zlacker

I've been extremely wary of how some of the evidence of Covid-19 origins have come about, particular because so much of it has been presented as "Well, we've never seen this before, so it must have lab origins."

That said, I think the context around this is extremely damning for Daszak. I didn't realize this until reading the Wikipedia article on Daszak, but he was the one that organized the Feb 2020 letter in the Lancet condemning suggestions of a lab origin for Covid-19 as conspiracy theories. But how could he do this while conveniently leaving out that his own organization was involved in highly risky coronavirus research?

Again, I don't think this news puts us much closer to uncovering the origins of Covid-19, but it does show how some of these folks leading the charge of "it had to be natural" were at the very least being duplicitous in their communications.

>>hn_thr+(OP)
Yes, I have an open mind about natural vs lab origin, but either way, Daszak seems to have been engaging in a cover-up.

>>hn_thr+(OP)
> while conveniently leaving out that his own organization was involved in highly risky coronavirus research?

Don't get me wrong, but in online discussions, all too often telling the whole truth makes people ignore your message. That's probably also why dishonest politicians can get populist votes from many people. Whenever you include the material to dig your grave with, people just take that by the horns and stop looking at the rest of your argument even if that disclosure is the reason why you are a qualified expert that should be weighing into the discussion on a given topic.

I don't know the details about this Daszak guy, I only know what you wrote and the comments above yours. Perhaps this does not apply in this situation; that's not for me to say. But I can see why they might not have dug their own grave while trying to communicate a message with honest intentions. It is extremely easy to have subtly wrong wording or just bad luck and get people to ignore everything you said before or after "my lab worked on coronaviruses".

>>hn_thr+(OP)
This whole narrative was revealed ages ago by internet reporters, particularly by Dr. Chris Martenson of peakprosperity.com.

What's not being reported even in this Intercept article is that Fauci and the Eco Health Alliance are heavily involved with each other. One week before Daszak et al released their ridiculous "lab leak is a conspiracy theory" Lancet article, as revealed in Fauci's emails (which supposedly revealed nothing), Fauci had a conference call with Daszak and other Eco Health folks, after discussing the fact that the lab leak hypothesis was gaining traction.

They have a big conference call, the Lancet article is posted a week later.

Here's all the details: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNxoVFZwMYw

I know "Bro, just watch this youtube video" is lame-ass evidence in general, but Dr. Martenson has been incredibly data-driven and level-headed throughout the pandemic, is a pro-masker, and his views have evolved over time with new data.

>>hn_thr+(OP)
>I didn't realize this until reading the Wikipedia article on Daszak, but he was the one that organized the Feb 2020 letter in the Lancet condemning suggestions of a lab origin for Covid-19 as conspiracy theories.

Tangent, but if it takes this long to learn a fact like that, consider a critical audit of your regular news sources.

>>sjwalt+u4
I've never heard of peakprosperity.com, but it seems to be a site geared towards preppers/libertarians/those who are already predisposed to a lack of institutional trust. You can claim he's data driven and level headed, but the context that he's operating in--and the audience that he's speaking to--tells me that he's probably not being unbiased in his analysis.

>>brendo+za
please send me some good sites which produce unbiased analysis, thanks.

>>thedud+Ob
That's not my job, sorry.

>>brendo+za
Eh, regardless of what you think of the source, it's backed by hard, verifiable evidence.

Peak Prosperity was not about prepping much at all until Covid, as far as I know. Dr. Martenson started pushing home gardening and stocking up when covid hit--in fact, he started saying such things in like February 2020--pretty prescient.

>>brendo+9c
It's easy to be a critic.

>>brendo+9c
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. You can't hide behind the "go and look it up" response as is often uttered by science deniers.

>>teh_kl+Rf
The extraordinary claim is that the virus was man-made.

Edit to say: I don't think saying the virus came from nature requires any additional proof. The claim that requires extraordinary, indisputable proof is the claim that it was man-made. And I have yet to see it, from this or any source. Just a big compilation of weak, circumstantial evidence.

