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Richest man Elon Musk’s pronouns are “Prosecute/Fauci”

coronavirus

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#61 Daniel Cooper

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Posted 19 December 2022 - 04:49 AM

No, unlike many people on this forum who try to push their personal philosophy onto others, I prefer to find pragmatic solutions. Humans are rather obsessed by their favourite "isms", whether its a personal philosophy or a political ideology, and want to convince others that their chosen isms are right. I don't don't subscribe to that silly game. Life is too complex to fit within the parameters of any particular ism.

 

And it's those pragmatic solutions I'm interested in. For instance, jailing people who express opinions on matters of science or technology not in keeping with "official science" is if nothing else pragmatic. It is a practical solution, which is not to say a moral or even an effective solution (oddly the more you try squash these sorts of things the more life you give them).

 

You've proposed a number of these pragmatic solutions over the last several years, yet when asked to elucidate what firm pragmatic steps you would take given the opportunity you've demured and been reduced to expressing the worry that apparently gives intellectuals sleepless nights - the worry that the masses no longer trust and defer to them the running of their lives and society.

 

Does it ever occur to you that this reaction by the masses is entirely rational and expected - given that so many intellectuals have found their science to be so malleable to the service of the powerful?

 

Take our good Dr. Fauci for instance. At first his science told him that masks were useless, then it told him that masks were required, then it lead him to recommend that you really ought to be wearing two masks. His lieutenants were telling him that "this virus looks engineered" while he was telling the public that the suggestion that the virus was the product of a Chinese lab was a ridiculous conspiracy theory. Then he said that whatever the NIAID funded in Wuhan, it certainly wasn't gain of function research, when anyone with normal cognitive abilities can read the papers that resulted from his funding and see that's exactly what it was. And so on and so forth. And he was doing his damnedest to silence anyone that pointed out his contradictions.

 

Why on earth would you not expect anyone with knowledge of these facts to loose faith in Dr. Fauci? In fact it would be irrational to continue to have faith in someone that has so frequently lied through his teeth.

 

There's this weird cognitive disconnect amongst the intellectuals and their cheerleaders. They think that public intellectuals should be free to lie and prevaricate so long as it's "for the public's good", but then they demand that the public accept their every word at face value even after these lies have come to light. Sure, Dr. Fauci has been caught in lies in the past, but don't you dare suggest that he's lying now. Who the hell are you to question the Great Fauci? Why, you don't even have a post graduate degree! Now run along and do as you're told!

 

Apparently introspection is not an intellectual trait. When their authority is questioned they never look at themselves, only at others.

 

This paternalistic attitude that the intellectual class has towards the public, what arrogance and hubris.


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#62 Hip

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Posted 19 December 2022 - 06:41 AM

You've proposed a number of these pragmatic solutions over the last several years, yet when asked to elucidate what firm pragmatic steps you would take given the opportunity you've demured and been reduced to expressing the worry that apparently gives intellectuals sleepless nights - the worry that the masses no longer trust and defer to them the running of their lives and society.

 

That is an odd thing to say. 

 

I don't remember being asked to provide firm pragmatic steps. And I would not be interested in giving them anyway. I've suggested that Fox News presenters might be taken to court for their vaccine scaremongering, but I am not interested in providing step by step details of how such a legal case might be conducted. 

 

I've tried to engage people here in the interesting issues of the day, regarding how to deal with the glut of fake news, misinformation and stupid conspiracy theories that seem to grip the masses. Yet nobody wants to engage in such discussion. Maybe that's because nobody has anything interesting or thoughtful to say. Or maybe the subject is too complicated for them.

 

 

 

Take our good Dr. Fauci for instance. At first his science told him that masks were useless, then it told him that masks were required, then it lead him to recommend that you really ought to be wearing two masks. His lieutenants were telling him that "this virus looks engineered" while he was telling the public that the suggestion that the virus was the product of a Chinese lab was a ridiculous conspiracy theory. Then he said that whatever the NIAID funded in Wuhan, it certainly wasn't gain of function research, when anyone with normal cognitive abilities can read the papers that resulted from his funding and see that's exactly what it was. And so on and so forth. And he was doing his damnedest to silence anyone that pointed out his contradictions.
 
Why on earth would you not expect anyone with knowledge of these facts to loose faith in Dr. Fauci? In fact it would be irrational to continue to have faith in someone that has so frequently lied through his teeth.
 
There's this weird cognitive disconnect amongst the intellectuals and their cheerleaders. They think that public intellectuals should be free to lie and prevaricate so long as it's "for the public's good", but then they demand that the public accept their every word at face value even after these lies have come to light. Sure, Dr. Fauci has been caught in lies in the past, but don't you dare suggest that he's lying now. Who the hell are you to question the Great Fauci? Why, you don't even have a post graduate degree! Now run along and do as you're told!
 
Apparently introspection is not an intellectual trait. When their authority is questioned they never look at themselves, only at others.
 
This paternalistic attitude that the intellectual class has towards the public, what arrogance and hubris.

 
Your statements about masks are disingenuous. You know very well that government officials told white lies about masks being useless in order to protect the limited supply for frontline hospital staff. The same was said in the UK, by our own officials. The same may have occurred in other countries too.
 
As for Fauci throwing cold water the lab leak hypothesis: why fan the flames of baseless public speculation of a lab leak? The public had no evidence of any leak, yet many members of the public were expressing certainty it was a lab leak. It's embarrassing to see people claim certainly when there is no evidence to support their opinions.

 

Even if it were in the future to be proven to be a lab leak, the public would still wrong to claim certainty at a time when there was scant evidence.
 
This is about language: if the public were sane and educated, they would not say they are certain of something when they have not got any supportive facts. Educated people use language more carefully. If I have a highly speculative hunch about something, I call it a wild guess. I don't pretend it is a fact or a certainty. 

 

I thought COVID could possibly be from a lab leak early on in the pandemic; but I really dislike the way the public were asserting with certainty that it was a leak. 

