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Comment by kgwxd | Hacker News Reader

Last year, claims weren't based on evidence. Even if they turn out to be right, doesn't mean they were "right" at the time.

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Saying there’s no evidence as a rationale to ban discussion of investigating the simplest of explanations was purely political.

I never understood the supposed racism angle either. Why is it racist to suggest a Chinese lab studying corona viruses leaked it out, whether accidentally or deliberately, but it was perfectly fine to say it appeared by itself in an unregulated Chinese wet market?

Sure, but I still don't know if this answers the question. A year ago, we didn't have hard evidence that the virus had a zoonotic origin either (and we still don't). And yet, news media and social media companies actively suppressed those who even wanted to discuss the very real possibility that the virus came from a lab, branding them as conspiracy theorists and peddlers of misinformation.

That's simply not true. The genetic evidence was there the entire time.

Let's just admit that nobody looks at it seriously because anyone who even hinted at it would be labeled a racist.

It's labeled as racist because Trump said it first.

Now that trump is gone, we can go back to a normal situation where we discuss any theory without being called racist.

This doesn't make sense to me. Why would humoring the idea that it came from a lab be "racist"? Did anyone with a real platform and influence ever make that claim? What would make the idea that it came from a Chinese lab more racist than the idea that it was spread because Chinese people have strange and unsafe wet markets where they trade and eat strange and gross (to us Westerners) animals?

> Why would humoring the idea that it came from a lab be "racist"?

Because Trump said it. And trump doesn't exactly have great credit when it comes to not being racist against Chinese people.

So, we label this theory as conspiracist and racist.

I don't think i have further explanation.

It doesn't make sense to me either but I anecdotally encountered people who think any suggestion, idea, theory, that implicates a non-white “race” of people, even if in a neutral non-accusatory way, is inherently and problematically racist.

It doesn't make sense, but yes, it was a thing people did say and continue to say. Apoorva Mandavilli, a science and health reporter for the NYT just yesterday (May 26) tweeted "Someday we will stop talking about the lab leak theory and maybe even admit its racist roots. But alas, that day is not yet here." That's a recent example I know off the top of my head.

I think you're right.

I believe (with no way to prove it) if Trump had, with his trademark tone and delivery, blamed China's Wuhan Seafood Market and thrown in a few choice insults about China, that theory would have been the one Big Media shut down and filtered out. Instead it was the lab leak theory.

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