[hsitz]

Yes, exactly. I would add, though, that the "Wuhan lab leak theory", in many people's minds, seems to be combined with a suspected intentional act by the Chinese government, to unleash a dangerous virus on the rest of the world. I think we should dismiss that part of the theory (it's of course not impossible, just not likely, mostly fun fodder for conspiracy nuts). But as far as infectious disease labs all across the world being dangerous places that need strict safety and security measures, duh, yes.

[danudey]

Let's also add in that the "Wuhan lab leak theory", combined with the "China virus" nomenclature, has resulted in huge increases in racist and white supremacist violence against people of Asian descent.

[Stupulous]

There were 49 incidents of anti-Asian hate crime in 2019 and 122 in 2020. I get that those numbers should be zero. But am I way out of line in saying that something that affects ~.00006% of Asian-Americans, and makes up ~1.6% of total hate crimes, should have no bearing on how we approach this subject?

My genuine apologies if I am crossing a line. I know this is a potentially touchy subject. Hate crime is serious and has many negative externalities that other crimes and accidents don't carry. They have also been on the rise, and could continue to grow more significant. It just feels very strange to me that 70 additional crimes in a year that saw thousands of additional murders has been such a common talking point for months now.

[hsitz]

The 9/11 attacks killed less than 3,000 people. Or if you want percentages, resulted in the deaths of about 0.0009% of the U.S. populace. Yet it sent our country to war and has had an impact on millions of people. It is in the very nature of terrorist acts that they "terrorize" the wide populace, while only a tiny fraction are ever victims of terrorism. It is similar with hate crimes.

Human psychology deals with numbers strangely. There are many who seem to think 500,000+ deaths (many preventable) from Covid are not something to be overly concerned about. Some of these same people are deeply worried about "Extremist Muslim terrorism" that has had very few victims.

So, yeah, from what I understand about growing anti-Asian crime, I do think it makes sense to be concerned. In particular, because this increase seems to be a (predictable) response to actions by many over the past year to demonize China, which any sane person knew would create a generalized animosity toward Asian-Americans. It's not like things like this have never happened before. They have, and they're quite predictable.

[Stupulous]

I'd like to first take an aside and apologize for a previous error. I divided incidents by population and came to 0.0006. This is off by an order of magnitude. But that is not the worst of it. This number belongs in the context of crime rates. Gallup [1] tells me that 1-3% of people are victims of violent crimes. So I must further multiply by 100 and conclude that hate crimes represent 0.6% of the total violent crimes experienced by Asian-Americans. And once again, I have to add that I did find numbers that suggested Asian-Americans may be victimized much less than the general population, although these numbers were from 2006. 0.6-6% is the final answer. This is a massive misrepresentation, and I want to be clear that this was not intentionally manipulative. It was quick thinking and poor judgment.

I agree that the US response to the threat of terrorism was also very much an overreaction, so at least you can say I'm consistent.

From what I understand, the total number of hate crimes decreased in 2020. I haven't been able to find the data and if, for example, this is because the number of hate crimes against whites dropped, the following is false. But in my mind this fits a model where X people are going to attack minorities in a given year, and this year, for obvious and insane reasons, they typically targeted Asians.

I understand the frustration and pain and cause for pushback. I say this because the next part will come across as cold. From a utilitarian perspective, there is not any material difference between worlds where different minorities are victimized. Changing the targets doesn't solve anything.

[1] https://news.gallup.com/poll/285644/percentage-americans-rec...

[tryonenow]

Then the solution is to teach people not to mistake Chinese people for the CCP, not to police language. And this narrative of "white supremacist" violence is a concoction by the media. Whatever increase that can't be accounted for by increased reporting is most likely not coming from the white supremacists or even the white demographic. It's an increase in inner city tensions that have been around for decades. And the people predominantly committing these acts (and I assure you statistics point to a single demographic in particular) are probably not the type to follow Trump's speeches.

[enchiridion]

It's infuriating. I'm not sure what the solution is though. We can just not talk about the very real lab leak hypothesis because some people are dangerously unstable.

[caeril]

You could even go back another step and recognize that the person you're replying to has made completely unsubstantiated and fabricated claims about:

1. An increase in violence targeted specifically at Asian people that is in excess of the already-documented rise of violence in general experienced across all groups in 2020.

2. An attribution that this imaginary excess violence is "white supremacist" in nature and intent.

3. A direct causal connection between this imaginary and poorly-attributed violence stemming specifically from the origin of the virus.

It's easier to defend freedom to hypothesize when you realize that the people advocating against said freedom are, themselves, simply making shit up.

[DanBC]

Weird that you talk about "making shit up" when your post contains no cites.

[weaksauce]

you can just call it covid-19 instead of the insert racist nickname here for it and then discuss where the origin it may be from. those two things are not mutually exclusive. hell, the spanish flu is generally not thought to be originated in spain but they were the only ones talking about because the other countries had a gag on discussing it.

[enchiridion]

Maybe. Based on the circumstantial evidence and the lack of viable competing hypotheses, I firmly believe that it escaped from the Wuhan lab.

What does an unstable person do with that info? It seems like calling it the "Chinese virus" is relatively benign by comparison.

Does censoring do anything here?

[weaksauce]

> Does censoring do anything here?

perhaps. I mean having the leader of the free world spout conspiracy theories and give credence to them certainly hurts.

in the past you'd have crackpot conspiracy theorists spouting off their "knowledge" at the bar to anyone that would listen but most would shy away from the crazy person. now you have a mainstream leader saying crazy stuff and have a huge following of people spouting that off because you can get misinformation and half truths at the speed of sound. yeah some vetting of information should be there.

a lot of the "proof" I've seen have been from being ignorant of what scientific terms mean, deliberate mis/disinformation, and wholly not understanding cause and effect. the other thing that lets these propagate is the downright innumeracy of our societies.

my brother has gone down a dark path of this shit to the point that I am very disgusted by the "truthers" poisoning the minds of people. he used to be a decently intelligent man but he's gotten hit with the gish gallop of disinformation and lies.

[polartx]

The public must not be trusted to discuss x, y, or z for fear of what the racist white supremacists might do!

[esja]

For some reason though it's okay to refer to the "British variant", or the "South African variant", or the "Brazilian variant".