Comment by AstralStorm | Hacker News Reader

Comment by AstralStorm | Hacker News Reader

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There is a problem though. Without access to source material of any real journalist (not a reporter) you have no way of knowing whether whatever they're saying is true.

Marketplace of ideas is just measuring the average of views at best and fringe views may on occasion be valid, or not. It is also gameable by promoting "truthy" or plausible explanations with no data behind them.

In this case, it is irrelevant what the source of the pandemic was, securing the labs doing viral research to BSL-4 is prudent. The only issue faced is one of funding, which is vastly insufficient to maintain these facilities. Or at least placement in remote locations with quarantine in place to prevent leaks.

Data only weakly suggests a composite and does not categorically exclude natural origin. Leak of a natural or modified virus would be just as bad. Same if it's from consumption of rare animals sent from remote places or research on the samples from them. In either case, only different degree of luck is required for a pandemic.

"In this case, it is irrelevant what the source of the pandemic was ..."

...

"Leak of a natural or modified virus would be just as bad. Same if it's from consumption of rare animals sent from remote places or research on the samples from them."

I disagree.

I actually think "lab leak" is better and more optimistic news than a natural outgrowth or animal consumption, etc.

Lab leaks are a problem we can fix - probably without too much trouble. They don't represent a fundamental problem with accelerating globalization, urbanization and travel.

On the other hand, a natural origin or a human-animal crossing due to animal husbandry in or near urban areas ... or "bush meat" consumption ... those vectors could indicate that globalization, urbanization and travel have crossed a threshold where events such as this become likely and will recur regularly.

Given the relatively recent emergence of SARS and MERS, I have been fearful that our very connected, urbanized and globalized world (which I enjoy greatly) is at risk.

The world of easy travel may be doomed either way.

If it's a lab leak? The rhetoric may shift to blaming China and trying to punish them (especially in more conservative circles). New Cold War, more Iron Curtains, less freedom of travel.

If it's just globalization making things risky? Then maybe we can't let people fly from Wuhan to Bergamo for public health reasons. Less freedom of travel, for an entirely different reason.

This "Marketplace of ideas" is run by English speakers, in our case, and completely ignores the idea that we or our allies may have been involved in a biological attack on China. Very convenient, in my opinion, since history says NATO countries are the most likely to deploy biological weapons.

> involved in a biological attack on China.

It's very unlikely anyone was doing any research on directly using SARS-CoV2 as a weapon. It kills or maims too low a percentage of people to have tactical value, and it's too difficult to contain. (The most effective weapons severely handicap their victims and allow them to live into old age, taking fighters off the field, and turning them into long-term liabilities and living reminders for anyone who might think about fighting you in the future.)

I'm not saying SARS-CoV2 leaked from a lab, but if it did, it was probably more of a basic science/weapons background research rather than an engineered weapon itself. You might want to add some SARS-CoV2 characteristics to a bioweapon, but you'd want to start out with something with greater morbidity and more easily quarantined as a starting point for a weapon.

> The most effective weapons severely handicap their victims and allow them to live into old age, taking fighters off the field, and turning them into long-term liabilities and living reminders for anyone who might think about fighting you in the future

I do not believe that covid was intentionally designed and released as a bio weapon.

That being said, have you heard of long covid?

> long covid

Why should I believe this is any more real than "chronic lyme"? There are a whole lot of hypochondriacs out there; something proponents of "long covid" and "chronic lyme" never seem willing to acknowledge.

The groups promoting both of these organize and operate the same way, and make similar claims. Huge lists of nonspecific generic symptoms and facebook groups full of uncritical believers mutually reinforcing each others' beliefs (parallel to the well understood phenomena of "support groups" which promote eating disorders and create social feedback loops for reinforcing/worsening body dismorphia.)

>I do not believe that covid was intentionally designed and released as a bio weapon.

History says you are wrong to discount NATO countries (I include Japan as an unofficial member) using bio-weapons. They have a long history of deploying and supporting deployments of these kinds of weapons against military and economic foes.

> That being said, have you heard of long covid?

The number of people with long COVID symptoms is a tiny tiny fraction of those exposed to SARS-CoV2. If it's a designed feature of SARS-CoV2, it's very poorly implemented, unless it's actually very specifically targeting some as-of-yet unidentified demographic. (This seems very unlikely.)

North Carolina lab was shipping covid around the world. Wouldn't be surprised if the lab in Fort Detrick was doing similar research.

You seem to assume a bio-weapon has to cause mass death to be effective and meet the deployer's objectives...you are wrong in the case of economic attacks.

> You seem to assume a bio-weapon has to cause mass death to be effective and meet the deployer's objectives...you are wrong in the case of economic attacks.

https://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/morbidity

Nonsense. What a foolish weapon it would be. Both for its lack of virulence and imprecise targeting. This is (a rather bad) conspiracy theory

The point is to disrupt, not mass murder, and in that sense, mission accomplished.

This scenario is just as plausible as the lab leak theory, and probably has just as much evidence.

Ridiculous to think that it was deployed by NATO because NATO countries were affected by it just as much if not more. That would be the most idiotic weapon used ever. It literally makes no sense.

Sorry, but the idea of NATO deploying the most idiotic weapon imaginable on the entire world vs. the idea of an accidental escape from a lab are NOT equally plausible at all. In fact, this entire article goes thru evidence that it was not NATO because of all of the internal investigations and such.

What you are suggesting is tin foil hat conspiracy theory crazy.

I disagree, NATO countries (including Japan) have benefited from sabotaging/disrupting Chinese trade for more than a century. They know what they stand to gain by making China the "virus spreader/origin" of the world.

The Fauci emails in March 2020 that described the exact components of the virus with subject 'coronavirus bio-weapon production method' hints at the actual purpose of this release.

The idea is laughable. This sounds like something in an episode of Alex Jones and/or QAnon.

> https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2021/06/03/fac...

Any other crank sources you'd like to share?

>Fact check: No, email to Fauci doesn't contain origin of a 'coronavirus bioweapon'

I didn't argue that the email contained claims about the 'origin'.

Email Subject:

> "Coronavirus Bioweapon Production Method"

Dated March 11, 2020.

Screenshot of original email - https://i.imgur.com/HxUSoCv.png

So, you shared an email from a kook sent to Fauci. Is that your evidence? This is just copypasta from 2005 paper

https://www.pnas.org/content/102/33/11876

If you want to split hairs, you actually said:

> The Fauci emails in March 2020 that described the exact components of the virus ...

which is a complete lie. The email does NOT describe the components of the virus at all. You clearly are lacking in any sort of biochemical background as this is obvious. Do you actually fact check anything you are posting?

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