zlacker

> One problem with the lab leak theory is that it presumes the Chinese are lying or hiding facts, a position incompatible with a joint scientific effort.

LOLOLOLOL Excuse me while I pick myself up off the floor. Doesn’t the default assumption about an authoritarian government have to be that it is lying and hiding facts that would harm it?

>>djroge+(OP)
This is not even limited to authoritarian governments.

>>lordna+X7
I think it mostly is, we're just not always happy about which countries actually are in the "authoritarian" bucket

>>willia+J9
most modern governments did similar stuff in the past few decades. I 'm having trouble thinking of one that didn't.

You can call them all authoritarian, but then the word loses all meaning, you would just say "any strong modern government is authoritarian"

>>djroge+(OP)
There's no need to talk about assumptions. The WHO suppressed evidence of the disease at the behest of PRC. The WHO fortunately finds itself in the convenient position where "Trump's wrong" makes a right. But an impartial WHO investigation and a forthright Chinese disclosure are two things I would never use as bases for understanding what happened.

>>djroge+(OP)
The CCP prohibited the virus's genetic sequence from being published. After a lab published it, it was shut down.

>On 11 January, Edward C. Holmes contacted Zhang for permission to publish the virus's genome. Zhang granted permission, and Holmes published the genome on virological.org that day.[1][3] The Chinese government had prohibited labs from publishing information about the new coronavirus, though Zhang later said he did not know about the prohibition.[3] The next day, the Shanghai Health Commission ordered Zhang's laboratory to close temporarily for "rectification".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhang_Yongzhen#COVID-19_pandem...

>>flaviu+7k
Switzerland's government isn't authoritarian. The Swiss government is the whole adult population. Every Swiss citizen over 18 can propose and vote on laws. No subset of Swiss people can force other Swiss people to do anything without approval from Swiss voters.

>>djroge+(OP)
Please don't take HN threads straight into flamewar hell. That's basically vandalism.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

>>mkolod+Uo
The Swiss government is pretty democratic as far as governments go, I didn't think of it. But now that you mentioned it I can tell a couple of things that are pretty reprehensible, without even searching on Google:

- taking away kids from "bad" families and sending them in foster care just to be used as slaves by the foster homes. Apparently the slavery part was pretty widespread in the 70s. Granted, this is not happening anymore

- a colleague of mine did prison time because he refused to enroll in the army based on personal beliefs. Now you can do community service instead, but that prison time was not that long ago.

Just because you have approval from the majority of Swiss, it doesn't make it right to do either of those 2 things. It's the kind of stuff authoritarians do. I am pretty sure I can find much more dirt if I use Google, I just used what I know first or second hand.