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How I learned to stop worrying and love the lab-leak theory

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Re: How I learned to stop worrying and love the lab-leak theory

#151

Post by h0l0cube »

platinumrad wrote: post #128
h0l0cube wrote: post #120

We may never know for 100% certain if it truly was a lab leak, but what we can be certain of is the denialism and withholding of information in the crucial first 2 months of the emergence of the virus. In at least this, China is culpable for devastating millions of lives and disrupting the global economy, all for the Chinese government to save face. Edit: Removed claim about Chinese new year

Chinese New Year celebrations were cancelled and travel restrictions were imposed in January of 2020.

From what I've read they were cancelled, but the motivation from the government to keep transit operation in the lead up to Chinese New Year might have been to allow citizens to get home. This would be to avoid backlash from citizens who couldn't be with their family for, what is for many, their one holiday a year. Which seems reasonable. I believe by CNY the gene sequence and other data had been leaked by a rogue scientist in China to the rest of the world, and the cover was blown.

Re: How I learned to stop worrying and love the lab-leak theory

#152

Post by wutbrodo »

whatshisface wrote: post #69
baggy_trough wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you call it a conspiracy theory? There's nothing conspiratorial about it. Any politically sensitive organization will inherently do whatever it can do avoid blame. That's as natural as the force of gravity. I also don't understand why you say so vehemently that you don't believe it was engineered. Gain of function experiments are something they do in these labs!

I don't know what the OP was saying, but a lot of people use "engineered" as a byword for "released on purpose."

I don't know that people are plucking the word out of its context like that. "The pandemic was engineered" is a substantially different claim than "the virus was engineered", and I have seen vanishingly few claims of the former (in the mainstream; you can nutpick literally any claim in the Internet era).

Re: How I learned to stop worrying and love the lab-leak theory

#153

Post by dbuder »

platinumrad wrote: post #128
h0l0cube wrote: post #120

We may never know for 100% certain if it truly was a lab leak, but what we can be certain of is the denialism and withholding of information in the crucial first 2 months of the emergence of the virus. In at least this, China is culpable for devastating millions of lives and disrupting the global economy, all for the Chinese government to save face. Edit: Removed claim about Chinese new year

Chinese New Year celebrations were cancelled and travel restrictions were imposed in January of 2020.

But they called Australia racist for imposing travel restrictions in February?

Re: How I learned to stop worrying and love the lab-leak theory

#155

Post by cletus »

jb775 wrote: post #104
cletus wrote: post #39

So I generally give like zero weight to conspiracy theories. That being said, I don't believe anyone can reasonably claim with any degree certainty that Covid was a lab-leak BUT the WHO investigation simply hasn't done their due diligence to a sufficient degree to eliminate this theory. Unfortunately the WHO's credibility is trained here. In the early days of the pandemic the WHO bent over backwards not to upset Chin…

> So I generally give like zero weight to conspiracy theories You know it was once a conspiracy theory to say the Earth wasn't flat. And it was once considered blasphemy to say putting leeches on your body didn't help an illness. There's a reason why the term "conspiracy theory" is thrown around by the media so much...it's because they know a certain subset of people have been socially conditioned to bypass critical…

> You know it was once a conspiracy theory to say the Earth wasn't flat.

In the 3rd century BCE, it is documented that the Egyptians calculated the circumference of the Earth to a relatively high degree of accuracy [1].

The Earth not being flat wasn't so much a "conspiracy theory" but a challenge to medieval Christian doctrine. It just doesn't fit the modern definition of a "conspiracy theory". The essential part of a conspiracy theory is that a powerful and covert group is responsible for something not appearing as it seems.

Common examples: faked Moon landings, UFOs (as aliens, including Roswell and other such incidents), the JFK assassination (done by the CIA or whoever) or the Holocaust didn't happen.

They all tend to revolve around some Big Lie (a fact exploited by Goebbels and others) and it tends to play into human psychology that there's some grand plan or there's something you, as a believer, know that other people don't. We now live in a time that has validated people raising how they feel to having the same weight as science, demonstrable evidence and reason. So now we have people believing in stolen elections, QAnon, Covid-19 being fake and the like.

So what you're doing is attempting to conflate the term conspiracy theory by applying it to a situation any reasonable person knows as being obvious ("the Earth isn't flat") and I have to wonder why. What other belief are you trying to validate?

