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I say this as a committed fan of RNA vaccines and masking, who believed we could have contained covid with more serious lockdowns very early in the pandemic: In

I say this as a committed fan of RNA vaccines and masking, who believed we could have contained covid with more serious lockdowns very early in the pandemic: In point of fact, it was someone's fault, and the someones whose fault it was - the ones doing gain of function research - were the same people who took control of lockdown policy in the US. That would be enough to melt a lot of people's brains, even if it weren't for the psychological effects of lockdowns, remote schooling, and the consequent arrested development of an entire generation. At a bare minimum, the concealment by the CCP of what they knew of covid was an act of war. The cover-up itself killed millions of people and caused untold economic damage to their adversaries, with the collusion of health officials in the US government who had offshored illegal research there.

pstuart 3mo ago
From what I've read about GOF research, it's essentially explored in defensive posture, because viruses mutate and they're looking at how to get ahead of the curve (not a researcher, just my take). But what is never discussed in the Lab Leak pursuit is: so what? I mean, yes, poor biosecurity and containment should be called out and not covered up, but the real value is in being the foundation of a conspiracy. "The government conspired to make you sick!". Think about this: covid has mutated consistently since it's been tracked. Were those mutations coming from a lab or was it viruses doing virus things. Was Ebola made in a lab or did it come from a place we know viruses come from. Was the Spanish Flu a Chinese plot? Was AIDS? The handling of the outbreak was clearly bungled, but let's remember who was in charge in the US when it happened. The guy who shut down research and tracking teams because Obama had funded them (So had Bush -- until then, this kind of stuff was non-political and taken seriously as a non-partisan issue). The failure for masking was again, on the then POTUS, and it's been conjectured by many (including myself) that he was against masks because it would mess up his makeup. Yes, it could have been handled so much better, and sadly, could have been an incredibly valuable teachable moment that made us all safer in the future. But instead it was used to further divide us and foster the literal fucking insanity of antivaxxers. I have nothing but contempt for those people because they are a danger to humanity.
- noduerme 3mo ago
  I don't think it was a conspiracy to make people sick. I also don't think the lab leak theory should be a partisan issue. I was in the camp at the time shouting that we needed to enforce masking and stay-at-home orders, and to say that the Trump admin bungled the response is too kind. What was a conspiracy was the cover-up by health officials who knew that it had escaped a lab. And by the Chinese government, which knew even earlier, and which I believe saw an economic and strategic advantage in keeping the information and the genome of the virus to itself for a few months while it was already circulating in Wuhan. One does not have to believe that the lab leak was intentional to believe that once it happened, the responsible parties conspired to cover it up. As for the gain of function research itself, though defensive in nature and benign in intent, it was something that was deemed too risky to be performed in the US, and outsourcing it to a country with a much poorer safety record was wildly irresponsible. When it backfired, a cover-up naturally ensued. I'm not a MAGA person (I've always voted Democrat, actually). This is just my take as to the most likely scenario given what's publicly known. And of course the virus has mutated in the wild, as viruses do. The question is whether the initial strain was given genetic advantages that were evolved under human guidance - defensively or not.
  - pstuart 3mo ago
    It's still conjecture. I'm well aware of confirmation bias (that we're all susceptible to), but a recent query of the Goog says it's unclear and leans towards a natural mutation. This does a good job of painting that picture: https://skeptoid.com/episodes/933 https://skeptoid.com/episodes/933 But this also returns to the "so what" path. The conspiracy paints GOF as "evil government doing bad things" (which is not unreasonable conjecture in many contexts), but the work is primarily intended for defensive measures: https://asm.org/getmedia/ef3e09db-a3c3-4eff-8e73-5d7edbcabb47/asm-gain-of-function-factsheet-2025.pdf https://asm.org/getmedia/ef3e09db-a3c3-4eff-8e73-5d7edbcabb4... Search Google for this: "did the us outsource GOF research into sars to wuhan labs in china" I found the answer to be reasonable and credible. Again, governments lie but so do conspiracy theories. To make this more HN aligned I'll share a story: I was introduced to Chuck Peddle at a wedding not long after the turn of the century. I first learned assembly language on the 6502 so I knew who he was and was thrilled to meet him and hear his stories. At that point in time he was working on some hardware startup in Malaysia (IIRC), and was a seasoned world traveller. The last part of our conversation was his observation through his travels that due to the nature of overcrowded cities in third world countries and the advent of air travel where people could disperse rapidly to anywhere else in the world, he shared a fear that a deadly outbreak would eventually happen and would travel the world in days, with horrifying consequences. That came to mind when Covid happened. Lastly, I'm not at all fond of these types of conspiracies because they spread like a virus and their value is primarily in giving people the feeling that they know what's going on and they know better than everyone else -- and it becomes such a part of their identity that trying to debunk that conspiracy is only perceived as a personal attack -- there's no room for reason. All of this "the truth is out there" while we have real conspiracies happening in broad daylight and people just shrug like "oh, that just happens, whatever". I'm referring to the current US presidential administration.
UncleMeat 3mo ago
Even if you accept the lab leak (highly questionable) and buy into the conspiracy that Fauci was controlling the operation of GoF research that created covid this is wrong. Lockdowns were managed by local authorities and state leadership.
- preg_match 3mo ago
  Yes, some states, like mine, had virtually zero lockdown. And we also have some of the highest population of anti-vaxxers and covid deniers, somehow. I still hear people talking about the effects of the lockdown. The lockdown that never happened. And the covid vaccine mandates. Which also never happened.

