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Before I get painted as a Trump supporter and therefore blind to my team, I’m not. Don’t support him, and when listening to him yell about China virus and then

Before I get painted as a Trump supporter and therefore blind to my team, I’m not. Don’t support him, and when listening to him yell about China virus and then listening to people calmly say that was racism, I went with the calm people. But the man did get the PDB every day. Maybe he heard some of this intelligence and made some leaps to suit his purpose. But if we were all lied to about the origin, our family and friends died because of this, and xenophobia or racism was used as a shield to deflect criticism from the people and research techniques that got us into this mess… that isn’t something you just handwave away. There are hollow suit blowhards hijacking every avenue of conversation around every important topic, right now. That research mechanism, gain of function or splicing together viruses… it’s being done again. To say that we have to reject what the blowhard says even if they are right about something, I can’t buy that. If this is true, that research is too dangerous and needs to be stopped and treated like nuclear weapons, because it is.

rnk 3y ago
If there was reliable evidence that China had created a coronavirus, it would have been widely disseminated because it's the fantasy of the Republicans in the US to put it on China, and if not China then put it on Dr. Fauci. But it doesn't seem like it would have changed anything about treatment of the horrible coronavirus. I don't really understand why people are so hot to talk about gain of function research, that just seems like a distracting point from the fact that we don't have very good public health and now politically, the US has been convinced to be against public health officials, so when the next terrible virus or disease sweeps the world, again, the US will have a failure to deal with it because of all the paranoids.
- MarkMarine 3y ago
  Did you read the article? WIV collected dangerous coronavirus, mixed those virus's genetic material to make more infectious strains. They wrote scientific papers about this themselves, you can read them yourself. They tested these mixed viruses (called chimeric virus) on mice with human-like lungs to find the most dangerous and infectious ones. You can read about this in the grant funding for WIV. Then proposed splicing in the furin cleavage site into these dangerous chimeric viruses. The US funders balked at this last step, splicing the furin cleavage site in, and didn't give a grant grant money for this proposed step. It's not proven, but it sure seems like they actually did the research, because the furin cleavage site seems to be main thing that makes COVID-19 so infectious. They proposed testing these viruses on mice with human lungs and circulatory systems. so... do you now understand why people are talking about gain of function? Viruses like this don't exist in nature, and scientists are making them and then testing them on animals that have been genetically engineered to have human-like organs, so they can figure out how to make the most dangerous ones. This isn't new, there is a mission impossible movie where a chimeric virus is the boogie man. Making mice with human lungs and CRISPER is new, and then doing this level of research in place with the same level of biosafety as a dental office is a new wrinkle.
mindslight 3y ago
The way humans convince each other of the merits of our ideas is by describing our thought processes. The problem isn't actually something being said by someone who "is" a blowhard, but rather that the thing is being said in a blowhard manner - aggressively asserted, with poor supporting reasoning. If there were concrete supporting evidence for the assertion of "China Virus", it would have been mentioned. There wasn't. When the blowharding is done by the usual talking heads who have a following but lack actual power, it can generally be ignored - the partisans are already crazy. The problem is when it's done from a position of governmental leadership, it requires continual active refutation lest an unquestioned drumbeat turn into action real quick. The fish rots from the head. Most certainly the reaction to this can be (could've been) used as a cover to deflect from the truth. But blame for that doesn't lay at the feet of the anti-anti-intellectuals working to counter the anti-intellectualism, but rather the initial anti-intellectuals for creating the memetic fog that prevented rational analysis to begin with.
- mandmandam 3y ago
  > memetic fog Yeah, that's the perfect phrase for it. SCP fan; or did you make that up?
  - mindslight 3y ago
    It seemed like a fitting description.
- MarkMarine 3y ago
  I have to say, this reliance on the government telling the populace the truth if it has it just doesn’t ring true to me. In recent memory, I’ll point to going to war with Afghanistan, telling the Taliban to pack sand when they offered up Bin Laden, while ignoring Saudi Arabia. Going to war with Iraq over “wmds” and lying to the world about it. Would the govt tell us that China, a country that owns most of our debt, and is probably the most important trade environment, started this thing and covered it up? They might not. I understand your instinct to push back against blowhards that confidently proclaim some bullshit, which they only do when it’s expedient and helpful to them. I’m just saying that instinct that I also had might not be good. To discount a whole tree of idea ideas because some jackass is shaking it, maybe just ignore the jackass and still evaluate the ideas.