 

 

Don't forget that the public's wild speculations about a lab leak was just one of many speculations and stupid conspiracy theories going about at the time, such as the "plandemic" conspiracy theory, which was that the whole pandemic was pre-planned as a means for "the elites" to control the populace. Books were written and movies were made about this plandemic conspiracy theory. Or the moronic idea that 5G was causing the pandemic, which led to cellular masts being burned down. Or the crazy notion that vaccinated people shed spikes which can harm non-vaccinated people. 

 

You seem to enjoy finding faults and stupidities in government officials. Whereas I think the greatest idiots during the pandemic were some of the general public, and so I think these people deserve criticism.

 

And in spite of your belief in freedom of expression, you don't seem to like me criticising the general public. 

 

 

 

 


Edited by Hip, 19 December 2022 - 07:06 AM.

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#63 Daniel Cooper

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Posted 19 December 2022 - 04:31 PM

Your statements about masks are disingenuous. You know very well that government officials told white lies about masks being useless in order to protect the limited supply for frontline hospital staff. The same was said in the UK, by our own officials. The same may have occurred in other countries too.


That is the point. You don't get to tell "white lies", then be incensed that the public doesn't believe your future statements. Your credibility isn't something you can turn on and off like a light switch at will. Credibility is something that others bestow on your because of your actions - it isn't something you can demand of them. You can tell a white lie if you think you're serving some greater purpose. But understand you're burning down not only your credibility, but also the credibility of public science officials in general. Someone should have asked if it was worth the trade. To tell lies and then be shocked when people start to question your veracity? What immature nonsense.
 

As for Fauci throwing cold water the lab leak hypothesis: why fan the flames of baseless public speculation of a lab leak? The public had no evidence of any leak, yet many members of the public were expressing certainty it was a lab leak. It's embarrassing to see people claim certainly when there is no evidence to support their opinions.
 
Even if it were in the future to be proven to be a lab leak, the public would still wrong to claim certainty at a time when there was scant evidence.


Please. Fauci was squashing the lab leak theory because it implicated him and his funding of gain of function research at WIV. People are not so naive as to not understand this.

 

And there was always a decent circumstantial case for a lab leak. If a novel and highly infectious bat derived corona viruses originates in a city with a lab that has published numerous papers on experimenting with and modifying bat corona viruses, one would be a fool not to speculate on the possibility that it might have originated in that lab. This is after all where the "bat lady" (as she was known well before the pandemic) lived and worked. But Fauci and his cohorts were quick to say this was a conspiracy theory only held by kooks, whilst his underlings where sending him emails saying "this looks engineered". Again, you can't lie to the public and then demand that they assume your veracity.

 

If it's all about "the science" then a lab leak was always a reasonable theory as a potential source. But the way Fauci and other public officials sought to steer the discourse was never solely about the science. Politics and Fauci's own potential culpability were figured in from the get go. And not just in public discourse - let's not forget that Fauci's lieutenants published articles in scientific journals that sought to take the lab leak theory off the table.

 

There was nothing "white" about this lie - it was purely motivated by self interest.
 

This is about language: if the public were sane and educated, they would not say they are certain of something when they have not got any supportive facts. Educated people use language more carefully. If I have a highly speculative hunch about something, I call it a wild guess. I don't pretend it is a fact or a certainty.


Your disdain for the public has again been duly noted.
 

I thought COVID could possibly be from a lab leak early on in the pandemic; but I really dislike the way the public were asserting with certainty that it was a leak. 
 

 
Don't forget that the public's wild speculations about a lab leak was just one of many speculations and stupid conspiracy theories going about at the time, such as the "plandemic" conspiracy theory, which was that the whole pandemic was pre-planned as a means for "the elites" to control the populace. Books were written and movies were made about this plandemic conspiracy theory. Or the moronic idea that 5G was causing the pandemic, which led to cellular masts being burned down. Or the crazy notion that vaccinated people shed spikes which can harm non-vaccinated people.


Ah, so you admit that your public positions aren't really driven by "the science" so much as your desire to shape the direction of public discourse.
 

You seem to enjoy finding faults and stupidities in government officials. Whereas I think the greatest idiots during the pandemic were some of the general public, and so I think these people deserve criticism.
 
And in spite of your belief in freedom of expression, you don't seem to like me criticising the general public.


It's not that I enjoy it so much as it is so easy to do. Literally like shooting fish in a barrel.

As far as your criticizing the general public - there is certainly criticism aplenty to go around, I just find it somewhat annoying that you let these public officials and your beloved intellectuals so completely off the hook. And I would certainly never call for your banning or prosecution because of your position.


Edited by Daniel Cooper, 19 December 2022 - 04:41 PM.

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#64 Hip

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Posted 19 December 2022 - 06:36 PM

That is the point. You don't get to tell "white lies", then be incensed that the public doesn't believe your future statements. Your credibility isn't something you can turn on and off like a light switch at will. Credibility is something that others bestow on your because of your actions - it isn't something you can demand of them. You can tell a white lie if you think you're serving some greater purpose. But understand you're burning down not only your credibility, but also the credibility of public science officials in general. Someone should have asked if it was worth the trade. To tell lies and then be shocked when people start to question your veracity? What immature nonsense.


I tend to agree with you, and have stated on this forum that scientists should not be manipulating the truth in order to obtain specific effects. However, you seemed to be implying that this was a scientific error or Fauci's part. It was not; it was a deliberate white lie told to obtain a specific effect, at a time when there was a shortage of masks.

The real cause of the shortage of masks was lack of preparation. In Taiwan, they massively ramped up mask production at the first hint of a pandemic. In the West, we were too dozy to do likewise.

In the US, the shortage was in part due to the Trump administration closing down a project set up by the Obama administration to produce a high output N95 mask making machine specifically for pandemic preparedness.

 

 

 

Please. Fauci was squashing the lab leak theory because it implicated him and his funding of gain of function research at WIV. People are not so naive as to not understand this.


That's an assumption on your part. Everyone was denying the lab leak theory at the early stages of the pandemic, including the media, politicians and many scientists. Don't tell me the media were also implicated in gain of function research, or had vested interests in discounting the lab leak theory. 

Of course, possibly Fauci might have had the gain of function research in mind when he threw cold water on the lab leak theory. But Fauci's opinion on the lab leak theory was in line with everyone else's views at the time.

