There is also an aspect where it goes from science to policy, and there is this step where certain parts of society simple state: "how dare you think you know better then x, who studied y for x amount of year, or this scientist".
It happens here too. During Covid, also here the lab leak theory was talked as a crazy non-scientific conspiracy.
Common sense proposed the lab leak. Was absurd and scary how easily it was dismissed in pretty much the entire Western media, not only the US. Even this forum got subjected to it.
It was not just “common sense”. I was reading in-depth articles about the GoF line of research and all the characters involved (Ralph Baric, Shi Zhengli, etc) back in March/April 2020. Basically the entire body of circumstantial evidence pointing to the lab leak hypothesis was known and reported within months of the start of the pandemic. Every in-depth article written since then has been mostly a rehashing of what various bloggers and alternative news sites had already published.
But the fact it was basically a recycling of several racist "those filthy foreigners are responsible for disease" tropes along with "scheming orientals" tropes.
It's not "potentially" racist. It was being spouted by racists and directly leading to violence against asians in America and elsewhere. When this behavior is seen, and with the standard lack of any nuance in both reporting and social media, making such claims publicly if you're less than 95% certain is irresponsible.
What makes you certain that there was less than a 1 in 20 chance that the lab leak theory was wrong at the time?
After all, percentage fbtou are going to wait for every theory to be 19/20 chance of being correct before you announce it as a theory, no theory would have been announced at all for COVID
You can't prove a negative. Again, you are ignoring my point - most science isn't trying to make claims already being used to incite violence. There is a higher standard before publicly discussing such things.
The lab leak theory was not being touted by the Black people who beat up Asians in droves the last 3 years. The idea that it was Trumpists was a conspiracy theory not borne out by stats
There is a huge reason to downplay it, especially in the USA, until things could cool around it or things could be worked out 100% factually and it is a science related - basic Psychology.
Even in my small town of 7000, an Indian lady was assaulted to "get back at those Chinese for giving us COVID (which doesn't exist and is just made up by the lame stream media)".
No this isn’t a good reason to shutdown actual scientific discussion and this whole thing felt like a red herring specifically played up to shut down dissent.
Anti-Asian hate crimes are a real thing, but both black and white Americans endure them at a higher rate[1]. Further, these types of attacks went up across the board during the pandemic however Asian based hate crimes represented only ~8% of these attacks with most other ethnic groups having way more attacks targeted at them[2].
Seems to me like an example of cherry picked statistics being used for political gain. Asian hate crimes being something that became way more common during the pandemic is simply not grounded in reality.
It must have been really obvious to all concerned that, by running to ground the lab leak theory, if it ever did get out (what they did) that it’d be a big net loss for trust in government and science.
So it follows that they must have been really (like really /really/) scared that it was absolutely necessary — damn the consequences.
But my guess it’s actually a feedback loop gone out of control. (We knew even then that this was no Ebola.)
At the same time, in the UK, right at the start, we have those now famous words: people were “made to feel more personally vulnerable”.
My guess is that the intended recipient of that initiative was us (i.e., gen pop), but the acute recipients (i.e., those most likely to hear, actively listen and be influenced) were those already involved in the campaign.
The volume could not be turned down (because it was assumed gen pop would otherwise not listen). But very stupidly, there also was no moderating mechanism for those “in charge”. So we have our loop.
(This doesn’t fully track, because later the British PM got seriously ill. And later still, the British PM also went back to partying. So, there would have been re-injected some non-trivial rationale to the severity worries, albeit only later. And there was also apparently a very effective moderating mechanism at least in central government. But as a simple model, it explains a lot for me.)
> It must have been really obvious to all concerned that, by running to ground the lab leak theory, if it ever did get out (what they did) that it’d be a big net loss for trust in government and science.
