration suggested looking into the Lab Leak theory and was laughed at? The previous administration was completely nuts and would do and say all kinds of random things. The problems with communication and trust were too many to know where to start. Besides that, the context was totally different. A president trying to "wage a trade war" on China, stir up nationalist sentiment, distract from his responsibility to respond to the pandemic, constantly regurgitating conspiracy theories and other misinformation, constantly trying to distract from scandals, etc. > Remember how you would get banned from Facebook for suggesting that the lab leak theory was a possibility? The amount of misinformation about COVID was and is extreme. Yeah, they moderated their platform, which is under intense congressional scrutiny, in the middle of a once-in-a-century pandemic. Even so, I think you're conflating the bio-weapon theory with the lab-leak theory. > Then major social networks and the medias reversed their positions. What changed in the meantime, other than the president? Major social networks and medias didn't "reverse their positions"...we learned more, we're still learning more. What changed in the meantime is so, so many things lmao.
- gjs278 5y ago
  you’re a piece of shit. fuck you and fuck your censorship.
- iammisc 5y ago
  The previous administration was broadly right on many important topics regarding the pandemic, that the media was wrong on. 1. Vaccines would be available by the election (they were off by two days, likely because of optics of releasing a vaccine right before). 2. The lab leak theory being worthy of investigation 3. School lockdowns are damaging (now broad agreement) 4. New York did not need 40k ventilators and Andrew Cuomo covered up nursing home deaths (later an aide admitted to it) 5. Shutting down travel was wrong before it was right. If you recall, after trump's state of the union, in which he mentioned covid, Nancy Pelosi went into the streets of china town and insisted people ignore his fear mongering. Shall I go on? > A president trying to "wage a trade war" on China A trade war which he campaigned on, was voted into office for, and for which he has the legal authority. You are complaining that trump doesn't agree with you, not that he did something legally wrong. > we learned more, we're still learning more Yes, they learned that they were wrong on many things and trump was right.
TooKool4This 5y ago
> Remember when the previous administration suggested looking into the Lab Leak theory and was laughed at? Remember when the head of the previous administration thought injecting disinfectants or UV light was a possible solution to Covid? The problem with trust and credibility is that once it’s lost, it’s very hard to gain back. Even if the broken clock is right twice a day, it’s still broken.
- 99_00 5y ago
  There was public information about the UVA catheter at the time Trump made his comments. >The findings, published in the peer-reviewed journal Advances in Therapy, were based on five days of 20-minute treatments with ultraviolet A (UVA) light using a catheter inserted into the patients' tracheas. Patients were followed for 30 days. The findings were based on four patients; the fifth patient had no detectable levels of SARS-CoV-2 at the study outset. https://www.cedars-sinai.org/newsroom/reduced-viral-loads-seen-in-covid-19-patients-treated-with-uva-light/ https://www.cedars-sinai.org/newsroom/reduced-viral-loads-se... >The problem with trust and credibility is that once it’s lost, it’s very hard to gain back. Are you talking about corporate media? They seem to break trust constantly, and a large % of the population continues to trust them.
  - 908B64B197 5y ago
    Wait... that can't be true. Because the media immediately published this https://youtu.be/fr5OopWwp98 https://youtu.be/fr5OopWwp98 and they laughed the idea away. So far I've seen no retractions.
    - alimw 5y ago
      Did you post the wrong link? The doctors in that clip don't actually mention the UV light thing, although they are clear in their opposition to injecting disinfectant.
- SnowProblem 5y ago
  Aytu BioPharma is a small company bringing UV light into the body, and the early trials on COVID last year showed it worked. The same was true for Hydroxychloroquine too. You fell for propaganda. https://aytubio.com/pipeline/healight-technology-platform/ https://aytubio.com/pipeline/healight-technology-platform/
sg47 5y ago
The previous administration had zero credibility on anything and were rightly laughed out of the room.
- tinus_hn 5y ago
  That would be right. But giving them negative credibility and dismissing everything they say as bunk, because they said it, is dumb.
tinus_hn 5y ago
Of course, now that that cat is out of the bag, it turns out everybody knew it all along.

mc32 5y ago

Tangentially related: there are no antifa burnings or endless videos of cops acting badly either. It’s not as though criminals stopped being criminals and cops stopped policing…

tlowrimore 5y ago

It is important to consider the context within which these suggestions were initially put forth. We had a president that claimed to have Coronavirus under control, that it was no worse than the flu and who openly and frequently cast doubt upon the only expert in the room. Perhaps had his behavior been a bit more tempered, he would have been taken more seriously.