 

In any case, the error Fauci and the NIH was not really about funding gain of function research. This may have been a good idea, depending on the specifics of the safety precautions employed. The whole point of gain of function research is to try identify the next virus which may cause a major pandemic — before that virus has a chance to jump into humans. That way, entire pandemics can be avoided. It's thus ironic that gain of function research caused this pandemic (if it indeed did), given that the research is intended to prevent pandemics.

Rather, I think the error Fauci and his team made was to fail to realise how sloppy the safety practises are at Chinese labs. This sloppiness is most likely how the virus escaped the lab, if it indeed did escape. However, it might have been difficult to get reliable info about safety practises at the lab, since of course during any official visit or inspections of the lab, you can expect the staff to follow procedures. But lazy staff may get careless at other times, and not follow biosafety regulations religiously. 

 

China has managed to pollute a massive 20% of the soil of its arable land with heavy metals during the last 40 years of industrialisation. This is extremely sloppy, as China has now rendered a lot of its arable land unsuitable for farming. And it think it will be near impossible to remove these heavy metals economically, so this is an environmental disaster. With such sloppiness endemic in Chinese activities, the West should in future be very cautious about Chinese biosafety practices.

 

In any case, the blame for this should not just fall on Fauci or the NIH. It was British zoologist Peter Daszak's organisation EcoHealth Alliance which was in charge of the gain of function research in China. The NIH provided funding to EcoHealth Alliance, but as I understand it, the NIH not involved in the research itself. Why was Daszak not more aware of the Chinese sloppiness?

The US Pentagon apparently had previously blocked funding for some of Daszak's gain of function research, on safety grounds.

Of course, as is well-known, Daszak got all his scientist friends to sign a letter to the Lancet journal discounting the lab leak hypothesis. That to me looks more like a coverup. 
 

 

 

If it's all about "the science" then a lab leak was always a reasonable theory as a potential source.


It's reasonable to keep the lab leak theory in mind, yes; it's not however reasonable for the public to assert that it must be true, especially during the early phase of the pandemic, when there was no evidence for it. It's never reasonable to state something is true when there is not evidence. 

 

The lab leak theory only started gaining traction when no natural reservoir of coronaviruses in an animal species could be found, that might have jumped into humans to create the COVID pandemic. Unlike in the case of the earlier SARS and MERS epidemics, where the natural animal reservoir was identified, demonstrating that human SARS and MERS jumped from animals.

Only after around a year or so into the pandemic, when no animal reservoir was found in spite of extensive searching, did the lab leak theory start to look more plausible.

 
 

It's not that I enjoy it so much as it is so easy to do. Literally like shooting fish in a barrel.

As far as your criticizing the general public - there is certainly criticism aplenty to go around, I just find it somewhat annoying that you let these public officials and your beloved intellectuals so completely off the hook. And I would certainly never call for your banning or prosecution because of your position.


But it does show your own biases: you are gung ho about criticising any public officials and their views and opinions. Not just you, but many on this forum.

 

But you have a soft spot for the often crazy ideas and opinions that emerge from the general public, which you accept with little or no criticism. That makes no sense to me.

 

In terms of letting public officials off the hook: generally speaking, I don't see systematic incompetence coming from the public officials (politicians and scientists) involved in the pandemic. In most cases, 99% of their decisions were good; and I am not going to condemn an individual for the occasional mistake made here and there, as we are all human, and the pandemic was a very trying circumstance. Generally speaking, the officials are intelligent people doing their jobs to the best of their abilities. So these officials have not done much wrong in the first place. I thus don't have to let them off the hook, as they are innocent (even if angry and vindictive members of the public think otherwise).

 

By contrast, we see such lunacy emerging from some sections of the general public. Now much of the general public are sane and sensible, and so I am not going to tar the whole of the public with the same brush. But during the pandemic you had certain sections of the public holding and promoting the most moronic ideas and opinions.

So in comparison, the public officials seem infinitely more intelligent and competent than these moronic sections of the public. That's why I believe criticism of the moronic sections of public is warranted.  I think foolishness should always be called out. I don't have the soft spot for public foolishness that you and others on this forum seem to have.

 



 


Edited by Hip, 19 December 2022 - 06:40 PM.

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#65 Daniel Cooper

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Posted 19 December 2022 - 09:49 PM


But you have a soft spot for the often crazy ideas and opinions that emerge from the general public, which you accept with little or no criticism. That makes no sense to me.

 

 

I have a soft spot for personal liberty, freedom of speech, and holding what are supposed to be public servants to account when there is evidence of incompetence or malfeasance.

 

I also have a soft spot for treating the average citizen as an adult, not to be forced to do what some intellectual may think is for their own good, but to treat him with respect and try to persuade him. If he won't be persuaded that is his choice because he is an autonomous individual with self ownership. This means that some will occasionally make bad choices. Freedom is messy. But the benefits of freedom overall outweigh whatever bad choices individuals might make in how they run their own lives. Not to mention that intellectuals have a decidedly spotty track record at deciding what is best for the masses.


Edited by Daniel Cooper, 19 December 2022 - 09:51 PM.

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#66 Dorian Grey

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Posted 20 December 2022 - 05:30 AM

And now for something completely different...  Love the Academy of Ideas videos.  Watch this one on mass psychosis, but fair warning, you may be hooked and spend your holiday vacation binge-watching the whole series.  I post this here, as Elon seems to be making an effort to break the mass psychosis that has gripped much of the world. 

 

The Manufacturing of a Mass Psychosis - Can Sanity Return to an Insane World?

 

 

We can prevail!  Let's get started!  


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#67 Hip

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Posted 21 December 2022 - 01:44 AM

I also have a soft spot for treating the average citizen as an adult, not to be forced to do what some intellectual may think is for their own good, but to treat him with respect and try to persuade him.  

 

Are you sure you don't have disdain and uncaring indifference towards the average citizen?

 

It's important to appreciate that the average person is often not that good at making their own medical decisions. The average person is not someone who will read dozens of scientific studies, and then be able to come to their own medical conclusions. They have neither the time nor the ability to read complex research.

 

Thus for their own well being, they rely on the good messaging from doctors and authoritative sources for the medical decisions they make. If spurious sources start to inject misinformation into the world, the average person may not have the wherewithal to figure out what information is reliable, and what is dubious. So the spurious sources poison the messaging, and this leads to people getting confused and potentially making the wrong medical choice based on misinformation.

