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Comment by csense | Hacker News Reader

This article uses terms that de-legitimize certain types of discourse, such as "radicalization", "extremist figures," "hate speech" and "misinformation."

Who decides whether the theory that COVID-19 originated in a Chinese lab is a scientific hypothesis to be tested, or "misinformation" to be suppressed? Who decides that Jordan Peterson is an "extremist figure" but RuPaul is not?

Why are (generally left-leaning) people trying so hard to keep certain concepts out of the marketplace of ideas?

If those ideas are so obviously wrong and bad, why should they be censored and suppressed, rather than discussed and refuted?

The article should be re-written from a more neutral point of view. As it is, it implicitly endorses a certain framing of the issues it discusses. Usually Wikipedia has better standards.

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AFAIK, it is on par with other articles on wikipedia.[0]

[0] https://larrysanger.org/2021/06/wikipedia-is-more-one-sided-...

It's effectively a conspiracy theory. A neutral point of view would just be to not have the article.

> This article uses terms that de-legitimize certain types of discourse

What bothers me most about this delegitimization is how it's only ever applied to the right. Left has literal communists pushing an ideology that caused famine, misery and oppresion worldwide, radical feminists tweeting KILL ALL MEN all day... Nobody bats an eye. It's like the right is perpetually scrutinized ever since Hitler but people couldn't care less about the oppression and destruction brought about by Soviet Union style subversion.

I don't even consider "radicalization" and "extremism" to be bad things. "Radicals" are simply those who refuse to compromise on their ideals. There must be a truth out there, we're all seeking that truth and it sure as hell won't be found by compromising on some middle term that neither side is happy about. There must be some kind of resolution.

It's pretty simple. If the ideas being presented, ad nauseam, bring undue harm to other people, the left is going to want to take a step back.

The lab origin theory itself is not harmful, but the way it was presented by the right absolutely was. The base is FAR more prone to knee-jerk violence than the left. To many of them, china lab leak = Chinese people should be physically attacked. The knee-jerk suppression of discussion was caused by the knee-jerk violence.

Jon Stewart could talk about it because he argued in good faith. Tucker Carlson was very obviously looking to rile up the base knowing damn well the logical leaps they would make.

Is there any proof of any significant number of people justifying violence towards the Chinese because of the lab leak theory?

It takes many logical leaps. First, one has to believe the lab leak happened, which we can’t say with certainty — there is a lot of circumstantial and weak evidence on both sides, it is very speculative. Secondly, one would need to believe there is culpability (it was not an accident). Thirdly, one would have to believe that all Chinese are collectively culpable, which alone is pretty ridiculous. And one more logical leap is necessary to agree that random violence would constitute appropriate justice (people generally feel that even when criminals are unduly murdered, this does not make things equitable for the harmed party).

These leaps already require a very radicalized audience. I don’t believe this will work to radicalize a substantial number of people.

And even putting all of that aside, calls for violence are outside social norms and considered hate speech. The problem is not discussing the lab leak theory, it’s doing so outside the social norms. If we say that lab leak discussion is hate speech, that is simply incorrect.

I know what I saw in my own friends and family, and I know what I saw in people online, and I know what was portrayed in the right-winged media. Granted, most would not partake in violence themselves but they sure as hell wrote it off when it happened. They'd just deflect discussion towards Fauci's possible involvement.

Who said all lab leak discussion should be classified as hate speech? I'm positive people said it was being presented by certain people with the intent to invoke hate and violence, but I doubt anyone with any credibility said all discussion of a lab leak should be classified as hate speech.

Edit: To be clear, by "anyone with any credibility" I did not mean to imply including anyone in the government, on either side. There's not much credibility to be found there.

One of the commenters higher up in the chain expressed a sentiment that classifying the lab theory as misinformation or hate speech silences the discussion.

I agree and argue that we should not go as far as to label the topic as such and dismiss it. Not because the lab leak theory is particularly credible, but because dismissing ideas is harmful to society in my opinion.

As for your experience with people dismissing violence towards the Chinese due to these ideas, I can understand how that would happen. But I still don’t believe significant violence was caused.

The left sure doesn't seem to worry about the idea that Ukraine should be aided to no end happens to cause quite a lot of harm to a large number of people, for whom the war would have been over more than a year ago had this agenda not been pushed at nauseam.

There just happens to be a particular party line, wherein some types of harm are bad, and some types of harm are in service to, well, the party agenda.

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