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It is YOUR responsibility to fully read through the sources that you link, and you MUST provide a brief summary explaining what the source is about. Do not expect other people to do the work for you.
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Added a disclaimer on page 662. Many need to post better. |
In my experience, people favoring scientific evidence usually believe natural origin, whereas people favoring geopolitical evidence usually believe lab leak. I’ve tried to look into the actual science and I don’t feel qualified to have a strong opinion, other than that it is clearly not engineered, and none of the scientific arguments “proving” it must have been a result of gain of function research have remotely persuaded me.
It’s not especially implausible to me that a specimen would leak. I haven’t worked in a BSL3, but I’ve worked in a couple BSL2s and a university lab here and there, and people inevitably get lax with safety guidelines after working there a few years. Maybe the safety culture in BSL3s (or in China?) is more rigorous but from what little I’ve read about the frequency of BSL3 containment breaks, I doubt it.
But to me, none of the hysterics about the question are justified. If it did leak from the lab (either a natural specimen or a product of gain of function experiments), it doesn’t drastically change our condition. Occasionally a congressman or someone will make some noise about suing China for damages or declaring covid an Act of Aggression or some bullshit, but none of that should or will happen. It would somewhat inform our risk assessment on gain of function research if we knew that was the origin, but not all that much considering we already know that those techniques a) can create deadly diseases, and b) certainly could break containment from a BSL3.
Honestly, as a chemist the stuff biologists can do these days scares the shit out of me. I’m not sure how we get out of this century without someone somewhere cooking up something truly awful and unleashing it on us. For nearly the last century if the world ended we probably would have assumed it was physicists’ fault, but these days I think the biologists are the best bet (if nobody else gets there first and global warming kills us, I suppose you could blame us chemists). That is to say, whatever protections you want to put in place to stop biological research from producing nightmare plagues are probably justified regardless of Covid’s origin.
TL;DR: I probably slightly lean natural origin, but whatever importance you think the question has, I think you’re probably wrong.
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That question might not be important for how to deal with covid now that it's here, but I think it's very important to determine the plausibility of the lab leak theory given how facebook and others have tried to silence it. Polls show that more and more people are favoring even more censorship either by big tech or by the government. If it did come from a lab, I also think it's important to know who is responsible even if there is no chance of China paying reparations or anyone going to prison. The people responsible should at the very least be publicly shamed and disgraced.
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On December 04 2021 17:17 Acrofales wrote:Show nested quote +On December 04 2021 04:35 Blitzkrieg0 wrote:On December 04 2021 01:01 Sermokala wrote:On December 04 2021 00:43 Blitzkrieg0 wrote:On December 03 2021 23:13 Sermokala wrote:On December 03 2021 21:46 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On December 03 2021 18:21 Elroi wrote:On December 01 2021 20:28 YumYumGranola wrote:On December 01 2021 18:35 BlackJack wrote:On December 01 2021 15:30 Lmui wrote:[quote] Well, when a flight from South Africa has ~10% of the people on a flight infected, you'd be tempted to ban flights too. 61/600 is a pretty high number considering sequencing said they caught it prior to boarding the flight. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-59451103There's quite a bit more data and reasoning backing up the ban this time in comparison to the initial ban on China due to the wider availability of reliable testing. Can you expand on that? Why do you think there is more data and reasoning to ban travel from parts of Africa than from China in early 2020? It's not a secret that China was ground zero for the virus. You don't need any testing to know that. Also I'm pretty sure the travel restrictions went into place before that flight even landed and the passengers were tested at the airport so you can't use it as justification for the travel restrictions. I think the main thing that separates the response now from the response back in 2020 is the context of everything surrounding it. Travel restrictions are a delaying tactic. The main criticism of trump at the time is that he was treating it like a solution, and neglecting to do or undermining the efforts of his experts to put into place the systems we actually needed. I think the reason why the China travel ban was seen as xenophobic and the present situation is not is the same as the reason why the virus wasn't called the Wuhan virus, why you'd get banned from twitter for speculating about it being man-made (plausible theory, it turns out), and why the present mutation isn't called Xi. Agreed. The racist speculation wasn't just that it was mistakenly made in a lab, but that it was purposely being processed as a bioweapon and that we should not only hate Chinese people, but all Chinese-Americans and all Asian-Americans too. There is a reasonable way to wonder about the origins of coronavirus, but the remarks made by Trump and Republican leadership and Fox News anchors did not (and still don't) reflect any sort of good-faith curiosity. You can't gloss over the part that you bolded about it being a plausible theory that its man made. Its not a plausible theory the science is very clear that its not man made. It may have been leaked accidentally from a lab where it was being studied but very explicitly is not man made. This is one of those technically correct, but meaningless separations. If humans leaked a naturally occurring virus and started a pandemic then is that really any better? The difference between intentional bio warfare that starts a pandemic and incompetence that starts a pandemic are meaningless to the average person. You're only deciding if China is malicious or negligent. Either way China needs some reforms so it doesn't happen again. This is handwaving to excuse racism and xenophobia by the people who put these assertions into the public. The difference between china intending to release a plague onto the world and if China accidentally let a plague onto the world is very meaningful separation of the reaction. Instead the right gets to dance with one of them for cover but insinuate the other with their audience. No one is hand waving to excuse racism. I don't trust the government or corporations to police speech they disagree with. Around this time last year anyone who suggested the naturally occurring lab leak theory was labeled and banned from places of discussion like the coronavirus subreddit or facebook. Now we think that this is the best explanation possible and requires further investigation. sourceTrump and many Republicans advocated for the lab leak theory and maybe falsely implied that it was malicious to saber rattle for their cause. The response from media and people to completely shut down any discussion on it was an overreaction. Where do you get this idea that it's the best explanation possible? Every month there are new papers claiming none or the other is the best explanation. Here is a rather fair assessment (it starts discussing a recent paper, but soon starts talking about the greater picture): https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/11/18/coronavirus-origins-wuhan-market-animals-science-journal/In short: we don't know, we may never know, and China avoiding the investigation isn't helping, but most of the evidence points to a natural cause, despite doubts.
