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Nothing seems certain at this point, but, let’s say the pandemic was actually caused by a lab leak. That’ll mean the world was brought to an economic standstill

Nothing seems certain at this point, but, let’s say the pandemic was actually caused by a lab leak. That’ll mean the world was brought to an economic standstill and millions of people died because of the errors and carelessness of some people…will there be consequences? What will be the assurance that such deadly mistake won’t occur again? If it was actually a lab leak, then it’ll definitely rank as the most costly and fatal mistake in the 21st Century. I can hardly wrap my head around it; human error causing damage on a mythical scale. Scary stuff.

psychlops 4y ago
Based on what you suggest, there is every incentive for things to remain uncertain permanently. Any smoking gun will be hidden away and discredited.
tkiolp4 4y ago
Let me play the game. If covid was caused by a lab leak, I think the right question to ask is: who benefits (did benefit) by the leak? And remember that number of dead people is something that governments don’t care about (i.e., governments easily go into war every now and then: it’s clear they couldn’t care less about civilians).
- imnotreallynew 4y ago
  > who benefits (did benefit) by the leak The worlds billionaires, combined, made more money in 2020-2022 than the previous 20 years combined. When there’s that much money involved, one must be a little suspicious.
- gjsman-1000 4y ago
  Another question you should ask: Who insisted it almost certainly wasn’t a lab leak, and who possibly had motives to deny it?
  - bee_rider 4y ago
    I dunno actually, who has actually been arguing that it couldn’t be a lab leak? I’ve generally seen people arguing the position: there’s no evidence for it having been a leak. This second hand story about a low-confidence classified report doesn’t push me much in either direction. It is possible, though. What do we do if it leaked? Dangerous thing are handled in labs. We should double check the handling protocols based on the unknown possibility that it was a leak, just to be safe. I bet there are more dangerous things than COVID in all sorts of labs.
- dmix 4y ago
  Both the FBI and Energy Dept are saying it was an unintended leak.
- aquarium87 4y ago
  It's simpler. Tools x labs x pathogens and funding x risk of escape = risk. ALL categories are going up. Ergo, risk is going up exponentially. No need for conspiracies. Just a proper parsing of the words "lab leak"
  - VagueMag 4y ago
    How do you embrace "lab leak" without also embracing a conspiracy to conceal the virus's origins after it escaped into the wild? Or has the term "conspiracy" just been fully redefined to mean "a thing that can't happen" at this point?
- lmiao 4y ago
  Even if we accepted the idea that "governments don't care", it's still made up of people that act out of self interest. How would they protect themselves and their loved ones from the same fate that they so callously cast upon the rest of us? I think Hanlon's Razor applies: "Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by neglect"
  - VagueMag 4y ago
    > How would they protect themselves and their loved ones from the same fate that they so callously cast upon the rest of us? A good question, but worth noting that they do seem to have in fact done so. I struggle to think of a single-higher up of any significance who was felled by SARS-CoV-2, despite the fact so many of them are octogenarians. Colin Powell maybe, but his blood cancer was clearly the more proximate cause of his death. A few in Iran, but, well.
roarcher 4y ago
> it’ll definitely rank as the most costly and fatal mistake in the 21st Century Ah, but the century is still young.
- aquarium87 4y ago
  Very astute! The First! Lab escape happened in 2021. CRISPr was invented in 2000-2005ish. CRISPr cas9 around 2014. BSL-4 labs have gone from 40 to 60ish in the last 25 years with another coming online almost every year. BSL-3 labs are virtually uncountable and are in the 13000ish range in the USA alone (sorry, can't Remeber source) Put it all together, and only an idiot STARTS with natural origin. Also, there will be many many more.
  - giardini 4y ago
    So the only solution is to build my own BSL-4 lab and live inside it. We now have a "BSL-4 lab gap": "We must not allow a mine-shaft gap!: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybSzoLCCX-Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybSzoLCCX-Y [I miss Peter Sellers!]
credit_guy 4y ago
The only reason to not say it was a lab leak is to avoid embarrassing those responsible, China first and America second. But little by little people will start accepting that. What should the consequences be? At the very least a tightening of the controls around labs doing bio research. Of course, this amounts to nothing if someone is allowed to outsource research to labs in countries that don't follow the stringent procedures. So, anybody who does such outsourcing shares the full responsibility if things go wrong. What about Covid itself? China and America need to provide reparations. How much? Clearly in the trillions, maybe double digit trillions. How about those who obstructed the investigations? I think they should face justice, and it's not unreasonable to expect that some would go to prison for their obstructions. Both in China and America? For sure in America, where the arm of justice has a long reach. In China, if Xi wants a well functioning Party, yes, he should sent those who obstructed to jail, for if he tolerates that, his Party will go in decay.
- survirtual 4y ago
