2-tpg

You can ban me then (or just let this be my last post).

This HN user spend a year blasting the lab leak hypothesis, going so far as to point to Wikipedia's allowed sources, to try to suppress a submitted link here. Claiming the submitted links are from far-right organizations, not even touching the content. They use similar arguments and text on different articles, such as a weird suspicious support and praise for Peter Daszak, or just snip news article quotes as their argument.

I deem such behavior enemies of truth-finding and sincere curiosity.

The other poster he was doing his one-two narrative building with 11 months ago, is still active (very active now), his latest posts when linking, being in defense of Xiongxian cotton, interspersed with cookie-cutter hacker-linux stuff (because lots of hackers do care about Chinese cotton...).

Even if not a troll network, it is acting indistinguishable from it.

If HN is a community with a fixed recognizable name, then I am allowed to figure out the history. Did this person wanted to defund the police? Did this person yelled that Bitcoin was a bubble hoax? Did this person spend the better part of a year copy-pasting talking points against a lab leak, which add nothing to the conversation? Know your history, so you don't repeat mistakes in the present. Such as going into debate with this user about animals at meat market being the source, when they are not interested in the truth, just pushing their politicized narrative.

I want to be in a community with nay-sayers, rule-breakers, divergent critical thinkers, people who actually debate and make their original points, not copy-paste popular media and shit on bitcoin. This isn't it. The only entropy for me here is from comments already flagged.

Yes, I was way out of line with this, no site should stand for it. It was meant to be my last post here. I would keep calling out posters like that as enemies to truth, science, and investigation, since I find this more important than guidelines, or average karma. So, should make my own site or find another community. I won't apologize, but do sincerely thank you for your strong community management, and I hope you will see less of this in the future.

It is also frustrating to hear:

- Ah.. It came from the meat market (official positions) - Likely from live bats - Who are not sold at that meat market - Who are hybernating - Who come from a cave 900 miles away

Yes, yes, but what if instead it maybe came from a badly-run lab studying that exact bat just a few miles away?

- We strongly condemn any theory that may lead to the suggestion that it came from the lab. You are directly insulting the work of our Chinese colleagues, threatening our relations in Gain-of-Function research and funding, and furthering harmful conspiracy theories accusing the Chinese authorities of a cover-up. I, Peter Daszak, will do a thorough investigation into the origins, which all responsible scientists have already concluded is natural in origin.

SARS-CoV in its natural form is an interesting bioweapon.

No known treatment or vaccine. Targets the decision makers (presidents and ministers and military generals are older, and a virus is easier to reach them, than a bullet is). SARS-CoV has super-spreader events, and asymptomatic spread, making it very difficult to contain. It spreads incredibly easily (near-airborne), in confined spaces such as airplanes, but even the toilet plumbing, or shared airco. It offers plausible deniability, by pointing to a natural spill-over event or unsanitary meat markets. It causes enormous economic damage (the economy, not the cannon fodder, being the subject of modern warfare) and cultural damage (tracking and containment is costly and invasive as it damages trust in a free society). It is most readily available to small states and terrorist groups by extracting from live civet cats. Military-aged terrorists spreading SARS-CoV by simply boarding airplanes and visiting hot spots, and not even dying themselves, so they can do it all over again. SARS-CoV in first stages has vague symptoms, similar to other, more common viruses, which would give a pandemic a head start. Pandemics are good PR for fear-based terrorism. The strain on the hospitals is enormous, and military-aged men are too worried to reserve a bed for their elderly parents or their recovery.

More in the vast literature.

> SARS-CoV-2 is complete trash as a bioweapon.

If complete trash, I would not be afraid of Iran being able to press a button and release SARS-CoV-3 for a 2020 repeat. Even if looking at viral bioweapons from the comical anthrax perspective: SARS-CoV-2 killed over 2 million people.

> that the existence of the sample would almost certaintly be known.

