Hacker News Reader

Comment by tunesmith | Hacker News Reader

I feel like it was impossible to really deal with this debate responsibly, what with the current state of society and social media where everyone has figured out how to weaponize false information, before we as a society have figured out how to really deal with it.

Even now it seems like everyone wants to elide the massive differences between "accidental lab leak" and "deliberate lab leak". Even now the common phrase is "lab leak" which can be taken either way. But if you ask anyone on twitter or facebook what "lab leak" means, but especially at the beginning of the pandemic, they would have immediately jumped to a deliberate bioterror attack scenario and there would have been no way to stop it. And we already had a surge of asian hate with what we dealt with.

View on HN

Concealing all kinds of information to "protect" the sheep-like citizens is counterproductive and dishonest. An honest discussion is the best way to avoid spreading of false information which will always exist to some degree.

However politicians more and more try to avoid all discussion with the voters and just convince them of the rightfulness of their doing. If you don't accept their way you must be wrong, maybe even protected from false information, shielded for your own good..

They've taken it a step further in recent years. Not only should you be shielded, but if you have wrong think then society should be shielded from you. Australia is the most extreme example but you can see the punishment of wrong think creeping up everywhere

But at the same time the discourse has gotten far stupider. People just believe anything shared with them on Facebook and have no interest in seeing it debunked. I agree with you and GP that scientists telling people the whole truth is the only path forward but the fact is these scientists in this email chain did not have the whole truth, and we may never have it because China doesn't seem to want anyone to know the origin of this virus. So having a policy of not engaging in public speculation is not quite the same as a policy of silence or a cover-up.

> I feel like it was impossible to really deal with this debate responsibly, what with the current state of society and social media where everyone has figured out how to weaponize false information

So, the solution to this is lying. Right. That will make everything better. Oh and also make fact checkers tell people the truth is false information. FACT checkers. Yes. That will increase trust. Sure.

Fact checkers have determined this statement to be mostly false. While fact checkers have been proven over and over to be incorrect, we find the sarcastic tone of this post to be dangerous and have therefor decided the entire thing is false

It was always possible, but the elites simply didn’t want to do it.

> Even now it seems like everyone wants to elide the massive differences between "accidental lab leak" and "deliberate lab leak".

Mostly people who wanted to vilify the lab leak theory did that.

In the beginning I really thought the Trump white house would claim a biological warfare attack just so conservative americans would follow the health guidelines instead of the fuck you I won't do what you tell me posturing.

Totally agree with what you've said, but let's face it... the hate was always there. This whole situation has just emboldened the hateful to become violent both verbally and physically.

No they put people in a prison of two ideas because they didn't want to talk about it, for reasons.

Crying racism isn't an excuse for covering up and banning talk either. Nothing to do with Asians, just the CCP. It's racist to not talk about a lab leak because "they are asian".

It all starts with a hyperbole attributed to all peoples then the restrictions because that hyperbole you created could be true, even though there was no proof to such, and the effects are counterproductive.

Yes "lab leak" was the common and is the common phrase because we don't know if it was natural or a bio-attack. We were robbed of that national discussion by private companies coordinating with gov officials.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com