But a lab leak in itself would be a big loss of public trust in science. It exemplifies the worst fears of the uneducated regarding "God-playing scientists" who slice and dice the DNA like a Frankenstein, produce plagues for curiosity and "we were preoccupied with whether we could, but not whether we should"-style tropes. A real leak would validate these nutteries and play into the cards of the woo anti-science people (remember those times? Penn and Teller's Bullshit etc...). The fear around GMO etc. And this sort of research is international and wasn't localized to China and the Wuhan experiments aren't solely with Chinese involvement. So they thought better roll the dice and see if it gets out.
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Trust is a very feeble thing, and nobody wants to do an honest postmortem. The train is simply moving forward faster and faster. Erode public trust, then smear and name-call anyone who doesn't adhere to an ever narrowing band of acceptable beliefs, dismiss them all as everything-ist nutjobs. Never admit wrong, just crank the heat up steadily year by year. Because surely that will solve the problems.
I don't think we should reject reality just because we're concerned others can't handle that reality without reacting violently. The notion that we should downplay certain ideas because of crimes committed by people that misunderstand those ideas is not something I can get behind, sorry. Do you post on reddit a lot? The phrasing of your argument and the intermittent spacing has that reddity vibe to me.
GP didn't suggest to reject reality out of concern for others.
He said we should make sure to be 100% certain of what the facts are before asserting what reality is to the public, especially when it comes to sensitive subjects.
The alternative is to say that reality is A, have a lot of people face (just or unjust) repercussions, then say "Oopsie! Turns out we were dead wrong". The damage is already done by that point.
For being shutdown and canceled, the lab leak theory is and has been talked about a shocking amount for the past 3+ years. Rarely a day goes by here that it hasn't been talked about, especially in 2020.
Nothing in that condemnation is limited to claims of deliberate release. That article contributed to a false scientific consensus, which social media operators used to justify banning any account that suggested SARS-CoV-2 might have arisen from a research-related accident. For example, Facebook did so until May 2021.
> I don't ever remember it being treated as a "crazy non scientific conspiracy
Consider that this treatment may have taken place in the editorial boards & newsrooms of the outlets you read before the debate ever had the opportunity to reach to your attention.
Perhaps epistemology is not just individual in scope, but societal.
Indeed, I also didn't remember it being treated in Jan-Oct 2020 as a 'crazy non-scientific conspiracy'. But we know today, (reference any journalist talking about origins on Twitter) that lab leak was being treated amongst themselves as a wild-eyed conspiracy theory
I also felt it was the most likely explanation from the first time I read about it (March/April 2020) but even if it was “just one hypothesis” here’s the thing: if true, it has profound implications for the future of humanity. It’s not like this is just an academic question about what killed the dinosaurs. It doesn’t matter whether it can be proven; the fact that we consider it in the realm of possibility means we need to figure out what can be done to ensure the next “hypothetical” leak isn’t even worse.
Does it really matter? I mean we did had deadly pandemics before biolabs were a thing.
Other than blaming China because that’s what Americans want to do now, I haven’t heard anything interesting about what to do if the lab leak hypotheses is right.
Thoreau made a similar argument after his carelessness started a major wildfire, stating that once he lost control of his campfire, it was "as if the lightning had done it". His neighbors weren't impressed, and I'm not impressed here either.
This thinking is just bizarre. ~20M people are dead. If SARS-CoV-2 arose from a research accident at the WIV, then those deaths were all avoidable, simply by not funding research that was already considered to be an unacceptable risk by many academics (Relman, Lipsitch, etc.) before the pandemic, and actually defunded until 2017. These were real people, mothers and grandfathers and friends. Would you not rather they hadn't died?
The WIV was funded by the American NIH, and used techniques first developed by Ralph Baric at the University of North Carolina. If SARS-CoV-2 arose from a research accident there, then the American government is in no position to blame China. On the other hand, that gives the American and Chinese governments a collective incentive to downplay that possibility, as seems to have occurred.
It doesn’t matter in the sense that we just had to deal with the virus, no matter what.
But it does matter with regard to public trust in science and government.
Others have also pointed out that it matters because of it being a potential spark for racism (and that’s a reasonable concern no matter if you think the response wrong or right).