 

Maybe you don't see this issue, as you are looking at the world through the eyes of someone who is capable of reading scientific material, rather than looking through the perspective of the average person.


Edited by Hip, 21 December 2022 - 01:46 AM.

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#68 Mind

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Posted 22 December 2022 - 10:58 PM

Another review of Dr. Fauci's recent deposition.

 

One of the key things here that shows that Fauci is either incompetent or lying. He claims to barely know anything about the gain of function research going on at Wuhan or the people involved in the research (which is a bald-faced lie), yet he is 100% confident that the virus was not made in a lab. Strange that he can be so confident about something he barely knows anything about.

 

 

“What really jumped out at me … is that in the deposition Fauci definitively states at numerous points that it is ‘impossible’ that the animal experiments that he funded in Wuhan could have sparked the pandemic.

At the same time, he claims he’s only ‘vaguely familiar’ with the project he was funding there and that he barely knows the key players, including Shi Zhengli, Peter Daszak, Ralph Baric and EcoHealth Alliance. He can’t have it both ways.”

 


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#69 Mr Serendipity

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Posted 26 December 2022 - 09:56 PM

Elon Musk: https://twitter.com/...416119496945665

 

Much more to The Twitter Files: Covid Editon than this introductory thread.

 
Follow-up piece to come next week, featuring leading doctors & researchers from Harvard, Stanford & other institutions.
 
(Many of whom were, of course, actively suppressed on Twitter)
 

————

 

1. THREAD:

 
THE TWITTER FILES: HOW TWITTER RIGGED THE COVID DEBATE
 
– By censoring info that was true but inconvenient to U.S. govt. policy
– By discrediting doctors and other experts who disagreed
– By suppressing ordinary users, including some sharing the CDC’s *own data*
 

————
 
Just remember if it weren’t for Elon buying Twitter, this information would’ve never been released, and it would’ve forever been classed as a conspiracy theory by the mainstream, and forever denied by all involved.

Edited by Mr Serendipity, 26 December 2022 - 10:05 PM.

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#70 Hip

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Posted 28 December 2022 - 01:30 AM

 

Elon Musk: https://twitter.com/...416119496945665

 

Much more to The Twitter Files: Covid Editon than this introductory thread.

 
Follow-up piece to come next week, featuring leading doctors & researchers from Harvard, Stanford & other institutions.
 
(Many of whom were, of course, actively suppressed on Twitter)
 

————

 

1. THREAD:

 
THE TWITTER FILES: HOW TWITTER RIGGED THE COVID DEBATE
 
– By censoring info that was true but inconvenient to U.S. govt. policy
– By discrediting doctors and other experts who disagreed
– By suppressing ordinary users, including some sharing the CDC’s *own data*
 

————
 
Just remember if it weren’t for Elon buying Twitter, this information would’ve never been released, and it would’ve forever been classed as a conspiracy theory by the mainstream, and forever denied by all involved.

 

 

What evidence do we have that these people who were booted off Twitter had reasoned, sound and sane views? As opposed to being antivax mass murderers?

 

There were a lot of doctors out there promoting dangerous ideas. Like the Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance, who do not mention vaccines at all on their website, but promoted lots of unproven treatments, which is the height of irresponsible misinformation. 

 

Obviously the government has a moral duty to protect the public from harmful people like this.


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#71 Daniel Cooper

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Posted 28 December 2022 - 02:18 AM

What evidence do we have that these people who were booted off Twitter had reasoned, sound and sane views? As opposed to being antivax mass murderers?

 

There were a lot of doctors out there promoting dangerous ideas. Like the Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance, who do not mention vaccines at all on their website, but promoted lots of unproven treatments, which is the height of irresponsible misinformation. 

 

Obviously the government has a moral duty to protect the public from harmful people like this.

 

Reasoned, sound, and sane views as decided by whom? The government?

 

Well, in that case anyone spouting views opposed to official government positions are likely to be declared "unreasonable, unsound, or insane". Do you not see the conflict of interest incumbent in this?

 

Case in point - the origin of the covid-19 virus. It was always a reasonable position that the covid-19 virus might have escaped from the Wuhan Institute of Virology.  Always.

 

But - Dr. Fauci's NIAID and the CDC had been channeling government funds to that facility. The government like everyone else not being terribly fond of having their mistakes exposed (especially if those mistakes result in the deaths of 6.7 million people and counting) would have a vested interest in suppressing that information. As indeed Dr. Fauci and others in the government did do even whilst their technical advisers were telling them "this virus looks engineered".

 

And there's the rub - if you let the government decide what is reasonable or true, it will make those decisions based on it's own interest rather than the interest of society at large.

 

This is important stuff. We need to have a national and international discussion about the wisdom of doing gain of function research, a discussion that should not be limited solely to the experts. Because if one of these viruses escapes, they aren't going to harm just the experts. We all ought to have our voices heard because it's all our necks on the line if something goes sideways with this.

 

But, that conversation which needs to occur has been short circuited because the government essentially shut down the discussion where ever it could.

 

I know you think there is some council of all-wise all-knowing sages without self interest that work for the government that can make these decisions ... but they do not exist.

 

This is why free and open discussion is such a vitally important feature of our society.


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#72 Hip

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Posted 28 December 2022 - 04:51 AM

Reasoned, sound, and sane views as decided by whom? The government?

 

If you do not trust the mechanisms in Western society that ensures only the best qualified get to lead our institutions, then you will not trust anything. This is why I trust the scientific leaders, as they got into positions of power because they are smarter, saner and sounder, and because they passed all the exams, checks and balances. 

 

Western institutions have all sorts of checks and balances which (usually) prevent idiots taking control. And whenever an institution is found wanting, then adjustments are made, and new checks and balances created. 

 

So when Fauci as the leader of NIAID says take the vaccine, and an unknown upstart named Dr Kory says no, don't do that, take ivermectin instead, I know who I am putting my faith in.

