PROVOCATIONSLab Leaks, Hacked Drones, Flawed Models, and Explaining UFO Sightings
Today’s four provocations: 1) If the lab leak theory of the origins of the COVID virus is proven correct, it will serve as a wake-up call regarding the dangerous research being conducted in poorly secured labs. 2) “If you think any of these [sophisticated military] systems are going to work as expected in wartime, you’re fooling yourself,” says cybersecurity expert Bruce Schneier. 3) Among the big losers from the pandemic should be modelers, who were treated as if they were the oracles of ancient Greece when, in fact, they offered not much more than guesswork, which was mostly wrong — and costly). 4) Later this month, U.S. lawmakers will get to learn a bit more on what may be “out there” when the Pentagon submits the classified version of it UFO report to Congress. People familiar with the report say it does not fully explain all the reported “close encounters.”
Today’s four provocations: 1) If the lab leak theory of the origins of the COVID virus is proven correct, it will serve as a wake-up call regarding the dangerous research being conducted in poorly secured labs. 2) “If you think any of these [sophisticated military] systems are going to work as expected in wartime, you’re fooling yourself,” says cybersecurity expert Bruce Schneier. 3) Among the big losers from the pandemic should be modelers, who were treated as if they were the oracles of ancient Greece when, in fact, they offered not much more than guesswork, which was mostly wrong — and costly). 4) Later this month, U.S. lawmakers will get to learn a bit more on what may be “out there” when the Pentagon submits the classified version of it UFO report to Congress. People familiar with the report say it does not fully explain all the reported “close encounters.”
1. Why We Should Welcome the Lab Leak Hypothesis
Bruce Weinstein writes in Unherd:
How could anyone think that lab origin is a good thing? Well, consider each of the two proposed scenarios:
If SARS2 — the virus that causes Covid-19 — came from nature then, logically, it’s only a matter of time before something like this happens again. And again. And again. And next time, it could all too easily be worse. Our best recourse, then, is clearly to study potential zoonotic pathogens in the lab. It could even be argued, as it has been by many researchers, that we should enhance these infectious agents to discover their vulnerabilities so that next time, we’ll know just what to do.
How else could we discover what we’re up against? After all, if SARS2 came from nature, then the biologists who were furiously studying its close relatives were, if anything, too slow and too cautious to protect us. The straightforward lesson of the pandemic would be to simply face up to the clear risk of studying dangerous, novel infectious agents in the lab. Indeed, we would be forced to redouble our efforts before SARS3 catches us off-guard. (Cont.