Also, I remember some concern that it may be a bio-weapon. And, although slight far fetched, it would be consistent. Ironically, I suspect the intent was to discount the possibility to prevent panic. (Though they were happy to spread lower grade fear, so go figure…)
> In a warning notice appended to the meal-planner, it warns that the recipes “are not reviewed by a human being” and that the company does not guarantee “that any recipe will be a complete or balanced meal, or suitable for consumption”.
It is explicit in that it does not offer "dishes with correct nutritional value"
Whether you should be allowed to label/market this as "meal planner", given that you can't label a milk replacement "milk replacement" in many countries, is up for debate, but the software itself is allegedly not dishonest (according to the article, I haven't tried it myself)
Maybe the hammer analogy I used is not great because hitting yourself is obviously bad whereas any of the recipes might be toxic in a way that the user is not aware of, in which case you're right. But the complaint is that it suggests impossible dishes upon inputting ingredients that are obviously inedible and harmful substances, which sounds to me like it is functioning correctly even if this humorous function was unintentional
Who would ask this LLM to make a recipe involving bleach and then actually proceed to make it? Such a person is already at risk of poisoning themselves, the software doesn't suggest it by itself so I don't see how it increases the risk of harm
But the purpose underlining a meal-planner AI is to create meals. If it's creating something that is not a meal it's not doing it's purpose, if the use-case is for meals then there should be guardrails against non-meals recipes, simply because it does not fit the purpose of the product.
It's not a LLM product, it's not advertised as a general LLM that will generate text based on input of shopping items, it's specifically advertised as an AI meal planner and it's not fit for that purpose since it does not guard against non-meals.
That's the issue, the user is supposed to be a layman, not someone that knows and understands LLMs and its limitations.
This thing sounds useless even if you don't put bleach in as an ingredient then. Sounds like some one wanted to write "with AI" on their resume more than any great desire to build something useful.
Not to marginalize your idea, but an app is also just a surface level solution. A quick fix, not useless, but not longterm.
Isn't the traditional solution not just to pick up some hobby's, go out, some cultural events?
It's not easy at times, but especially at events with shared interests it's normally easiest to connect to like minded people, and those connection have a chance of lasting.
Not everyone can do these things. Some people can't afford to start a hobby or go out. Some don't have the time or space. Or mental energy required to go out and be perceived by others. Others may have disabilities that the public doesn't bother accommodating for.
Apps like these offer ways to cope for the time being. There are millions of people treading water and the old coping mechanisms aren't working anymore.
Very well said! That has been a lot of what I heard from talking to the users on the platform. Many people struggle going to venues to meet people because of their anxiety, geographical location, disabilities, and time, to list a few.
Many people suffer in the dark. I hope Bubblic can be some sturdy straws for them to grab on to re-shore themselves.
There are meetups on all kinds of topics all over the world that are free to attend.
If you crave social connections, but dont know how to make them, you havent learned a coreskill for being a human and there are much deeper issues, such as depression, at play. Would be time to look at therapy or other more structural solutions.
An app won't solve your social & community issues.
The map feature can help bridge the gap between online connection and real-life connection, in my opinion. If you see that person you are talking to is near you and you hit it off very well, you can decide to meet in real life and form the real-life relationship, whether friendship or romantic relationship. That is the ultimate goal!
I want Bubblic to be the stepping stone for meaningful connections, a means to a real-life connection :)
I love how we just build complexity upon complexity. A tool for all the problems that this new tool gave that was solving all these other tools. A never ending mountain of complexity. In that sense coding (and hosting) is like the law. The entire ecosystem will just keep expanding in complexity decade by decade
Counterpoint to this is the rate at which you can grab some new infra and try something out is amazing. You need a Redis cache? Or a GPU? Here have one in a few seconds, instead if next month or never.
It is a bit like complaining about making tractor engines more efficient when you didn’t have those problems using animals and ploughs.
You are describing corporate red tape for your organization. Those things were already possible before the cloud hype of last 5-8 years.
