loveistheanswer

Its a great example of how blinding ideology and partisan politics is.

For people who did not have their identity tied to either political side, the lab leak theory was always an obvious possibility.

>You write this as if NIH is a privately run foundation with Fauci at the head. He's not even head of the NIH

He has been the head of the NIAID, the infectious diseases arm of the NIH, for ~37 years.

>“If you ban gain-of-function research, you ban all of virology.”

This is an absurd strawman. If it were true, why have there been so many virologists calling GoF unethical and seeking to prohibit it?

Because we're talking about research of biological weapons of mass destruction.

From Fauci's paper:

>In an unlikely but conceivable turn of events, what if that scientist becomes infected with the virus, which leads to an outbreak and ultimately triggers a pandemic? Many ask reasonable questions: given the possibility of such a scenario...

>Scientists working in this field might say – as indeed I have said – that the benefits of such experiments and the resulting knowledge outweigh the risks. It is more likely that a pandemic would occur in nature, and the need to stay ahead of such a threat is a primary reason for performing an experiment that might appear to be risky.

So the basic risk calculation Fauci is using (which is disputed by many scientists and virologists) is this:

Lives saved by GoF research > lives lost by inevitable lab leak + lives lost by inevitable natural pandemic

Gain of function research has been going on for decades now. What evidence is there that this research has actually served its purpose to help save lives? Did GoF help us at all with the current pandemic?

The people who judge and define others primarily by the color of their skin rather than the content of their character.

Those who fight racism with racism and call it anti-racism or reverse-racism.

Those who use hate, blame, and punishment as their tools of power, rather than love, forgiveness, and self/community empowerment.

Those who focus on division rather than unity.

>Growing to overcome past problems is not sufficient.

Their assumption is moreso that we cant grow to overcome past problems. So the only way to build themselves up is to tear others down.

Thats why the popular "anti-racism" philosophy is so antithetical to and ignorant of the lives and philosophies of many of the greatest civil rights leaders such as Frederick Douglass, Booker T Washington, and MLK.

>Why do people feel the need to socially shame people publicly for an offense over a decade ago?

Because they're playing a game of Moral Supremacy one-upsmanship. In the long run, everyone who plays this game must lose, because were all humans. But in the short term this game can be quite lucrative in terms of attention getting, internet points, and money.

Can you quote where exactly they are "conflating the state of Israel and Jewish people and lumping it all together."?

>Plenty of Jewish people that live both inside and outside of Israel are critical of the state.

Is this not exactly what this thought experiment of an article is talking about? Trying to put themselves on the shoes of a Jewish person who is critical of Israels politics

>The main avenue would be by getting rid of the sanctioned on/off ramps for crypto (that is, crypto exchanges), leaving only the illegal on/off ramps which I'm sure exist.

From what I've read it seems its only the stupidest of criminals who are using exchanges like Coinbase to cash out, because that's the easiest way to get caught.

What is?