 

 

 

But I agree that we need some enquiries into what should be done to prevent any further lab leaks happening in future. Given that no natural reservoir for SARS-CoV-2 has been found, and given that the Chinese suspiciously destroyed all the data in the lab, a lab leak seems quite feasible, and we should therefore work on the assumption that it was a leak, and we should set about creating new regulatory bodies which will monitor lab biosafety. 

 

I have not seen any initiatives along these lines mentioned in the media. This seems strange. Whenever there are human disasters, new rules, regulations and regulatory bodies are typically set up to prevent repeats of those disasters. So why are we not now talking about what should be done to prevent repeats?

 

No doubt we will also have natural pandemics in the future, so we should also try to learn lessons from this pandemic, so that we can better deal with future outbreaks of infectious disease. But given the chaos, rebellion, infighting, and misinformation that marred this pandemic, it may be hard for us as a society to learn any lessons, as we are too busy squabbling with each other to come with any intelligent master plans for the next infectious outbreak. 


Edited by Hip, 28 December 2022 - 04:53 AM.

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#73 Mr Serendipity

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Posted 28 December 2022 - 05:06 AM

What evidence do we have that these people who were booted off Twitter had reasoned, sound and sane views? As opposed to being antivax mass murderers?

Follow-up piece to come next week, featuring leading doctors & researchers from Harvard, Stanford & other institutions.

 
(Many of whom were, of course, actively suppressed on Twitter)

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#74 Mr Serendipity

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Posted 28 December 2022 - 02:42 PM

More tweets on Fauci by Elon: https://twitter.com/...031081260785664

 

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Edited by Mr Serendipity, 28 December 2022 - 02:54 PM.

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#75 Mr Serendipity

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Posted 28 December 2022 - 02:52 PM

Some more.

 

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Edited by Mr Serendipity, 28 December 2022 - 02:53 PM.

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#76 Daniel Cooper

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Posted 28 December 2022 - 03:33 PM

If you do not trust the mechanisms in Western society that ensures only the best qualified get to lead our institutions, then you will not trust anything. This is why I trust the scientific leaders, as they got into positions of power because they are smarter, saner and sounder, and because they passed all the exams, checks and balances. 

 

Western institutions have all sorts of checks and balances which (usually) prevent idiots taking control. And whenever an institution is found wanting, then adjustments are made, and new checks and balances created. 

 

So when Fauci as the leader of NIAID says take the vaccine, and an unknown upstart named Dr Kory says no, don't do that, take ivermectin instead, I know who I am putting my faith in.

 

Of course I weigh credentials when I look at various arguments on each side of an issue. There is some logic in that.

 

But the argument should stand or fall on it's own merits. Otherwise we are liable to fall victim to one of the most basic of logical fallacies - appeal to authority. Because it is as much of a fallacy to accept the appeal as it is to make it.

 

And let's not forget Dr. Fauci's track record - before he was deified in the covid pandemic, he was an extremely controversial character in the HIV pandemic. His stubborn refusal to give significant funding to antivirals and his dogged pursuit of an HIV vaccine we still don't have today in spite of the billions of dollars thrown at it is arguably responsible for the deaths of thousands. Dr. Fauci has very good credentials. But those credentials didn't prevent him from being tragically wrong on that issue.
 


Edited by Daniel Cooper, 28 December 2022 - 10:11 PM.

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#77 Hip

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Posted 29 December 2022 - 12:39 AM

But the argument should stand or fall on it's own merits. Otherwise we are liable to fall victim to one of the most basic of logical fallacies - appeal to authority. Because it is as much of a fallacy to accept the appeal as it is to make it.

 

It's not an appeal to authority per se. In many countries and historical eras, authorities and the institutions of society may be corrupt or irrational.

 

Fortunately in Western society, we have relatively good checks and balances that try to keep our institutions on the straight and narrow. So in the West, it is not so much an appeal to authority, but an appeal to a system which is well regulated and rational. Of course, there is always room for improvement in our institutions.

 

 

Why do I subscribe to the theory of manmade climate change? Is it because I understand all the climate science, and have written my own computer software to model the long term outcome of the climate? Obviously not, because I don't have anywhere near the expertise to do so. Rather, I trust that the consensus of tens of thousands of climate scientists. 

 

If science were corrupt, we would have never put man on the moon.


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#78 Daniel Cooper

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Posted 29 December 2022 - 09:15 PM


If science were corrupt, we would have never put man on the moon.

 

Science isn't corrupt ... people are corrupt.

 

Fauci trying to squash any speculation that WIV might have been the source of covid-19 had nothing to do with the science, rather it had everything to do with Fauci's prior public statements on gain of function research (namely that he'd still support GoF research even if it resulted in a pandemic) and the fact that he'd been responsible for funneling millions of dollars into WIV specifically to do GoF work.

 

On this topic Fauci indisputably lied twice. 

 

  • He stated that he had not funded any gain of function research at WIV when papers previously published by WIV scientists that were clearly GoF in nature using any reasonable definition of the term acknowledged funding from NIAID.
  • He stated that nothing about the virus looked engineered and that it was explainable entirely through natural evolution. His own advisers in the field had told him exactly the opposite - that sections of the virus looked engineered and were not explainable through normal natural selection.

Science is nothing but a tool. Like a hammer or a saw, just immensely more useful. Science can no more lie to you than a rake or a hoe can.

 

People on the other hand lie all the time.

 

And that's the problem. You can have the best credentialing systems, all the checks and balances, but at the end of the day people can lie through their teeth because they have their own goals and self interests. Like our good Dr. Fauci. He's a smart man I'm sure. But he's made some bad decisions along the way. Nearly exclusively pursing vaccines in the HIV pandemic. Wholeheartedly supporting gain of function research. And people have this great tendency that when they screw things up their first inclination is to try to hide it.

 

That's where some amount of natural skepticism and "I'll believe it when you show me the proof" is a healthy attitude to have towards public officials with lots of power. Because they are just as human and subject to all the foibles that entails as the rest of us.

 

That's also why you can't let these same people decide a priori what is acceptable (and therefore allowable) discussion and what isn't. Because if Fauci had his way ... we'd still be unable to discuss whether this virus originated at the WIV even to this day.

 

I get that you think that the "experts" should be allowed to decide what is allowable public discourse and what isn't. You think that you'll prevent people from believing harmful falsehoods. On this subject you and Pope Urban VIII agree entirely.