handmodel 5y ago
I posted an article on HN at the time from a Chinese-born Harvard Public Health PHd who was writing in winter of 2020 he thought it could have come from the lab. It actually wasn't downvoted too much - plenty of people here found it plausible - but the amount of people saying I was stupid and gullible has really stuck with me. I was told I had no idea how viruses work (this is true enough - I don't have a degree in biology) but still felt extremely gaslit.
- philliphaydon 5y ago
  I first heard about the lab leak theory late jan 2020, but I also was considered stupid and gullible too for believing it. Also mocked for wearing a mask from singapore to london in Feb 2020. :/
- TMWNN 5y ago
  >I was told I had no idea how viruses work (this is true enough - I don't have a degree in biology) but still felt extremely gaslit. Similarly, on New Year's Eve 2015 I saw mention of the Cologne mass attacks on women by refugees as they were occurring on, yes, 4chan/pol/, and checked /r/worldnews and /r/europe to find out more. I didn't see anything, and assumed that it was another /pol/ "it's happening" dank maymayism. I only later realized that German media and those subreddits' mods had all worked to suppress news of the attacks until they could no longer be ignored. (Cue "/pol/ was right" couplet)
  - 908B64B197 5y ago
    > by refugees Was it confirmed these men were legitimate refugees? > I only later realized that German media and those subreddits' mods had all worked to suppress news of the attacks until they could no longer be ignored. Why would they do that?
    - vimy 5y ago
      Yes, it was confirmed. It’s to protect the narrative that immigration is good for Europe. Just like every time there is a religious terror knife attack they claim it’s someone with mental problems.
      - 908B64B197 5y ago
        I meant economic migrants and not true refugees, as defined by international laws. Like this https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/09/africa/fake-refugees-kenya-intl/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/09/africa/fake-refugees-kenya-in... https://abcnews.go.com/International/fake-syrian-passports-war-weary-fleeing-europe/story?id=33450833 https://abcnews.go.com/International/fake-syrian-passports-w... https://news.yahoo.com/migrants-using-fake-syrian-passports-enter-eu-border-094700556.html https://news.yahoo.com/migrants-using-fake-syrian-passports-...
- 908B64B197 5y ago
  > I was told I had no idea how viruses work (this is true enough - I don't have a degree in biology) but still felt extremely gaslit. You don't need a degree to understand how a virus works.
- s5300 5y ago
  >but the amount of people saying I was stupid and gullible has really stuck with me. The amount of people saying something about you on a mostly anonymous internet message board has really stuck with you? This is, probably for your own good, a decent indicator that you should stop visiting said website.
  - handmodel 5y ago
    I mean you are here now lol I like this website. I feel like I learn a lot - mostly on discussions about fields I only have outside knowledge of. Its not like I was personally offended but had the realization that it is possible for large groups of smart people to convince themselves of something even when it is not true (or at the very least, have no actual data to know if its true)
philliphaydon 5y ago
It doesn’t really matter who was president. The whole western world has handled Covid poorly. Including the current administration. The issue is no one has learned to not trust ccp. They lied about sars and tried to cover it up, and they lied about Covid from day 1 trying to cover it up.
refenestrator 5y ago
That makes the media look worse, not better. Their true inclination is to think one thing but they self censored so they wouldn't be seen as agreeing with the bad orange man?
- blacktriangle 5y ago
  Come on man, Antifa's just an idea - some senile old idiot
- tlowrimore 5y ago
  Perhaps. That does not change the fact that when you bloviate, demean and deflect, as did Trump, you will be disliked and distrusted. Reputation matters when making a claim that--in that moment--could not be supported with real evidence. Was it a plausible theory for the origin of the virus? Sure. But, when that message becomes entangled with a larger xenophobic rhetoric, then it just seems like, well, xenophobia. Again, the context matters.
  - refenestrator 5y ago
    I'm talking about the media's credibility. I'll give them "more credible than Trump" as a freebie but after that they have to earn it.
ghostwriter 5y ago
> We had a president that claimed to have Coronavirus under control, that it was no worse than the flu Could you remind us who was that person who went to SF’s Chinatown to hug random people and was urging others to “come and visit and enjoy Chinatown” during the first critical months of unknown risk?
- tlowrimore 5y ago
  It was Nancy Pelosi.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

fxbe12 5y ago

I remember, and I am sure that many others do if they are honest with themselves. America needs to stand united. We have let politics drive a deep wedge between neighbors and families. We live at the peak of the information age but our natures have not changed. Both left and right need to focus on being unified, not strong-arming the other side.

SamPatt 5y ago
And people on "the left and right" need to remember that plenty of people don't believe in "sides" and just want to live their lives without being bullied around by whoever happens be in power or whatever ideas are popular at the moment. I don't want unity. People obsessed with politics think they just need consensus to solve any problem, despite the atrocious track record of political solutions. Just leave the rest of us alone.
- iammisc 5y ago
  > I don't want unity And this sentiment is problematic, because other countries have unity and are not afraid to use it.

