Remember when Covid lab theory was a “far right conspiracy”? Most of the conspiracies have just been a difference of opinion. And then they’re labeled in a gas lighting contest of political cultural war.
HN was so hung up on Science(tm), that everyone was flagged suggesting even a hint of it in 2020. Then the entire thing mob made a U turn in 2021.
Hell, I remember my comments were flagged for a mere suggestion of inflation when the dominant narrative was “transitory”.
What an epic failure of a forum that’s suppose to espouse and foster difference of opinion.
To be fair, it's because of the HN front page that I have read about the possibility and credibility of a lab leak.
A very well argued science based article with a reasonable timeline and explanation that allowed to me to know about a position made unhearable elsewhere.
Broad statements on the "HN crowd" don't make much sense to me. It's the internet and there's much more diversity than most other subgroups, get used to it.
Have you wondered maybe that HN is where it was and you’re veering off into an area of belief system that makes you think everyone else is "MSM" brainwashed?
I really can't say much about your situation but note that public discourse has gotten way crazier in the Trump era. It's now ok to say some crazy shit so I guess that makes everyone wary and reinforces conformism even more ?
Imagine you want to talk about hormonal water pollution created by contraceptives used in masse. The first thing I am thinking now when wanting to even mention the issue is to make very clear that I don't believe they are putting hormones in the water to make people gay and that this is not a trojan horse against contraception.
That’s not my recollection. Back in 2020, there were many intelligent and measured discussions about the lab-leak theory on Hacker News. I came away with the conclusion that a lab leak was certainly possible – but that there just wasn’t any strong evidence to indicate that it was a more likely source of SARS‑CoV‑2 than naturally-occurring zoonosis.
Discussions on Hacker News also convinced me to start wearing a face covering in late March 2020 – even though the mainstream orthodoxy was focussed solely on hand-washing and surface transmission. At the time,health officials and other public figures were advising that wearing a face-mask at best provided no benefit and at worse increased the chance of infection (by touching one’s face while donning or adjusting the mask).
Disclaimer: I don’t live in America or read anything on “social media” (other than the odd niche old-school forum).
in which the top comment is asking why the story is flagged/dead. Also if we search during the first four months of 2020 for comments mentioning "Wuhan lab" the first comment literally says:
> I'm actually going to flag this, since basically it seems to be working quite hard to pretend that the US was funding Gain of Function research in Wuhan, when that doesn't seem to actually be the case.
Thanks for providing those links. It’s interesting to back in time to previous discussions (three years already seems like a life-time ago).
I guess it’s a form of selection bias: I don’t recall the flagging of those articles/discussions because I never read them in the first place. I usually check https://hckrnews.com/ once a day or so (depending on available time) and scan the “top 50%” for topics that might interest me – or have a lot of upvotes and/or comments.