Maybe I'm not caught up on all the latest papers so I'll concede that isn't clear cut. We'll never know because the investigation was hampered by the CCP. I think the geopolitical angle makes more sense to me because China is preventing the investigation to cover up mistakes they made. If it was naturally occurring they could just allow the investigation and clear everything up, but no chance of that happening.
On December 04 2021 11:22 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On December 04 2021 04:35 Blitzkrieg0 wrote:On December 04 2021 01:01 Sermokala wrote:On December 04 2021 00:43 Blitzkrieg0 wrote:On December 03 2021 23:13 Sermokala wrote:On December 03 2021 21:46 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On December 03 2021 18:21 Elroi wrote:On December 01 2021 20:28 YumYumGranola wrote:On December 01 2021 18:35 BlackJack wrote:On December 01 2021 15:30 Lmui wrote:[quote] Well, when a flight from South Africa has ~10% of the people on a flight infected, you'd be tempted to ban flights too. 61/600 is a pretty high number considering sequencing said they caught it prior to boarding the flight. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-59451103There's quite a bit more data and reasoning backing up the ban this time in comparison to the initial ban on China due to the wider availability of reliable testing. Can you expand on that? Why do you think there is more data and reasoning to ban travel from parts of Africa than from China in early 2020? It's not a secret that China was ground zero for the virus. You don't need any testing to know that. Also I'm pretty sure the travel restrictions went into place before that flight even landed and the passengers were tested at the airport so you can't use it as justification for the travel restrictions. I think the main thing that separates the response now from the response back in 2020 is the context of everything surrounding it. Travel restrictions are a delaying tactic. The main criticism of trump at the time is that he was treating it like a solution, and neglecting to do or undermining the efforts of his experts to put into place the systems we actually needed. I think the reason why the China travel ban was seen as xenophobic and the present situation is not is the same as the reason why the virus wasn't called the Wuhan virus, why you'd get banned from twitter for speculating about it being man-made (plausible theory, it turns out), and why the present mutation isn't called Xi. Agreed. The racist speculation wasn't just that it was mistakenly made in a lab, but that it was purposely being processed as a bioweapon and that we should not only hate Chinese people, but all Chinese-Americans and all Asian-Americans too. There is a reasonable way to wonder about the origins of coronavirus, but the remarks made by Trump and Republican leadership and Fox News anchors did not (and still don't) reflect any sort of good-faith curiosity. You can't gloss over the part that you bolded about it being a plausible theory that its man made. Its not a plausible theory the science is very clear that its not man made. It may have been leaked accidentally from a lab where it was being studied but very explicitly is not man made. This is one of those technically correct, but meaningless separations. If humans leaked a naturally occurring virus and started a pandemic then is that really any better? The difference between intentional bio warfare that starts a pandemic and incompetence that starts a pandemic are meaningless to the average person. You're only deciding if China is malicious or negligent. Either way China needs some reforms so it doesn't happen again. This is handwaving to excuse racism and xenophobia by the people who put these assertions into the public. The difference between china intending to release a plague onto the world and if China accidentally let a plague onto the world is very meaningful separation of the reaction. Instead the right gets to dance with one of them for cover but insinuate the other with their audience. No one is hand waving to excuse racism. I don't trust the government or corporations to police speech they disagree with. Around this time last year anyone who suggested the naturally occurring lab leak theory was labeled and banned from places of discussion like the coronavirus subreddit or facebook. Now we think that this is the best explanation possible and requires further investigation. sourceTrump and many Republicans advocated for the lab leak theory and maybe falsely implied that it was malicious to saber rattle for their cause. The response from media and people to completely shut down any discussion on it was an overreaction. Were they? Was discussion of this actually suppressed?
My post literally contains a source for this claim. If there is some dispute about the journal feel free to speak up about it.
On December 04 2021 19:10 ChristianS wrote:
But to me, none of the hysterics about the question are justified. If it did leak from the lab (either a natural specimen or a product of gain of function experiments), it doesn’t drastically change our condition.
I must have phrased this too controversially, but this is exactly the point I was making. The pandemic exists and we should be focusing on policy and how it effects people rather than pedantic arguments about how much China's lab was involved.
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I mean, I think the tech sector’s trend toward heavier moderation this year has been badly handled in a lot of ways (Twitter’s recent “privacy policy” seems particularly disastrous), and in general I tend to favor more permissive moderation philosophies on the Internet (including here on TL). But in the last couple years you occasionally encounter deranged posters insisting on some constellation of:
- Absolute certainty natural origin is impossible
- Implying or outright stating it was engineered and/or released intentionally by some Enemy (Democrats, Russia, China, or worse, some ethnic group)
- Implying or outright stating the virus or its symptoms are a hoax
- Demanding policies focused on retribution against China or, worse, Chinese people
- Asserting that various recommended public health interventions (social distancing, masks, vaccines) do nothing or actually make it worse, often as part of some conspiracy to control us (Wake up, sheeple!)