rnk 3y ago

If there was reliable evidence that China had created a coronavirus, it would have been widely disseminated because it's the fantasy of the Republicans in the US to put it on China, and if not China then put it on Dr. Fauci. But it doesn't seem like it would have changed anything about treatment of the horrible coronavirus. I don't really understand why people are so hot to talk about gain of function research, that just seems like a distracting point from the fact that we don't have very good public health and now politically, the US has been convinced to be against public health officials, so when the next terrible virus or disease sweeps the world, again, the US will have a failure to deal with it because of all the paranoids.

MarkMarine 3y ago
Did you read the article? WIV collected dangerous coronavirus, mixed those virus's genetic material to make more infectious strains. They wrote scientific papers about this themselves, you can read them yourself. They tested these mixed viruses (called chimeric virus) on mice with human-like lungs to find the most dangerous and infectious ones. You can read about this in the grant funding for WIV. Then proposed splicing in the furin cleavage site into these dangerous chimeric viruses. The US funders balked at this last step, splicing the furin cleavage site in, and didn't give a grant grant money for this proposed step. It's not proven, but it sure seems like they actually did the research, because the furin cleavage site seems to be main thing that makes COVID-19 so infectious. They proposed testing these viruses on mice with human lungs and circulatory systems. so... do you now understand why people are talking about gain of function? Viruses like this don't exist in nature, and scientists are making them and then testing them on animals that have been genetically engineered to have human-like organs, so they can figure out how to make the most dangerous ones. This isn't new, there is a mission impossible movie where a chimeric virus is the boogie man. Making mice with human lungs and CRISPER is new, and then doing this level of research in place with the same level of biosafety as a dental office is a new wrinkle.

mindslight 3y ago

The way humans convince each other of the merits of our ideas is by describing our thought processes. The problem isn't actually something being said by someone who "is" a blowhard, but rather that the thing is being said in a blowhard manner - aggressively asserted, with poor supporting reasoning. If there were concrete supporting evidence for the assertion of "China Virus", it would have been mentioned. There wasn't. When the blowharding is done by the usual talking heads who have a following but lack actual power, it can generally be ignored - the partisans are already crazy. The problem is when it's done from a position of governmental leadership, it requires continual active refutation lest an unquestioned drumbeat turn into action real quick. The fish rots from the head. Most certainly the reaction to this can be (could've been) used as a cover to deflect from the truth. But blame for that doesn't lay at the feet of the anti-anti-intellectuals working to counter the anti-intellectualism, but rather the initial anti-intellectuals for creating the memetic fog that prevented rational analysis to begin with.

mandmandam 3y ago
> memetic fog Yeah, that's the perfect phrase for it. SCP fan; or did you make that up?
- mindslight 3y ago
  It seemed like a fitting description.
MarkMarine 3y ago
I have to say, this reliance on the government telling the populace the truth if it has it just doesn’t ring true to me. In recent memory, I’ll point to going to war with Afghanistan, telling the Taliban to pack sand when they offered up Bin Laden, while ignoring Saudi Arabia. Going to war with Iraq over “wmds” and lying to the world about it. Would the govt tell us that China, a country that owns most of our debt, and is probably the most important trade environment, started this thing and covered it up? They might not. I understand your instinct to push back against blowhards that confidently proclaim some bullshit, which they only do when it’s expedient and helpful to them. I’m just saying that instinct that I also had might not be good. To discount a whole tree of idea ideas because some jackass is shaking it, maybe just ignore the jackass and still evaluate the ideas.