4 ms·

The Lab-Leak Debate Just Got Even Messier

35 points by johncena33 5y ago

yostrovs 5y ago
There should be a dashboard somewhere on HN, updated daily, that clearly indicates which topics are off limits and which opinions are off limits within the permitted topics of discussion.
- goalieca 5y ago
  We can call it the cancel board. It has an hourly scramble with time biases for Europe and North America.
  - yostrovs 5y ago
    It sounds like a joke, but for those not following online discussions of what's considered out of bounds opinions, it's hard to keep up.
- krapp 5y ago
  Complaining about the topicality of content on HN has always been off limits. If you don't like a particular thread, feel free to hide it and/or ignore it and move on.
  - bmn__ 5y ago
    You don't understand. GP talks about topics being censored (HN euphemism: "flagged by users"), he wants to see more, not less.
rwbhn 5y ago
"Vaughn Cooper, who studies pathogen evolution at the University of Pittsburgh, told us that he hasn’t changed his view that SARS-CoV-2 is extremely unlikely to have been created in a lab—but the lack of candor is “really concerning.” The DARPA proposal doesn’t “mean that much for our understanding of the origins of the pandemic,” he said, “but it does diminish the trustworthiness of the research groups involved.”" This. Documents will get out. Why hide them and feed the conspiracy theorists?
kcplate 5y ago
I knew even before I opened this thread up in my rss reader that it would be flagged (I don’t see a flagged indicator until I open it). The irony is that seeing the almost immediate flagging of lab leak content on here makes me lean even further into the plausibility of the lab leak theory. Simply because of the active censorship campaigns against it. There is nothing in this article that even rises to the level of misinformation. Flagging is an overt attempt to simply hide the eyeballs from it.
- grappler 5y ago
  My impression of flagging on hacker news is that it's done for stories that have too many parts "political arguments" and not enough parts "hacker news". I never thought it was about whether the story was considered misinformation. Also, there's a more direct story here, which isn't marked as flagged https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28644428 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28644428
codyswann 5y ago
I don't know about everyone else, but where I live (Florida), the same people who preach that COVID was an intentional, weaponized lab leak also argue that it's a hoax, less dangerous to the common flu. It makes my head hurt.

35 points by johncena33 5y ago

There should be a dashboard somewhere on HN, updated daily, that clearly indicates which topics are off limits and which opinions are off limits within the permitted topics of discussion.

goalieca 5y ago
We can call it the cancel board. It has an hourly scramble with time biases for Europe and North America.
- yostrovs 5y ago
  It sounds like a joke, but for those not following online discussions of what's considered out of bounds opinions, it's hard to keep up.
krapp 5y ago
Complaining about the topicality of content on HN has always been off limits. If you don't like a particular thread, feel free to hide it and/or ignore it and move on.
- bmn__ 5y ago
  You don't understand. GP talks about topics being censored (HN euphemism: "flagged by users"), he wants to see more, not less.

rwbhn 5y ago

"Vaughn Cooper, who studies pathogen evolution at the University of Pittsburgh, told us that he hasn’t changed his view that SARS-CoV-2 is extremely unlikely to have been created in a lab—but the lack of candor is “really concerning.” The DARPA proposal doesn’t “mean that much for our understanding of the origins of the pandemic,” he said, “but it does diminish the trustworthiness of the research groups involved.”" This. Documents will get out. Why hide them and feed the conspiracy theorists?

kcplate 5y ago

I knew even before I opened this thread up in my rss reader that it would be flagged (I don’t see a flagged indicator until I open it). The irony is that seeing the almost immediate flagging of lab leak content on here makes me lean even further into the plausibility of the lab leak theory. Simply because of the active censorship campaigns against it. There is nothing in this article that even rises to the level of misinformation. Flagging is an overt attempt to simply hide the eyeballs from it.

grappler 5y ago
My impression of flagging on hacker news is that it's done for stories that have too many parts "political arguments" and not enough parts "hacker news". I never thought it was about whether the story was considered misinformation. Also, there's a more direct story here, which isn't marked as flagged https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28644428 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28644428

codyswann 5y ago

I don't know about everyone else, but where I live (Florida), the same people who preach that COVID was an intentional, weaponized lab leak also argue that it's a hoax, less dangerous to the common flu. It makes my head hurt.