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There was a brief window at the beginning where it would have mattered to know the origin of the virus. Intervention at a wet market or in a wuhan lab could ha

There was a brief window at the beginning where it would have mattered to know the origin of the virus. Intervention at a wet market or in a wuhan lab could have happened. However, this theory was circulated and promoted to inspire hatred and distrust of many authority figures. Authorities who put significant resources forward to save lives. Even today we're still seeing thousands die from what may very well be a conspiracy theory. Both can be true: It originated in a lab, and the distrust that inspired is still killing many. It's dangerous to talk about it because it's still killing people. If we found out 100% the lab theory is false, you'd still have millions who want it to be true and who want to be enraged. You have millions who want to put themselves at risk. There are larger problems with society than this virus. That's what this conspiracy uncovered.

pfannkuchen 3y ago
Uh if it came from the lab we could still today have a shot at finding out what went wrong and then use that to improve safety at other labs worldwide. Assuming relevant records weren’t destroyed, anyway. If we can tell that they were destroyed, then USA et al should immediately stop supporting Chinese virology research in any way and pressure them to close the facilities via sanctions etc. In order to find out either of these things, we need an investigation. This all seems pretty straightforwardly true, and it totally drowns out any other second order concerns IMO.
- throwaway485 3y ago
  We're too far removed from the time and place to accurately determine what happened. Even if we had first-hand witnesses or documentation, the disinformation 'aura' around the whole thing makes it impossible to get the honest truth out. There's no chain of custody for evidence that you, yourself would trust. That's what I mean that at this point it doesn't matter what the reality was, the damage is still compounding from it. The absolute worst thing out of the last 3 years is the terrible messaging from authority figures to unify around public safety. To say 1 thing and impress upon everyone the legitimacy of the danger, without distracting from that message and leveling conspiracies. From an objective historical point of view we want to know what happened, but no one will be able to confirm the legitimacy of that now. It's still killing people. I directly vaccinated thousands in Los Angeles, I had several family members die, and 1 of my aunts - an RN - is getting reinstated after 2 years because she was fired for telling people "the jab will kill you". This was after she tried to convince my other aunt - another RN - that she should not get the vaccine while being in a risk category. Never have we seen disinformation used to harm so many. It's too dangerous to talk about, and if we found the truth no one could corroborate it or convince others of it. It is done, millions are dead. As a sidelong thought, I'm convinced in this information age that there is no truth. The truth is anything you want it to be if you can inspire a viral cult around a contrarian thought. I'm sorry if I just sound so jaded. I still remember assisting a woman who /wanted/ the vaccine while her husband screamed at us outside the tape line with officers nearby - screaming about how the government was trying to kill black Americans and citing events like Tuskegee. We earned that, and I still see the fear in his eyes when we swabbed her arm.
  - throwaway2037 3y ago
    I'm confused by your post. "the jab will kill you" Why did, an educated RN, believe this? And why was she trying to spread the idea? Is this RN also (generally) an anti-vaxxer? I'm not sure if it is the location of so many media outlets, but Los Angeles County (and Orange County) does seem to be the epicenter of anti-vaxxer culture in the US.
    - throwaway485 3y ago
      A presidential campaign lured in my educated aunt. It will never make sense.
      - throwaway2037 3y ago
        Thank you to share your story. I'm sorry that you lost family members.
  - stef25 3y ago
    > 1 of my aunts - an RN - is getting reinstated after 2 years because she was fired for telling people "the jab will kill you". This was after she tried to convince my other aunt - another RN - that she should not get the vaccine while being in a risk category It's crazy how many nurses don't trust science and news reports. Here in Belgium it was a big problem too. So many of them seem to be very cynical about and have serious distrust in big pharma while they themselves administer drugs that make (most) patients better. How they can just overlook that and keep their jobs is beyond me (no offense meant to your family)
