Re:Lab Leak Most Likely Origin of Covid-19 Pandemic, U.S. Ag...
by TeMPOraL on Sunday February 26, 2023 @07:42PM
(#34951560)
> And this is (one reason) why so many are keen to believe Lab Leak - because then it was done by 'bad humans' and so can be fixed, instead of being (another) consequence of our encroachment on the natural world and indeed something that often just happens.
In my experience it's rather that "lab leak" means "bad foreigners we're already hating did this to everyone, why won't we nuke them already or something", when the alternative would be to actually think about failing healthcare, vulnerable supply chains, lack of trust in institutions, etc.
"Lab leak" is a cop-out. It should lead to improving procedures in biolabs, but people there are already doing it anyway, because they're smart enough to think about possibilities ("oh, even if it was a wet market issue this time, the next one might be someone here fucking up; let's review the procedures to make that less likely to happen"). For general population, the media and political sphere, it's just a permission to dismiss and ignore any potential fixes ("You say spending more on X would reduce the spread of the virus? It's not like the last one was because of problem with X - it came from a foreign lab, nothing X can do about it!").
"Encroachment on the natural world" is mostly orthogonal to that. We are going to keep encroaching on it anyway, and the way to do it safely is to do those fixes that "lab leak" gives an excuse for not doing.
In my experience it's rather that "lab leak" means "bad foreigners we're already hating did this to everyone, why won't we nuke them already or something", when the alternative would be to actually think about failing healthcare, vulnerable supply chains, lack of trust in institutions, etc.
"Lab leak" is a cop-out. It should lead to improving procedures in biolabs, but people there are already doing it anyway, because they're smart enough to think about possibilities ("oh, even if it was a wet market issue this time, the next one might be someone here fucking up; let's review the procedures to make that less likely to happen"). For general population, the media and political sphere, it's just a permission to dismiss and ignore any potential fixes ("You say spending more on X would reduce the spread of the virus? It's not like the last one was because of problem with X - it came from a foreign lab, nothing X can do about it!").
"Encroachment on the natural world" is mostly orthogonal to that. We are going to keep encroaching on it anyway, and the way to do it safely is to do those fixes that "lab leak" gives an excuse for not doing.