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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   26127 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 16, 2026

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It is with great anger that I say they're doing it again. Indeed, they never stopped.

The paper you're citing is 12 years old. Although I guess you're directionally correct in that you could probably find papers published by someone in the academy that you would call GoF.

I don't follow Dr. Perez or the field, but amusingly he was on a paper last year describing a safe platform for doing the kind of work you're talking about.

They're making super dangerous airborne diseases in ferrets... For no good reason at all...But so far as I can tell nobody had anything to gain besides publishing some 'good' papers. These scientists were just doing science with complete disdain for the risks. They were going out to caves to gather these coronaviruses and bring them to Wuhan.

You might disagree with them, you may be so cynical as to believe that scientists only care about publishing some 'good' papers, but I can guarantee that most people doing this kind of work believe they're making the world a better place. They believe in a future free from infectious disease. Try some mistake theory and charity for a change.

I can guarantee that most people doing this kind of work believe they're making the world a better place

An important caveat, that the people doing the work are probably not the same ones popularizing the work, signing open letters, hosting podcasts, et cetera, and as such outsiders will have a rather different view of the field available.

Try some mistake theory and charity for a change.

Occasionally when you try that, the New York Times publishes an article where your enemy declares they're exactly as evil and stupid as you originally thought before trying mistake theory. At that point you're allowed to stop the charade and accept reality.

They believe in a future free from infectious disease

Yeah, well, I don't. Their whole field of study needs to be nixed and made illegal.

Their whole field of study needs to be nixed and made illegal.

That's a bit excessive; just postpone gain-of-function research until they've gotten the Big Falcon Rocket Starship working, and then put it in a distant orbit.

And with robots doing sll of the work via remote control so that there is a literal zero percent risk of escape.

Finally, someone who gets it!

Antarctic research station should be sufficient, no?

Even "don't do GOF research in a dense 10M+ megacity" would reduce the risk a lot.

I'm sure there's at least one disaster novel or movie about a frozen disease being thawed and killing everyone.

Aren't some of the known Spanish Flu gene sequences from exhumed victims in polar regions? I don't think we have any other source for that data.

Yeah, but Spanish Flu wouldn't do much nowadays, most likely (not that I'd care to test that). Its descendants have been circulating as seasonal flus ever since. You'd need something much older or from an isolated population.

Mistake theory has to be rejected for high stakes because it's gameable both on a conscious and unconscious level.

I agree there is some predictive and curiosity satiating value to this kind of work but not worth the risk.

I admit I didn't perceive that it was an old paper. They certainly are continuing to do this kind of research nevertheless. Nobody has been held accountable.

And after all these many years, what have been the fruits of this research? Has it led to anything good or useful? Just general 'advancing theoretical science will lead to future unknown applications'? Could the money have been reallocated to other fields instead which would also have unknown future applications without the risk of creating deadly diseases?

After the first few million deaths it's time to stop giving out charity. If a nuclear power plant melts down, kills 20 million people and dislocates the whole of society for a couple of years, then nobody would be in a charitable mood for the people who slipped up making it. Regardless of intentions they demonstrated appalling negligence. If you're making something that can kill tens of millions of people you must be very careful and rigorously justify the value of your work.

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