    - pfannkuchen 3y ago
      They do get to see how the sausage is made. Are you sure that the reality around patient drug experiences is so positive? Is it more likely that such nurses are completely delusional, or that they have information or experience that you or I don’t? Keep in mind that everyone in medicine has a financial and career incentive which points towards aligning with and advocating for the system they are so invested in, so there would be a tendency for this point of view to be under expressed, if anything.
bruce511 3y ago
To me fair the folk dying today are tangential to the origin story. I'm not sure the origin story mattered a whole lot along the way, other than being a useful political distraction. I don't think it informed personal or medical behaviour. Of course discussions around vaccines, masks, social distancing etc did have a huge impact on personal behaviours, so those are far more impactful both than and in hindsight. The different strategies applied, the messaging, the outcomes, from New Zealand to Sweden and everything in-between will be disected by anthropogists for decades to come. The actual origin is a red-herring, it really doesn't matter. Viruses come from lots of places. We can't prevent that. What we can control is our response. As long as our first question is "who to blame" our outcomes will be similar, or worse, the next time around.
- inciampati 3y ago
  The actual origin is critical to understand, because it will happen again. We should be ready and able to watch out for where it might come from. Can you agree that, if it was generated by human activity that we can control, it'd be critical to know this and spread information about it widely?
  - bruce511 3y ago
    Absolutely. Perhaps it was grown in a lab, perhaps it was released, or perhaps it escaped. All happened before, all will happen again. Given that I don't think we -can- control human behavior, there are good labs, there are bad labs, etc, I think the ability to -respond- I paramount. While the origin is interesting in an historical way, lessons from the response will be more useful going forwards. We need to respond in a way that is independent of origin. That will ultimately lead to better outcomes, and incidentally reduce the risk of bio-terrorism. [Aside - if it was lab grown I don't think it was released on purpose (it wouldn't have been released locally). Which means some sort of failure in the safety protocols, which likely means human error. General discussion on that topic I useless except for a tiny sliver of people doing that work. I'm not sure discussing it on social media really achieves anything. ]
    - 3y ago
sacrosancty 3y ago
With some of these controversial topics, there always seem to be people who prefer disinformation over truth for the reason that the general public can't be trusted with the truth since it might motivate them to do bad things. The question then is, does it apply to yourself, or are you special? What knowledge motivates you to do bad things? Do you wish that was hidden from you so you weren't such a harmful person?
kubectl_h 3y ago
> There was a brief window at the beginning where it would have mattered to know the origin of the virus. This is such a fatalistic and cynical way of looking at the world. It mattered then -- as it matters now -- because we can act on information. Everything that happened after that "window" was not overdetermined.
deleted 3y ago
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bondarchuk 3y ago
>However, this theory was circulated and promoted to inspire hatred and distrust of many authority figures. Don't forget that some people just want to know the truth, and don't like being lied to. I don't think it's a good principle that whenever the truth is used as an excuse for bad things (insofar as "distrust of authority figures" is even a bad thing), it is justified to lie. >Even today we're still seeing thousands die from what may very well be a conspiracy theory. And how many past and future deaths can be attributed to the lack of trust caused by trying to cover up the truth? Many more, I'd wager. There's a crucial irony in trying to maintain trust by hiding the truth. Many people just can't or don't want to understand this.
VoodooJuJu 3y ago
>It's dangerous to talk A bear charging at you is dangerous. Talking is not.
AeiumNE 3y ago
It's very arrogant to take your understanding of the benefit of the truth, finding it lacking, and then assuming that this is same negligible benefit the truth will have for everyone else.