Yes. It would make sense that it would be known. And if it would be known, that would probably sufficiently proof the lab leak hypothesis and end this quarrel. We wouldn't need to talk about probabilities much anymore. But that same argument kinda also works against the zoonotic origin hypothesis. It would make a lot of sense that after a year, we found the intermediate host, or patient 0. If there was a clear epidemiological explanation for a zoonotic origin, it would almost certainly be known. Maybe there really isn't.

> SARS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2 make really poor bioweapons

Often heard this, including from experts in bioscience (I am not one, you sound more like it).

So early on I did a search on Google Scholar for things like: SARS bioweapon to see what I could come up with. Turns out there is a lot of biosecurity and biowarfare literature from before the outbreak, which have entire chapters for SARS coronavirus as a weapon.

I really think if you tried to give some reasons for coronavirus being a poor bioweapon, it would expose either an inflated sense of expertise, or those reasons are precisely the reason coronaviruses are seen as attractive (and relatively cheaply available) bioweapon.

In a: don't do what I say, do what I do-manner: US military is warned not to use DNA tests from companies that offer cheap tests due to Chinese government funding. It may leave them open to "identification" and "attack". How poor would a gene-targeted coronavirus actually be?

The rest of your posts seems to gather support for other hypothesis, not as much attacking the lab leak theory as highly unlikely.

We know that patient 0 was not at the market, and that people at the market got infected.

So, perfectly valid scenario:

1. Scientists do controversial Gain-of-function research by collecting viruses from miles away and importing them to Wuhan.

2. Lab leak happens

3. First linked clusters pop up a few miles away in a rather unsanitary market, with plenty of reservoirs and infection possibilities.

4. Virus is found in environmental samples, including animal cages and pets and frozen foods, in Hunan market and else.

The only thing indirectly invoking a major conspiracy here, is the possibility: lab leak happens.

Or you know, you can account for a scenario, where Chinese authorities covered up a major conspiracy (Don't be afraid! It's only reason over authority!). I thought we were already at the point where this is common sense knowledge. Or else we would know what exactly is going on in those Uyghur concentration camps, but all we can do is estimate the extend of this inhumane conspiracy.

> If the virus was from an animal source known to the lab, we would know already

Unless they started commanding to destroy samples, and sharing sequences of captured bats after the pandemic started.

> it would be quite unlikely for the virus to take so much time to adapt to humans

All experts agree that SARS-COV-2 is extremely adapted to human infection. Like it appeared out of nowhere, not the gradual result of a natural spill-over. To pose: "It could have been even more infectious" as an argument against gain-of-function is not very strong. And if we agree that China did not deliberately release a finished product, it would be weird to see optimal adaptivity.

> there is no obvious marker for genetic engineering

Gain-of-function does not create obvious marker. It is known possible to increase GoF of coronavirus using techniques that produce no markers at all. It is also tying it too closely to engineered bioweapons (vanilla SARS-COV is a bioweapon itself, even if collected from civet cats by terrorists), because the lab leak could also have been from a collected sample and accidental escape. There is no genetic engineering there at all.

> How is this possible?

I can think of only a few scenario's where China messed up and the West remains silent. One would be where personal interests or blackmail would cause the decision makers to change their tune. A plausible one is where the West does not want to step on any toes, to safeguard that little data coming from China, while it is silently gathering international support for when the pandemic is under control. Another where SARS-2 developed from SARS-1 when it recombined in Wuhan in a HIV-patient (perhaps after a failed vaccine trial). If you are interested in protecting the health of the population, it is more important to shield possible victims of panic and hate, than to have a million negative mentions of HIV, China, and vaccines in the news.

I suspect Peter Daszak will face accountability due to the Streisand effect of his PR campaign against "conspiracies". You can't write a paper condemning scientists for even suggesting it was a lab leak of a human-intervented virus, and then field an objective origins investigation. A lot happened in 2020, but I doubt we forget that blatant mess.

Even if this turns out zoonotic (I hope it does), Daszak will scream he was right suppressing any investigation into opposing hypothesis. No scientist should live that down.