[1]: http://www.geo.hunter.cuny.edu/~jochen/gtech201/lectures/lec....

Re: How I learned to stop worrying and love the lab-leak theory

#156

Post by notriddle »

xmprt wrote: post #139
jb775 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So I generally give like zero weight to conspiracy theories You know it was once a conspiracy theory to say the Earth wasn't flat. And it was once considered blasphemy to say putting leeches on your body didn't help an illness. There's a reason why the term "conspiracy theory" is thrown around by the media so much...it's because they know a certain subset of people have been socially conditioned to bypass critical…

I think people usually give zero weight to conspiracy theories not because they're never true but because it's much likelier that the experts know better than you do.

Also, because they’re trying to compensate for biases that cause people to see patterns where none exist.

Re: How I learned to stop worrying and love the lab-leak theory

#157

Post by hungryforcodes »

handmodel wrote: post #140
newacct583 wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So if the lab leak theory turns out to be true, how will people deal with the fact that they've been vehemently disregarding it as a "Q-anon conspiracy theory"? If the lab leak theory turns out to be true, I'll admit I was wrong about my intuition. It's not impossible, but it's extremely unlikely. We've had literally thousands of new virus strains evolve in the past century of viral research and like three known "l…

I would believe that Covid started elsewhere in China before believing in started in a wet market in Wuhan. It is extremely unlikely to start there given that isn't where the bats in China are or where new corona viruses are. In fact, if you read any research that had been published by the WIV on coronoaviruses pre-2020 they all start by talking about expeditions to collect bat droppings 1500 miles away.

So one bad flew 2400 kilometers, bit some people in Wuhan, then died?

It started in Wuhan spontaneously. There are no intermediary COVID19 infections in a migration trail of any kind from those bat reservoirs in Yunnan to Hubei.

Re: How I learned to stop worrying and love the lab-leak theory

#158

Post by mhh__ »

fastball wrote: post #83
mhh__ wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can you assign a probability/likelihood to vague statements like "There is some weak evidence regarding lax security and procedures at the Wuhan Institute of Virology"

Probabilities determined from Bayesian analyses like this one aren't really intended to be perfect – it is more of an exercise to help you think through the various different possibilities in a more structured way. In other words, Bayesian estimates should always be taken as relative to all other related estimated outcomes rather than as absolutes in isolation (even thought you are arriving at a specific "probability…

I am aware. This is why I find it particularly grating if you even pretend it's not subjective.

Re: How I learned to stop worrying and love the lab-leak theory

#159

Post by cudgy »

titzer wrote: post #132
swader999 wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was banned in the USA around 2013, then Fauci and Straszak shifted funding to continue it in Wuhan to get around the USA bans. Virologists signed on to the article promoted by Straszak claiming the wet market fantasy as Fauci and Straszak control much of the funding in virology.

> then Fauci and Straszak shifted funding to continue it in Wuhan A nested conspiracy theory is just what we need for some more political polarization in the USA. Score!

The convenient use of the word “conspiracy theory” usually indicates a lazy evaluation of the facts from what I’ve observed. The threat of “polarization” adds even more to the lack of rigor. Should we just ignore concepts and discussion if it is not generally agreed upon or upsets a group of people?

Re: How I learned to stop worrying and love the lab-leak theory

#160

Post by swader999 »

barry-cotter wrote: post #141
jb775 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So I generally give like zero weight to conspiracy theories You know it was once a conspiracy theory to say the Earth wasn't flat. And it was once considered blasphemy to say putting leeches on your body didn't help an illness. There's a reason why the term "conspiracy theory" is thrown around by the media so much...it's because they know a certain subset of people have been socially conditioned to bypass critical…

> You know it was once a conspiracy theory to say the Earth wasn't flat. Archimedes knew the Earth was a sphere. You can tell the surface of the Earth is curved by the fact that the body of a ship disappears from view before its mast.

I always ask these flat earthers to explain how we see the coriolis effect when firing long range rifles or artillery. Naw, I'm lying, I've never met a serious flat earther online or in person. I think it's a device used in lazy debate rather than a set of real breathing thinking people. Even the flat earth society appears to be just a fun group that meets socially more than scientifically.
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