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Re:China clamping down on coronavirus research, deleted page... by adventured on Sunday April 12, 2020 @06:59PM (#22851656)
It probably walked out of a Wuhan lab, with a lab tech or equivalent as the unaware infected carrier; which doesn't make it a bioweapon at all. It may have been sampled by China's large effort to search their territory for viruses, and then it was studied in Wuhan. It's most likely a mistake of incompetence. There is precedence in that it has happened multiple times in China with SARS since the original outbreak in 2003. Incompetence of this sort would also perfectly explain the regime's response to destroy evidence and try to cover it up.
Re:China clamping down on coronavirus research, deleted page... by chillacy on Sunday April 12, 2020 @07:07PM (#22851711)
That's not a disprovable statement so I won't try to argue that it didn't happen that way, but pandemics have happened in the past. We should expect that they continue to happen even in the absence of bioengineering accidents. And we should be ready for them.
Re:China clamping down on coronavirus research, deleted page... by light_cone on Sunday April 12, 2020 @07:35PM (#22851856)
The most credible evidence has been gathered and presented in a youtube video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpQFCcSI0pU . The youtuber was a long time china immigrant before being forced to move abroad.
Re:China clamping down on coronavirus research, deleted page... by dirtyid on Sunday April 12, 2020 @07:50PM (#22851915)
This entire video is translating open-source conspiracy theories that Chinese netizens conjured up under lockdown. You know what else was conjured up under lock down? US engineered weapon from Fort Detrick disguised as vape pneumonia that later infected Wuhan via international military games. Both theories has exactly the same credibility and validity.

It's ridiculous that people think laowhy and serpenza are credible China-watchers. They're travel bloggers and now clickbait video generators. The amount of people who get all their information and opinions on China from these two is worryingly staggering. There is an incredible amount of subject matter experts that specialize and operate in China. Literal billions are poured into NGOs, think tanks and other intelligence sources with boots on the ground. Granted much of it is not great, but they're infinitely more reliable than a couple youtubers who got kicked out of China and have no professional prospects outside of click bait conspiracy theory.

Also notice how he has recent videos about China killing his dreams, his move out of China and his wife divorcing him. Do you think that would cloud his judgement? Why isn't there a video on netizens work on the US engineered virus conspiracy theory? Youtubers =/= credible sources.

Re:China clamping down on coronavirus research, deleted page... by light_cone on Monday April 13, 2020 @06:49AM (#22854643)
You are saying that both theory have the same credibility. I don't agree, because you can actually go see the sources linked in the video description. So why don't you go see the sources? Is your claim that laowhy86 is divorced, and that his judgement is clouded, substantiated? I didn't think so, so to me it looks like plain old smear.

This lab accident, on the contrary, is NOT unsubstantiated claims, and acting as it is some frivolous theory is unfair at best. I, while perhaps inducing worryingly staggering feelings to you, looked at the sources and concluded that the info was credible. So it has nothing to with the occupation of laowhy86.

You are appealing to the authority of billions poured into NGO, as if corruption never happens, as if money magically makes people competent, as if organizations never suffered from political bloat. As if for example there was no video proof that the WHO was ignoring Taiwan input for policial reasons – a country that has better epidemics statistics than the majority of us–. Are we also all stupid to entertain the idea that, when a WHO leader does not hear the journalist on skype exactly when she asks a question about taiwan, this is just a bad stratagem to elude the question?

Please.

Re:China clamping down on coronavirus research, deleted page... by dirtyid on Monday April 13, 2020 @03:58PM (#22859393)
The Wuhan lab leak theory has as much credible endorsement as Fort Detrik - i.e. none. Both are replete with connect the dot sources conjured by Chinese /r/conspiracy equivalents, the latter complete with corresponding proof drawn from US media sources. And if you believe CIA's recent allegations evidence of virus in Wuhan dating back to November... then the timeline actually syncs up with the US military games theory. Both are credible depending on what one choose to belief. It's just that neither is believed by most experts, but they however endorsed through political posturing and perpetuated by "useful idiots".

laowhy86, bitter expats doing China-bad for clicks is well trodden career pivot. You can see clearly in his youtube timeline when he transitioned from prosaic China musings to anti-CPC bashing after he left the country. His authority or lack of absolutely has to do with the fact that he's a youtube travel blogger and not subject matter expert - again of which there are many - who has not endorsed such theories. I'm not appealing to a singular authority, but a community of China watchers where conspiracy theories are dismissed as conspiracy theories. Unless your conspiracy is that they all got bought off - including anti-China institutions - and are collectively incompetent. Or alternatively, a youtuber is endorsing conspiracy for clicks. Which is more likely? Which is the kind of thing a stupid person would entertain?

