tech37 wrote: ↑Tue Oct 26, 2021 7:43 am
MDlaxfan76 wrote: ↑Mon Oct 25, 2021 9:14 am
tech37 wrote: ↑Mon Oct 25, 2021 8:30 am
a fan wrote: ↑Sun Oct 24, 2021 7:28 pm
tech37 wrote: ↑Sun Oct 24, 2021 6:52 pm
a fan wrote: ↑Sun Oct 24, 2021 6:17 pm
tech37 wrote: ↑Sun Oct 24, 2021 5:01 pm
Ha... this is a money issue? You're the guy with all the mula (nothing wrong with that of course)...ask yourself.
I was just kidding around....if we were responsible, that would be one heckuva civll suit!
Sounds like we're fine on that count, but we'll see at some point, I guess.
tech37 wrote: ↑Sun Oct 24, 2021 5:01 pm
Seriously,
whomever is culpable needs to be identified. Then the GOF sh!t needs to stop. Isn't the human race fragile enough without the existential manipulation of viruses and now hypersonic-nukes too?
Regulation over free markets, tech? (kidding you again).
Sure you are
No, I really am.
How are we going to regulate GOF, or things like cloning in places like China? Or Russia?
So instead we should just walk in circles, wringing our hands, hoping for the best?
It's the same issue we face with climate change. As you know, countries like China and India continue to pollute and amplify greenhouse effect. Should we simply throw up our hands and say, what's the point of continued US effort when other countries don't give a sh!t?
Re Covid though, 5 million dead across the globe. I would bet a worldwide ban on research such as GOF will be easy to come by. Of course regulation oversight will be difficult, but again, better to do nothing at all? IMO, any reduction of GOF research is one less disaster waiting to happen. Now someone on here will say something dopey like, you're anti-science! As mentioned before, find a new way to research this stuff without tinkering with live viruses, putting human existence in jeopardy.
Also, there will always be bad actors, independently plotting to destroy by scientific means. You'd be stating the obvious to raise that point... and in that case we can only hope for the best.
Yeah, I'll be the "dope" and say I want the researchers to be working with 'live' viruses to better understand how they evolve and modify, and jump species, and how they can damage us; and most importantly, how they can be identified, blocked, stopped. But, man, that's dangerous stuff and it needs to be very seriously handled, with significant oversight.
Such flawed logic. Lab-leak is plausible but you're willing to risk more accidents in the name of so-called progress when it's quite possible the very research you want continued may have caused the pandemic in the first place. Oh boy...
Isn't erring on the side of caution in this case essential? And your trust that oversight will somehow solve things is laughable.
If you want to show how such research can be done without such danger, go for it.
I mentioned computer simulation in another post. Why not? Really smart people can solve this.
No, it's extraordinarily unlikely that the virus was engineered in a lab. Is it possible? Sure, but extremely unlikely.
Far, far more likely, and has happened for pretty much all of time, is zoonotic transmission, animal to human. That was the case before anyone even conceived of GoF research and would continue to happen after any GoF was permanently ended.
I said that I want research on "
live' viruses to better understand how they evolve and modify, and jump species, and how they can damage us; and most importantly, how they can be identified, blocked, stopped."
You can't identify the potential viruses without capturing them in the first place, from the animals. That means handling animals and those live viruses.
so, I said, "
But, man, that's dangerous stuff and it needs to be very seriously handled, with significant oversight." Which I don't believe is done sufficiently safely in all labs. We know that we here in the US make mistakes through slipshod safety practices (I've heard lots of stories of people going and coming from US labs without full protective equipment, cleaning, etc...shortcuts) and we are told through the reporting that Wuhan had such issues as well.
I'm 100% for computer simulation work (hadn't seen you reference such) but it doesn't obviate handling animals and live viruses. So, the danger remains, the safety and oversight imperative remains.
Now, as to GoF research, using tech to actually re-engineer viruses, producing a new virus, and then testing them to see if the variances impact in the ways that are anticipated, this indeed is very, very serious, dangerous work (and could well be done for nefarious purposes)...whether that sort of research is inherently more dangerous than simply exposure to animals that are known to carry millions of viruses, some variances of which indeed risk zoonotic transmission at any given time, I'm not so sure, but it's certainly high risk.
But pulling out of research on live viruses would IMO be really, really dumb flat earth thinking.