[ploika]

Scientists aren't a monolith though. There few better career boosts than proving everyone else wrong, and the satisfaction of poaching work off a competitor who messed up isn't restricted to any one industry. Research into dangerous viruses isn't going to stop, no matter what happened in Wuhan, and it's far from the only risky work going on in labs around the world anyway.

Whatever about the strength of the natural origin theory, the idea that there's a conspiracy of silence from all the scientists in the world (including ones who would love to give the Chinese authorities a black eye) just doesn't seem plausible. You said it yourself - all it takes is a single dissenter to bury a paper.

[Mountain_Skies]

Scientists who aren't part of the monolith find themselves pushed out as wacko conspiracy theorists. This happened over and over and over and over and over and over and over again in the past thirty or so months. Even HN took part in this, supporting the depersoning of anyone who dared question the natural origin narrative. Scientists aren't a monolith as long as you include those who have been threatened with dire consequences for not toeing the line. Even now there are still some who want anyone who suggests the possibility of a lab leak origin to be silenced.

[Retric]

HN isn’t part of the scientific community. You can find peer reviewed research published on the lab leak idea shows it was considered orthodox enough to be worth looking at. As recently as June of this year, WHO still wants to look more deeply at it.

That said, it’s considered fringe because there isn’t enough evidence supporting the idea and the meat market theory showed up first.

[pnf]

Science funding is dominated by industry and academic sources. Academic research departments are funded by industry or by NGOs funded by industry and government. As with any culture, successful people generally know where the third rails are, and where to focus their energies if they just want to have a career. Controversial science is relegated to the fringe by the internal logic of the system. It doesn't require a conspiracy, just an Overton window. Within any large organization there may be malfeasance, corruption, etc, that is widely known or suspected. Yet there are few "whistleblowers". Who wants that fight? Who wants their reputation blemished? Very few.

Even so, if the system isn't hiring people who don't need to be told what to investigate and what to leave alone then the system is doing it wrong. Ideological guardrails and discourse policing take care of the bulk of compliance. The few kooks who insist on honest debate, well, people like Fauci and Francis know what do do about them. The sociopaths at the top have no compunction about ruining careers and make sure that is widely understood. Occasionally they'll kill a chicken while the monkeys watch to remind everyone.

If someone doesn't know this about Science and Scientists now, after cigarettes and cancer, the replication crisis, and now 2+ years of pandemic evidence smacking us in the face, then they don't want to know.

[fzeroracer]

The problem with your argument and anyone else's argument that alleges grand conspiracy among scientists is that you always take a US centric view and pretend the US is the only place in the world with scientists.

Scientists like many other individuals are divided by country. There are many countries out there that would love to do nothing but prove that this was a lab leak so that they could take a swing at China. All of that information is accessible and public.

In order for grand corruption theory to make sense you would need to posit some way not only for the US to suppress this information perfectly but also control every single other countries scientific research.

[pnf]

I specifically said that no conspiracy is required, that the mechanism is baked into the system.

As for the rest of the world, all the information is NOT accessible and public. Far from it. China is notoriously secretive and the US bio-security industry certainly isn't more forthcoming. Second, who says there isn't a control mechanism for non-US research science? Where does funding come from outside the US and how is it any different from the situation inside the US? The Atlanticist alliance is one center of knowledge-power. The BRICS may be another. But the idea of sovereignty operating at the country level is absurd on its face. Tell that to th EU member states. Most countries are effectively vassal states for the major powers. You can easily see what happens when they act independently. That's geopolitics 101.

Like the US, China is a major source of funding for developing countries in what it considers to be its sphere of influence. So, pick your poison. Either the US hegemonic science industrial complex or the Chinese version. Either way, savvy people don't shit where they eat. Who do you think wants to take a swing at China? A full investigation of Wuhan (and Ukraine) would likely reveal the hand of the biodefense industry evading local laws by laundering illegal weapons research through fronts like EcoHealth Alliance. Would you like to go up against that? I sure wouldn't.

