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Comment by benlumen | Hacker News Reader

The issue here is that if it was related to the WIV, which, i'll be honest - common sense tells me is likely, then the evidence will never see the light of day - because of the Chinese regime.

They honestly want us to believe that it was brought in on frozen fish at the market around the corner - that it never even originated in China. This is what we're dealing with. It's gaslighting in the extreme.

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This is why I feel the international community should somehow come together to agree to indemnify China against all types of future sanctions or prosecutions etc re Covid-19.

The critically important thing is to establish exactly what happened in order to prevent SARS 3, SARS 4, etc. Absolutely everything else is of secondary importance. In the absence of malicious intent - and I think everyone agrees on that - we should have no interest in appointing blame.

What do you think the world will gain from indemnification of China? My money is on another frozen fish theory, or flying monkeys if lucky

Well, do you expect any country would honestly say that they are responsible for global disaster like this? Even if it really was an 'industrial accident', the consequences are so severe that any country admitting it would open themselves to future lawsuits, embargo and who knows what else. And I'm not even mentioning 'losing face' which is a big deal in Asia.

Yes. The people of many countries would demand it. Do not underestimate the transparency that democratic accountability provides. Western democracy is little short of a miracle in this respect. It is incomparable to China's unaccountable one-party dictatorship.

Did I miss the /s tag? This cheerleading needs to calm down a bit, I'm not sure this bashathon should be used to tighten our own wools. Different systems can both be bad.

Let's relax with flexing our elite 'Western accountability'. It's all talk.

In the context of public inquiries into industrial accidents, I'm sorry but no - it absolutely is not "all talk". We are worlds apart from China in this respect. It's not cheerleading, it's just true.

Seriously? Have you ever heard about state secrets? Some information are locked for decades, even centuries, some never made public. Are you sure that there were never any accidents in USA related to manufacturing of VX or similar nerve agents?

I don't think this is a good place or medium for this discussion, to be honest, there's too much room for interpretation. I'm not saying that the West is perfect or without its share of scandal, I'm trying to push back on this notion that it's all the same - that it's no better or worse than totalitarian systems like China when it comes to transparency and accountability. Because it's just so obviously not true. And that really matters.

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