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Comment by alex_young | Hacker News Reader

Pretending that everything you state is true (a seemingly unsubstantiated conclusion), why does it matter?

If a lab did in fact accidentally leak the virus, what more can we gain at this point? Isn’t the cat out of the bag? We all agree that gain of function research is a bad idea. What’s so interesting about this beside some rather bland historical footnote?

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For anyone who really cares about pursuit of truth or the scientific process (and how it tends to be ignored even by science institutions) this would actually be earth-shattering.

I guess for other people who don't care about those things it will be a footnote.

It’s earth-shattering because of some coverup?

I suppose that would in and of itself be quite a story, but my question was why would this accidental release through a lab, so far an unsubstantiated and not necessarily conspiracy linked event, be so important that one would state things like “someone else” funded a program that didn’t receive funding?

> For anyone who really cares about pursuit of truth or the scientific process (and how it tends to be ignored even by science institutions) this would actually be earth-shattering.

I wonder how much is this due to this noble pursuit of truth and the scientific process, and how much is due to having an axe to grind and desperately seeking any scapegoat to be sacrificed in the altar of self-righteousness.

Even your justification reeks of "you're with us or against us" mob mentality.

I genuinely have no idea what you're talking about

Why would it be "earth-shattering"? virus leaks from labs around the world are rather common.

Because for many months the scientific community aggressively asserted it was not a lab leak and demonized anyone claiming otherwise.

When something so consequential happens we have to determine how and why it happened.

We have to prevent such mistakes in the future, and if this was an accidental leak due to carelessness then there is reparations to be paid.

because the widespread, active, and largely successful effort to suppress consideration of both the lab-leak and gain-of-function hypotheses shows that we cannot trust the most important people in this field, which means we can't trust their word that they "all agree that gain of function research is a bad idea".

We can gain the knowledge of how to fix it in the future and take action against entities that aren’t taking those precautions as well as creating the political will to do so.

This is similar to how after the titanic we identified why it sank, and why after it sank so many people died.

> We all agree that gain of function research is a bad idea.

Who is "we" here? Fear of GoFR is similar to the fear of nuclear power - there are obvious risks, but people don't think about the benefits.

Please explain the benefits in detail

> Fear of GoFR is similar to the fear of nuclear power - there are obvious risks, but people don't think about the benefits.

You should explore this comparison more deeply.

How many people has nuclear power killed in the past 20 years? How many people has SARS-CoV-2 killed in the past two?

Confirming a lab origin would create vastly more political will to oppose GoF research, and potentially prevent another cataclysmic pandemic (which has directly killed 4 million people) and pandemic-response (which has corresponded with a 23.8% increase in obesity/overweightedness in children 5 - 11, led to over 100 million children missing out on meaningful education for upwards of a year, and destroyed innumerable businesses, and in doing so, massively exacerbated poverty).

Your idea sounds nice, but it doesn't really make sense. Consider that terrorists can easily do GoF and release the product - no research necessary. On the other hand, when scientists do GoF research, our virological knowledge may be furthered, possibly with applications to making new vaccines and similar.

That isn't a sufficient reason not to scrutinize the process by which this research is conducted if the origin of the virus is from the lab. It matters if this virus was of natural origin or was leaked from research going on at the lab, altered or not. It should inform us better on safety for researchers, or caution us about avoiding contact with certain animals and help us learn more about how viruses jump from one species to another. There is valuable information to be discovered in the investigation of the origins of this pandemic. It's only rational to be interested in that if we want to be better prepared to prevent future pandemics.

I think the better question would be: Why shouldn't we want to know as much as possible? I can only come up with one answer - the truth may embarrass powerful people.

I agree with you. If only we cared as much to solve the problem as we do to point fingers.

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