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The Case Against the Covid-19 Lab Leak Theory

newrepublic.com

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Re: The Case Against the Covid-19 Lab Leak Theory

#21

Post by jo123hn »

jfktkrkfk wrote: post #11

In 10 years China will be the foremost global superpower. I would urge everyone to be very carefully in their criticism of China or support of Taiwan. Remember that what you say on the Internet can live forever. People are being cancelled for far less. And China will not cancel in the way the West cancels. Instead of being fired, be prepared for your whole life to be destroyed, and maybe you being even imprisoned if…

The Lab Leak Hypothesis itself is not criticism of China, and it’s very important that we get to the bottom of it! If it turns out to be true we need to learn from it before we leak something much deadlier.

You’re advocating for self-censorship of an important topic, based on the assumption that in 10 years a new global superpower will arise and start punishing those that discussed the hypothesis. It makes no sense to me. Unscientific and overly cautious!

Re: The Case Against the Covid-19 Lab Leak Theory

#22

Post by simonh »

lmm wrote: post #16

The article opens by pooh-poohing the idea that three WIV researchers with flu-like symptoms in November might have had Covid-19, then a couple of paragraphs later asserts that it's well-known that Covid-19 was already circulating in Wuhan in November. Isn't there a contradiction there? How widely accepted is the notion that Ebola is a bat virus? The last I heard (which was a while ago) the leading theory was a simia…

On the first point, they're just saying that 3 people seeing a doctor about flu symptoms at that time of year is not unusual (most Chinese routinely go to hospitals for any medical treatment), and that even if they did have Covid instead of flu they might have got it outside the lab. There were people in Wuhan with Covid back then, but there were a lot more people with flu. The odds that any given three people with flu symptoms in Wuhan at that time actually had covid was still very small.

On the route into humans, I'm no expert but as I understand it while these viruses are found in bats the most likely route to humans is via another mammal intermediate such as a pangolin or cat. The reasons for this seems to be that bats are just too small and the virus load too thin to pose a threat to humans. So bat to human is very unlikely, but bat to cat is more plausible, and then cat (etc) to human also more plausible. I've no way to validate if that's accurate.

It really is all numbers games though. All we can say is what is more or less likely, and I think that's all the article is trying to explain.

Re: The Case Against the Covid-19 Lab Leak Theory

#23

Post by BoxOfRain »

jfktkrkfk wrote: post #11

In 10 years China will be the foremost global superpower. I would urge everyone to be very carefully in their criticism of China or support of Taiwan. Remember that what you say on the Internet can live forever. People are being cancelled for far less. And China will not cancel in the way the West cancels. Instead of being fired, be prepared for your whole life to be destroyed, and maybe you being even imprisoned if…

How is this not just a crap take on Roko's Basilisk?

Re: The Case Against the Covid-19 Lab Leak Theory

#24

Post by adventured »

i_have_an_idea wrote: post #18
tomp wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not? It certainly could under the “foremost superpower” scenario... like the US can today (e.g. Assange, McAffe, Meng Wanzhou (Huawei CFO), ...

Even if so, I think it is a bit far fetched to image that China will go after pseudoanonymous commenters from 10 years plus in past on an American internet forum.

There's going to be more criticism of China in the next 10 years than in the past 30 years combined, as their power continues to expand. It's going to be an ocean of criticism.

China will have to go after a couple hundred million people. It's silly, to put it mildly.

Re: The Case Against the Covid-19 Lab Leak Theory

#25

Post by Someone »

jfktkrkfk wrote: post #11

In 10 years China will be the foremost global superpower. I would urge everyone to be very carefully in their criticism of China or support of Taiwan. Remember that what you say on the Internet can live forever. People are being cancelled for far less. And China will not cancel in the way the West cancels. Instead of being fired, be prepared for your whole life to be destroyed, and maybe you being even imprisoned if…

In 20 years, China will start to feel the effects of rapid population aging caused by its one-child policy.

Compare https://www.populationpyramid.net/united-states-of-america/2... or https://www.populationpyramid.net/western-europe/2041/ with https://www.populationpyramid.net/china/2041/

China’s challenge is to grow GDP per capita fast enough to handle that.

Re: The Case Against the Covid-19 Lab Leak Theory

#26

Post by detaro »

_huayra_ wrote: post #7

As someone who is out of the loop on this and only a basic understanding, it seems very peculiar that scientists were so quickly to just jump on the "it must be bats and a wet market" thing so early on despite the Wuhan lab being right there. It's like when some out-of-control company creates a superfund site through gross negligence of industrial byproduct handling and then goes "idk cancer gonna cancer. you can't l…

Shouldn't the next step not be "I wonder what the scientists consider that my basic understanding doesn't cover", not "scientists are lying"?

Re: The Case Against the Covid-19 Lab Leak Theory

#27

Post by jfktkrkfk »

adventured wrote: post #24
i_have_an_idea wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if so, I think it is a bit far fetched to image that China will go after pseudoanonymous commenters from 10 years plus in past on an American internet forum.

There's going to be more criticism of China in the next 10 years than in the past 30 years combined, as their power continues to expand. It's going to be an ocean of criticism. China will have to go after a couple hundred million people. It's silly, to put it mildly.

You underestimate the power of AI and social credit like tools. Now add human-free justice systems and block lists to the mix.

Re: The Case Against the Covid-19 Lab Leak Theory

#28

Post by makomk »

emilgouliev wrote: post #14
shroom wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is that? I find it equally obvious that China released the virus to attack the world. Exhibit A: China only have 92.000 cases total and no new cases in like a year. Point is I have a hard time believing what’s true or false when the ”fat cats dance”. Atleast it’s no secret that China have silenced doctors and people working in close proximity of the virus in the early days of discovering it.

You might have a point if China was the only country that was able to keep their case numbers low, but dozens of countries did even better than China. Perhaps South Korea or New Zealand is to blame instead.

South Korea seems like a bad example, because they had twice as many Covid cases as China with less than a twentieth the population. Actually, it looks like even New Zealand has reported substantially more Covid cases per capita than China, and they're literally an island a thousand miles away from anywhere else. China's low case numbers really are remarkable.

Re: The Case Against the Covid-19 Lab Leak Theory

#29

Post by pjc50 »

pmoriarty wrote: post #12

"Ever since the SARS outbreak of 2002-03, after all, paper after paper and countless popular pieces have warned that, sooner or later, nature would produce the next big SARS." In 1995 Laurie Garrett warned about how the world could be brought to its knees by another airborne flu-like illness in "The Coming Plague" .[1] The first SARS and avian flu and swine flu, and CJD and mad cow disease were just more warnings tha…

> especially if we believe SARS 2 was created by humans instead of being just another natural disease

Here's the thing: if we knew the answer definitively to the lab-leak question, how would it change the pandemic response? The things we need to do to combat the virus remain the same.

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