Depending on which parts of that constellation are present, I’d absolutely expect either an outright ban or, at least, that poster be kept on an exceptionally tight leash, and that goes for TL as well. In most cases, it wouldn’t actually make a huge difference to me if some new evidence improbably proved them right about something.
What if we learn the virus was actually a natural specimen collected by WIV and improperly disposed of? Or if there’s some replication crisis on studies regarding masks and it turns out the evidence for their effectiveness came from some difficult-to-control confounding variables? While possible, I think those are both pretty unlikely based on current evidence, and a poster like that a) is making a lot more extreme assertions than those hypotheticals would prove, and b) has no evidence I don’t have in asserting them.
That is to say, I expect someone spouting lab leak theories would have been actioned last year (whether on Twitter, FB, or here on TL). Maybe they still would (depending, as moderation usually does, on how they go about it). But I’m not sure that’s wrong, even if people have warmed on the lab leak hypothesis in the mean time.
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Northern Ireland27149 Posts
@Blitzkrieg, I was overly flippant without reading, which is on me, my bad.
Some of what is outlined is concerning if true, but I think it’s referring to something different than I expected/responding too. Namely conflicts of influence biasing and pressuring consensus in the scientific community, which is then reflected by the non-science media who defer to scientific expertise in disseminating information.
At the next level of information spreading, namely all us amateurs generating content for eyeballs on social media, I’m extremely skeptical of the constant charges of censorship.
One of those charges like the Democrats being socialists that I file in my ‘would be cool if that were true’ cabinet. I mean there’s an entire cottage industry of folks who say the things that ‘they won’t let you say’.
Despite barely using many social media platforms anymore, I’ve encountered all sorts of terms or scientific phenomena people evidently don’t understand (neither do I incidentally). Exclusively dovetailed with some kind of conspiratorial twist, or in service of a general anti-vaccine platform. Antigenic sin, gain of function research… I could go on, and this is from barely dipping my toes in.
@Christian I continually wrestle with this one, I’m really at a loss. You can’t practically moderate the rest of the interwebz in a matter similar to TL, although I do think it would improve things.
It’s a relatively new ecosystem, perhaps with time we’ll better adapt to it, although I do have my doubts there. Conspiracy theories have pushed on from being a harmless, hell even charming hobby about things of little practical import like aliens to being way more widespread and actually impactful to the social and cultural realm.
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On December 05 2021 02:16 WombaT wrote:
@Blitzkrieg, I was overly flippant without reading, which is on me, my bad.
Some of what is outlined is concerning if true, but I think it’s referring to something different than I expected/responding too. Namely conflicts of influence biasing and pressuring consensus in the scientific community, which is then reflected by the non-science media who defer to scientific expertise in disseminating information.
At the next level of information spreading, namely all us amateurs generating content for eyeballs on social media, I’m extremely skeptical of the constant charges of censorship.
One of those charges like the Democrats being socialists that I file in my ‘would be cool if that were true’ cabinet. I mean there’s an entire cottage industry of folks who say the things that ‘they won’t let you say’.
Despite barely using many social media platforms anymore, I’ve encountered all sorts of terms or scientific phenomena people evidently don’t understand (neither do I incidentally). Exclusively dovetailed with some kind of conspiratorial twist, or in service of a general anti-vaccine platform. Antigenic sin, gain of function research… I could go on, and this is from barely dipping my toes in.
@Christian I continually wrestle with this one, I’m really at a loss. You can’t practically moderate the rest of the interwebz in a matter similar to TL, although I do think it would improve things.
It’s a relatively new ecosystem, perhaps with time we’ll better adapt to it, although I do have my doubts there. Conspiracy theories have pushed on from being a harmless, hell even charming hobby about things of little practical import like aliens to being way more widespread and actually impactful to the social and cultural realm.
Antigenic sin is not complicated at all you can read the wikipedia article on it which is short and simple. It's obviously a real phenomenon and could be a problem with variant specific vaccines. It has been a problem in the past for the flu vaccines.
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Northern Ireland27149 Posts
On December 05 2021 03:46 teeel141 wrote:Show nested quote +On December 05 2021 02:16 WombaT wrote:
@Blitzkrieg, I was overly flippant without reading, which is on me, my bad.
Some of what is outlined is concerning if true, but I think it’s referring to something different than I expected/responding too. Namely conflicts of influence biasing and pressuring consensus in the scientific community, which is then reflected by the non-science media who defer to scientific expertise in disseminating information.
At the next level of information spreading, namely all us amateurs generating content for eyeballs on social media, I’m extremely skeptical of the constant charges of censorship.
One of those charges like the Democrats being socialists that I file in my ‘would be cool if that were true’ cabinet. I mean there’s an entire cottage industry of folks who say the things that ‘they won’t let you say’.
Despite barely using many social media platforms anymore, I’ve encountered all sorts of terms or scientific phenomena people evidently don’t understand (neither do I incidentally). Exclusively dovetailed with some kind of conspiratorial twist, or in service of a general anti-vaccine platform. Antigenic sin, gain of function research… I could go on, and this is from barely dipping my toes in.
