3 ms·

Absolutely not. You're mixing up social media with reality. I can say with great confidence that I was at all times in this pandemic very accurately and well-in

Absolutely not. You're mixing up social media with reality. I can say with great confidence that I was at all times in this pandemic very accurately and well-informed. The lab theory has been openly discussed since May 2020, even earlier if you were caring about getting informed. Both lab theories were common and discussed everywhere. On social media and blogs the discussion is always distorted. Just don't use them as a source of information - although, to be fair, there were many good pointers to information on HN. Thanks to some hypochondriacs at HN, I was able to predict the development of the pandemic pretty precisely since January 2020. My work colleagues were impressed.

bigDinosaur 5y ago
While you're technically right that the criteria of 'some number of people where that number is > 1 considered it a possibility' was met I don't think you can so quickly dismiss how quickly the narrative changed once Biden actually announced the fact that the intelligence community was split 70-30 on this. If I had brought up the lab leak theory in my social groups I would have been labelled as QAnon (or charitably adjacent), so there was also definitely a real-world impact of social media, they're not nearly as separate as to say that mixing them up is actually a straight up error. In addition, there was a lot of initial pushback against any lab leak theory from virologists involved in gain of function research (regardless of whether gain of function engineering itself was the least plausible of the two leak theories). Part of the issue here is definitely what we mean when we say something was 'considered possible' - here I'm thinking quite explicitly of mainstream and majoritarian perspectives since that's what impacts most people who aren't able (or allowed) to meaningfully contribute to a debate on its technical merits.
- jonathanstrange 5y ago
  I don't deny that social media have a huge influence nowadays on public opinion. I totally agree with you about that. As for the initial pushback of the lab theory by virologists, I'm not sure what you're trying to argue for, though. Yes, most virologists rightly considered the lab theories way less likely from the start, and I also remember distinctly that some international scientists who had been to the Wuhan lab (or collaborated with researchers from the lab) defended their Chinese colleagues against unfounded allegations in early 2020. This assessment is confirmed by the recent studies mentioned in the above linked article. Even if you think they got it wrong and these studies are not as conclusive as they claim, I don't think you can fault virologists for voicing their informed opinions about what they overall consider most likely. It is in the nature of scientific work that you consider some hypotheses more likely to be true than others.
native_samples 5y ago
No, this is nonsense. Openly discussed where? In May 2020 virologists had written an open letter that stated in no uncertain terms that anyone claiming it could have come from a lab was spreading misinformation and conspiracy theories. This in turn caused Facebook to simply ban any discussion of the possibility entirely. No journal or newspaper would publish anything about this at all. Discussion was driven underground, which is why D.R.A.S.T.I.C. (who found most of the evidence for it) was made up of anonymous people. Chasing this story resulted in a New York Times reporter being fired; his investigation eventually had to be published on his own Medium blog and in some physics journal. The lab leak theory was utterly and completely squashed in the public realm by nothing more substantial than a bunch of virologists saying "it wasn't us". Trying to claim it was never suppressed is an Orwellian attempt to rewrite of history.

bigDinosaur 5y ago

While you're technically right that the criteria of 'some number of people where that number is > 1 considered it a possibility' was met I don't think you can so quickly dismiss how quickly the narrative changed once Biden actually announced the fact that the intelligence community was split 70-30 on this. If I had brought up the lab leak theory in my social groups I would have been labelled as QAnon (or charitably adjacent), so there was also definitely a real-world impact of social media, they're not nearly as separate as to say that mixing them up is actually a straight up error. In addition, there was a lot of initial pushback against any lab leak theory from virologists involved in gain of function research (regardless of whether gain of function engineering itself was the least plausible of the two leak theories). Part of the issue here is definitely what we mean when we say something was 'considered possible' - here I'm thinking quite explicitly of mainstream and majoritarian perspectives since that's what impacts most people who aren't able (or allowed) to meaningfully contribute to a debate on its technical merits.

jonathanstrange 5y ago
I don't deny that social media have a huge influence nowadays on public opinion. I totally agree with you about that. As for the initial pushback of the lab theory by virologists, I'm not sure what you're trying to argue for, though. Yes, most virologists rightly considered the lab theories way less likely from the start, and I also remember distinctly that some international scientists who had been to the Wuhan lab (or collaborated with researchers from the lab) defended their Chinese colleagues against unfounded allegations in early 2020. This assessment is confirmed by the recent studies mentioned in the above linked article. Even if you think they got it wrong and these studies are not as conclusive as they claim, I don't think you can fault virologists for voicing their informed opinions about what they overall consider most likely. It is in the nature of scientific work that you consider some hypotheses more likely to be true than others.

native_samples 5y ago

No, this is nonsense. Openly discussed where? In May 2020 virologists had written an open letter that stated in no uncertain terms that anyone claiming it could have come from a lab was spreading misinformation and conspiracy theories. This in turn caused Facebook to simply ban any discussion of the possibility entirely. No journal or newspaper would publish anything about this at all. Discussion was driven underground, which is why D.R.A.S.T.I.C. (who found most of the evidence for it) was made up of anonymous people. Chasing this story resulted in a New York Times reporter being fired; his investigation eventually had to be published on his own Medium blog and in some physics journal. The lab leak theory was utterly and completely squashed in the public realm by nothing more substantial than a bunch of virologists saying "it wasn't us". Trying to claim it was never suppressed is an Orwellian attempt to rewrite of history.