  This is what diplomacy is for. We need treaties tightly regulating all biolabs around the world. Any countries not agreeing with the treaties should be blacklisted from entering entering or exiting countries that are part of the treaty, perhaps even restricting trade as well. The decontamination protocols and entry / exit procedures for every biolab should be unified, worldwide, with strict and regular third-party circular auditing around the world. This allows labs to maintain their secrets; only the perimeter / filter are subject to this. That would be the sensible course of action as a matter of Earth defense.
- frankharv 4y ago
  [flagged]
- cld8483 4y ago
  > What should the consequences be? The abolition of modern virology, roll the clock back on them a hundred years. Allow the development of vaccines for extant viruses, but completely ban all Dr Frankenstein activities with viruses. No more "invent a virus in a lab to beat nature to the punch" horse shit, with is flagrant weapons development under the cover of civilian research. As soon as the virus started circulating through the population, did these researchers share their knowledge and help develop a vaccine? No, they buried their involvement and covered up everything they knew. They were no help at all, and never intended to be. Burn their books which describe how it is done, and silence the people who already understand it with the threat of criminal imprisonment for sharing their knowledge. Encourage major religions to amend their rules with strong taboos against this research, and institute harsh economic sanctions against any nation that doesn't participate in this ban. Does this seem extreme? It shouldn't. This field of research has the power to kill billions and no demonstrable upside. It is even more dangerous than nuclear weapons; because at least a technician at a nuclear weapon production facility would be hard pressed to release his work on the global public of his own initiative. Smuggling a virus out of any lab is trivial, all it takes is a single madman's willingness to sacrifice himself as patient zero. We're the villagers in an "evil wizard" scenario. The wizards have been meddling in dangerous forces beyond the understanding of common people, and it's getting people killed. The solution is to storm the wizard's tower and throw the wizards off the top of it.
lsdflkwe 4y ago
[dead]
vkou 4y ago
> That’ll mean the world was brought to an economic standstill and millions of people died because of the errors and carelessness of some people…will there be consequences? What will be the assurance that such deadly mistake won’t occur again? If history is any indicator, no, and there isn't any. But if you're interested in establishing precedent for reckless behaviour damaging the world economy, and the health of millions of people, I understand that would open the developed world to a mountain of liability in the arena of climate change.
BurningFrog 4y ago
I'd still say the Iraq War was most costly and fatal mistake in the 21st Century. Hard to compare, admittedly.
- dalemyers 4y ago
  Based on what exactly? According to Wikipedia, the Iraq War produced a total death count of 25,071 and a total wounded count of 117,961. Also according to Wikipedia COVID-19 has produced a death count of 6,868,964 and an infection count of 674,809,997. I'm all for complaining about US tactics, but it's 100% incorrect to try and claim that the Iraq War was "worse" than COVID-19.
  - r00fus 4y ago
    Iraq only produced a death count of 25k? Do Iraqis not count? Also almost all of the violence post war should be somewhat attributable to the invasion; we broke the basket to secure oil rights (and some argue to also keep the petrodollar as the world reserve currency) The cost was way more than the cherry-picked stats you present
  - glofish 4y ago
    When it comes to the Iraq War, according to the Wikipedia, and let me quote it > "An estimated 151,000 to 1,033,000 Iraqis died in the first three to five years of conflict." Then that famous video of "Madeleine Albright Saying Iraqi Kids' Deaths 'Worth It'" talked about half million children. https://www.newsweek.com/watch-madeleine-albright-saying-iraqi-kids-deaths-worth-it-resurfaces-1691193 https://www.newsweek.com/watch-madeleine-albright-saying-ira...
  - BurningFrog 4y ago
    You seem to assume no Iraqis were killed, which is pretty odd. In "costly and fatal", I also include that the Iraq War arguably marks the end of the US as the world's only superpower. Both in terms of cost and moral status, it was a huge abdication of status.
- rngname22 4y ago
alexashka 4y ago
> What will be the assurance that such deadly mistake won’t occur again? Whatever assurances you want will be a fantasy. There has never been accountability among the elite class and there won't be, because whatever mistakes they make only affect everybody else. It's like a video game - imagine the game characters you 'mistreat' asking what consequences you will be facing. You'd cackle at game designers having thought of such an amusing feature and proceed to go right back to doing as you please. It's about the same in real life.
lgvln 4y ago
What’s even more difficult to wrap your head around should be the poor response to the pandemic; the lack of regard for the vulnerable (citizens) and the poor (nations).
fallingfrog 4y ago
The most costly and fatal mistake so far.
undersuit 4y ago
>millions of people died because of the errors and carelessness of some people… Which people? Should a lab tech in China receive consequences because religious people in America believed in the promises of their pastor and went to church and were sickened?