@Christian I continually wrestle with this one, I’m really at a loss. You can’t practically moderate the rest of the interwebz in a matter similar to TL, although I do think it would improve things.
It’s a relatively new ecosystem, perhaps with time we’ll better adapt to it, although I do have my doubts there. Conspiracy theories have pushed on from being a harmless, hell even charming hobby about things of little practical import like aliens to being way more widespread and actually impactful to the social and cultural realm.
Antigenic sin is not complicated at all you can read the wikipedia article on it which is short and simple. It's obviously a real phenomenon and could be a problem with variant specific vaccines. It has been a problem in the past for the flu vaccines.
It’s simple to understand in a crude, base level. As to its applicability to this particular virus, or strains of said virus that’s another thing.
People who didn’t even have a baseline understanding of the immune system prior to 2020 who are now familiar with antigenic sin, well hey we can all learn things but I’m skeptical on what depth of understanding people claim to have given the rapidity of their progression.
I know a lot about Starcraft, computers and am pretty well versed in politics and history, with a wee smattering of music theory.
That is the extent of my wheelhouse, I wholly rely on others giving me reliable information in other domains. I have science friends and, as a forum veteran posters who work in related fields here who’ve been good interlocutors for all sorts over many years that I value what they’re saying.
But shit is complicated man. I’m happy with the quality of breakdowns I’m getting because, earnestly someone could throw out something plausible sounding, but utter hogwash at me and I might buy it.
I don’t even think I’m being brave and honest in admitting this, I don’t think many people secretly harbour fears on the extent of their ultimate ignorance, the thought has yet to occur to them.
Antigenic sin (ok I’ll admit it’s a cool phrase) isn’t even a good argument against vaccination programs, even if the phenomena is at play it’s establishing limits of what vaccines can accomplish, potentially.
And it will ultimately apply to the supposedly superior ‘natural immunity’ that anti-vaccine types love to bang on about anyway
If there are potentially 2 people who I know want to beat the shit out of me, and I pop down to my local dojo and their sensei says he’ll take out one of them as part of a past blood debt to me, but the second one is free to beat the shit out of me as the debt is for him to take out one guy well, it’s not ideal but it’s still better than nothing.
If there is ever an award for consistently shit analogies on TL I think I’m a lock for it, but I hope it illustrates the point
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On December 05 2021 03:46 teeel141 wrote:Show nested quote +On December 05 2021 02:16 WombaT wrote:
@Blitzkrieg, I was overly flippant without reading, which is on me, my bad.
Some of what is outlined is concerning if true, but I think it’s referring to something different than I expected/responding too. Namely conflicts of influence biasing and pressuring consensus in the scientific community, which is then reflected by the non-science media who defer to scientific expertise in disseminating information.
At the next level of information spreading, namely all us amateurs generating content for eyeballs on social media, I’m extremely skeptical of the constant charges of censorship.
One of those charges like the Democrats being socialists that I file in my ‘would be cool if that were true’ cabinet. I mean there’s an entire cottage industry of folks who say the things that ‘they won’t let you say’.
Despite barely using many social media platforms anymore, I’ve encountered all sorts of terms or scientific phenomena people evidently don’t understand (neither do I incidentally). Exclusively dovetailed with some kind of conspiratorial twist, or in service of a general anti-vaccine platform. Antigenic sin, gain of function research… I could go on, and this is from barely dipping my toes in.
@Christian I continually wrestle with this one, I’m really at a loss. You can’t practically moderate the rest of the interwebz in a matter similar to TL, although I do think it would improve things.
It’s a relatively new ecosystem, perhaps with time we’ll better adapt to it, although I do have my doubts there. Conspiracy theories have pushed on from being a harmless, hell even charming hobby about things of little practical import like aliens to being way more widespread and actually impactful to the social and cultural realm.
Antigenic sin is not complicated at all you can read the wikipedia article on it which is short and simple. It's obviously a real phenomenon and could be a problem with variant specific vaccines. It has been a problem in the past for the flu vaccines.
It might be clarifying for everyone if you explained what you think should be done/should have been done as a result of the phenomena you’re highlighting. Antigenic sin is a phenomenon that exists that you read about Wikipedia, therefore… what? Therefore vaccination is bad actually? Therefore we should just infect everyone with Covid instead? Therefore we should use more NPIs like lockdowns and masks to prevent spread instead of relying mostly on vaccination?
Because if your point is just “here’s a bad thing that could hypothetically happen,” then, agreed! There’s a lot of bad things that could hypothetically happen! But it’s usually only useful to consider them insomuch as it informs the course of action we would take.
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On December 05 2021 05:06 ChristianS wrote:Show nested quote +On December 05 2021 03:46 teeel141 wrote:On December 05 2021 02:16 WombaT wrote:
@Blitzkrieg, I was overly flippant without reading, which is on me, my bad.
Some of what is outlined is concerning if true, but I think it’s referring to something different than I expected/responding too. Namely conflicts of influence biasing and pressuring consensus in the scientific community, which is then reflected by the non-science media who defer to scientific expertise in disseminating information.
At the next level of information spreading, namely all us amateurs generating content for eyeballs on social media, I’m extremely skeptical of the constant charges of censorship.
