3 ms·

Jeffrey Sachs is pretty convinced Covid-19 came out of a biotech lab

8 points by gmac 4y ago

jeffrallen 4y ago
I am too, but so what? > powerful actors were preventing a real investigation from taking place This is unfortunately the world as it is, and has been for decades. All we can do is live in it the best we can. These powerful actors have multitudes of reasons to act the way they do, and some of them are even in the public interest. Power corrupts, but power is necessary in a distributed, open society. It's a different power and differently accountable than the power on a totalitarian state. I'd rather live under "open maybe evil, maybe sometimes accountable power" over "total power" any day.
- cranberried 4y ago
  Your statement on preferring "open maybe evil, maybe sometimes accountable power" holds true for me too. However it is not black-or-white; The powerful could vary in their transparancy. Some things must always be convert, e.g. military operations/strageies, others such as the consequences both good and bad of gain-of-function (GoF) research should be open to the public imo. Powerful actors may believe that the public is not capable of having a measured discussion about gain-of-function research. Seeing Germany close their nuclear power plants does point in that direction. However I am not going to trust some scientist who's career depends on GoF to be impartial either. Any discussion about GoF should realisticly include the cost of covid-19, saying otherwise I would consider effectively lying -- as long as they cannot find a convincing alternative source. Even then GoF research might still be worth it. I have no idea how many lives it has saved. The damage to the trust in public institutions from lying about this continues to be a massive cost on society.
vegai_ 4y ago
Clarification: He thinks it came out of a US biotech lab. Given who was the US president at the time of the outbreak... I don't exactly believe it, but I wouldn't be terribly surprised if it turned out that Trump outright ordered it as a covert mass destruction attack which then got out of hand. He would be just the kind of "man" who would ignore all the warnings and just do it. Not that we'd ever find out if that happened.
- cranberried 4y ago
  He is not saying it came out of a US lab. He is saying it came from US lab biotechnology. I.e. from US tech and funding for gain-of-function research; The suspected culprit was banned in the US in 2014: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-017-08837-7 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-017-08837-7 It seems absurd to say it came from a US lab when the original outbreak was in Wuhan. The virology lab there was supported with US funding and research. https://theintercept.com/2021/09/06/new-details-emerge-about-coronavirus-research-at-chinese-lab/ https://theintercept.com/2021/09/06/new-details-emerge-about...
  - vegai_ 4y ago
    >He is not saying it came out of a US lab. He is saying it came from US lab biotechnology. I.e. from US tech and funding for gain-of-function research; The suspected culprit was banned in the US in 2014: Ah, thanks for the correction. >It seems absurd to say it came from a US lab when the original outbreak was in Wuhan. The virology lab there was supported with US funding and research. I accepted that this is conspiracy theory level stuff... but... if one were to make a covert biological weapons attack on another country, what better place is there to plant it but right next to their own biotech labs? This doesn't survive contact with Occam's Razor at all, but I don't know, might be a plot point in a mediocre thriller.
    - cranberried 4y ago
      I perosonally believe any US research there was purely alturistic in intention - actually finding vaccines and cures to bat coronaviruses. Scientific hubris is a simple and "satisfying" explanation for the leak.
- raxxorraxor 4y ago
  That is completely off base and I think Mr. Sachs has a serious delusion and obsession with Trump. If artificially created we should look at Moderna, since they allegedly had a patent on the sequence that was found in the Coronavirus.
stevenalowe 4y ago
“ Through his investigations as the head of the COVID-19 commission, Prof. Sachs has come to the conclusion that there is extremely dangerous biotechnology research being kept from public view, that the United States was supporting much of this research, and that it is very possible that SARS-CoV-2, the virus responsible for COVID-19, originated through dangerous virus research gone awry”

8 points by gmac 4y ago

I am too, but so what? > powerful actors were preventing a real investigation from taking place This is unfortunately the world as it is, and has been for decades. All we can do is live in it the best we can. These powerful actors have multitudes of reasons to act the way they do, and some of them are even in the public interest. Power corrupts, but power is necessary in a distributed, open society. It's a different power and differently accountable than the power on a totalitarian state. I'd rather live under "open maybe evil, maybe sometimes accountable power" over "total power" any day.

cranberried 4y ago
Your statement on preferring "open maybe evil, maybe sometimes accountable power" holds true for me too. However it is not black-or-white; The powerful could vary in their transparancy. Some things must always be convert, e.g. military operations/strageies, others such as the consequences both good and bad of gain-of-function (GoF) research should be open to the public imo. Powerful actors may believe that the public is not capable of having a measured discussion about gain-of-function research. Seeing Germany close their nuclear power plants does point in that direction. However I am not going to trust some scientist who's career depends on GoF to be impartial either. Any discussion about GoF should realisticly include the cost of covid-19, saying otherwise I would consider effectively lying -- as long as they cannot find a convincing alternative source. Even then GoF research might still be worth it. I have no idea how many lives it has saved. The damage to the trust in public institutions from lying about this continues to be a massive cost on society.

vegai_ 4y ago

Clarification: He thinks it came out of a US biotech lab. Given who was the US president at the time of the outbreak... I don't exactly believe it, but I wouldn't be terribly surprised if it turned out that Trump outright ordered it as a covert mass destruction attack which then got out of hand. He would be just the kind of "man" who would ignore all the warnings and just do it. Not that we'd ever find out if that happened.

cranberried 4y ago
He is not saying it came out of a US lab. He is saying it came from US lab biotechnology. I.e. from US tech and funding for gain-of-function research; The suspected culprit was banned in the US in 2014: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-017-08837-7 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-017-08837-7 It seems absurd to say it came from a US lab when the original outbreak was in Wuhan. The virology lab there was supported with US funding and research. https://theintercept.com/2021/09/06/new-details-emerge-about-coronavirus-research-at-chinese-lab/ https://theintercept.com/2021/09/06/new-details-emerge-about...
- vegai_ 4y ago
  >He is not saying it came out of a US lab. He is saying it came from US lab biotechnology. I.e. from US tech and funding for gain-of-function research; The suspected culprit was banned in the US in 2014: Ah, thanks for the correction. >It seems absurd to say it came from a US lab when the original outbreak was in Wuhan. The virology lab there was supported with US funding and research. I accepted that this is conspiracy theory level stuff... but... if one were to make a covert biological weapons attack on another country, what better place is there to plant it but right next to their own biotech labs? This doesn't survive contact with Occam's Razor at all, but I don't know, might be a plot point in a mediocre thriller.
  - cranberried 4y ago
    I perosonally believe any US research there was purely alturistic in intention - actually finding vaccines and cures to bat coronaviruses. Scientific hubris is a simple and "satisfying" explanation for the leak.
raxxorraxor 4y ago
That is completely off base and I think Mr. Sachs has a serious delusion and obsession with Trump. If artificially created we should look at Moderna, since they allegedly had a patent on the sequence that was found in the Coronavirus.

stevenalowe 4y ago

“ Through his investigations as the head of the COVID-19 commission, Prof. Sachs has come to the conclusion that there is extremely dangerous biotechnology research being kept from public view, that the United States was supporting much of this research, and that it is very possible that SARS-CoV-2, the virus responsible for COVID-19, originated through dangerous virus research gone awry”