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veen  ·  1688 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: State Department cables warned of safety issues at Wuhan lab studying bat coronaviruses

I don't think we're disagreeing much or at all - I may have misused 'on the other hand'. I totally agree that this is a horrible, terrible, history-defining capital-B Bad Thing if it's confirmed to be true. And I probably don't grasp the consequences nearly as well as you do.

But just a week or two ago, there was a discussion about the mutation rate of coronaviruses and that covid-19 may be an indication of a slow natural process happing faster than expected. And part of me is vaguely...relieved? if it turns out to be human error instead of a future of dozens if not hundreds of new coronaviruses popping up. Despite it still being a terrible thing that has happened. I mean - at least have tools to kneecap further clearly-a-bad-idea-in-hindsight-research. We can exercise agency.

    And as bad as evil is, at least there's a logic that can be countered.

Unless I'm completely missing what you mean here, this is exactly my point too. I wasn't dismissing the gravity of the neglience in any way.