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. 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.

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