Anyway the point is also not that cloud didn't solve any issues but that by solving 1 issue, you get 5 new issues, and you solve one of those and you get again 5 new ones. And the loop keeps going endlessly.
Indeed, I just run it (GPT-3.5-turbo) in a loop on increasingly long sequences of "b b b b ....", and it went off the rails somewhere around 200+ 'b's.
> The consensus among physicist is that’s it’s likely to be a dud
That's really not true. It's unclear whether it's a superconductor, but the consensus worst-case outcome is that something very unexpected is happening, which is in itself worth learning more about.
The comments here are of a higher quality (due to top tier moderation) and generally the community is smarter and more in tune. I'd go with the HN consensus any day, over some random subreddit.
HN is a tech forum, plenty of smart people in there, but also plenty of people who think they know more than they really do. Lots of arrogance in here. I am guilty of it myself, and some of my posts got a lot of upvotes even though it was way out of my field of expertise. I try to get things right, fact checking and all that, but my opinion is certainly not worth that of an expert.
All that to say that on tech matters, I think HN is pretty good, because that's where the tech guys go. But for physics, I'd go for r/physics.
Sources for this as the consensus take? Or is this your personal take? As far as I have heard, it is still well under discussion, especially with more recently (per this weekend) levitating flakes, and the fact that noone has successfully replicated a certain-failure of actual conducting properties.
I think main issue is that react is easy to integrate with node, next etc. But python, php (laravel) etc. cant just run react-dom on the server. However would be interesting to see react-dom builders for php & python that would allow you to user react as a templating language in Laravel & Django.
Yeah but there is more to it. There are active crisis, like cancer & heart disease. Or upcoming ones like Alzeimer & Parkinson. That in the current day already affect more people per year, then the climate crisis will affect in the worst prognoses in a 100 years*.
But Climate change is different, it speaks to the psyche of humans, the modern story of the flood. And in the same way it gives people meaning & without religion in the West they form morality around it. Those for it, are good, those against it, are bad.
That doesn't mean its not something important or real, and we have to solve it. But it's one of the many things for us humans to solve.
*In worst prognoses, climate changes will affect 10 mil deaths per year, which is the same amount cancer is doing every year today.
Can you provide the citations for that? Migration forecasts are absolutely enormous [1] and 10 million seems very low in terms of relation to the numbers and how humanity will react to it all. Just think of the current reactions to migration currently and multiply that 10-fold or more. And I can see that happening in the next 20 years.
I mean there are a bunch of studies and articles, with an extreme wide range. It also difficult to count. For instance if a heat wave leads to heart attack in an obese person, should that be included, etc.
Thanks. For me, I just do not think humanity in its current state could handle the the massive amount of migration that could potentially happen without ugly political upheavals and conflict. I guess we will find out.
Except that neither of the things you mention affects more people than climate change will. The estimate is that there are about 54 M people World wide suffering from alzheimer.
To put that into perspective the average altitude of Bangladesh is 9m above sea level, but the majority of the population lives in he south at about 0-1m of altitude. So there would just in Bangladesh alone be more people (let's say 50% of 160M) directly affected by climate change than alzheimer world wide. We are not even talking about the indirect effects of displacing 60M people, all the other countries and all the other effects of climate change.
Apart from that, the argument is under the false premise that we shouldnt do anything anyway because there is worse things. By that argument we should also not do something about alzheimer, because more people die of cancer.
So I question what your aim was with your argument. It was clearly using wrong facts and was under a false premise.
Just because they will below sea level doesn't mean they will all die. That's a bit ludicrous. Even more ludicrous are your nrs 4-5 meters, will get to that.
Whole of Holland is below sea level at the moment. Yet we are miraculously sitil alive.
To take it further, in a 100 years every house in Holland that's here now will still be standing.
Now certain countries don't have the skills that the Dutch have, and we should help them. But this isn't something that will come unexpected, so we have the time to do so. Half of Dubai was created out of the sea.
It happens here too. During Covid, also here the lab leak theory was talked as a crazy non-scientific conspiracy.