Scientist fired from Winnipeg disease lab intentionally worked to benefit China | Hacker News Reader

Scientist fired from Winnipeg disease lab intentionally worked to benefit China

cbc.ca

18 pointsgeox5 comments

> CSIS wrote Qiu was using the level 4 lab in Canada "as a base to assist China to improve its capability to fight highly-pathogenic pathogens" and "achieved brilliant results."

Information that helps fight diseases should be public anyways

What if the information could potentially be double edged (helps fight the disease or assist in bio warfare research) and you cannot control the agents that have access to the information? While obfuscation is not the answer, it def. helps.

There is no such information that is not double edged. Information by itself is neutral, and it all depends on what the person using it for. Otherwise one can attribute anyone as potentially malicious when acquiring information. No guilty until proven so.

If even west aligned media says it’s for saving lives, I would trust that the information is indeed so. China already has nukes. I don’t think they need to wage bio warfare in which their own population is likely to suffer (see COVID)

Considering use cases, nuclear weapons aren't the ultimate weapon and a biological weapon could be employed in situations where nuclear weapons are inappropriate. Given the right biological weapon, a state actor (China, the US, or anyone really) could see the possible asymmetrical benefits.

Example: a purely theoretical biological weapon with low mortality but high economic cost and probably reduced military effectiveness. If I'm the country that uses it, I've taken measures to prepare and expect to come out ahead.

Whereas I observe 3 basic use cases for strategic nuclear weapons and only 1 (the last) is possibly comparable.

1/ game over for everyone, we'll launch left and right (Israel, I presume)

2/ I have enough nuclear weapons to make it not worth the price of bothering me (France, maybe China?)

3/ I believe that the combination of my delivery mechanisms and countermeasures give me a chance despite a generalized nuclear exchange (US, Russia/USSR).

Few know what really happened with respect to SARS-CoV-2. (I don't.) But I don't believe that the possession of nuclear weapons makes biological weapons completely 'uninteresting'.

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