9 ms·

I love the appeal to the "independence" of science from politics, after what may have been the single most materially and socially destructive scientific disast

I love the appeal to the "independence" of science from politics, after what may have been the single most materially and socially destructive scientific disaster since the invention of the atom bomb. We'll just act like none of that ever happened and continue with impunity.

ethanbond 3y ago
Act like what didn’t happen?
- jeremyjh 3y ago
  They were trying to create SARS-Cov-2 to study methods of treating or managing it, and quite likely they succeeded only in creating it. We may never know for sure, but if you read the original grant proposal its clear they were trying to engineer a variant of bat coronviruses that could cross into humans.
  - ZoomerCretin 3y ago
    >they were trying to engineer a variant of bat coronviruses that could cross into humans. Right, because bat coronaviruses very famously have never crossed into humans. Google "SARS-CoV-1".
    - runsWphotons 3y ago
      SARS cov 1 never caused a global pandemic. There were less than 10,000 cases and less than 1000 deaths. It wasn't specifically engineered to easily bind to human receptors, so this probably limited its reach.
      - ZoomerCretin 3y ago
        The reason it never caused a global pandemic had nothing to do with how transmissible it was, and everything to do with early detection and limited Draconian measures to contain it. SARS-CoV-2 was not only not engineered to bind to human receptors, it was not engineered at all and there is no credible person or source that makes this claim.
        jeremyjh 3y ago
        It was more transmissible and critically people were infectious for 2-3 days before experiencing symptoms, whereas that period was less than a day with SARS-Cov-1, that was a critical difference.
        ZoomerCretin 3y ago
        The period of 1 day of transmissibility before symptoms is the exact same with influenza virus. Influenza, very famously, was not transmissible enough to cause a pandemic at all, ever, and totally does not continuously circulate throughout the entire world to this day. Oh wait.
        runsWphotons 3y ago
        It doesn't sound like you really know what you are talking about, but are just here to try to flame war. Plenty of credible people in biomedical fields believe it is possible the virus was engineered and have published about why...it isnt really worth responding to that claim, you can just look it up. As for the other claim, yes the binding affinity to ACE2 is lower in original SARS and this probably limited it as well as other attributes of that virus: "Although the structure of the SARS-CoV-2 and SARS-CoV S proteins are similar, the binding affinity of the SARS-CoV-2 S protein to the ACE2 receptor is much higher as compared to SARS-CoV, which may account for its increased transmissibility."
        ifyoubuildit 3y ago
        > there is no credible person or source that makes this claim. The issue here is that for many people taking your position, making the claim makes you not credible. By definition, there can be no credible source making that claim, because to make that claim revokes your credibility.
- bobbylarrybobby 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - hotpotamus 3y ago
    Just goes to show that you'll never stop the march of science.
  - ethanbond 3y ago
    Fact? It's frankly discrediting to refer to the lab-leak hypothesis as such because GOF is definitely a huge risk vector that we should address even without high-confidence conclusions like "fact" regarding COVID's origin (which we don't currently and probably never will have anyway). GOF is dangerous and should be stopped regardless of its causal relationship to COVID in particular. I.e. if we were ever to find certain evidence COVID was not caused by GOF research, it would still be a very good idea to ban GOF research.
    - IIAOPSW 3y ago
      Lets also not forget the danger of pinning the blame rather than finding the facts. Its like watching people leave in the bottom of the third cause they're just that cocky about their pet theory winning
      - ethanbond 3y ago
        Yeah I've encountered people like, "hey well if we find out it was China then there should be consequences." Uhh like what? Are we going to invade a nuclear adversary who the whole world is 100% dependent on and with a population of 1.4 billion people to shut down their labs that maybe produced a virus? The best payback for millions of accidental deaths: a billion purposeful ones all over the globe and very possibly the destruction of human civilization itself.
        runsWphotons 3y ago
        It is possible the reorganisation of supply chains post covid will be punishment enough in the long run. But a government that would unleash a biological attack on the world (not claiming they actually did, idk more than anyone else) is an existential threat itself. So an international effort of sanctions and pressure for regime change even at great risk might make sense, yes. A war would probably not risk ending civilisation more than a government which releases deadly bioweapons.
sergiotapia 3y ago
Whatever happens, I don't think people will tolerate another lockdown ever again for at least two generations. I know in florida there could be literally airborn aids and people will still go out and live life, myself included. COVID lockdowns were a test of how much the government could push without backlash. I feel so badly for the kids that lost their last two years of high school for what?
- kfrzcode 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - sergiotapia 3y ago
    Oh yes, certain countries are just in the toilet psychologically speaking. Australia, Canada, etc. I was speaking mainly about the US. I know for a fact Florida will never tolerate those measures again.
  - diuddnbsb 3y ago
    hey so im really curious do you actually believe Trudeau is a communist? i was speaking to a Canadian guy I work with and he seems to actually believe that
    - transcriptase 3y ago
      Aspiring authoritarian is a more apt description. The country has very real problems (housing, inflation, immigration, money laundering, health care) that get little attention, while his government focuses on regulating the internet, protecting friendly oligopolies that dominate our economy, and banning firearms while limiting debate and lying to the public every step of the way. And I say this as someone who voted for him, or rather voted for who he appeared to be early on.
- pupppet 3y ago
  For what? I dunno, to prevent overflowing hospitals from having to turn people away because everyone who ‘did their research’ conveniently start trusting doctors again when they get a bad case.
lvass 3y ago
[flagged]
- ZoomerCretin 3y ago
  There is no evidence that the pandemic was a man-made disaster.
  - qclibre22 3y ago
    High levels of concern in the Chinese government in Fall of 2019 about goings on at WIV are certainly interesting, though circumstantial evidence. On the flip side, there's is little evidence that it wasn't a man-made disaster.
  - newZWhoDis 3y ago
    These waters are incredibly muddy. - the virus could have been 100% natural, in containment at a lab that was accidentally mishandled and then exposed to a huge population center. This would be a man-made disaster - the virus could have been man-altered, as in naturally evolved via man-directed evolution and the escape could have happened. - the virus could have been edited, “artificial” in this sense, then escaped - the virus could have been edited and intentionally released - the virus could have been natural and intentionally released - the actor is not monolithic, a rogue employee could have maliciously acted to expose people while the broader entity covered it up to save face There are a lot of variables here, but all we know for sure is that the Chinese government has worked hard to conceal the truth and that ground zero is suspiciously close to a research lab studying these specific virus types. We also know that, unlike most other pandemics at this point, no preexisting natural reservoir of CV19 has been found. Make of that what you will.
  - TrainedMonkey 3y ago
    What do you define as evidence and man-made here? From what I understand there was a large amount of circumstantial evidence (next to a lab researching similar viruses with a history of poor sample handling) as well as enormous amount of pressure on scientific community to say whatever avoids escalating geo political tensions...
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
nathanaldensr 3y ago
The cognitive dissonance is that extreme in all those who blindly trusted the words of evil politicians and pharma companies.