TMWNN 5y ago

>Then major social networks and the medias reversed their positions. What changed in the meantime, other than the president? Further, the above (reasonably) implies that, had the president not changed, the reversing of positions would not have occurred.

wadeparzival 5y ago

I remember when the previous President said he had evidence of a lab leak, but did not share it or have any corroboration from anyone else in the administration. It was obvious at the time that it was a political tool to drive a nationalist sentiment. The issue is not that people wanted to investigate a lab leak, the issue was that people presented their lab leak theory as a fact. Believing in a theory without any evidence to support it falls pretty squarely in the conspiracy theory bucket. Honestly, I haven't seen anything change in substance in the meantime. It still is a suspicious coincidence, but we don't have any clear indication of what actually happened. What has changed in the reporting is that people are expressing concerns about the lab (clearly theories, not fact), which is completely natural. We should investigate it so we can better prevent, detect, and respond to future outbreaks. But let's not make premature judgements from a coincidence.

iammisc 5y ago
We have hospitalization records of lab staff, which Trump kne about and was later declassified. We have e-mail evidence of lab employees explicitly asking reporters not to report on the potential. And we have a novel virus that appeared centered around a biomedical research lab doing gain of function research on closely related viruses. Simply due to the level of accusation and its implications, the claim deserved investigation from day one not out of hand dismissal. Imagine if someone is found with a gun right next to a shooting scene, and everyone around you insisted that he certainly could not be the one who did any wrong because... racism or something. And then later on, you find that that guys friends spoke privately with the police and asked them not to conduct an investigation. Shouldn't that arouse suspicion in normal people?

uses 5y ago

> Remember when the previous administration suggested looking into the Lab Leak theory and was laughed at? The previous administration was completely nuts and would do and say all kinds of random things. The problems with communication and trust were too many to know where to start. Besides that, the context was totally different. A president trying to "wage a trade war" on China, stir up nationalist sentiment, distract from his responsibility to respond to the pandemic, constantly regurgitating conspiracy theories and other misinformation, constantly trying to distract from scandals, etc. > Remember how you would get banned from Facebook for suggesting that the lab leak theory was a possibility? The amount of misinformation about COVID was and is extreme. Yeah, they moderated their platform, which is under intense congressional scrutiny, in the middle of a once-in-a-century pandemic. Even so, I think you're conflating the bio-weapon theory with the lab-leak theory. > Then major social networks and the medias reversed their positions. What changed in the meantime, other than the president? Major social networks and medias didn't "reverse their positions"...we learned more, we're still learning more. What changed in the meantime is so, so many things lmao.

gjs278 5y ago
you’re a piece of shit. fuck you and fuck your censorship.
iammisc 5y ago
The previous administration was broadly right on many important topics regarding the pandemic, that the media was wrong on. 1. Vaccines would be available by the election (they were off by two days, likely because of optics of releasing a vaccine right before). 2. The lab leak theory being worthy of investigation 3. School lockdowns are damaging (now broad agreement) 4. New York did not need 40k ventilators and Andrew Cuomo covered up nursing home deaths (later an aide admitted to it) 5. Shutting down travel was wrong before it was right. If you recall, after trump's state of the union, in which he mentioned covid, Nancy Pelosi went into the streets of china town and insisted people ignore his fear mongering. Shall I go on? > A president trying to "wage a trade war" on China A trade war which he campaigned on, was voted into office for, and for which he has the legal authority. You are complaining that trump doesn't agree with you, not that he did something legally wrong. > we learned more, we're still learning more Yes, they learned that they were wrong on many things and trump was right.

TooKool4This 5y ago

> Remember when the previous administration suggested looking into the Lab Leak theory and was laughed at? Remember when the head of the previous administration thought injecting disinfectants or UV light was a possible solution to Covid? The problem with trust and credibility is that once it’s lost, it’s very hard to gain back. Even if the broken clock is right twice a day, it’s still broken.

99_00 5y ago
There was public information about the UVA catheter at the time Trump made his comments. >The findings, published in the peer-reviewed journal Advances in Therapy, were based on five days of 20-minute treatments with ultraviolet A (UVA) light using a catheter inserted into the patients' tracheas. Patients were followed for 30 days. The findings were based on four patients; the fifth patient had no detectable levels of SARS-CoV-2 at the study outset. https://www.cedars-sinai.org/newsroom/reduced-viral-loads-seen-in-covid-19-patients-treated-with-uva-light/ https://www.cedars-sinai.org/newsroom/reduced-viral-loads-se... >The problem with trust and credibility is that once it’s lost, it’s very hard to gain back. Are you talking about corporate media? They seem to break trust constantly, and a large % of the population continues to trust them.
- 908B64B197 5y ago
  Wait... that can't be true. Because the media immediately published this https://youtu.be/fr5OopWwp98 https://youtu.be/fr5OopWwp98 and they laughed the idea away. So far I've seen no retractions.
  - alimw 5y ago
    Did you post the wrong link? The doctors in that clip don't actually mention the UV light thing, although they are clear in their opposition to injecting disinfectant.
SnowProblem 5y ago
Aytu BioPharma is a small company bringing UV light into the body, and the early trials on COVID last year showed it worked. The same was true for Hydroxychloroquine too. You fell for propaganda. https://aytubio.com/pipeline/healight-technology-platform/ https://aytubio.com/pipeline/healight-technology-platform/

sg47 5y ago

The previous administration had zero credibility on anything and were rightly laughed out of the room.

tinus_hn 5y ago
That would be right. But giving them negative credibility and dismissing everything they say as bunk, because they said it, is dumb.

tinus_hn 5y ago

Of course, now that that cat is out of the bag, it turns out everybody knew it all along.