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Covid has killed something like 20 million people (taken from Wikipedia, estimated based on excess deaths). It's plausible that it came from a lab leak. How blo

Covid has killed something like 20 million people (taken from Wikipedia, estimated based on excess deaths). It's plausible that it came from a lab leak. How bloody fucking valuable do you have to think "making viruses more deadly and studying them" is for this to be worthwhile? Oh, actually you can calculate this, assuming you're utilitarian and think risking innocent lives is OK as long as it saves that many lives in expectation. If you think there's a 10% chance that Covid came from a lab leak, then the "making viruses more deadly" research that we've done so far ought to have saved more than 10% * 20 million = 2 million people. Did it? From what I've heard it's done fuck-all. I stand by my pissed off voice here. I think it's appropriate to be pissed off about risking millions of lives for hypothetical benefits. (To be clear, I'm only talking about research that studies deadly extinct viruses and deadly lab-created viruses. We should absolutely continue to study viruses in general.)

alchemist1e9 4y ago
It’s taken 2 years for logic to finally overcome political polarization and you can now express a logical opinion without being removed from the internet! Progress.
- president 4y ago
  I don't think it ever went away. You see people getting massively flagged or downvoted and called "Republican" for going against the grain everyday here on HN.
timbo1642 4y ago
wwweston 4y ago
What makes you think it's easy to distinguish "studying viruses in general" from "making viruses more deadly"? I'm happy to listen to expert virologists tell me about how they could advance the field without modifying/running viral code. Maybe they're a hell of a lot better at their job than most software types who rely on that. I suspect that's not how it works, though. And hey, let's do more arbitrary probability space exploration! The Lancet says almost 20 million people have probably been saved by covid vaccinations[0]. If toying with viral DNA|RNA helped produce 10% of the research contributing to that, and/or any additional margin supporting other interventions, then I guess it fits your people-saved profile. [0] https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(22)00320-6/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3...
- justinpombrio 4y ago
  You're conflating two different things: (i) toying with DNA/RNA, and (ii) gain of function research into human viruses. By all means, let's advance DNA/RNA and virus research. But can we carve out a little hole for purposefully making human viruses more deadly? Like: accidentally making human viruses more deadly, OK; purposefully messing with human viruses but not making them more deadly, OK; purposefully making mouse viruses more deadly OK; purposefully making human viruses more deadly NOT OK? How is this a big ask, when lab leaks are a thing? The Wuhan lab was doing gain of function research into Coronaviruses. Isn't that exactly what should have been helpful for Covid, if gain of function research is ever helpful for anything? But so far as I've heard, the Wuhan research didn't help with Covid at all. So kinda funny to use "saving lives from Covid" as an example of gain of function research being useful when (i) Covid itself may have been caused by gain of function research, and (ii) so far as I've heard gain of function research hasn't helped with vaccinations at all (please correct me if I'm wrong on this).
  - wwweston 4y ago
    > You're conflating two different things: (i) toying with DNA/RNA, and (ii) gain of function research into human viruses. If you've got some kind of model where these are in fact two entirely distinct things, that would explain some of the confusion in your position. "any selection process involving an alteration of genotypes and their resulting phenotypes is considered a type of Gain-of-Function (GoF) research, even if the U.S. policy is intended to apply to only a small subset of such work." https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK285579/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK285579/ Perhaps do some reflection on why you've latched onto the phrase "gain of function" and if you really understand what professionals mean by it. > Like: accidentally making human viruses more deadly, OK The prep for "accidentally more deadly" is going to be necessarily the same as "we're certain it will be more deadly," and in practice lots of viral research is probably "middling probability something deadly could happen." > But so far as I've heard, the Wuhan research didn't help with Covid at all. Where are you getting this high-level graph of coronavirus-related knowledge tagged by origin of research clearly showing a lack of contributions from Wuhan? > Covid itself may have been caused by gain of function research Or it might have simply been lab-escaped SARS coronavirus, making its way through an adaptation path. Or it may have been entirely caused by constant unceasing unimaginably well-resourced natural "lab" of the world that would inevitably have produced something like it at some point, and absolutely will inevitably produce something like it again.

alchemist1e9 4y ago

It’s taken 2 years for logic to finally overcome political polarization and you can now express a logical opinion without being removed from the internet! Progress.

president 4y ago
I don't think it ever went away. You see people getting massively flagged or downvoted and called "Republican" for going against the grain everyday here on HN.

timbo1642 4y ago

wwweston 4y ago

What makes you think it's easy to distinguish "studying viruses in general" from "making viruses more deadly"? I'm happy to listen to expert virologists tell me about how they could advance the field without modifying/running viral code. Maybe they're a hell of a lot better at their job than most software types who rely on that. I suspect that's not how it works, though. And hey, let's do more arbitrary probability space exploration! The Lancet says almost 20 million people have probably been saved by covid vaccinations[0]. If toying with viral DNA|RNA helped produce 10% of the research contributing to that, and/or any additional margin supporting other interventions, then I guess it fits your people-saved profile. [0] https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(22)00320-6/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3...

justinpombrio 4y ago
You're conflating two different things: (i) toying with DNA/RNA, and (ii) gain of function research into human viruses. By all means, let's advance DNA/RNA and virus research. But can we carve out a little hole for purposefully making human viruses more deadly? Like: accidentally making human viruses more deadly, OK; purposefully messing with human viruses but not making them more deadly, OK; purposefully making mouse viruses more deadly OK; purposefully making human viruses more deadly NOT OK? How is this a big ask, when lab leaks are a thing? The Wuhan lab was doing gain of function research into Coronaviruses. Isn't that exactly what should have been helpful for Covid, if gain of function research is ever helpful for anything? But so far as I've heard, the Wuhan research didn't help with Covid at all. So kinda funny to use "saving lives from Covid" as an example of gain of function research being useful when (i) Covid itself may have been caused by gain of function research, and (ii) so far as I've heard gain of function research hasn't helped with vaccinations at all (please correct me if I'm wrong on this).
- wwweston 4y ago
  > You're conflating two different things: (i) toying with DNA/RNA, and (ii) gain of function research into human viruses. If you've got some kind of model where these are in fact two entirely distinct things, that would explain some of the confusion in your position. "any selection process involving an alteration of genotypes and their resulting phenotypes is considered a type of Gain-of-Function (GoF) research, even if the U.S. policy is intended to apply to only a small subset of such work." https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK285579/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK285579/ Perhaps do some reflection on why you've latched onto the phrase "gain of function" and if you really understand what professionals mean by it. > Like: accidentally making human viruses more deadly, OK The prep for "accidentally more deadly" is going to be necessarily the same as "we're certain it will be more deadly," and in practice lots of viral research is probably "middling probability something deadly could happen." > But so far as I've heard, the Wuhan research didn't help with Covid at all. Where are you getting this high-level graph of coronavirus-related knowledge tagged by origin of research clearly showing a lack of contributions from Wuhan? > Covid itself may have been caused by gain of function research Or it might have simply been lab-escaped SARS coronavirus, making its way through an adaptation path. Or it may have been entirely caused by constant unceasing unimaginably well-resourced natural "lab" of the world that would inevitably have produced something like it at some point, and absolutely will inevitably produce something like it again.