psychlops 4y ago

Based on what you suggest, there is every incentive for things to remain uncertain permanently. Any smoking gun will be hidden away and discredited.

tkiolp4 4y ago

Let me play the game. If covid was caused by a lab leak, I think the right question to ask is: who benefits (did benefit) by the leak? And remember that number of dead people is something that governments don’t care about (i.e., governments easily go into war every now and then: it’s clear they couldn’t care less about civilians).

imnotreallynew 4y ago
> who benefits (did benefit) by the leak The worlds billionaires, combined, made more money in 2020-2022 than the previous 20 years combined. When there’s that much money involved, one must be a little suspicious.
gjsman-1000 4y ago
Another question you should ask: Who insisted it almost certainly wasn’t a lab leak, and who possibly had motives to deny it?
- bee_rider 4y ago
  I dunno actually, who has actually been arguing that it couldn’t be a lab leak? I’ve generally seen people arguing the position: there’s no evidence for it having been a leak. This second hand story about a low-confidence classified report doesn’t push me much in either direction. It is possible, though. What do we do if it leaked? Dangerous thing are handled in labs. We should double check the handling protocols based on the unknown possibility that it was a leak, just to be safe. I bet there are more dangerous things than COVID in all sorts of labs.
dmix 4y ago
Both the FBI and Energy Dept are saying it was an unintended leak.
aquarium87 4y ago
It's simpler. Tools x labs x pathogens and funding x risk of escape = risk. ALL categories are going up. Ergo, risk is going up exponentially. No need for conspiracies. Just a proper parsing of the words "lab leak"
- VagueMag 4y ago
  How do you embrace "lab leak" without also embracing a conspiracy to conceal the virus's origins after it escaped into the wild? Or has the term "conspiracy" just been fully redefined to mean "a thing that can't happen" at this point?
lmiao 4y ago
Even if we accepted the idea that "governments don't care", it's still made up of people that act out of self interest. How would they protect themselves and their loved ones from the same fate that they so callously cast upon the rest of us? I think Hanlon's Razor applies: "Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by neglect"
- VagueMag 4y ago
  > How would they protect themselves and their loved ones from the same fate that they so callously cast upon the rest of us? A good question, but worth noting that they do seem to have in fact done so. I struggle to think of a single-higher up of any significance who was felled by SARS-CoV-2, despite the fact so many of them are octogenarians. Colin Powell maybe, but his blood cancer was clearly the more proximate cause of his death. A few in Iran, but, well.

roarcher 4y ago

> it’ll definitely rank as the most costly and fatal mistake in the 21st Century Ah, but the century is still young.

aquarium87 4y ago
Very astute! The First! Lab escape happened in 2021. CRISPr was invented in 2000-2005ish. CRISPr cas9 around 2014. BSL-4 labs have gone from 40 to 60ish in the last 25 years with another coming online almost every year. BSL-3 labs are virtually uncountable and are in the 13000ish range in the USA alone (sorry, can't Remeber source) Put it all together, and only an idiot STARTS with natural origin. Also, there will be many many more.
- giardini 4y ago
  So the only solution is to build my own BSL-4 lab and live inside it. We now have a "BSL-4 lab gap": "We must not allow a mine-shaft gap!: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybSzoLCCX-Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybSzoLCCX-Y [I miss Peter Sellers!]

credit_guy 4y ago

The only reason to not say it was a lab leak is to avoid embarrassing those responsible, China first and America second. But little by little people will start accepting that. What should the consequences be? At the very least a tightening of the controls around labs doing bio research. Of course, this amounts to nothing if someone is allowed to outsource research to labs in countries that don't follow the stringent procedures. So, anybody who does such outsourcing shares the full responsibility if things go wrong. What about Covid itself? China and America need to provide reparations. How much? Clearly in the trillions, maybe double digit trillions. How about those who obstructed the investigations? I think they should face justice, and it's not unreasonable to expect that some would go to prison for their obstructions. Both in China and America? For sure in America, where the arm of justice has a long reach. In China, if Xi wants a well functioning Party, yes, he should sent those who obstructed to jail, for if he tolerates that, his Party will go in decay.

