This comment is a noticeable step into nationalistic flamewar. Please don't do that in HN comments. That way lies hell, and we're trying for a different sort of discussion here.
The CCP did bar scientists from early investigation and has gone to considerable lengths to suppress national news outlets from properly reporting on the issue at hand.
This does at least deserve some criticism.
Commenters here need to learn the difference between posting in the flamewar style and having curious conversation. The issue is not the topic—it's which mode people's nervous systems are functioning in as they discuss it. Here is what to watch for:
(1) One mode is battle mode, in which people use grandiose, aggressive rhetoric to try to defeat an enemy, and take any opportunity they can to twist what the other side says to gain an advantage...
(2) ... and the other is curiosity mode, in which people explore together to find the truth and are interested in what each other are actually saying, thinking, and feeling.
(3) You can tell which mode you're in by sensing into your level of activation while posting. If you're not sure about it yet, or if you're feeling agitated, slow down before posting, set an intention to observe your own state, and it will soon become clear.
Another way of explaining this is the distinction between reflexive and reflective responses: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor.... Reflexive responses are lightning fast, associated with high activation, and oriented towards threat assessment and defense. They come from the fight-or-flight layer that we're all dealing with in ourselves. They're also highly repetitive, because they basically come from cache—that's why we're able to generate them so quickly. The reflexive system is not about responding to or creating anything new. It's there for survival and to prevent the recurrence of past painful experiences.
Reflective responses are slow, come from the drive to explore and learn, and have to do with new responses to new information—which take time to come together. They lead to conversations and outcomes that aren't simply replays of past reactions. They aren't primarily about past traumas and threat defense. In order to function this way, the nervous system needs a certain baseline of safety. One way to get there is simply to wait until the initial wave of reactiveness subsides, and then look around and orient to what's specifically new and interesting in the present situation.
Empathy comes into this too, because the ability to put oneself in the other person's position, instead of quickly scanning their comment for weaknesses to exploit, is a complex process that requires the slower cognitive systems to come online.
Particularly the mudslinging ('It's plausible she can't assemble them [referring to a Broad Institute genomicist supporting investigation into both lab-leak & zoonosis], but that's because of a lack of expertise'): https://twitter.com/K_G_Andersen/status/1373027946684837893?...
You always make me think, dang. Criticisms by me and others aside, thanks for doing your job.
I barely even open it now as a result.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19219091
I try not to lose sleep over properties of HN that are true of the world at large. We can't expect to be immune from macro trends.
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
China and the Chinese people must accept their responsibility for this catastrophe. They must let the rest of the world, in the guise of the UN, come in and sort out how much of this crime was intentional and how much incompetence.
China must be held accountable. It should pay reparations. It should be forced to suspend any and all biomedical research until it can provably meet western safety standards.
A comment like this one (and worse, "we need to shame China and the Chinese people" – https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26548441 - I can't believe that anyone who has been here over 10 years would post something that horrible to HN) takes us deeper into the hell that we're trying to stay out of. I'm not going to ban you for these, because if I imagine myself into your position, my guess is that simply re-reading what you posted, once you've cooled down, will be punishment enough. But if you would please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and take the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.
> a backwards culture
If you continue to post slurs, we're going to have to ban you. I don't want to ban you, but you can't do this here. Please don't do it again.
One of my teachers once told me "I did a Ph.D. in psychology at Stanford and I learned just one thing from it: that punishment is not good for learning." Hopefully we can get to a state where there's less punishment and more learning. I think examples are good for learning, so I hope you can stop feeling guilty and just take it as an example.
--"The truth hurts"
You are just accusing people of refusing to see "the truth" which may be true but is not a argument about the validity of your thesis. That common rethoric. That also preemptively invalidates any counter-argument to your thesis because you know we're just deceived out of (fill in what you want).
-- "China released a deadly virus into the world."
China is not just one person. Even the Chinese gov is too big an entity to be given a single will and agency. This kind of abstraction is fine for everyday talk but must be discarded whenever you try to have an intelligent debate about something. --" the Chinese people must accept their responsibility" Wow, like if I am working as a coal miner in remote China I must be held accountable by "my" poor control of high tech labs? Come on I live in a "democracy" that has conducted nuclear trials in the Pacific nearby living places which I was totally against. Do I need to be held responsible?
-- "this crime"
Plain flamewar mode
--" it can provably meet western safety standards"
Did you even read the article?!