One of those charges like the Democrats being socialists that I file in my ‘would be cool if that were true’ cabinet. I mean there’s an entire cottage industry of folks who say the things that ‘they won’t let you say’.
Despite barely using many social media platforms anymore, I’ve encountered all sorts of terms or scientific phenomena people evidently don’t understand (neither do I incidentally). Exclusively dovetailed with some kind of conspiratorial twist, or in service of a general anti-vaccine platform. Antigenic sin, gain of function research… I could go on, and this is from barely dipping my toes in.
@Christian I continually wrestle with this one, I’m really at a loss. You can’t practically moderate the rest of the interwebz in a matter similar to TL, although I do think it would improve things.
It’s a relatively new ecosystem, perhaps with time we’ll better adapt to it, although I do have my doubts there. Conspiracy theories have pushed on from being a harmless, hell even charming hobby about things of little practical import like aliens to being way more widespread and actually impactful to the social and cultural realm.
Antigenic sin is not complicated at all you can read the wikipedia article on it which is short and simple. It's obviously a real phenomenon and could be a problem with variant specific vaccines. It has been a problem in the past for the flu vaccines. It might be clarifying for everyone if you explained what you think should be done/should have been done as a result of the phenomena you’re highlighting. Antigenic sin is a phenomenon that exists that you read about Wikipedia, therefore… what? Therefore vaccination is bad actually? Therefore we should just infect everyone with Covid instead? Therefore we should use more NPIs like lockdowns and masks to prevent spread instead of relying mostly on vaccination? Because if your point is just “here’s a bad thing that could hypothetically happen,” then, agreed! There’s a lot of bad things that could hypothetically happen! But it’s usually only useful to consider them insomuch as it informs the course of action we would take.
My point was that it's not actually a complicated thing and is understandable even for non experts.
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On December 05 2021 06:02 JimmiC wrote:Show nested quote +On December 05 2021 05:49 teeel141 wrote:On December 05 2021 05:06 ChristianS wrote:On December 05 2021 03:46 teeel141 wrote:On December 05 2021 02:16 WombaT wrote:
@Blitzkrieg, I was overly flippant without reading, which is on me, my bad.
Some of what is outlined is concerning if true, but I think it’s referring to something different than I expected/responding too. Namely conflicts of influence biasing and pressuring consensus in the scientific community, which is then reflected by the non-science media who defer to scientific expertise in disseminating information.
At the next level of information spreading, namely all us amateurs generating content for eyeballs on social media, I’m extremely skeptical of the constant charges of censorship.
One of those charges like the Democrats being socialists that I file in my ‘would be cool if that were true’ cabinet. I mean there’s an entire cottage industry of folks who say the things that ‘they won’t let you say’.
Despite barely using many social media platforms anymore, I’ve encountered all sorts of terms or scientific phenomena people evidently don’t understand (neither do I incidentally). Exclusively dovetailed with some kind of conspiratorial twist, or in service of a general anti-vaccine platform. Antigenic sin, gain of function research… I could go on, and this is from barely dipping my toes in.
@Christian I continually wrestle with this one, I’m really at a loss. You can’t practically moderate the rest of the interwebz in a matter similar to TL, although I do think it would improve things.
It’s a relatively new ecosystem, perhaps with time we’ll better adapt to it, although I do have my doubts there. Conspiracy theories have pushed on from being a harmless, hell even charming hobby about things of little practical import like aliens to being way more widespread and actually impactful to the social and cultural realm.
Antigenic sin is not complicated at all you can read the wikipedia article on it which is short and simple. It's obviously a real phenomenon and could be a problem with variant specific vaccines. It has been a problem in the past for the flu vaccines. It might be clarifying for everyone if you explained what you think should be done/should have been done as a result of the phenomena you’re highlighting. Antigenic sin is a phenomenon that exists that you read about Wikipedia, therefore… what? Therefore vaccination is bad actually? Therefore we should just infect everyone with Covid instead? Therefore we should use more NPIs like lockdowns and masks to prevent spread instead of relying mostly on vaccination? Because if your point is just “here’s a bad thing that could hypothetically happen,” then, agreed! There’s a lot of bad things that could hypothetically happen! But it’s usually only useful to consider them insomuch as it informs the course of action we would take. My point was that it's not actually a complicated thing and is understandable even for non experts. But ChristianS's point is that if you cant apply the concept than there is not undrrstanding or ita pointless to bring up. The same way if you cant define the "they" they probably dont exist.
When he says that it's not a useful thing to consider. I think he's being ridiculous. What are your thoughts on that?
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On December 05 2021 06:16 teeel141 wrote:Show nested quote +On December 05 2021 06:02 JimmiC wrote:On December 05 2021 05:49 teeel141 wrote:On December 05 2021 05:06 ChristianS wrote:On December 05 2021 03:46 teeel141 wrote:On December 05 2021 02:16 WombaT wrote:
@Blitzkrieg, I was overly flippant without reading, which is on me, my bad.
Some of what is outlined is concerning if true, but I think it’s referring to something different than I expected/responding too. Namely conflicts of influence biasing and pressuring consensus in the scientific community, which is then reflected by the non-science media who defer to scientific expertise in disseminating information.
At the next level of information spreading, namely all us amateurs generating content for eyeballs on social media, I’m extremely skeptical of the constant charges of censorship.
