Comment by ilamont | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ilamont | Hacker News Reader

Long before Covid there was pushback against these projects, particularly near population centers. Boston University built its National Emerging Infectious Diseases center right in the middle of the city, which was approved by local regulators (https://www.bu.edu/articles/2017/neidl-bsl-4-lab-approved) but strongly criticized by neighbors when they learned that Ebola and Marburg were studied there. Covid research at the center has not followed bureaucratic protocols, either:

But it has become apparent that the research team did not clear the work with the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which was one of the funders of the project. The agency indicated it is going to be looking for some answers as to why it first learned of the work through media reports.

Emily Erbelding, director of NIAID’s division of microbiology and infectious diseases, said the BU team’s original grant applications did not specify that the scientists wanted to do this precise work. Nor did the group make clear that it was doing experiments that might involve enhancing a pathogen of pandemic potential in the progress reports it provided to NIAID.

https://www.statnews.com/2022/10/17/boston-university-resear...

NIMBYism isn't exactly a good measure of whether something should or shouldn't be done.

NIMBYism != People being concerned about their neighbors possessing weapons of mass destruction/super viruses capable of killing them and millions/billions of other people.

No, but it does equal a people being concerned about the effects of making a change while completely ignoring the effects of NOT making a change.

>while completely ignoring the effects of NOT making a change

The completely hypothetical effects of not making a change in just one area of virology research which is highly criticized by many in the scientific community.

It's hilariously absurd to compare people who don't want a dual use bioweapons research facility in their neighborhood to NIMBYism.

Please do not conflate people concerned about epidemics with narcissistic assholes.

Describing NIMBYism as "narcissistic assholes" is a gross oversimplification, and misses the point I'm getting at.

In the US, you'll reliably get a lot more NIMBY response from "set up a nuclear power plant in the neighbourhood" vs. "set up a gas power plant in the neighbourhood". However, if you look at the risk assessment, the gas power plant is far more lethal to the neighbourhood.

> you'll reliably get a lot more NIMBY response from "set up a nuclear power plant in the neighbourhood" vs. "set up a gas power plant in the neighbourhood"

I don't associate the term "NIMBY" with either scenarios, just housing. I don't think there's much value to overloading it. It's not like anyone's trying to put a nuclear power plant in the middle of Boston to begin with.

> I don't associate the term "NIMBY" with either scenarios, just housing.

You might not, but the broader population associates NIMBY with any scenario where a neighbourhood pushes back against some kind of change in that neighbourhood (adding a prison, a power plant, a half-way house, a school, a bar, trains, airports, etc.). There are NIMBY responses to pretty much any change, and the magnitude of that response tends to have little bearing on the relative merits of the change.

> It's not like anyone's trying to put a nuclear power plant in the middle of Boston to begin with.

No. For the most part no one is putting nuclear power plants anywhere in the US. However, there are other power plants in Boston (and for good reason). This is a direct byproduct of the NIMBYism I'm talking about.

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