Thread

1. ungreased0675 · 1791174597 · focus · HN ↗

   Are we fairly confident that these labs do more good than the risk they present to the public? I’m not sure we should be keeping dangerous pathogens around just for giggles and PhD papers. What are examples of how the research done in these places improves public health?

   1. vincnetas · 1791174709 · focus · HN ↗

      knowledge. how to handle that and how it looks/works. if you forget it you will be reminded later.

      1. ungreased0675 · 1791175043 · focus · HN ↗

         You’re describing documentation though.

         1. asdfsa32 · 1791175764 · focus · HN ↗

            There is far more knowhow and supply chain that goes into keeping labs working than just documentation. Also, research requires labs, and so it is kind of already there sort of thing.
   2. ashdksnndck · 1791178020 · focus · HN ↗

      I wonder if people downvoting consider your question to be a thoughtcrime or something. It’s a legitimate line of inquiry. Research happens because somebody is interested and writes a grant request that is accepted. Governments and institutions where the research happens have rules as well. It’s possible that the researchers, the folks reviewing the grants, and the people making the rules haven’t done a cost-benefit analysis that adequately covers the tail risks. For some kinds of research, the answer can be: no, we shouldn’t do this. It’s reasonable to publicly discuss these concerns.
   3. cyberax · 1791179241 · focus · HN ↗

      Plague exists naturally. It's not some kind of a movie-land bioweapon McGuffin. The US has half a dozen cases of plague each year.

      Russia did a lot of work to control the plague with anti-plague vaccinations of cattle and pets, resulting in almost no human plague cases. This obviously requires research and development for vaccines.

      BTW, same applies to anthrax. It also exists naturally, which surprises a lot of people.

   4. dehrmann · 1791180359 · focus · HN ↗

      For all the hand wringing we're doing over AI, I'm surprised that post-covid, regardless of origin, there wasn't a more serious discussion on what sorts of biological research are worth the risk.

      1. jacquesm · 1791180874 · focus · HN ↗

         I think this is in part because more people have some amount of knowledge about software and can directly see the effect AI has on the job market around them than do about biological research. Biological research labs usually don't expose convenient chat interfaces, besides, you only hear and read about them in scientific papers as long as things go well.

         But totally agreed that that conversation should be had, a kind of test ban treaty would be useful but frankly, the three groups most likely to conduct this kind of research would never agree to such a ban.

      2. wongarsu · 1791186547 · focus · HN ↗

         Because discussions of the idea that covid was the result of biological research was shut down hard, and suggesting it would quickly get you labeled as conspiracy theorist or put in a camp with the most extreme vaccine deniers
   5. vintermann · 1791181342 · focus · HN ↗

      One of the things which surprised me during covid was how e.g. Turkic central Asian states not only had clearly well-funded bio labs, but sometimes even their own vaccines (effective, too!) quickly in production.

      The conclusion I drew from that is that people like Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow have asked a lot of questions about bioweapons in secret for a long time. And if he did it, you bet all similar leaders, in a wide sense, did it too. And I wouldn't like to be the scientist who got approached by security state people with these questions.

      I guess I'm not conveying this well. What I'm trying to say is that we're not at all confident about anything like that - none of us - because it's all so hush hush because it's WMD-adjacent. The secrecy cripples our ability to have an honest well-informed discussion about it.

   6. Havoc · 1791192397 · focus · HN ↗

      Much like nukes game theory favours keeping them.

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