IMO, determining the origin of the virus is of much more consequence than who was right and who was wrong back in 2020. If the virus crossed over naturally, it's reasonable to conjecture that this sort of thing is going to happen more and more often in the future. If it was human error in a lab, I would actually be relieved -- this seems like something that's much easier to correct. FWIW, I do think available evidence supports a lab leak more than any other hypothesis.

I agree that it's extremely important. If it was a lab leak, there are many safety process and regulation improvements we might be highly motivated to make. It's a thing we can actually have some control over. If it was a natural virus, there's good reason to collect and study more pathogens so we have a head start if one of them crosses into humans. Not that both of these things aren't good responses to the pandemic, but having a specific answer will direct more funding at the problem.

Politics has made it very likely that we will never know where it started, but that's okay. More important is how the next one could start, which is being investigated more thoroughly now. If we survive the current and future variants of covid we'll be better placed for the next plague. If not for the systems put in place because of SARS-CoV-1, SARS-CoV-2 could have spread far more widely before being detected.

Regardless of the politics, it's likely that many labs have reviewed their procedures to be sure people won't be infected by their work/contaminate their work.

Is it? We can assume that both things happened and prepare better for both types of development in the future. In the case of lab release, details would have to emerge to be reactive about fixing any issues with procedures. That doesn't mean that we can't be proactive in analyzing current procedures and trying to find and correct weaknesses.

We certainly can take proactive measures, I just think it will be taken more seriously if we can point to a specific cause. It's the difference between you not receiving a package you were expecting so deciding to be more aware of the expected delivery time in the future versus seeing your neighbor run off with your package.

I read spillover a few years ago, which is all about zoonotic crossover events, would recommend it, even if it is a bit dry in parts.

The problem is, as an expansionist species we're naturally going to encroach on natural reservoirs for pathogens.

The smoking gun of people working at the virology institute may yet turn out to be nothing more than a red herring, if they live and work in the epicentre of where the outbreak started, it only stands to reason they'd also run the risk of catching it.

I wanted to add -- the two most compelling pieces of information I've seen that make the lab accident theory more plausible to me are: 1) The verified existence of the bat-originating corona virus that killed 3 miners with Pneumonia some years ago being housed/researched in the WIV 2) David Baltimore of Cal Tech's remark ""When I first saw the furin cleavage site in the viral sequence, with its arginine codons, I said to my wife it was the smoking gun for the origin of the virus. These features make a powerful challenge to the idea of a natural origin for SARS2"

But then again other people have explained the furin cleavage site exists in other beta coronaviruses - so making a definitive "smoking gun" statement without further research seems premature.

Thanks for the recommendation. I will check this out asap!

To return the favor, I recommend checking out the Lapham's Quarterly issue on "Epidemic" that collected historical writings across many instances of widespread plague and disease.

A bigger issue is how far and fast it travels. We have no surveillance program or early warning system.

Thanks for posting. As an avid player, it's fascinating to read how much foresight these thinkers had in 1950. Today, programs stronger than any human can be downloaded from the app store for free and take up a relatively small amount of space. Humbling and inspiring. For anyone who enjoyed this read I recommend watching the movie "computer chess" as soon as possible!

I've often found myself clearing clutter as the most productive way to procrastinate, telling myself that I'll do better work once I'm organized. Unfortunately, that's not usually the true outcome, so in some ways I'm fooling myself and not really addressing the cause of my demotivation. I appreciated that this article (rigorous or not) challenged me to take a harder look at my behaviors.

Pleasantly surprised to see this on HN. I've read all of DFW's work and he's such an interesting writer/human being. The biography "Every Love Story is a Ghost Story" is a must-read for anyone who's interested. My favorite lines he wrote are in IJ: "you'll worry a lot less about what other people think of you when you realize how seldom they do."

Interesting -- I've also read (nearly) all of DFW's work, but I've held out on ELSISAGS due to unflattering reviews. Why is ELSISAGS a must-read for you, and what do you say to reviewers who call it an insubstantial pop biography?

i've read all his work, too.

I enjoyed the biography because it gave context to his interviews. He would say things in interviews that were clearly misleading because of certain things he had gone through in his past. The book highlights the reasons for why he would say these things. And if you go back and listen to his interviews you get a new take on things. It's as if you are hearing a new interview (after reading Ghost Story).

I would say that while his biography is worthwhile, it's obviously less worthwhile than his writing. And, in the end, I preferred the "Although Of Course" bio-book a bit more than Ghost Story.

Hey John,

I found I couldn't put ELSISAGS down -- I think it's because I so desperately want to get as complete a picture of DFW as possible and the book more than anything helped me understand what DFW was really up against w/r/t his depression and its presence throughout his life. If anything, I found that ELSISAGS demystified DFW to some extent, though maybe part of that is my getting older, too.

I think the reason this sort of research doesn't jive on HN is because most HN readers/commentators know how difficult it is to isolate a variable and distinguish between correlation and causation. It's a healthy skepticism IMO. We question the assumptions and methodologies of studies before we accept their conclusions as fact.

Per the read, I didn't find that Kindness had been isolated as a variable.

From an anthropological standpoint, one could argue that someone kind or charitable would be attractive -- not necessarily because we prize virtue -- but because we assume that person has resources to spare.

I totally agree. This title is misleading. All the examples indicate people who "contribute social value" such as hard work, harmony with others, etc. None of these are dependent on kindness. I think the submitter is confounding it with the popular "nice guys finish last" conception.

I totally agree that kindness has not been isolated. It seems that if anything, social status and respect has been isolated. Two cases they mentioned, a slacker on a team that's a guy, and a girl who is hardworking, are both worthy of respect and disrespect but no kindness was demonstrated.

Highly relevant in tech, too, in terms of interpreting user feedback: "A culture that believes its citizens are not reliably competent thinkers will treat those citizens differently to one that respects their reflective autonomy. Which kind of culture do we want to be? And we do have a choice. Because it turns out that the modern vision of compromised rationality is more open to challenge than many of its followers accept."

A highlight from the text: -- When the internet arrived, it seemed to promise a liberation from the boredom of industrial society, a psychedelic jet-spray of information into every otherwise tedious corner of our lives. In fact, at its best, it is something else: a remarkable helper in the search for meaningful connections. But if the deep roots of boredom are in a lack of meaning, rather than a shortage of stimuli, and if there is a subtle, multilayered process by which information can give rise to meaning, then the constant flow of information to which we are becoming habituated cannot deliver on such a promise. At best, it allows us to distract ourselves with the potentially endless deferral of clicking from one link to another. Yet sooner or later we wash up downstream in some far corner of the web, wondering where the time went. The experience of being carried on these currents is quite different to the patient, unpredictable process that leads towards meaning. -- I'd imagine that most of us on HN could relate.

"if there is a subtle, multilayered process by which information can give rise to meaning"

Because I lack meaning, and I am finding myself on this endless clicking hole without end, any ideas/experiences/advice, by people here about how one gets meaning? What's the process? How? Where? What? ..Thanks.

Agreed -- my own personal experience with this sort of phenomenon is via chess.

I am a much stronger player over the board than I am online and I think the visual representation/spatial relationship is a large part of it. I just engage in a different way.

While different visual representations may seem equivalent on some level, the way our brains process them may be very, very different.

I would imagine many of us also experience a similar phenomenon via writing by hand vs. typing.

I am suddenly inspired to write our head UX guy a letter.

Have you tried playing online chess with physical board, replicating the moves? If your hypothesis is correct then that should boost your performance.

I have not, but I will!