Edited by Daniel Cooper, 29 December 2022 - 09:19 PM.

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#79 Hip

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Posted 29 December 2022 - 10:07 PM

On this topic Fauci indisputably lied twice. 

 

  • He stated that he had not funded any gain of function research at WIV when papers previously published by WIV scientists that were clearly GoF in nature using any reasonable definition of the term acknowledged funding from NIAID.
  • He stated that nothing about the virus looked engineered and that it was explainable entirely through natural evolution. His own advisers in the field had told him exactly the opposite - that sections of the virus looked engineered and were not explainable through normal natural selection.

 

I dispute your statement that Fauci indisputably lied!

 

I just Googled it, and found this article which indicates that Fauci did not lie about gain of function research. The accusation of a lie comes from two aggressive senators Ted Cruz and Tom Cotton who spun this story. Here is the conclusion of that article:

 

 

The Pinocchio Test

 

EcoHealth’s research has come under increased scrutiny after more details about its work in China have been revealed, either through congressional or journalistic pressure. The NIH letter, flawed though it may be, indicates the federal government is taking a closer look, too.
But we see no reason to change the Two Pinocchio rating we awarded Paul. There is a split in the scientific community about what constitutes gain-of-function research. To this day, NIH says this research did not meet the criteria — a stance that is not an outlier in the scientific community. Indeed, it appears as if EcoHealth halted the experiment as soon as it seemed to veer in that direction.
 
Meanwhile, Cotton and Cruz are spinning the letter as confirming what it does not say. They are welcome to offer an opinion about its meaning. But, so far, it’s not a fact that NIH has admitted funding gain-of-function research. So they also earn Two Pinocchios.

 

 

 

As for the virus looking engineered, the consensus I remember from the early pandemic was that it was not engineered. Even now, there is still a scientific controversy over whether SARS-CoV-2 looks engineered, with some researchers believing it looks engineered, and others taking the opposite view.   


Edited by Hip, 29 December 2022 - 10:08 PM.

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#80 Daniel Cooper

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Posted 29 December 2022 - 11:44 PM

Unlike the Washington Post, I actually read the papers generated by WIV and their US collaborators.
 
For instance, this paper: A SARS-like cluster of circulating bat coronaviruses shows potential for human emergence
 
Money quote from the abstract: Using the SARS-CoV reverse genetics system, we generated and characterized a chimeric virus expressing the spike of bat coronavirus SHC014 in a mouse-adapted SARS-CoV backbone.
 
What they are describing is a gain of function and that research was partially funded by NIAID through the EcoHealth Alliance as an intermediary. You may note one of the authors of that research is Zhengli-Li Shi - the so called "Bat Lady" of WIV. 
 
What they are doing is adding a "novel spike protein" to a virus that did not previously have this function. No matter how you parse it, that is gain of function. This particular research did not directly produce SARS-CoV-2, but it is exactly the sort of genetic manipulation that could have done so. So when Fauci is saying that he never funded gain of function research, he is simply lying.
 
This brings us to Kristian Andersen (Danish evolutionary biologist and professor in the Department of Immunology and Microbiology at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California) and his emails to Dr. Anthony Fauci whom he was advising during the initial stages of the covid-19 pandemic. Email reproduced below:

Image-12-29-22-at-5-23-PM.jpg

At the same time Fauci is getting these emails from Andersen, he's telling the public that there's no indication that this virus originated in a lab and that it mostly likely jumped from bats to man in that famous wet market. He later goes on to ridicule those suggesting that the virus originated at the WIV as a crazy conspiracy theory.
 

That was a lie. Because Fauci knew what sort of research into bat coronaviruses was being done at WIV (he damned well should because he's been paying for some of it). Even if it were to later turn out that the virus occurred naturally, he knows that a lab leak was always a plausible theory and was in no way ridiculous. And he's got high level people telling him that parts of this virus don't appear to be explainable due to evolutionary theory - when he is telling the public the exact opposite. So when he publicly scoffs at the idea that this virus came from a lab, he is again simply lying.

 

Now, at this point I expect that you will revert to your usual argument that "Well, Fauci was just saying publicly what needed to be said. If he was lying it was for the greater good because the rubes out in the public might take the truth and run off with it in destructive directions. Sometimes the experts have to lie to the public for their own good".

 

And indeed Fauci was lying if not for the greater good at least for a greater good .... the greater good of Anthony Fauci who was implicated in what might potentially be the greatest accidental man-made disaster in human history.

 

 


Edited by Daniel Cooper, 30 December 2022 - 12:34 AM.

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#81 Hip

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Posted 30 December 2022 - 06:53 AM

So when Fauci is saying that he never funded gain of function research, he is simply lying.

 
What counts here is the funding application from EcoHealth Alliance that Fauci signed off. If that application details a plan for GOF, then we can say that Fauci lied about not funding GOF. But if there is no clear indication in the application that GOF was going to be undertaken, then he did not lie.

 

So the question is, was the plan to perform GOF written in the funding application that Fauci signed? If it wasn't, then he did not knowingly fund GOF.

 

I am not denying that GOF might have taken place at Wuhan. What I am questioning is whether plans for GOF were detailed in the application Fauci signed off.

 

 

 

 

At the same time Fauci is getting these emails from Andersen, he's telling the public that there's no indication that this virus originated in a lab and that it mostly likely jumped from bats to man in that famous wet market. He later goes on to ridicule those suggesting that the virus originated at the WIV as a crazy conspiracy theory.

 
That email is as vague as it gets, and nobody would conclude from its contents that the virus was lab made. Fauci is a man of evidence, not a man of unsubstantiated speculation. Even today it is not clear whether the genome of SARS-CoV-2 looks manmade or not. So even now, there is no clear indication from the genome that the virus originated in a lab, let alone back then at the beginning of the pandemic. 


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#82 Daniel Cooper

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Posted 30 December 2022 - 01:50 PM

What counts here is the funding application from EcoHealth Alliance that Fauci signed off. If that application details a plan for GOF, then we can say that Fauci lied about not funding GOF. But if there is no clear indication in the application that GOF was going to be undertaken, then he did not lie.
 