ethanbond 3y ago

Act like what didn’t happen?

jeremyjh 3y ago
They were trying to create SARS-Cov-2 to study methods of treating or managing it, and quite likely they succeeded only in creating it. We may never know for sure, but if you read the original grant proposal its clear they were trying to engineer a variant of bat coronviruses that could cross into humans.
- ZoomerCretin 3y ago
  >they were trying to engineer a variant of bat coronviruses that could cross into humans. Right, because bat coronaviruses very famously have never crossed into humans. Google "SARS-CoV-1".
  - runsWphotons 3y ago
    SARS cov 1 never caused a global pandemic. There were less than 10,000 cases and less than 1000 deaths. It wasn't specifically engineered to easily bind to human receptors, so this probably limited its reach.
    - ZoomerCretin 3y ago
      The reason it never caused a global pandemic had nothing to do with how transmissible it was, and everything to do with early detection and limited Draconian measures to contain it. SARS-CoV-2 was not only not engineered to bind to human receptors, it was not engineered at all and there is no credible person or source that makes this claim.
      - jeremyjh 3y ago
        It was more transmissible and critically people were infectious for 2-3 days before experiencing symptoms, whereas that period was less than a day with SARS-Cov-1, that was a critical difference.
        ZoomerCretin 3y ago
        The period of 1 day of transmissibility before symptoms is the exact same with influenza virus. Influenza, very famously, was not transmissible enough to cause a pandemic at all, ever, and totally does not continuously circulate throughout the entire world to this day. Oh wait.
      - runsWphotons 3y ago
        It doesn't sound like you really know what you are talking about, but are just here to try to flame war. Plenty of credible people in biomedical fields believe it is possible the virus was engineered and have published about why...it isnt really worth responding to that claim, you can just look it up. As for the other claim, yes the binding affinity to ACE2 is lower in original SARS and this probably limited it as well as other attributes of that virus: "Although the structure of the SARS-CoV-2 and SARS-CoV S proteins are similar, the binding affinity of the SARS-CoV-2 S protein to the ACE2 receptor is much higher as compared to SARS-CoV, which may account for its increased transmissibility."
      - ifyoubuildit 3y ago
        > there is no credible person or source that makes this claim. The issue here is that for many people taking your position, making the claim makes you not credible. By definition, there can be no credible source making that claim, because to make that claim revokes your credibility.
bobbylarrybobby 3y ago
[flagged]
- hotpotamus 3y ago
  Just goes to show that you'll never stop the march of science.
- ethanbond 3y ago
  Fact? It's frankly discrediting to refer to the lab-leak hypothesis as such because GOF is definitely a huge risk vector that we should address even without high-confidence conclusions like "fact" regarding COVID's origin (which we don't currently and probably never will have anyway). GOF is dangerous and should be stopped regardless of its causal relationship to COVID in particular. I.e. if we were ever to find certain evidence COVID was not caused by GOF research, it would still be a very good idea to ban GOF research.
  - IIAOPSW 3y ago
    Lets also not forget the danger of pinning the blame rather than finding the facts. Its like watching people leave in the bottom of the third cause they're just that cocky about their pet theory winning
    - ethanbond 3y ago
      Yeah I've encountered people like, "hey well if we find out it was China then there should be consequences." Uhh like what? Are we going to invade a nuclear adversary who the whole world is 100% dependent on and with a population of 1.4 billion people to shut down their labs that maybe produced a virus? The best payback for millions of accidental deaths: a billion purposeful ones all over the globe and very possibly the destruction of human civilization itself.
      - runsWphotons 3y ago
        It is possible the reorganisation of supply chains post covid will be punishment enough in the long run. But a government that would unleash a biological attack on the world (not claiming they actually did, idk more than anyone else) is an existential threat itself. So an international effort of sanctions and pressure for regime change even at great risk might make sense, yes. A war would probably not risk ending civilisation more than a government which releases deadly bioweapons.

