www.gardenstates.org/conference-u...

Sultan’s death is terrible but re: Vylan affair, two wrongs don’t make a right. #whataboutism

open.substack.com/pub/markhoni...

The idea that you can debunk your way out of a conspiracy theory is disproven over and over again. Better imo to ask people with an alternative point of view what their single strongest piece of evidence is and discuss that in depth. For "lab leak" those conversations don't last long.

Thanks for that Zach - clearly, you have put in the work!

Not exactly. I’m saying that it’s incumbent on scientists who are confident that it wasn’t a lab leak that they inform themselves about opposing points of view if only to debunk them from a position of authority

If you check you’ll see I posted a link to my Substack on the thread. I assumed that was what you were responding to. My mistake.

2/ The point I was trying to make is how the enthusiastic way his chant was taken up by the crowd shows how empathy for one group can exclude empathy for another and skew our moral compass. Did you bother to read my Substack post?

open.substack.com/pub/markhoni...

1/ I agree with most of the points the author is making. Vylan's comments may not meet the threshold of hate speech as defined by law, particularly as it will be difficult to prove Vylan intended by them when he made them. But that does not make his words any less hateful or incendiary...

2/... This is concerning as lab-leak proponents cite DEFUSE as evidence that there was a “blueprint” for creating the virus... Scientists who purport to speak from a position of knowledge and expertise should make sure they put in the work, otherwise they risk providing fuel for their critics!