3 ms·

I understand the need to understand why but if we can't mount a response to any virus, it again, ultimately doesn't matter. We've instituted safeguards against

I understand the need to understand why but if we can't mount a response to any virus, it again, ultimately doesn't matter. We've instituted safeguards against car accidents (seatbelts, speed limits, harsh penalties for driving drunk, etc). What have we done for wide-spread, novel disease response?

tim333 5y ago
If it was a lab leak it very much does matter and can be dealt with by stopping such stuff.
- flybrand 5y ago
  Even more so, if pursuing the origin story uncovers a dishonest or low integrity system - then we shouldn’t continue to trust that same system.
- ModernMech 5y ago
  The point being made is that even if you stop all pandemics with a lab leak origin, pandemics will still happen. So at the end of the day if you prove covid was lab leak and put in safeguards that will, with 100% certainty stop pandemics with a lab leak origin, you’re nonetheless going to encourage yet pandemics because they are a fact of nature. Therefore it’s more important to respond pandemics rather than prevent them (because you can’t).
  - tim333 5y ago
    Yeah but you should do both. Regulate labs and prepare for pandemics.
    - ModernMech 5y ago
      No one is saying you shouldn’t do both.
  - radu_floricica 5y ago
    It feels a bit of an overkill, given that your comment is already negative, but I kinda want to point out the fallacy. Preventing pandemics _is_ the best way of responding to them. If we're going to have 10 big epidemies next century, doing whatever we can to make sure 3 don't happen at all is by far the best response to those 3. So researching the sh*t out of the causes of this particular pandemic is likely to get us extremely good return of investment.
radu_floricica 5y ago
This line of thought supports my connection to postmodernism. Or at least, to today's culture of... I don't even know what to call it. You're suggesting we put barriers in our minds as to what questions should be asked. No more open ended inquiry, no more search for truth. Truth should be a tool in the service of a goal, nothing more. Searching for it without a good reason is to be discouraged as a waste of effort. This is not harmless. Beside being wrong, this kind of logic is one step away from the problem of who's deciding what are the worthy questions. Next step you have maufacturing consen... hey, wasn't a book with this name? Yeah.
- halfmatthalfcat 5y ago
  I'm not saying we never answer the question, I'm saying there's more important things to focus on right now. Many people are more concerned with the specific question of "where did it come from", I'm more concerned with the specific question "how do we prevent or mitigate this in the future." People are using the former question to reenforce biases against other countries or place blame where, to be frank, is a complete waste of time in my opinion. Specifically, because this will happen again and next time (regardless of origin), it might not be this (relatively) easy (compared to things like Ebola).
  - radu_floricica 5y ago
    That's verbal sophistry. People shouldn't have a fixed set of priorities and take them in order, aka the "but there are starving people in Africa argument". You can wonder how the pandemic started without taking anything from the importance of fighting it. You might, in a different universe, argue that there are too many resources spent on investigating the origin on the pandemic. This is definitely not the case in our universe, where the investigation is laughably small. There are murder or missing person cases where there is more information available to the public than what we have now, and they affected 1 (one) victim. As for China's cooperation... I understand they have a different way of doing things, but it's kinda a global problem, so maybe we shouldn't be ok with doing the investigation their way, aka without any public involvement at all.

tim333 5y ago

If it was a lab leak it very much does matter and can be dealt with by stopping such stuff.

flybrand 5y ago
Even more so, if pursuing the origin story uncovers a dishonest or low integrity system - then we shouldn’t continue to trust that same system.
ModernMech 5y ago
The point being made is that even if you stop all pandemics with a lab leak origin, pandemics will still happen. So at the end of the day if you prove covid was lab leak and put in safeguards that will, with 100% certainty stop pandemics with a lab leak origin, you’re nonetheless going to encourage yet pandemics because they are a fact of nature. Therefore it’s more important to respond pandemics rather than prevent them (because you can’t).
- tim333 5y ago
  Yeah but you should do both. Regulate labs and prepare for pandemics.
  - ModernMech 5y ago
    No one is saying you shouldn’t do both.
- radu_floricica 5y ago
  It feels a bit of an overkill, given that your comment is already negative, but I kinda want to point out the fallacy. Preventing pandemics _is_ the best way of responding to them. If we're going to have 10 big epidemies next century, doing whatever we can to make sure 3 don't happen at all is by far the best response to those 3. So researching the sh*t out of the causes of this particular pandemic is likely to get us extremely good return of investment.

radu_floricica 5y ago

This line of thought supports my connection to postmodernism. Or at least, to today's culture of... I don't even know what to call it. You're suggesting we put barriers in our minds as to what questions should be asked. No more open ended inquiry, no more search for truth. Truth should be a tool in the service of a goal, nothing more. Searching for it without a good reason is to be discouraged as a waste of effort. This is not harmless. Beside being wrong, this kind of logic is one step away from the problem of who's deciding what are the worthy questions. Next step you have maufacturing consen... hey, wasn't a book with this name? Yeah.

halfmatthalfcat 5y ago
I'm not saying we never answer the question, I'm saying there's more important things to focus on right now. Many people are more concerned with the specific question of "where did it come from", I'm more concerned with the specific question "how do we prevent or mitigate this in the future." People are using the former question to reenforce biases against other countries or place blame where, to be frank, is a complete waste of time in my opinion. Specifically, because this will happen again and next time (regardless of origin), it might not be this (relatively) easy (compared to things like Ebola).
- radu_floricica 5y ago
  That's verbal sophistry. People shouldn't have a fixed set of priorities and take them in order, aka the "but there are starving people in Africa argument". You can wonder how the pandemic started without taking anything from the importance of fighting it. You might, in a different universe, argue that there are too many resources spent on investigating the origin on the pandemic. This is definitely not the case in our universe, where the investigation is laughably small. There are murder or missing person cases where there is more information available to the public than what we have now, and they affected 1 (one) victim. As for China's cooperation... I understand they have a different way of doing things, but it's kinda a global problem, so maybe we shouldn't be ok with doing the investigation their way, aka without any public involvement at all.