this post was submitted on 31 Jul 2023
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News

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[–] [email protected] 66 points 1 year ago (3 children)

It’s shady practices like this that fuel conspiracy theories and erode public trust in science.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 1 year ago (3 children)

My mother appears convinced it’s a Chinese medical lab. So, yea.

[–] [email protected] 43 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Well, because it is actually

The county also discovered nearly 1,000 bioengineered mice. Wang Zhaolin, a representative of Prestige Biotech – the company operating the lab – told county investigators that the mice were genetically engineered to catch and carry the COVID-19 virus

I mean if you don't want conspiracy theories to spread then don't make them true to begin with

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Wow... I mean I know why that makes sense, but still, wow...

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Pretty sure one of the Chinese ran USA labs were caught sending samples of contagious diseases back to China via standard DHL type packages. This was before COVID.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

I actually noticed that when searching for "prestige biotech" (the name of the company) pretty much all the conservative media already state that it is Chinese linked. The weird thing is that they state it as a fact without explaining how they arrived to this conclusion.

I mean, it very well might be, but tell me how you arrived to that conclusion.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Chinese listed owner. Chinese representative. Mysterious purpose with unknown source of funds. Not too hard to connect the dots.

Edit: Apparently people don't realise Chinese can refer to ethnicity as well as nationality. Yes, it would be ideal if we had different terms for the two.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (3 children)

The article didn't mention the guy's nationality, unless I missed it.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Exactly, have they said that, I wouldn't have problem with it. The articles that I looked at weren't mentioning anything beyond it is Chinese linked.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

@agent_flounder @wahming

Exactly. Assumptions rarely lead to facts.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I used the term Chinese to refer to ethnicity, not nationality.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Why would ethnicity matter in this context?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago
[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Both the owner and representative of the company are Chinese, so why wouldn't she think that?

Also, how many other countries would be interested in maintaining a bioweapons facility in the US?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Because being Chinese doesn’t mean you are a Chinese nationalist. It’s a pretty racist jump to make.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Buddy, see my username? Yeah, that's a Chinese name. I of all people know exactly what the difference is between Chinese ethnicity and Chinese nationality.

With that said, the majority of Chinese business people have some connection or other to China, be it family, business, or otherwise. Combine that with the context here of mysterious purpose (but probably bioweapons), unknown funding source and complete lack of any commercial purpose, etc etc, and it's not a hard conclusion to draw.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 year ago

It’s sad you have to identify yourself as Chinese in order to make this statement.

Like we can’t judge a statement based on it’s content alone.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 year ago (2 children)

You speak as if this is common. The reason this is news is because it’s random AF.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

I didn’t mean to imply it’s common, just that it’s particularly damaging.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 1 year ago

Just like trans athletes in sports. Which are like what? 3 people?

It makes for good headlines and that's why it's news and gives the rightwing conspiracy nuts more fuel for the next big idiotic thing.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Only to people who wouldn't trust science regardless of this event.