One of those charges like the Democrats being socialists that I file in my ‘would be cool if that were true’ cabinet. I mean there’s an entire cottage industry of folks who say the things that ‘they won’t let you say’.
Despite barely using many social media platforms anymore, I’ve encountered all sorts of terms or scientific phenomena people evidently don’t understand (neither do I incidentally). Exclusively dovetailed with some kind of conspiratorial twist, or in service of a general anti-vaccine platform. Antigenic sin, gain of function research… I could go on, and this is from barely dipping my toes in.
@Christian I continually wrestle with this one, I’m really at a loss. You can’t practically moderate the rest of the interwebz in a matter similar to TL, although I do think it would improve things.
It’s a relatively new ecosystem, perhaps with time we’ll better adapt to it, although I do have my doubts there. Conspiracy theories have pushed on from being a harmless, hell even charming hobby about things of little practical import like aliens to being way more widespread and actually impactful to the social and cultural realm.
Antigenic sin is not complicated at all you can read the wikipedia article on it which is short and simple. It's obviously a real phenomenon and could be a problem with variant specific vaccines. It has been a problem in the past for the flu vaccines. It might be clarifying for everyone if you explained what you think should be done/should have been done as a result of the phenomena you’re highlighting. Antigenic sin is a phenomenon that exists that you read about Wikipedia, therefore… what? Therefore vaccination is bad actually? Therefore we should just infect everyone with Covid instead? Therefore we should use more NPIs like lockdowns and masks to prevent spread instead of relying mostly on vaccination? Because if your point is just “here’s a bad thing that could hypothetically happen,” then, agreed! There’s a lot of bad things that could hypothetically happen! But it’s usually only useful to consider them insomuch as it informs the course of action we would take. My point was that it's not actually a complicated thing and is understandable even for non experts. But ChristianS's point is that if you cant apply the concept than there is not undrrstanding or ita pointless to bring up. The same way if you cant define the "they" they probably dont exist. When he says that it's not a useful thing to consider. I think he's being ridiculous. What are your thoughts on that?
I mean, it’s not really. If the question is “how protected will people with immunity be against a new variant?” the answer is “we don’t know!” If you then raise your hand and say “actually, in rare cases they can be even less protected than a naïve immune system due to this obscure immunological phenomenon!” what are we supposed to say? Pat you on the head and congratulate you on your Wikipedia reading comprehension? Add a clarifying footnote to “we don’t know!” that the range of protection could include negative numbers, not just 0-100%?
If you think it’s useful to consider, explain why! For instance, by saying in your own words what should be done differently or should have been done differently because of this information! If you’re just sharing trivia, I’ll file this away for future trivia nights and then go back to discussing the pandemic!
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On December 05 2021 01:21 ChristianS wrote:I mean, I think the tech sector’s trend toward heavier moderation this year has been badly handled in a lot of ways (Twitter’s recent “privacy policy” seems particularly disastrous), and in general I tend to favor more permissive moderation philosophies on the Internet (including here on TL). But in the last couple years you occasionally encounter deranged posters insisting on some constellation of: - Absolute certainty natural origin is impossible
- Implying or outright stating it was engineered and/or released intentionally by some Enemy (Democrats, Russia, China, or worse, some ethnic group)
- Implying or outright stating the virus or its symptoms are a hoax
- Demanding policies focused on retribution against China or, worse, Chinese people
- Asserting that various recommended public health interventions (social distancing, masks, vaccines) do nothing or actually make it worse, often as part of some conspiracy to control us (Wake up, sheeple!)
Depending on which parts of that constellation are present, I’d absolutely expect either an outright ban or, at least, that poster be kept on an exceptionally tight leash, and that goes for TL as well. In most cases, it wouldn’t actually make a huge difference to me if some new evidence improbably proved them right about something. What if we learn the virus was actually a natural specimen collected by WIV and improperly disposed of? Or if there’s some replication crisis on studies regarding masks and it turns out the evidence for their effectiveness came from some difficult-to-control confounding variables? While possible, I think those are both pretty unlikely based on current evidence, and a poster like that a) is making a lot more extreme assertions than those hypotheticals would prove, and b) has no evidence I don’t have in asserting them. That is to say, I expect someone spouting lab leak theories would have been actioned last year (whether on Twitter, FB, or here on TL). Maybe they still would (depending, as moderation usually does, on how they go about it). But I’m not sure that’s wrong, even if people have warmed on the lab leak hypothesis in the mean time.
I'm not too concerned about whackadoos being able to spout whatever they want on social media without evidence. I'm more concerned that the people that are tasked with gathering the evidence, like scientists and journalists, are going to be deterred from doing so because the road to the truth can cause them to be labeled a racist, conspiracy theorist, and be de-platformed from social media. The biggest catalyst to the "warming up" to the lab leak hypothesis in my opinion was when Jon Stewart talked about it on the Colbert show. He took significant risk to his own reputation in doing that and he was still strongly criticized by many people for it. China has not been very transparent with investigators looking into the origins of COVID, refusing to hand over data, refusing access to the lab, etc. I think it's not a good idea to silence people that you feel don't have sufficient evidence at the same time an interested party is trying to stifle the evidence from seeing the light of day.
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Northern Ireland27149 Posts
On December 05 2021 06:16 teeel141 wrote:Show nested quote +On December 05 2021 06:02 JimmiC wrote:On December 05 2021 05:49 teeel141 wrote:On December 05 2021 05:06 ChristianS wrote:On December 05 2021 03:46 teeel141 wrote:On December 05 2021 02:16 WombaT wrote:
@Blitzkrieg, I was overly flippant without reading, which is on me, my bad.