pstuart 3mo ago

From what I've read about GOF research, it's essentially explored in defensive posture, because viruses mutate and they're looking at how to get ahead of the curve (not a researcher, just my take). But what is never discussed in the Lab Leak pursuit is: so what? I mean, yes, poor biosecurity and containment should be called out and not covered up, but the real value is in being the foundation of a conspiracy. "The government conspired to make you sick!". Think about this: covid has mutated consistently since it's been tracked. Were those mutations coming from a lab or was it viruses doing virus things. Was Ebola made in a lab or did it come from a place we know viruses come from. Was the Spanish Flu a Chinese plot? Was AIDS? The handling of the outbreak was clearly bungled, but let's remember who was in charge in the US when it happened. The guy who shut down research and tracking teams because Obama had funded them (So had Bush -- until then, this kind of stuff was non-political and taken seriously as a non-partisan issue). The failure for masking was again, on the then POTUS, and it's been conjectured by many (including myself) that he was against masks because it would mess up his makeup. Yes, it could have been handled so much better, and sadly, could have been an incredibly valuable teachable moment that made us all safer in the future. But instead it was used to further divide us and foster the literal fucking insanity of antivaxxers. I have nothing but contempt for those people because they are a danger to humanity.

noduerme 3mo ago
I don't think it was a conspiracy to make people sick. I also don't think the lab leak theory should be a partisan issue. I was in the camp at the time shouting that we needed to enforce masking and stay-at-home orders, and to say that the Trump admin bungled the response is too kind. What was a conspiracy was the cover-up by health officials who knew that it had escaped a lab. And by the Chinese government, which knew even earlier, and which I believe saw an economic and strategic advantage in keeping the information and the genome of the virus to itself for a few months while it was already circulating in Wuhan. One does not have to believe that the lab leak was intentional to believe that once it happened, the responsible parties conspired to cover it up. As for the gain of function research itself, though defensive in nature and benign in intent, it was something that was deemed too risky to be performed in the US, and outsourcing it to a country with a much poorer safety record was wildly irresponsible. When it backfired, a cover-up naturally ensued. I'm not a MAGA person (I've always voted Democrat, actually). This is just my take as to the most likely scenario given what's publicly known. And of course the virus has mutated in the wild, as viruses do. The question is whether the initial strain was given genetic advantages that were evolved under human guidance - defensively or not.
- pstuart 3mo ago
  It's still conjecture. I'm well aware of confirmation bias (that we're all susceptible to), but a recent query of the Goog says it's unclear and leans towards a natural mutation. This does a good job of painting that picture: https://skeptoid.com/episodes/933 https://skeptoid.com/episodes/933 But this also returns to the "so what" path. The conspiracy paints GOF as "evil government doing bad things" (which is not unreasonable conjecture in many contexts), but the work is primarily intended for defensive measures: https://asm.org/getmedia/ef3e09db-a3c3-4eff-8e73-5d7edbcabb47/asm-gain-of-function-factsheet-2025.pdf https://asm.org/getmedia/ef3e09db-a3c3-4eff-8e73-5d7edbcabb4... Search Google for this: "did the us outsource GOF research into sars to wuhan labs in china" I found the answer to be reasonable and credible. Again, governments lie but so do conspiracy theories. To make this more HN aligned I'll share a story: I was introduced to Chuck Peddle at a wedding not long after the turn of the century. I first learned assembly language on the 6502 so I knew who he was and was thrilled to meet him and hear his stories. At that point in time he was working on some hardware startup in Malaysia (IIRC), and was a seasoned world traveller. The last part of our conversation was his observation through his travels that due to the nature of overcrowded cities in third world countries and the advent of air travel where people could disperse rapidly to anywhere else in the world, he shared a fear that a deadly outbreak would eventually happen and would travel the world in days, with horrifying consequences. That came to mind when Covid happened. Lastly, I'm not at all fond of these types of conspiracies because they spread like a virus and their value is primarily in giving people the feeling that they know what's going on and they know better than everyone else -- and it becomes such a part of their identity that trying to debunk that conspiracy is only perceived as a personal attack -- there's no room for reason. All of this "the truth is out there" while we have real conspiracies happening in broad daylight and people just shrug like "oh, that just happens, whatever". I'm referring to the current US presidential administration.

UncleMeat 3mo ago

Even if you accept the lab leak (highly questionable) and buy into the conspiracy that Fauci was controlling the operation of GoF research that created covid this is wrong. Lockdowns were managed by local authorities and state leadership.

preg_match 3mo ago
Yes, some states, like mine, had virtually zero lockdown. And we also have some of the highest population of anti-vaxxers and covid deniers, somehow. I still hear people talking about the effects of the lockdown. The lockdown that never happened. And the covid vaccine mandates. Which also never happened.