>>abnry+Ge
Sometimes, an issue needs to be called out even if you don't have the solution.

>>sjwalt+u4
Also the state department knew of dangerous research taking place in unsafe conditions at 1-2 years before: https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/03/08/josh-rogin...

>>brendo+5g
It's no longer an extraordinary circumstantial claim. It might never have been because this kind of research that very well could cause a COVID pandemic was being concealed by the very people that decided very early that there was no question the origin was natural. They were performing risky and highly similar research and they made huge contradictory statements that conflict with this leaked evidence, and they are very well connected to each other. You are going to need extraordinary reasons why these people don't deserve an investigation into what they had been doing and what they did know that wasn't being shared.

>>hammoc+p9
Yeah, I'm always curious about this -- what would a good recommendation be to get a broad base of news while also relying on credible information?

E.g. I want to know the different reasonable perspectives on issues/events without entertaining every kooky idea. In this case, I feel like I lumped what seems a plausible concern in with kooky ideas, and so missed the entire non-kooky narrative.

>>throwa+zl
The original cable was published in the meantime [1]. I don't see any mention of "dangerous research taking place in unsafe conditions". Why don't you read it for yourself? It's only three pages.

[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/context/read-the-state-depart...

>>gamema+Xt
It helps to be up to date with what the kooks think. Majority of conspiracy theories start with a factually-correct, compelling premise and only then go overboard with speculation.

>>hammoc+p9
Indeed. “Thoroughly debunked conspiracy theory” was how the lab leak was described earlier this year by the media.

>>fsh+Sv
To my eyes, this cable confirms what the Politico article said. It says there is a "serious shortage of appropriately trained technicians and investigators needed to safely operate this high-containment laboratory". This is on Page 2, in the last paragraph. As for what's dangerous, Page 3 specifically mentions research undertaken with funding from NIH/NIAID studying SARS-like coronaviruses that can interact with ACE2 (transmittable to humans). Handling such viruses, particularly ones whose infectiousness has been increased (gain of function), in a lab without properly trained staff, seems pretty alarming to me.

>>hammoc+p9
Good call out; People should re-evaluate their sources. I had a similar epiphany 10 years ago, since then I'veve expanded my sources considerably, and if it's something I am interested in, then I will look for at least one counter view point

>>gamema+Xt
You should stop outsourcing credibility evaluation to others and see what you think of the kooks. The kooks called the coronavirus sooo much better than everyone else, from the jump.

You'll get a lot more "noise", sure, but the signal you do get can be incredibly useful. You learn to place less trust on any individual thing you hear, and get a better bullshit detector as you go. It's well worthwhile, and you'll be surprisingly well informed all without some large entity telling you "what's really happening".

>>lucb1e+64
Umm, wouldn't "I worked on coronaviruses, hence I know a lot about them" make his argument stronger?

Anyway, this was in Lancet, a scientific publisher, not a mass medium, disclosures of interest are mandatory. I know that in today's age it looks like science papers are just mass media because they're so easy to consume and distribute, but they are not. They're supposed to be rigurous, otherwise people would lose trust in them. Which is exactly what happened in this pandemic: it's a worldwide lack of trust in science, scientists, leaders, governments.

>>flaviu+rN
It ought to make the argument stronger, yes, but not everyone reads the full text. Especially if it will get third-party media coverage, you're dependent on what part the media will report or in which proportions because they always make a selection. With honest intentions the vast majority of the time I'm sure, but still a selection of what they think is the message their readers should be getting.

>>hammoc+p9
You've mischaracterized what I meant. When I was reading the Intercept article, and it first started talking about EcoHealth and Daszak, the names were familiar but I couldn't remember where I heard them, so I searched and found the Wikipedia article on him, and it was then that I was like "Oh yeah, it's this guy." It's not like some news sources were keeping this information from me.