survirtual 4y ago
This is what diplomacy is for. We need treaties tightly regulating all biolabs around the world. Any countries not agreeing with the treaties should be blacklisted from entering entering or exiting countries that are part of the treaty, perhaps even restricting trade as well. The decontamination protocols and entry / exit procedures for every biolab should be unified, worldwide, with strict and regular third-party circular auditing around the world. This allows labs to maintain their secrets; only the perimeter / filter are subject to this. That would be the sensible course of action as a matter of Earth defense.
frankharv 4y ago
[flagged]
cld8483 4y ago
> What should the consequences be? The abolition of modern virology, roll the clock back on them a hundred years. Allow the development of vaccines for extant viruses, but completely ban all Dr Frankenstein activities with viruses. No more "invent a virus in a lab to beat nature to the punch" horse shit, with is flagrant weapons development under the cover of civilian research. As soon as the virus started circulating through the population, did these researchers share their knowledge and help develop a vaccine? No, they buried their involvement and covered up everything they knew. They were no help at all, and never intended to be. Burn their books which describe how it is done, and silence the people who already understand it with the threat of criminal imprisonment for sharing their knowledge. Encourage major religions to amend their rules with strong taboos against this research, and institute harsh economic sanctions against any nation that doesn't participate in this ban. Does this seem extreme? It shouldn't. This field of research has the power to kill billions and no demonstrable upside. It is even more dangerous than nuclear weapons; because at least a technician at a nuclear weapon production facility would be hard pressed to release his work on the global public of his own initiative. Smuggling a virus out of any lab is trivial, all it takes is a single madman's willingness to sacrifice himself as patient zero. We're the villagers in an "evil wizard" scenario. The wizards have been meddling in dangerous forces beyond the understanding of common people, and it's getting people killed. The solution is to storm the wizard's tower and throw the wizards off the top of it.

lsdflkwe 4y ago

[dead]

vkou 4y ago

> That’ll mean the world was brought to an economic standstill and millions of people died because of the errors and carelessness of some people…will there be consequences? What will be the assurance that such deadly mistake won’t occur again? If history is any indicator, no, and there isn't any. But if you're interested in establishing precedent for reckless behaviour damaging the world economy, and the health of millions of people, I understand that would open the developed world to a mountain of liability in the arena of climate change.

BurningFrog 4y ago

I'd still say the Iraq War was most costly and fatal mistake in the 21st Century. Hard to compare, admittedly.

dalemyers 4y ago
Based on what exactly? According to Wikipedia, the Iraq War produced a total death count of 25,071 and a total wounded count of 117,961. Also according to Wikipedia COVID-19 has produced a death count of 6,868,964 and an infection count of 674,809,997. I'm all for complaining about US tactics, but it's 100% incorrect to try and claim that the Iraq War was "worse" than COVID-19.
- r00fus 4y ago
  Iraq only produced a death count of 25k? Do Iraqis not count? Also almost all of the violence post war should be somewhat attributable to the invasion; we broke the basket to secure oil rights (and some argue to also keep the petrodollar as the world reserve currency) The cost was way more than the cherry-picked stats you present
- glofish 4y ago
  When it comes to the Iraq War, according to the Wikipedia, and let me quote it > "An estimated 151,000 to 1,033,000 Iraqis died in the first three to five years of conflict." Then that famous video of "Madeleine Albright Saying Iraqi Kids' Deaths 'Worth It'" talked about half million children. https://www.newsweek.com/watch-madeleine-albright-saying-iraqi-kids-deaths-worth-it-resurfaces-1691193 https://www.newsweek.com/watch-madeleine-albright-saying-ira...
- BurningFrog 4y ago
  You seem to assume no Iraqis were killed, which is pretty odd. In "costly and fatal", I also include that the Iraq War arguably marks the end of the US as the world's only superpower. Both in terms of cost and moral status, it was a huge abdication of status.
rngname22 4y ago

alexashka 4y ago

> What will be the assurance that such deadly mistake won’t occur again? Whatever assurances you want will be a fantasy. There has never been accountability among the elite class and there won't be, because whatever mistakes they make only affect everybody else. It's like a video game - imagine the game characters you 'mistreat' asking what consequences you will be facing. You'd cackle at game designers having thought of such an amusing feature and proceed to go right back to doing as you please. It's about the same in real life.

lgvln 4y ago

What’s even more difficult to wrap your head around should be the poor response to the pandemic; the lack of regard for the vulnerable (citizens) and the poor (nations).

fallingfrog 4y ago

The most costly and fatal mistake so far.

undersuit 4y ago

>millions of people died because of the errors and carelessness of some people… Which people? Should a lab tech in China receive consequences because religious people in America believed in the promises of their pastor and went to church and were sickened?