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 va

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.