zlacker

>>lazycr+(OP)
First gen Chinese, grew up in NA. Have contact with relatives "on the ground".

My own experience: Don't ever trust the Chinese government on issues that could potentially involve the reputation of the party. Note that I'm not saying don't trust what CCP says, ever (sometimes they actually do good things) - just not on issues that involve anything to do with how the world might perceive them.

Which is exactly what this issue is about.

That's not to say we have compelling evidence that this was a lab virus, either. I think, for me, it's a, "we don't know, but I wouldn't be shocked at all if it was a lab virus".

>>ttz+rc
I just assume the ccp default mode is to cover up, even when there is nothing to cover up. When legitimacy derives from competence rather than from election, you better never have any high profile incompetence.

>>IIAOPS+Tt
That's been a problem even internally in China where local government hides things from those up the chain and then things get out of hand.

>>duxup+Fv
This is the kind of behavior you see in organizations where the penalty for making mistakes is overly severe, the only recourse for people is to lie and cover-up the truth at all costs. This is how projects at some companies continue despite being way behind schedule and overbudget until eventually the weight of the truth brings everything crashing down.

>>fiftyf+pT
The old story of the Chinese general Chen Shen comes to mind: Apparently he was running late due to rainstorms and the penalty for appearing this late to the Qin emperor was execution. Since that’s the same penalty for open rebellion, he decided he might as well try that too. And that was the beginning of the end of the Qin dynasty. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chen_Sheng_Wu_Guang_uprising

If the penalty for lying and being caught is the same league as screwing up, people are going to cover up problems.

>>mattne+V81
The English idiom for this is "I'd rather be hanged for a sheep than a lamb."

That is to say, if the punishment for any kind of crime is death, no matter how serious or how trivial, you might as well go ahead and commit the much more serious one and try and cover that up instead.

Either way you're fucked, so why not go all in?