pfannkuchen 3y ago

Uh if it came from the lab we could still today have a shot at finding out what went wrong and then use that to improve safety at other labs worldwide. Assuming relevant records weren’t destroyed, anyway. If we can tell that they were destroyed, then USA et al should immediately stop supporting Chinese virology research in any way and pressure them to close the facilities via sanctions etc. In order to find out either of these things, we need an investigation. This all seems pretty straightforwardly true, and it totally drowns out any other second order concerns IMO.

throwaway485 3y ago
We're too far removed from the time and place to accurately determine what happened. Even if we had first-hand witnesses or documentation, the disinformation 'aura' around the whole thing makes it impossible to get the honest truth out. There's no chain of custody for evidence that you, yourself would trust. That's what I mean that at this point it doesn't matter what the reality was, the damage is still compounding from it. The absolute worst thing out of the last 3 years is the terrible messaging from authority figures to unify around public safety. To say 1 thing and impress upon everyone the legitimacy of the danger, without distracting from that message and leveling conspiracies. From an objective historical point of view we want to know what happened, but no one will be able to confirm the legitimacy of that now. It's still killing people. I directly vaccinated thousands in Los Angeles, I had several family members die, and 1 of my aunts - an RN - is getting reinstated after 2 years because she was fired for telling people "the jab will kill you". This was after she tried to convince my other aunt - another RN - that she should not get the vaccine while being in a risk category. Never have we seen disinformation used to harm so many. It's too dangerous to talk about, and if we found the truth no one could corroborate it or convince others of it. It is done, millions are dead. As a sidelong thought, I'm convinced in this information age that there is no truth. The truth is anything you want it to be if you can inspire a viral cult around a contrarian thought. I'm sorry if I just sound so jaded. I still remember assisting a woman who /wanted/ the vaccine while her husband screamed at us outside the tape line with officers nearby - screaming about how the government was trying to kill black Americans and citing events like Tuskegee. We earned that, and I still see the fear in his eyes when we swabbed her arm.
- throwaway2037 3y ago
  I'm confused by your post. "the jab will kill you" Why did, an educated RN, believe this? And why was she trying to spread the idea? Is this RN also (generally) an anti-vaxxer? I'm not sure if it is the location of so many media outlets, but Los Angeles County (and Orange County) does seem to be the epicenter of anti-vaxxer culture in the US.
  - throwaway485 3y ago
    A presidential campaign lured in my educated aunt. It will never make sense.
    - throwaway2037 3y ago
      Thank you to share your story. I'm sorry that you lost family members.
- stef25 3y ago
  > 1 of my aunts - an RN - is getting reinstated after 2 years because she was fired for telling people "the jab will kill you". This was after she tried to convince my other aunt - another RN - that she should not get the vaccine while being in a risk category It's crazy how many nurses don't trust science and news reports. Here in Belgium it was a big problem too. So many of them seem to be very cynical about and have serious distrust in big pharma while they themselves administer drugs that make (most) patients better. How they can just overlook that and keep their jobs is beyond me (no offense meant to your family)
  - pfannkuchen 3y ago
    They do get to see how the sausage is made. Are you sure that the reality around patient drug experiences is so positive? Is it more likely that such nurses are completely delusional, or that they have information or experience that you or I don’t? Keep in mind that everyone in medicine has a financial and career incentive which points towards aligning with and advocating for the system they are so invested in, so there would be a tendency for this point of view to be under expressed, if anything.

bruce511 3y ago

To me fair the folk dying today are tangential to the origin story. I'm not sure the origin story mattered a whole lot along the way, other than being a useful political distraction. I don't think it informed personal or medical behaviour. Of course discussions around vaccines, masks, social distancing etc did have a huge impact on personal behaviours, so those are far more impactful both than and in hindsight. The different strategies applied, the messaging, the outcomes, from New Zealand to Sweden and everything in-between will be disected by anthropogists for decades to come. The actual origin is a red-herring, it really doesn't matter. Viruses come from lots of places. We can't prevent that. What we can control is our response. As long as our first question is "who to blame" our outcomes will be similar, or worse, the next time around.

inciampati 3y ago
The actual origin is critical to understand, because it will happen again. We should be ready and able to watch out for where it might come from. Can you agree that, if it was generated by human activity that we can control, it'd be critical to know this and spread information about it widely?
- bruce511 3y ago
  Absolutely. Perhaps it was grown in a lab, perhaps it was released, or perhaps it escaped. All happened before, all will happen again. Given that I don't think we -can- control human behavior, there are good labs, there are bad labs, etc, I think the ability to -respond- I paramount. While the origin is interesting in an historical way, lessons from the response will be more useful going forwards. We need to respond in a way that is independent of origin. That will ultimately lead to better outcomes, and incidentally reduce the risk of bio-terrorism. [Aside - if it was lab grown I don't think it was released on purpose (it wouldn't have been released locally). Which means some sort of failure in the safety protocols, which likely means human error. General discussion on that topic I useless except for a tiny sliver of people doing that work. I'm not sure discussing it on social media really achieves anything. ]
  - 3y ago

sacrosancty 3y ago

With some of these controversial topics, there always seem to be people who prefer disinformation over truth for the reason that the general public can't be trusted with the truth since it might motivate them to do bad things. The question then is, does it apply to yourself, or are you special? What knowledge motivates you to do bad things? Do you wish that was hidden from you so you weren't such a harmful person?

kubectl_h 3y ago

> There was a brief window at the beginning where it would have mattered to know the origin of the virus. This is such a fatalistic and cynical way of looking at the world. It mattered then -- as it matters now -- because we can act on information. Everything that happened after that "window" was not overdetermined.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

bondarchuk 3y ago

>However, this theory was circulated and promoted to inspire hatred and distrust of many authority figures. Don't forget that some people just want to know the truth, and don't like being lied to. I don't think it's a good principle that whenever the truth is used as an excuse for bad things (insofar as "distrust of authority figures" is even a bad thing), it is justified to lie. >Even today we're still seeing thousands die from what may very well be a conspiracy theory. And how many past and future deaths can be attributed to the lack of trust caused by trying to cover up the truth? Many more, I'd wager. There's a crucial irony in trying to maintain trust by hiding the truth. Many people just can't or don't want to understand this.

VoodooJuJu 3y ago

>It's dangerous to talk A bear charging at you is dangerous. Talking is not.

AeiumNE 3y ago

It's very arrogant to take your understanding of the benefit of the truth, finding it lacking, and then assuming that this is same negligible benefit the truth will have for everyone else.