4 ms·

People really go crazy over the origins of COVID-19 but will happily inhale a purported bioweapon and give it to children and the elderly. What a world.

baja_blast 3y ago
Anti-vaxxers and anti-maskers are a completely different group than the individuals behind biosaftey now. These scientists publicly support and rally around vaccines and public safety measures. But what they are against is reckless and unnecessary biodefense research that enhance pathogens and modify animal viruses to be infectious towards humans.
- tehjoker 3y ago
  I can get behind that, regardless of the origin of COVID-19. However, my concern is that so many of these political campaigns are billionaire / security state funded efforts to rally the public behind a "blame china" message so that way they can continue military aggression in the east designed to prop up American hegemony. There's also a liberal idea in some supporters of "lab leak". They think of how the Bush administration handled Anthrax and falsely accused Iraq of having Smallpox and they think a change of frame will trigger the biosecurity apparatus to protect us from COVID-19. Unfortunately, that was all BS to get the public onboard with the Iraq war and funnel money to defense contractors and their friends. Because the upper class is afraid of freezing the economy with mitigations, these "trigger" words do not hold any weight.
  - baja_blast 3y ago
    > However, my concern is that so many of these political campaigns are billionaire / security state funded efforts to rally the public behind a "blame china" message so that way they can continue military aggression in the east designed to prop up American hegemony. Surprisingly that does not seem to be the case. I believe the security state is more interested in avoiding any gain of function restrictions bans from the Obama era coming back. Given all major economies close collaborations with the lab, as well as our own biodefense efforts lots of effort has been to suppress this, not to protect China but for their own interests.
blululu 3y ago
This is just gratuitous name calling and it has no part in a meaningful conversation. I would hesitate to call people crazy for believing in a theory that is increasingly well supported by the evidence. Please consider that the origin of Covid19 and the response to it are two different issues and the main factions do not overlap 100%. Plenty of people believed that covid was a lab leak and also a deadly serious disease to be prevented at almost all costs. Perhaps more people would have taken more caution if they were told that this was an engineered bioweapon and not yet another zoonotic disease instead of being told to be quiet.
- tehjoker 3y ago
  I personally support a natural origins theory, but I was referring to the disproportionate energy people invest in origins when so many of the same people have dropped mitigations. It's contradictory behavior. Either you believe it's a serious threat and treat it that way, or it's a totally disconnected reality X-files TV show. If COVID is so unserious that people won't clean the air, wear respirators, test, isolate, or vaccinate, then why should anyone care about origins outside of public health professionals?
  - blululu 3y ago
    There is a lot of overlap between people who support a lab leak hypothesis and people who did nothing to try to mitigate the effects of Covid-19. You are correct that these two behaviors represent an illogical contradiction, but the two issues are also separate and dismissing one position by its common association with the other is illogical and generally unhelpful for having a serious discussion. I personally can't condone people who did nothing to try to mitigate the effects of Covid-19 but that doesn't really have much bearing to the origin of Covid-19. Ultimately we should be trying to understand what lessons we can draw from the pandemic and how we can prevent or forestall the emergence of future pandemics. If the origin is technological in nature then we should be looking for policy directives to prevent such technologies from being misused in the future. Having worked with grad students the idea that they would make a colossal mess of things seems pretty realistic so implementing some basic international restrictions on things like gain of function research seems like it would be a good move going forward, but maybe less urgent if we are 100% sure that Covid was zoonotic in origin.
dang 3y ago
Could you please stop posting unsubstantive comments and flamebait? You've unfortunately been doing it repeatedly. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for. We've had to ask you this before. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.

baja_blast 3y ago

Anti-vaxxers and anti-maskers are a completely different group than the individuals behind biosaftey now. These scientists publicly support and rally around vaccines and public safety measures. But what they are against is reckless and unnecessary biodefense research that enhance pathogens and modify animal viruses to be infectious towards humans.

tehjoker 3y ago
I can get behind that, regardless of the origin of COVID-19. However, my concern is that so many of these political campaigns are billionaire / security state funded efforts to rally the public behind a "blame china" message so that way they can continue military aggression in the east designed to prop up American hegemony. There's also a liberal idea in some supporters of "lab leak". They think of how the Bush administration handled Anthrax and falsely accused Iraq of having Smallpox and they think a change of frame will trigger the biosecurity apparatus to protect us from COVID-19. Unfortunately, that was all BS to get the public onboard with the Iraq war and funnel money to defense contractors and their friends. Because the upper class is afraid of freezing the economy with mitigations, these "trigger" words do not hold any weight.
- baja_blast 3y ago
  > However, my concern is that so many of these political campaigns are billionaire / security state funded efforts to rally the public behind a "blame china" message so that way they can continue military aggression in the east designed to prop up American hegemony. Surprisingly that does not seem to be the case. I believe the security state is more interested in avoiding any gain of function restrictions bans from the Obama era coming back. Given all major economies close collaborations with the lab, as well as our own biodefense efforts lots of effort has been to suppress this, not to protect China but for their own interests.

blululu 3y ago

This is just gratuitous name calling and it has no part in a meaningful conversation. I would hesitate to call people crazy for believing in a theory that is increasingly well supported by the evidence. Please consider that the origin of Covid19 and the response to it are two different issues and the main factions do not overlap 100%. Plenty of people believed that covid was a lab leak and also a deadly serious disease to be prevented at almost all costs. Perhaps more people would have taken more caution if they were told that this was an engineered bioweapon and not yet another zoonotic disease instead of being told to be quiet.

tehjoker 3y ago
I personally support a natural origins theory, but I was referring to the disproportionate energy people invest in origins when so many of the same people have dropped mitigations. It's contradictory behavior. Either you believe it's a serious threat and treat it that way, or it's a totally disconnected reality X-files TV show. If COVID is so unserious that people won't clean the air, wear respirators, test, isolate, or vaccinate, then why should anyone care about origins outside of public health professionals?
- blululu 3y ago
  There is a lot of overlap between people who support a lab leak hypothesis and people who did nothing to try to mitigate the effects of Covid-19. You are correct that these two behaviors represent an illogical contradiction, but the two issues are also separate and dismissing one position by its common association with the other is illogical and generally unhelpful for having a serious discussion. I personally can't condone people who did nothing to try to mitigate the effects of Covid-19 but that doesn't really have much bearing to the origin of Covid-19. Ultimately we should be trying to understand what lessons we can draw from the pandemic and how we can prevent or forestall the emergence of future pandemics. If the origin is technological in nature then we should be looking for policy directives to prevent such technologies from being misused in the future. Having worked with grad students the idea that they would make a colossal mess of things seems pretty realistic so implementing some basic international restrictions on things like gain of function research seems like it would be a good move going forward, but maybe less urgent if we are 100% sure that Covid was zoonotic in origin.

dang 3y ago

Could you please stop posting unsubstantive comments and flamebait? You've unfortunately been doing it repeatedly. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for. We've had to ask you this before. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.