For your version of things to make sense, you would also need to explain the embargo on the publication of dissenting research across the major US and European journals. Did you propose that just happened organically? Reality is catching up to politics and the consensus is shifting of necessity or the system will lose all remaining credibility.

[fzeroracer]

Everything you're doing and alleging is conspiracy. That there is some greater will censoring anything that would reveal it was a lab leak.

There's no point in arguing with you because anything can be contorted to fit this narrative you've crafted to fit everything neatly into this conspiracy. In reality hiding something like this on a global scale is quite literally impossible. That's simply a fact of how information travels and works.

It's especially funny because the lab leak hypothesis literally originated from the government agencies and such you seem keen to deride. It was pushed by the most powerful position in America. I don't understand how people pushing this conspiracy can square the fact that it came from the groups they claim to conspire against it

[glofish]

That is not at all what the reply stated. In fact they explicitly stated that "the mechanism is baked into the system". Then go on to methodically explain what they mean.

It exceedingly well argued and articulated point of view - and that goes to pnf's all other replies.

I salute the author pnf for being able to put into words what I would not be able to.

[pnf]

I could say there's no point in arguing with you for the exact same reasons. I see you really don't want to understand my argument and would rather blithely dismiss strawmen. That's your prerogative. For anyone else who reads this, I'll continue clarifying why I think you're argument is naive and, frankly, simplistic. You seem not to have a clear understanding of American politics. Maybe you don't live here or, if you do you don't pay much attention to deep politics. That's forgivable. Most people don't have the time, heart, or stomach for it. I assume you're talking about the former President pushing the claim? That is hardly the most powerful position in America. Do you think Joe Biden is the most powerful person in America? LoL. Read Glennon's book National Security and Double Government, or Sheldon Wolin's Democracy Incorporated for a primer.

You clearly don't grok ruling class ideology and discourse policing. Please don't mislead other people with these tired arguments about conspiracy theories. Although, there is plenty of evidence of actual conspiracy at the top of the FDA and NIH if you want to nitpick. You might also want to investigate the modus operandi and principle funding structures of the WTO and WHO. But you would probably argue there were no conspiracies in Imperial Britain because they're just not possible. Your lack of historical knowledge blinds you to possibility.

But I'm not even talking about technical "conspiracy" so called. I'm talking about ideological control structures for the ruling class and those within it. Your statements are a prime example of someone who cannot see outside your ideology. You don't even know that you don't know. That's the essential feature of ideological compliance. There absolutely are conspiracies to suppress information, that's called censorship. Wait, don't tell me. You're a fan of that, too. But only to suppress disinformation and protect the feebleminded masses from their own stupidity, right? But not you! You've got enough grey matter to handle it and come to the "right" conclusions. We all know the "right" opinions and we all want to be on the "right side of history", don't we? That's right. We don't need to be told that certain ideas are junk disinformation while other, approved ideas, are justified true belief. There's a good lad, off you go.

Btw, the lab leak hypothesis was originally making a splash in the blogosphere in January 2020 before the narrative could get ahead of it. Then the political arms of the government science institutions and the pathetically complicit media leaped to the rescue by savaging the people who would dare suggest such a thing. Google "lab leak Wuhan" with a date filter if you want to relive those heady days. It's especially funny that you would make such a claim since that's exactly the sort of thing members in good standing of the establishment are expected to believe. There's really no point in arguing with someone who's mind has been broken by propaganda. I'm sorry for your loss.

[kcplate]

> It was pushed by the most powerful position in America

And as so had likely had access to information none of us have. It’s also a fact that some US government agencies were at odds with the president. Additionally, political factions were pretty much at odds as well.

So no matter which path you take to be true, someone within government was either telling the truth…or not. And when it’s not…its by definition a conspiracy.

[boltzmann-brain]

> it's far from the only risky work going on in labs around the world

what else could you bring up?

[dylan604]

Tesla style wireless electricity delivery. If "don't cross the streams" was ever applicable...