So the question is, was the plan to perform GOF written in the funding application that Fauci signed? If it wasn't, then he did not knowingly fund GOF.
 
I am not denying that GOF might have taken place at Wuhan. What I am questioning is whether plans for GOF were detailed in the application Fauci signed off.

 
That might have some bearing on Fauci's initial legal culpability. But it has no bearing on whether Fauci lied before the US Congress. Dr. Fauci testified about a year after the start of the pandemic that NIAID had not funded gain of function research. Presumably he had spoken with Peter Daszak of the EcoHealth Alliance in the intervening time and if he did not initially know that NIAID funding had gone towards gain of function, he knew it by the time he stood before Congress. So if he did not know that NIAID funds channeled through EcoHealth Alliance had ended up going towards gain of function research at the time of the funding, an honest answer would have looked something like this:

 

Senator, at the time of the funding it was not made clear to us that these funds being transfered to the Wuhan Institute of Virology would go towards gain of function research, but subsequent investigation has since proven that this did indeed happen.

 

But that's not what Fauci did. He quibbled about the definition of gain of function and tried to convince Congress and the public that the rather straight forward definition did not mean what it clearly does.
 

That email is as vague as it gets, and nobody would conclude from its contents that the virus was lab made. Fauci is a man of evidence, not a man of unsubstantiated speculation. Even today it is not clear whether the genome of SARS-CoV-2 looks manmade or not. So even now, there is no clear indication from the genome that the virus originated in a lab, let alone back then at the beginning of the pandemic.


It is not necessary to establish that covid-19 did escape from the WIV to establish that Fauci lied when he discounted that it could have escaped from that lab, it is only necessary to establish that the possibility was a valid theory and that Fauci knew it to be such.
 
Frankly, the lab leak theory was plausible on it's face. Fauci is an educated man in this subject, and he well knew that WIV had been doing gain of function research on bat coronoaviruses (even if he maintained that NIAID had not funded it) and that one of those viruses escaping was a definite possibility. But if he was so incompetent as to not know these obvious things ... he has his own senior advisor telling him that this virus looks potentially engineered and that it does not appear to be explainable through normal evolutionary development. So when Dr. Fauci scoffed at the possibility that covid-19 was the result of a lab leak, that was a lie.
 
Then we look at the totality of both of these lies - he lied when he testified a year after the start that NIAID had not funded gain of function research and he lied when he scoffed at the potential that covid-19 was the result of a leak from the WIV, we have a pattern and a purpose. The pattern was deflecting scrutiny away from NIAID's involvement with the WIV and the possibility the virus had come from there and the purpose was to conceal any responsibility that he and his organization might have in the pandemic.
 
It's salient to this topic that Dr. Fauci was well established to be a full throated advocate of gain of function research years before covid-19. To the point of being an advocate even if that research lead to a pandemic. I refer you to a 2012 paper of which Anthony Fauci is the sole author: Research on Highly Pathogenic H5N1 Influenza Virus: The Way Forward
 

A particularly damning quote:

 

However, the issue that has been intensely debated is whether knowledge obtained from these experiments could inadvertently affect public health in an adverse way, even in nations multiple time zones away. Putting aside the specter of bioterrorism for the moment, consider this hypothetical scenario: an important gain-of-function experiment involving a virus with serious pandemic potential is performed in a well-regulated, world-class laboratory by experienced investigators, but the information from the experiment is then used by another scientist who does not have the same training and facilities and is not subject to the same regulations. In an unlikely but conceivable turn of events, what if that scientist becomes infected with the virus, which leads to an outbreak and ultimately triggers a pandemic? Many ask reasonable questions: given the possibility of such a scenario—however remote—should the initial experiments have been performed and/or published in the first place, and what were the processes involved in this decision?

 

Scientists working in this field might say—as indeed I have said—that the benefits of such experiments and the resulting knowledge outweigh the risks.

 

That is how much Dr. Fauci believed in gain of function research.


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#83 Hip

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Posted 30 December 2022 - 07:34 PM

That might have some bearing on Fauci's initial legal culpability. But it has no bearing on whether Fauci lied before the US Congress. Dr. Fauci testified about a year after the start of the pandemic that NIAID had not funded gain of function research. Presumably he had spoken with Peter Daszak of the EcoHealth Alliance in the intervening time and if he did not initially know that NIAID funding had gone towards gain of function, he knew it by the time he stood before Congress.


We don't know for sure that EcoHealth Alliance were conducting GOF at Wuhan to begin with. GOF might have been taking place at Wuhan, but that does not mean EcoHealth Alliance were necessarily behind it.

I am not denying the possibility that EcoHealth Alliance might have been behind it, I am just saying there is no evidence for this at present.


 

Frankly, the lab leak theory was plausible on it's face. Fauci is an educated man in this subject, and he well knew that WIV had been doing gain of function research on bat coronoaviruses (even if he maintained that NIAID had not funded it) and that one of those viruses escaping was a definite possibility. But if he was so incompetent as to not know these obvious things ... he has his own senior advisor telling him that this virus looks potentially engineered and that it does not appear to be explainable through normal evolutionary development. So when Dr. Fauci scoffed at the possibility that covid-19 was the result of a lab leak, that was a lie.


Put it this way: if the NIAID or EcoHealth Alliance were responsible for the alleged GOF at Wuhan, why would the Chinese make so much effort to destroy documents and evidence in Wuhan? If the US or EcoHealth were to blame, it would be in Chinese interests to make this information available.
 


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#84 Daniel Cooper

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Posted 30 December 2022 - 07:57 PM

Put it this way: if the NIAID or EcoHealth Alliance were responsible for the alleged GOF at Wuhan, why would the Chinese make so much effort to destroy documents and evidence in Wuhan? If the US or EcoHealth were to blame, it would be in Chinese interests to make this information available.

 

 

Seriously?

 

NIAID/EcoHealth Alliance was making relatively modest monetary contributions to the research going on at WIV. An amount that gives them a share of the responsibility and a very politically inconvenient liability, but the vast bulk of the funds were Chinese, as was the lab itself and almost all of the personal. 