Deadlines are calculated from the average worker speeds. Perhaps some Amazon employees really are below average, or do not give it their best at all, so they are forced to piss in bottles and poop into the delivery car before returning it to station to meet these devilish average-worker deadlines.

I would agree that is a terrible problem. Perhaps Amazon should focus more attention on catching such employees early and letting them go (or offering them potty training with quarterly evaluations)? But then where does the average go? Deadlines get even tighter! Or you could make your wage relative to your worker speed: the fastest people earn the most. Only if you think you still earn enough for shitty work will you then be forced to keep doing that job. Or should Amazon be more kind to these employees who can't seem to manage their personal hygiene or fall way below average worker speeds? Treat and pay them the same as the 99% employees who don't shit and deliver? That would lead to an equal outcome for sure.

Agreed. But if Turing left a letter with the motive, or was known depressed or irrational, then I would not question the hypothesis that Turing was driven to suicide. Right now I can not see it as the fact it is presented as. I'd like to see some support from those on stage (not for lack of trying).

If suicide, I doubt there even is a clear motive (of course, forced hormone treatment is going to play a role in suicidal thoughts). It will be multi-faceted and reduction to one thing (be that the treatment, or something else) will not do full justice to the complexity of suicide.

> Sometimes they're trying to protect their families from their feelings of despair.

I think the cyanide apple was there to provide the possibility of an accident, for Turing did not want to hurt his mother with a definitive suicide. Or maybe he took his lonely love for fairy tales way too far and expected to awake to a kiss from a beautiful prince. The latter is no less a speculative invasion of his private life, than taking his sexuality or treatment as defining of his scientific legacy or suicide.

> it goes far beyond employees peeing in bottles.

No, but solid rhetorics. This is the part you give proof of the fact that Amazon have their workers pee in bottles to meet deadlines. Not point to something else entirely that goes far beyond the things you pose as facts, which are not. Don't look at that! Look at this documentary that goes far far beyond it. Well played! And solid one for PBS for exposing the worker abuse that Amazon is now in court for! We need the free press to save worker laws.

> the fact that Amazon warehouse / delivery employees have to urinate in bottles to meet deadlines?

Amazon does not want its employees to piss into bottles. But sometimes employees (predominantly male I hope) do piss into bottles, because they did not plan correctly, or just had to go while on the road. If caught, these employees (and their managers) are then reprimanded. If they get a chance to defend themselves, of course they claim it was due to the deadline, not poor planning or bladder control or uncommon hygiene ethics.

Amazon factually states: Hey, if we required our employees to pee into bottles to meet deadlines, do you seriously think people would work for us, and not 100s of other low-paid jobs which don't have that medieval requirement?

Politicians: Hey, this you?! I have lots of pictures of bottles with piss! Where is your snotty reply now? You say that your employees do not have to piss into bottles, so how come I have those pictures?! Huh?!

It is embarrassing to both sides. Especially for official government employees (who also don't have to pee into bottles to meet deadlines, but I am sure you can turn up at least some pictures: if not, find any traces of cocaine use in the Capitol, then posit that the US congress have their senators use cocaine in the toilet to meet deadlines. Or, you know, bi-partisan plan to have low-skilled employees share in the American dream made possible by Amazon, but I guess that does not fit inside a tweet).

Could you give the support that it was the hormone treatment that drove Turing to suicide? It is a commonly accepted interpretation, but there is not much support for it these days (even the suicide is questioned now, pinning it as an accident or murder).

Turing died a full year after his hormone treatment was completed. No motive for the suicide was established. Turing was in good spirits and had, according to friends, underwent his cruel treatment with "amused fortitude".

Not defending Turing's struggles to be gay or his inhumane treatment. But if we are celebrating science, we can't just assume that the English government drove Turing to suicide, without looking at other possibilities, or finding support. Especially, when we all remember Turing's circumstance of death was far from clear.