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An appeal for an objective, open, transparent debate re: the origin of Covid-19

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Re: An appeal for an objective, open, transparent debate re: the origin of Covid-19

#91
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If it's for some sort of behavioral tracking, it seems like a lot of effort considering everyone is already carrying a computer in their pocket. Not to mention.. how would you even get the data off the microchips? (Or onto it for that matter, what magical microscopic sensors can detect your behaviour from your blood?) The antenna would be incredibly tiny and if my limited knowledge of wireless tech is anything to g…

Somewhat related--this kind of reminds me of the somewhat common belief that your phone is listening to your conversations, due to oddly relevant ads coming up after discussing some product with a friend. It seems like if that were true, companies must be employing some wildly amazing technology to solve energy and data issues. I think I'm put off by quite a few conspiracy theories because they seem to assume the pow…

> they seem to assume the powers at be are amazingly competent

This is so true! Half the time they barely manage to get even simple things done because it’s incredibly hard to get consensus or agreement on something. Or things are brought to a standstill due to bureaucracy.

Re: An appeal for an objective, open, transparent debate re: the origin of Covid-19

#92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> An intentional lab leak makes no sense to me at all. Very few people are arguing that it was intentional. I agree that an intentional lab leak is highly, highly unlikely, but I think an accidental lab leak is at least just as likely as the wet market hypothesis and CCP certainly acted extremely suspicious.

> and CCP certainly acted extremely suspicious. They would have acted the same regardless of what the initial case was caused by. That's just the way they roll.

Perhaps. It still paints them in a very untrustworthy light though and since some of their actions (actively suppressing that covid was even a thing) directly caused many deaths, they are definitely guilty, even if not of everything.

I’m not saying it proves it was a lab leak, just that I don’t trust them, so when they say it wasn’t, that’s rather meaningless. And since the WHO weren’t allowed to investigate for over a year, that they say they didn’t find any evidence is also meaningless. The fact that the lab leak hypothesis kept getting shut down early for less than scientific reasons (calling it racist for example) also doesn’t help building trust.

Re: An appeal for an objective, open, transparent debate re: the origin of Covid-19

#93
post #3

We live in interesting times, where "conspiracy theories" become true after about 6 months. The reality of the situation is that people who actually pay attention, not the ones who constantly watch the TV news narrative, have been able to not only understand the true origin of covid, but also predict the entire chain of events that has occurred as a consequence. When will the general public stop seeing conspiracy the…

> When will the general public stop seeing conspiracy theories as imaginary tales? Covid leaked from a lab is viable. Bill Gates injecting microchips into everyone in order to invoke a new global cabal I would argue is firmly in the imaginary tale bracket.

I monitor conspiracy stuff heavily and I never saw anyone there claim there were microchips in the vaccines.

I did however see a bunch of comments in “mainstream” sections mocking a conspiracy I never saw support for.

Re: An appeal for an objective, open, transparent debate re: the origin of Covid-19

#94
post #75
post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While silencing Li was appalling, in practice it probably didn’t slow down recognition and escalation of the issue much as there were other doctors already aware of it and raising the alarm. Wuhan CDC had been alerted on 27th December, and the WHO had been told there was a pneumonia cluster of unknown origin on 31st December, 3 days before Li was strong armed. All the instances of messing up found so far were incompe…

But probably the best thing that happened early WAS free flow on information from China, they sequenced the genome early and released it to everyone, that put the mRNA vaccines on a fast track ...

They heavily curated what info was released, and obstructed independent investigations within China, but yes they did share some critical information fairly rapidly.

Re: An appeal for an objective, open, transparent debate re: the origin of Covid-19

#96

From the lancet of all places. They completely destroyed centuries of reputation for cheap political points in all this. Too little too late.

The Lancet's reputation is in a downturn since the Wakefield case

Thanks. Interesting read, https://www.theguardian.com/society/2010/feb/02/lancet-retra...

Re: An appeal for an objective, open, transparent debate re: the origin of Covid-19

#98
It's a mantra at this point that polarization has gotten out of control, but one of the biggest effects it seems to have is this reverse-psychology effect

I'm in a big American city, and I remember that until the online kids and snarky liberals started moralizing about mask protocol, there wasn't as much resistance to wearing masks among right-wing crazies.

I remember when there was that controversy about 5G networks interfering with bird migration patterns and meteorology, but as the fringe conspiracy crowd started spinning up crazy theories about how 5G was going to brainwash or sterilize or force-feminize people over the airwaves or whatever it was, most people I knew stopped talking about it, seemed to forget that they had ever thought it concerning. It reminded me of the time people were worried about pollutants causing hormonal changes in indicator species, and then Alex Jones started talking about how "they're turning the frogs gay" and the meaningful version of that discourse vanished too.

I view the same kind of thing as happening here, as well as a lot of other places. It's made me wary of the sport of finding what crazy things my political enemies believe to make fun of them, because it seems like the net effect of this is creating "opposite" erroneous beliefs with no evidence

Re: An appeal for an objective, open, transparent debate re: the origin of Covid-19

#99
Working closely to the issue on a couple of fronts, I think debate about the disease origin is a distraction from the real debate everyone has a stake in, which has been the policy response and the legitimacy of lockdowns, vax passports, mandates for health status disclosure, and discrimination based on health information.

Who cares if it came from a lab, there are zero consequences to anyone whether it did or not, and it's the least impactful detail of what has happened. "Allowing," debate on the disease origin is a cynical switcheroo.

Re: An appeal for an objective, open, transparent debate re: the origin of Covid-19

#100
post #98

It's a mantra at this point that polarization has gotten out of control, but one of the biggest effects it seems to have is this reverse-psychology effect I'm in a big American city, and I remember that until the online kids and snarky liberals started moralizing about mask protocol, there wasn't as much resistance to wearing masks among right-wing crazies. I remember when there was that controversy about 5G networks…

> I'm in a big American city, and I remember that until the online kids and snarky liberals started moralizing about mask protocol, there wasn't as much resistance to wearing masks among right-wing crazies.

We're living in very different worlds I guess.

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