Some of what is outlined is concerning if true, but I think it’s referring to something different than I expected/responding too. Namely conflicts of influence biasing and pressuring consensus in the scientific community, which is then reflected by the non-science media who defer to scientific expertise in disseminating information.
At the next level of information spreading, namely all us amateurs generating content for eyeballs on social media, I’m extremely skeptical of the constant charges of censorship.
One of those charges like the Democrats being socialists that I file in my ‘would be cool if that were true’ cabinet. I mean there’s an entire cottage industry of folks who say the things that ‘they won’t let you say’.
Despite barely using many social media platforms anymore, I’ve encountered all sorts of terms or scientific phenomena people evidently don’t understand (neither do I incidentally). Exclusively dovetailed with some kind of conspiratorial twist, or in service of a general anti-vaccine platform. Antigenic sin, gain of function research… I could go on, and this is from barely dipping my toes in.
@Christian I continually wrestle with this one, I’m really at a loss. You can’t practically moderate the rest of the interwebz in a matter similar to TL, although I do think it would improve things.
It’s a relatively new ecosystem, perhaps with time we’ll better adapt to it, although I do have my doubts there. Conspiracy theories have pushed on from being a harmless, hell even charming hobby about things of little practical import like aliens to being way more widespread and actually impactful to the social and cultural realm.
Antigenic sin is not complicated at all you can read the wikipedia article on it which is short and simple. It's obviously a real phenomenon and could be a problem with variant specific vaccines. It has been a problem in the past for the flu vaccines. It might be clarifying for everyone if you explained what you think should be done/should have been done as a result of the phenomena you’re highlighting. Antigenic sin is a phenomenon that exists that you read about Wikipedia, therefore… what? Therefore vaccination is bad actually? Therefore we should just infect everyone with Covid instead? Therefore we should use more NPIs like lockdowns and masks to prevent spread instead of relying mostly on vaccination? Because if your point is just “here’s a bad thing that could hypothetically happen,” then, agreed! There’s a lot of bad things that could hypothetically happen! But it’s usually only useful to consider them insomuch as it informs the course of action we would take. My point was that it's not actually a complicated thing and is understandable even for non experts. But ChristianS's point is that if you cant apply the concept than there is not undrrstanding or ita pointless to bring up. The same way if you cant define the "they" they probably dont exist. When he says that it's not a useful thing to consider. I think he's being ridiculous. What are your thoughts on that?
If one can consider it properly, it’s a useful bit of knowledge to have.
If one can make the point that antigenic sin has x effect, and it elicits y effect on a vaccine program/efficacy, then by all means make said point.
If it’s ‘what about antigenic sin that I read about on Wikipedia?’, well, less so. Make a point, or some tangible claim.
The base concept is reasonably easy to understand, how it intersects with an active pandemic is another thing entirely.
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Northern Ireland27149 Posts
On December 05 2021 07:21 BlackJack wrote:Show nested quote +On December 05 2021 01:21 ChristianS wrote:I mean, I think the tech sector’s trend toward heavier moderation this year has been badly handled in a lot of ways (Twitter’s recent “privacy policy” seems particularly disastrous), and in general I tend to favor more permissive moderation philosophies on the Internet (including here on TL). But in the last couple years you occasionally encounter deranged posters insisting on some constellation of: - Absolute certainty natural origin is impossible
- Implying or outright stating it was engineered and/or released intentionally by some Enemy (Democrats, Russia, China, or worse, some ethnic group)
- Implying or outright stating the virus or its symptoms are a hoax
- Demanding policies focused on retribution against China or, worse, Chinese people
- Asserting that various recommended public health interventions (social distancing, masks, vaccines) do nothing or actually make it worse, often as part of some conspiracy to control us (Wake up, sheeple!)
Depending on which parts of that constellation are present, I’d absolutely expect either an outright ban or, at least, that poster be kept on an exceptionally tight leash, and that goes for TL as well. In most cases, it wouldn’t actually make a huge difference to me if some new evidence improbably proved them right about something. What if we learn the virus was actually a natural specimen collected by WIV and improperly disposed of? Or if there’s some replication crisis on studies regarding masks and it turns out the evidence for their effectiveness came from some difficult-to-control confounding variables? While possible, I think those are both pretty unlikely based on current evidence, and a poster like that a) is making a lot more extreme assertions than those hypotheticals would prove, and b) has no evidence I don’t have in asserting them. That is to say, I expect someone spouting lab leak theories would have been actioned last year (whether on Twitter, FB, or here on TL). Maybe they still would (depending, as moderation usually does, on how they go about it). But I’m not sure that’s wrong, even if people have warmed on the lab leak hypothesis in the mean time. I'm not too concerned about whackadoos being able to spout whatever they want on social media without evidence. I'm more concerned that the people that are tasked with gathering the evidence, like scientists and journalists, are going to be deterred from doing so because the road to the truth can cause them to be labeled a racist, conspiracy theorist, and be de-platformed from social media. The biggest catalyst to the "warming up" to the lab leak hypothesis in my opinion was when Jon Stewart talked about it on the Colbert show. He took significant risk to his own reputation in doing that and he was still strongly criticized by many people for it. China has not been very transparent with investigators looking into the origins of COVID, refusing to hand over data, refusing access to the lab, etc. I think it's not a good idea to silence people that you feel don't have sufficient evidence at the same time an interested party is trying to stifle the evidence from seeing the light of day.