Re: Taiwan, they released the alleged emails that they had information on H2H on Dec31st. Never mind there's no way they would be able to verify such information since they only had their first imported case on Jan21st. There's Taiwanese interviews in early Jan where their own CDC deputy director stated it was impossible to verify H2H until new cases happen after Jan14th. Their Dec31st email turned out to be the exact correspondence provided by Wuhan medical officials to the WHO and other medical community prior - they are treating novel corona patients in isolation wards which is standard practice. AKA it was nothing. Also elevating Taiwan was part of a coordinated US propaganda push to undermine the WHO including that interview (by HK news no less) that attempts to discredit the WHO via ambush questions that's outside of the organization's let alone a scientist's purview. Identifying propaganda and manufactured consent is media literacy 101. Believing your countries propaganda over a competing narrative is understandable, but believing a youtuber over general consensus of experts is less so. That's Alex Jones territory.

Re:China clamping down on coronavirus research, deleted page... by light_cone on Wednesday April 15, 2020 @02:08PM (#22880999)
You accept the validity of arguments based on who the speaker is, I accept them based on the documentation.

You can say he is bitter or a nutcase, it does not make it so.

About the video, so far you are only able to say that laowhy86 is a youtuber, and therefore he wrong.

So far I've said that the documents linked in the video description corroborates the theory, making this theory credible.

How long will you continue to shoot the messengers instead of listening to what is said? Apart saying gratuitously that youtubers cannot possibily be right, you have not addressed the content of the video. I guess when you can't criticize the content, criticize the form, it is easier.

I will stop now, because I believe you are not writing in good faith. If a youtuber's documented demonstration does not deserve anyone's consideration by nature, because he is necessarily wrong, then certainly by your logic, as stranger writing on hacker news, you don't either deserve anyone's consideration, and you are wrong too.

Re:China clamping down on coronavirus research, deleted page... by coupdejarnac on Monday April 13, 2020 @06:38PM (#22860968)
Regarding laowhy86 and serpentza, you're being disingenuous at best. Everything you say about them is false. Their channels are not about view whoring conspiracy theories. It's pretty obvious why they've been negative recently: they are no longer living in China, because they were being harassed by police. When they lived in China, they had to watch everything they said, so they kept the message upbeat. I don't think they claim to be experts about infectious disease, nor do they claim with certainty that this is cause of the outbreak.

Have you spent much time in China? Have you lived there, or is your knowledge all second hand?

Re:China clamping down on coronavirus research, deleted page... by dirtyid on Tuesday April 14, 2020 @06:53AM (#22864533)
I said this specific video is peddling conspiracy theory, otherwise they're nothing more than ex-travel bloggers who has recently pivoted to click-bait China bashing after they were pressured out of the country. Yes I was an expat in China in the mid 90s to mid 00s and still have ongoing dealings there.

The point is they are not only not experts in infectious disease, they're not experts in any particular Chinese subjects at all. Living in China is not itself a remarkable qualification. If I were to ask people to find me two youtubers from China who moved to US to do travel blogs that I should base most of my opinions about China on, it would be an impossibly asinine exercise because US is a large, complex country. So is China. That's why you have thousands of institutions and entire industries of specific experts trying to grasp the larger realities. This industry exists for Chinese affairs, yet a surprising amount of people insist on posting generalized, personal reflections of a couple youtubers instead of relevant subject matters for each respective topics which, again exists.

Re:China clamping down on coronavirus research, deleted page... by throwaway50987 on Monday April 20, 2020 @12:08AM (#22921027)
It’s unfortunate your comments are being downvoted for stating the truth.
Re:China clamping down on coronavirus research, deleted page... by chaostheory on Sunday April 12, 2020 @07:53PM (#22851925)
There’s speculation that patient zero is Wuhan Institute of Virology researcher Huang YanLing 黃燕玲

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3050872/chin...

She’s still missing and her whereabouts are unknown