61–70 of 244 posts
Roll a dice representing all the possible bat-human interaction sites in the world.
How often do you get a result so incredibly close to one of the few sites in the world that intentionally collects these things?
I have worked in clean room environments for years. Everyone eventually has an off day (lack of sleep, usually) where you experience a near miss... (glad I don’t work in bio).
This is a good, balanced article. I've been of a similar mind for over a year now. The chances of the CCP releasing a self-harming bioweapon in order to harm the US seems silly. But an accident involving a well-intentioned gain-of-function experiment seems quite possible and was something that the US was concerned about with its own gain-of-function research. In any case, this, like so much of this other nonsense aro…
Not disagreeing with your Likelihoods but I'm not sure your evidence really makes sense. It does not really follow that a self-harm would always be avoided, the game of chess is all about sacrifice. Perhaps China thinks the West is short-sighted and would be politically bound to act against its long term interest, so why not? Maybe there are other reasons why you think the "CCP Virus" hypothesis is 360 stupid besides…
If covid mostly kills old or otherwise compromised individuals then a socialist country could see it in their interest to release a virus that eliminates the least productive part of the population. It would not be as much self harm as an exercise to increase the strength of the whole.
I'd like to ask everyone commenting on this article: who wrote it? Seriously -- what do you know about the author of these words? (There's no "author's bio" anywhere on the page, or even if you click on his name.) So what do any of us know about him? If you look him up on Wikipedia, it lists his occupation as novelist and fiction writer, as well as an "essayist." ("His fiction generally de-emphasizes narrative in fav…
You point out the author lacks credentials. That’s a fair point. What isn’t relevant is whether he’s written novels...erotic or otherwise. No need to being that up.
I think that's relevant.
> There is no direct evidence for these zoonotic possibilities, just as there is no direct evidence for an experimental mishap But there is so much more opportunity for the zoonotic possibilities. In fact, this is the seventh time we've seen Betacoronavirus cross from bats, through another animal, and then into humans. SARS came via palm civets. MERS came via camels. Four more types cause a mild cold only and so they…
There are thousands of wet markets in China, but very few virus labs. Out of all the wet markets in China, the virus just happened to originate at the one right next to the virus lab? That alone is enough evidence to make the lab escape theory the most likely origin. Though it's far from certain.
It was in fact a full seven miles away.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The "likely vector" would be the millions of peasants living near bat caves in rural China (who actually have already been shown to have antibodies to bat viruses). And some of whom traveled to the market. https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/04/23/8417296... So I would upgrade that quite a bit from "moderate-low." (One of the researchers in this NPR article seems to rate it as an obvious suspect, so I'd ca…
Those millions of peasants living near bat caves would have traveled to thousands of markets all over China, but the virus originated at the one market in China that is basically across the street from a virus lab? It's not impossible, but my money is on the lab.
I don't see any evidence for the speculation it was lab created (or modified into it's current form) except for an acknowledgement that the capability to do so exists. I don't doubt the possibility of such a thing occurring, but I just haven't seen any evidence to support this.
For any skeptics out there, take an open-minded look at this article: https://nerdhaspower.weebly.com/blog/scientific-evidence-and... It goes quite deep into the genetic analysis of SARS-CoV-2 relative to existing bat coronaviruses, laying out the case that it is definitely of a non-natural origin. I am not anywhere near knowledgeable enough to fully evaluate the claims, but I would really enjoy seeing a rebuttal tha…
https://yurideigin.medium.com/lab-made-cov2-genealogy-throug...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's probably more helpful if you can share the URLs of the articles you're citing. Snopes.com delved into the one about lax security, and it turned out to just be something somebody shared on a social media web site. (It had the name "ResearchGate", which many wrongly assumed meant it was an actual research paper when it was just a social media post.) https://www.snopes.com/news/2020/04/01/covid-19-bioweapon/
“ What the U.S. officials learned during their visits concerned them so much that they dispatched two diplomatic cables categorized as Sensitive But Unclassified back to Washington. The cables warned about safety and management weaknesses at the WIV lab and proposed more attention and help. The first cable, which I obtained, also warns that the lab’s work on bat coronaviruses and their potential human transmission re…
https://news.slashdot.org/story/20/07/20/0611205/full-text-o...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not disagreeing with your Likelihoods but I'm not sure your evidence really makes sense. It does not really follow that a self-harm would always be avoided, the game of chess is all about sacrifice. Perhaps China thinks the West is short-sighted and would be politically bound to act against its long term interest, so why not? Maybe there are other reasons why you think the "CCP Virus" hypothesis is 360 stupid besides…
Wouldn't it be way easier and more logical to start the infection on a foreign soil? All the previous similar epidemics were successfully contained before reaching Europe, and if there was not for quite serious fuck ups in the beginning (Italian dude not even showing up on the meetings, etc.) perhaps even this one could have been stopped early on. So if it was China wanting to hurt US, then they'd have to be seriousl…
I'd like to ask everyone commenting on this article: who wrote it? Seriously -- what do you know about the author of these words? (There's no "author's bio" anywhere on the page, or even if you click on his name.) So what do any of us know about him? If you look him up on Wikipedia, it lists his occupation as novelist and fiction writer, as well as an "essayist." ("His fiction generally de-emphasizes narrative in fav…
If the zoonotic hypothesis were true, I'd expect to see (1) a transparent international investigation of the Wuhan lab, and (2) a fundamental recognition that journalists are allowed to ask questions, no matter their credentials prior to undertaking an inquiry. Given that we've apparently had neither, the zoonotic explanation is severely weakened.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
“ What the U.S. officials learned during their visits concerned them so much that they dispatched two diplomatic cables categorized as Sensitive But Unclassified back to Washington. The cables warned about safety and management weaknesses at the WIV lab and proposed more attention and help. The first cable, which I obtained, also warns that the lab’s work on bat coronaviruses and their potential human transmission re…
"Full Text of US State Department Cables Finally Released, Showing Safety In Chinese Lab." https://news.slashdot.org/story/20/07/20/0611205/full-text-o...
https://www.itwire.com/health/us-leaked-parts-of-cables-to-p...