Does this actually happen though?
If someone can point me to a legitimate, scientifically sound avenue of investigation that’s been walled off by ‘that’s racist’, show me it.
Public non-science figures being censured for sharing dumb shit doesn’t count,
I’m not seeing it, at all. There’s plenty of folks who subscribe to the lab leak hypothesis, far as I can tell they’re still letting their opinion be known, without censure for the most part.
Where is all this censorship? Why do I know all of these crazy conspiracy theories?
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On December 05 2021 07:21 BlackJack wrote:Show nested quote +On December 05 2021 01:21 ChristianS wrote:I mean, I think the tech sector’s trend toward heavier moderation this year has been badly handled in a lot of ways (Twitter’s recent “privacy policy” seems particularly disastrous), and in general I tend to favor more permissive moderation philosophies on the Internet (including here on TL). But in the last couple years you occasionally encounter deranged posters insisting on some constellation of: - Absolute certainty natural origin is impossible
- Implying or outright stating it was engineered and/or released intentionally by some Enemy (Democrats, Russia, China, or worse, some ethnic group)
- Implying or outright stating the virus or its symptoms are a hoax
- Demanding policies focused on retribution against China or, worse, Chinese people
- Asserting that various recommended public health interventions (social distancing, masks, vaccines) do nothing or actually make it worse, often as part of some conspiracy to control us (Wake up, sheeple!)
Depending on which parts of that constellation are present, I’d absolutely expect either an outright ban or, at least, that poster be kept on an exceptionally tight leash, and that goes for TL as well. In most cases, it wouldn’t actually make a huge difference to me if some new evidence improbably proved them right about something. What if we learn the virus was actually a natural specimen collected by WIV and improperly disposed of? Or if there’s some replication crisis on studies regarding masks and it turns out the evidence for their effectiveness came from some difficult-to-control confounding variables? While possible, I think those are both pretty unlikely based on current evidence, and a poster like that a) is making a lot more extreme assertions than those hypotheticals would prove, and b) has no evidence I don’t have in asserting them. That is to say, I expect someone spouting lab leak theories would have been actioned last year (whether on Twitter, FB, or here on TL). Maybe they still would (depending, as moderation usually does, on how they go about it). But I’m not sure that’s wrong, even if people have warmed on the lab leak hypothesis in the mean time. I'm not too concerned about whackadoos being able to spout whatever they want on social media without evidence. I'm more concerned that the people that are tasked with gathering the evidence, like scientists and journalists, are going to be deterred from doing so because the road to the truth can cause them to be labeled a racist, conspiracy theorist, and be de-platformed from social media. The biggest catalyst to the "warming up" to the lab leak hypothesis in my opinion was when Jon Stewart talked about it on the Colbert show. He took significant risk to his own reputation in doing that and he was still strongly criticized by many people for it. China has not been very transparent with investigators looking into the origins of COVID, refusing to hand over data, refusing access to the lab, etc. I think it's not a good idea to silence people that you feel don't have sufficient evidence at the same time an interested party is trying to stifle the evidence from seeing the light of day.
But I don’t see the connection between banning the whackadoos and journalists and scientists being scared to pursue hypotheses. Idk when the Jon Stewart interview was, but back in January I remember a New Yorker (I think?) article presenting the evidence for lab leak. It was pretty careful in its conclusions, and I don’t know if Twitter got mad or something but I at least didn’t hear much outrage about it. If people genuinely think they can’t investigate a question that’s an issue, but if people just know something is a thorny issue so they’re going to have to be cautious and tactful in their argumentation, I don’t see a problem.
So let’s ban the whackadoos and then try to keep an open mind to alternative perspectives that are presented carefully and sincerely, no?
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As some personal anecdote, i got my third shot yesterday (Biontech/Pfizer this time, after 2 Moderna shots in April and June). The reaction was a lot less bad. While i was pretty knocked out for a day and my arm hurt like hell for another one on both my first and second shots, this time i only got some light muscle ache, to the point i actually forgot i got the vaccine yesterday.
I have no clue if this is a common experience, but this makes getting multiple vaccine shots even less of a hassle to deal with. Instead of losing a whole day, it basically only lost the about 30 minutes it took to head to the doctor and get the shot.
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On December 05 2021 07:36 Simberto wrote:
As some personal anecdote, i got my third shot yesterday (Biontech/Pfizer this time, after 2 Moderna shots in April and June). The reaction was a lot less bad. While i was pretty knocked out for a day and my arm hurt like hell for another one on both my first and second shots, this time i only got some light muscle ache, to the point i actually forgot i got the vaccine yesterday.
I have no clue if this is a common experience, but this makes getting multiple vaccine shots even less of a hassle to deal with. Instead of losing a whole day, it basically only lost the about 30 minutes it took to head to the doctor and get the shot.
Anecdotally, I've heard a lot of the same: It seems to be the case that those who get Pfizer tend to have less severe side-effects, and for less time, than those who get Moderna. That being said, I'm pretty sure it's because Moderna is a "stronger" dose that's technically a bit better, so there's probably a trade-off there.
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EPT