sergiotapia 3y ago

Whatever happens, I don't think people will tolerate another lockdown ever again for at least two generations. I know in florida there could be literally airborn aids and people will still go out and live life, myself included. COVID lockdowns were a test of how much the government could push without backlash. I feel so badly for the kids that lost their last two years of high school for what?

kfrzcode 3y ago
[flagged]
- sergiotapia 3y ago
  Oh yes, certain countries are just in the toilet psychologically speaking. Australia, Canada, etc. I was speaking mainly about the US. I know for a fact Florida will never tolerate those measures again.
- diuddnbsb 3y ago
  hey so im really curious do you actually believe Trudeau is a communist? i was speaking to a Canadian guy I work with and he seems to actually believe that
  - transcriptase 3y ago
    Aspiring authoritarian is a more apt description. The country has very real problems (housing, inflation, immigration, money laundering, health care) that get little attention, while his government focuses on regulating the internet, protecting friendly oligopolies that dominate our economy, and banning firearms while limiting debate and lying to the public every step of the way. And I say this as someone who voted for him, or rather voted for who he appeared to be early on.
pupppet 3y ago
For what? I dunno, to prevent overflowing hospitals from having to turn people away because everyone who ‘did their research’ conveniently start trusting doctors again when they get a bad case.

lvass 3y ago

[flagged]

ZoomerCretin 3y ago
There is no evidence that the pandemic was a man-made disaster.
- qclibre22 3y ago
  High levels of concern in the Chinese government in Fall of 2019 about goings on at WIV are certainly interesting, though circumstantial evidence. On the flip side, there's is little evidence that it wasn't a man-made disaster.
- newZWhoDis 3y ago
  These waters are incredibly muddy. - the virus could have been 100% natural, in containment at a lab that was accidentally mishandled and then exposed to a huge population center. This would be a man-made disaster - the virus could have been man-altered, as in naturally evolved via man-directed evolution and the escape could have happened. - the virus could have been edited, “artificial” in this sense, then escaped - the virus could have been edited and intentionally released - the virus could have been natural and intentionally released - the actor is not monolithic, a rogue employee could have maliciously acted to expose people while the broader entity covered it up to save face There are a lot of variables here, but all we know for sure is that the Chinese government has worked hard to conceal the truth and that ground zero is suspiciously close to a research lab studying these specific virus types. We also know that, unlike most other pandemics at this point, no preexisting natural reservoir of CV19 has been found. Make of that what you will.
- TrainedMonkey 3y ago
  What do you define as evidence and man-made here? From what I understand there was a large amount of circumstantial evidence (next to a lab researching similar viruses with a history of poor sample handling) as well as enormous amount of pressure on scientific community to say whatever avoids escalating geo political tensions...

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

nathanaldensr 3y ago

The cognitive dissonance is that extreme in all those who blindly trusted the words of evil politicians and pharma companies.