4 ms·

That’s not my recollection. Back in 2020, there were many intelligent and measured discussions about the lab-leak theory on Hacker News. I came away with the co

That’s not my recollection. Back in 2020, there were many intelligent and measured discussions about the lab-leak theory on Hacker News. I came away with the conclusion that a lab leak was certainly possible – but that there just wasn’t any strong evidence to indicate that it was a more likely source of SARS‑CoV‑2 than naturally-occurring zoonosis. Discussions on Hacker News also convinced me to start wearing a face covering in late March 2020 – even though the mainstream orthodoxy was focussed solely on hand-washing and surface transmission. At the time,health officials and other public figures were advising that wearing a face-mask at best provided no benefit and at worse increased the chance of infection (by touching one’s face while donning or adjusting the mask). Disclaimer: I don’t live in America or read anything on “social media” (other than the odd niche old-school forum).

revelio 3y ago
You're both right. There were some discussions that got through, but also a lot of suppression, e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23660413 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23660413 in which the top comment is asking why the story is flagged/dead. Also if we search during the first four months of 2020 for comments mentioning "Wuhan lab" the first comment literally says: > I'm actually going to flag this, since basically it seems to be working quite hard to pretend that the US was funding Gain of Function research in Wuhan, when that doesn't seem to actually be the case. and sure enough the story is flagged: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22943411 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22943411 Fail! We now know that the US was indeed funding GoF research in Wuhan. We can even read the grant proposals for the work.
- Anthony-G 3y ago
  Thanks for providing those links. It’s interesting to back in time to previous discussions (three years already seems like a life-time ago). I guess it’s a form of selection bias: I don’t recall the flagging of those articles/discussions because I never read them in the first place. I usually check https://hckrnews.com/ https://hckrnews.com/ once a day or so (depending on available time) and scan the “top 50%” for topics that might interest me – or have a lot of upvotes and/or comments.
  - revelio 3y ago
    That's exactly why people flag such stories, to prevent you learning things that might make you doubt the greatness of the prevailing ideology. Now, the really important thing to ponder is: what's currently being flagged to ensure I don't see it?
    - Anthony-G 3y ago
      > what's currently being flagged to ensure I don't see it? For one, this article making the case that Elon Musk is a proto-fascist has been flagged while the other submissions from the same substack are now “dead”: https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=nickcohen.substack.com https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=nickcohen.substack.co... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ (I enabled “show dead” a while ago just to see what I might be missing).

revelio 3y ago

You're both right. There were some discussions that got through, but also a lot of suppression, e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23660413 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23660413 in which the top comment is asking why the story is flagged/dead. Also if we search during the first four months of 2020 for comments mentioning "Wuhan lab" the first comment literally says: > I'm actually going to flag this, since basically it seems to be working quite hard to pretend that the US was funding Gain of Function research in Wuhan, when that doesn't seem to actually be the case. and sure enough the story is flagged: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22943411 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22943411 Fail! We now know that the US was indeed funding GoF research in Wuhan. We can even read the grant proposals for the work.

Anthony-G 3y ago
Thanks for providing those links. It’s interesting to back in time to previous discussions (three years already seems like a life-time ago). I guess it’s a form of selection bias: I don’t recall the flagging of those articles/discussions because I never read them in the first place. I usually check https://hckrnews.com/ https://hckrnews.com/ once a day or so (depending on available time) and scan the “top 50%” for topics that might interest me – or have a lot of upvotes and/or comments.
- revelio 3y ago
  That's exactly why people flag such stories, to prevent you learning things that might make you doubt the greatness of the prevailing ideology. Now, the really important thing to ponder is: what's currently being flagged to ensure I don't see it?
  - Anthony-G 3y ago
    > what's currently being flagged to ensure I don't see it? For one, this article making the case that Elon Musk is a proto-fascist has been flagged while the other submissions from the same substack are now “dead”: https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=nickcohen.substack.com https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=nickcohen.substack.co... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ (I enabled “show dead” a while ago just to see what I might be missing).