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Comment by newacct583 | Hacker News Reader

> People have allowed themselves to become so divided

This is, well, bullshit. No, what happened is that one side of the divide decided to demand that something be discussed without evidence, and the other side... waited for evidence before discussing it. And now we can have the discussion, because we have some evidence to discuss.

That's the system working, right? How would you prefer this have gone? People decide to discuss groundless conspiracies before anyone comes up with evidence to support them, just... out of politeness?

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No, what happened is one side tried to have a discussion about an idea without evidence and the other shut it down until the idea was theirs. I prefer a system where one can discuss an idea (right or wrong) without the "system" shutting it down. That's bullshit.

> No, what happened is one side tried to have a discussion about an idea without evidence and the other shut it down

Aren't we supposed to shut down arguments presented without evidence? Isn't that what "argument" means?

Explain how you aren't just asking for license to be wrong without challenge here? I mean, when people (the WSJ, notably not the conspiracists) came out with real evidence, we listened!

I'll fully admit, my priors were wrong. This isn't a total dingbat idea, it might have happened. But I think that now, based on better data. I didn't think that then, and nor should you have.

I think the suggestion is, when there is not great evidence either way we should not support or shutdown ideas within the realm of probability - let's be honest and simply say "we don't know".

To be challenged, you have to have discussion. What happened was the silencing of an unapproved idea. There was no intellectual process. What I see are two masses screaming regurgitated talking points at each other and refusing to actually engage in any kind of meaningful way. It is distopian and disturbing.

I do not personally have any thought or idea about which covid origin theory is true. For me this isn't about the lab, but instead the thought police.

Just an outside observers here, both zoonotic and lab leak lack proper evidence under your standard. Yet, zoonotic is what's been "okay" to discuss.

> Aren't we supposed to shut down arguments presented without evidence?

So we should also have shut down people saying it was not a lab leak ?

I don't know what system you are referring to, but I am not aware of a system that requires evidence to exist before research begins. There was an observation that a lab researching a similar virus was in the vicinity of the outbreak; that is a strong enough observation to raise the question and trigger the desire to discuss and research the idea. Some folks just wanted to yell down or shame others for having the thought.

The new evidence is hardly novel. The lab leak theory was always a possibility especially since there was no conclusive evidence otherwise. The other theory, that it came from an animal, was never proven either.

What we did know from the beginning was that there is a lab in Wuhan playing Umbrella Corp with the coronavirus.

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