 

So at the end of the day, it's overwhelmingly Chinese researchers in a Chinese lab funded mostly with Chinese money and you're asking why the Chinese would take such efforts to hide the fact that it came from their lab if that indeed were the case? Surely you can't be serious.

 

The problem for Fauci and the NIAID is that there was a federal law in place that forbid funding of gain of function research.  That last paper that Fauci authored that I quoted above? That was one of Fauci's efforts to prevent that law from passing. He failed and the ban was passed.

 

It appears that Fauci still wanted to participate in gain of function research and the most expedient means to do so was to fund labs outside of the US through a public/private intermediary to provide some level of plausible deniability.  That's why Fauci has gone to such great efforts to obfuscate his organization's involvement with the WIV. But make no mistake - if the world ever understands that covid-19 escaped from a Chinese lab it will be the Chinese that will bear the brunt of the ill will that will flow from that. Of course they are highly motivated to cover something like that up.

 

 


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#85 Hip

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Posted 30 December 2022 - 08:27 PM

It appears that Fauci still wanted to participate in gain of function research and the most expedient means to do so was to fund labs outside of the US through a public/private intermediary to provide some level of plausible deniability.  That's why Fauci has gone to such great efforts to obfuscate his organization's involvement with the WIV. But make no mistake - if the world ever understands that covid-19 escaped from a Chinese lab it will be the Chinese that will bear the brunt of the ill will that will flow from that. Of course they are highly motivated to cover something like that up.

 
I am not questioning Fauci's enthusiasm for GOF research. But that's not what we are discussing here. We are discussing whether he funded it via the grant given to EcoHealth. 

 

I read just now that the US law banning GOF was lifted in 2017. 



 

NIAID/EcoHealth Alliance was making relatively modest monetary contributions to the research going on at WIV. An amount that gives them a share of the responsibility and a very politically inconvenient liability, but the vast bulk of the funds were Chinese, as was the lab itself and almost all of the personal. 
 
So at the end of the day, it's overwhelmingly Chinese researchers in a Chinese lab funded mostly with Chinese money and you're asking why the Chinese would take such efforts to hide the fact that it came from their lab if that indeed were the case? Surely you can't be serious.

 
So if you believe the Chinese are 99% responsible, why are you focusing your criticism on the NIAID and Fauci, rather than investigating the relevant Chinese authorities behind it all?

 

And why isn't Elon Musk saying "Prosecute/The Chinese"?

 

Apart from the fact that his debacle at Twitter has shown that Musk is not always competent in fields other than engineering.


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#86 Daniel Cooper

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Posted 30 December 2022 - 09:16 PM

The ban was lifted in 2017, but Fauci was funding WIV prior to 2015 at the latest. However, if covid-19 escaped in late 2019, rest assured that it was research that had been in progress for some time (most likely several years), and in any case NIAID had continued funding the same type of projects post 2017 and would bear the moral and political stain of that contribution if not the legal.
 
It is not disputed that Fauci was giving federal funds to EcoHealth Alliance and they were forwarding funds to WIV. It is certainly not disputed by any uninterested parties that WIV was doing gain of function research. Fauci tries to parse this by saying "Well, we weren't contributing to the gain of function research part, we only contributed to the other stuff". But it doesn't appear that they were even very careful about maintaining this fig leaf and essentially relied on the Chinese word that they weren't using it for GoF - which is really all they wanted to hear. Yet, US researchers that were also being funded by NIAID also appeared as coauthors on research papers that are indisputably (at least by anyone not named Fauci) gain of function. Those US authors were not in any legal jeopardy due to the ban because all of the actual physical work had gone on in Wuhan. They for the most part were doing analysis of the Chinese results. But when you see NIAID funding going to Wuhan, and you see US researchers getting funding from NIAID collaboration on gain of function projects, it's extremely difficult to say that NIAID wasn't funding gain of research.
 
My problem with Fauci has been the obvious lying which has gone on since the start. He lied about the funding, and he lied about the possibility that covid-19 had originated in a WIV lab. We know he's lying by the way his tries to twist and distort the clear definition of gain of function. At one point he states that it's only gain of function if you knowingly a priori add functions to an organism with the intent to make it more lethal in humans. Which is nonsense since any new function you add to an organism might increase it's lethality though unanticipated consequences.  Just the fact that they intentionally took a bat virus and changed it to make it far more capable of infecting human cells was a gain of function, whether or not they intended to make it more lethal.

 

As far as holding the Chinese to account - I certainly hope that happens. But neither I nor Elon Musk have any control over what happens in China. Twitter is banned so there are no secret Twitter files for Musk to reveal. But Dr. Fauci is allegedly a US civil servant and he's been lying to us. We that pay his salary certainly have something to say about that.

 

 


Edited by Daniel Cooper, 30 December 2022 - 09:20 PM.

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#87 Hip

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Posted 30 December 2022 - 10:20 PM

Well, we will see what comes out in the wash with Tony Fauci and the NIAID, as far as any GOF funding is concerned. Enquires into these sort of things often take years to complete.

 

Cleary if the US lifted its ban on GOF 5 years ago, it must have been concluded that the benefits outweigh the risks, and concluded that GOF is important work in order to try to prevent the next pandemic (ironic therefore that it may have caused this one). 

 

So if Dr Fauci was funding GOF research, it's not as if that was considered a bad thing by the US. It was considered a necessary thing, otherwise they would not have lifted the ban. 

 

Of course, the US did not take into account the sloppy practices that might be going on in Chinese virology labs. 

 

 

 

 


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#88 Mr Serendipity

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Posted 31 December 2022 - 02:17 AM

I’m out.


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#89 Mind

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Posted 31 December 2022 - 09:39 PM

I mentioned in a different thread that Fauci is a liar (proven in court depositions) and suspect he is a raging megalomaniac. On the massive ego thing, apparently his house is a shrine to himself.


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#90 Mr Serendipity

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Posted 03 January 2023 - 12:54 AM

https://twitter.com/...677383703072768

Just a heads up, but Elon said the Fauci Files are dropping later this week if anyone missed it.

I cba anymore to keep posting updates here, so anyone interested in the drop, be sure to check out Elons twitter page this week, and feel free to update the thread with relevant info if you want to.

 

I’m out again!







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