I which they didn't start with 1).
Because there is "a" wild life market in Wuhan which does sell wild bats from far away (and many other animals which can get/transmit covid).
Covid: Summary of lab-origin hypothesis
281–290 of 631 posts
Re: Covid: Summary of lab-origin hypothesis
#282Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not saying I disagree with any of these, to be honest I don't know enough to say one way or the other, but there is some irony in posing an argument for good faith discussion by posting a list of questions you've already determined only have one true answer.
That's not fair, these questions have existed in the public sphere for years now with no official explanation. This is one more "talk to the hand" played by the authorities. I suppose when authorities behave this way, they shouldn't expect themselves to have grassroots support.
The problem is that the way the questions are posed comes across as "what are they hiding?!?"
You have to admit that it's not a good way to kick off a discussion of the subject in earnest.
Re: Covid: Summary of lab-origin hypothesis
#283Earlier quoted context omitted.
This seems to be a fallacy as it can be applied to anything. Here's an example illustrating how bad of an argument that is: It appears to be reasonable to assign the "your mother is a [insert derogatory term]" hypothesis a higher prior, in Bayesian terms, just based on the many familiy members whose image/status would it directly or indirectly damage if found true (your dad, your uncle, your sister, your grandparents…
Your analogy is harmful to the topic under discussion: its key assumptions (such as comparing the governments of US and China to my family in terms of power and influence) render it inapplicable. > It appears to be reasonable to assign the "your mother is a [insert derogatory term]" hypothesis a higher prior, in Bayesian terms, just based on the many familiy members whose image/status would it directly or indirectly…
> comparing the governments of US and China to my family
Hi there. My intention was not to make this about your literal family. The "your" was intended to refer to a general addressee. Sry for that.
Re: Covid: Summary of lab-origin hypothesis
#284Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I'll also point out that some people don't like to believe that there can be global media conspiracies, even though there are (cf. "masks don't work unless you're a trained medical professional" propaganda at the beginning). That's not a conspiracy, that's just common shared knowledge.
It isn't a conspiracy. Conspiracy implies planning and plotting. That was just decentralized media figures deciding to copy each other's opinions, because there's safety in numbers and group think, and because dissent sticks out and gets attacked.
If you still think we have decentralized media figures simply copying each other...when all your media companies air the same advertisements from the same pharmaceutical companies, it's no surprise that they would all take the same opinions. Speaking for American media only. They might not be conspiring with each other, but they are certainly are taking orders from the same places.
This doesn't cover the other news epidemic we have of state intel actors propping up media conglomerates as a matter of foreign policy. Specifically in Ukraine, and I'm only referencing this as it's probably the most recent example- the US is currently offering grants to organizations in Ukraine right now [0], this actually doesn't seem very nefarious. It's been going on for quite some time however. This article [1] goes into details about various factchecking organizations that worked in Ukraine to promote and minimalize the extreme sides of far right orgs in Ukraine since before the Russian invasion. StopFake is specifically called out, an organization that was previously hosted by our very own spokeswoman for the now defunct Ministry of Truth, Nina Jankowicz. And we know Taiwan does it, via Epoch Times, Russia does it with Russia Times, and various other state actors use more sophisticated methods. Before I dropped off most social media, it was obvious seeing Chinese propaganda being pushed, oftentimes through New York Times opinion pieces. Israel and China are probably two of the more sophisticated state actors, up there with the US intel agencies.
tldr: nothing is real, most media is carefully curated to shape your opinions and culture, not to inform you.
[0] https://ua.usembassy.gov/education-culture/media-development... [1] https://mronline.org/2022/08/08/most-of-the-fact-checking-or...
Re: Covid: Summary of lab-origin hypothesis
#285The main point that no scientists seems to want to mention is the clear cut and well defined conflict of interest in determining the origins. How would the scientists of the future ask for funding if it turns out they themselves directly caused an epidemic? It is a black eye for science, it provides ammunition to the "anti-science" crowd. In contrast scientists are in the drivers position if the cause was all natural…
What you're describing is more how a politician would think if "science" were a country. But science isnt a country, most scientists arent politicians and most would prefer the truth to out.
most scientists
But scientists aren't in a single domain, they're cut up into biology and physics and etc... And they're further divided into specializations, and then specialties...
And if we don't discount that they're human, they have families, careers, friends, and nations. And at this point we're talking about a pretty narrow cross section of the population, even narrower when you take into account the few that publish, and minute when you finally arrive at who among them can be counted as prime drivers.
And what would the geopolitical consequences be if an objective finger driven by unanimous assent pointed itself at some culprits? All the deaths implicated in the disease, all the destruction, the damage wrought economically - they're culpable for it all. Would it be war or sanctions? Could it be handwaved away?
There's a lot of reasons, at scale, that such data is better kept quiet, and long lists of lots of individuals in many high places which immediately evince one of conflicts of interest if we do take it for granted that it was a fuckup.
Re: Covid: Summary of lab-origin hypothesis
#286I ask myself whether the Chinese government knows more about the risks of a COVID infection and is therefore trying everything it can to stop it from spreading. Maybe the virus actually leaked and the chemists know something about the long term effects that they do not publicly disclose.
> People infected with SARS-COV-2 had more than three times the risk of dying over the following year compared with those who remained uninfected
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanepe/article/PIIS2666-7...
Re: Covid: Summary of lab-origin hypothesis
#287Earlier quoted context omitted.
You just described the early-Covid shutdown policy-making too.
Shutdowns weren't done by media figures, they were done by policy-makers inside governments.
And "consent" to shutdowns were manufactured by policy makers inside governments paying media companies to promote their policies. It was a concerted effort.
Re: Covid: Summary of lab-origin hypothesis
#288Hi, content aside, tweet chains posts are terrible to read on any device. And twitter bugs me to log in to track me through the browser.
To all the people who think this is the best way to deliver information to their audience please stop. 1/1
Re: Covid: Summary of lab-origin hypothesis
#289The main point that no scientists seems to want to mention is the clear cut and well defined conflict of interest in determining the origins. How would the scientists of the future ask for funding if it turns out they themselves directly caused an epidemic? It is a black eye for science, it provides ammunition to the "anti-science" crowd. In contrast scientists are in the drivers position if the cause was all natural…
> If you read the papers that claim natural origin, these turn out to be extremely weakly argued.
What didn't you like about Pekar 2022?
Re: Covid: Summary of lab-origin hypothesis
#290The problem with this is it is full of utterly debunked nonsense that Ebright knows full well has been addressed. It's Brandolini's law [0] in action, and no matter how many times virologists rebut these positions the same old tripe gets wheeled out again, and again, and again. If you ignore rebuttals and just repeat yourself + get 20k likes on twitter how many people are going to see a rebuttal like the excellent on…
>It's about a separate personal desire to regulate supposedly risky research.
Referring to: https://www.nature.com/articles/nature.2015.18787
So a paper on a lab-made coronavirus related to SARS that can infect human cells from Wuhan on topic about the origins of a coronavirus related to SARS that can infect human cells that caused the pandemic from Wuhan, is a separate personal desire?
>It's about a completely different study that didn't result in any pandemic.
Because after the article was published, Wuhan stopped working on this, right? Or is expected China (or any other country) publishes everything related to something delicate as this?
Seriously this "rebuttal" is anything but excellent. The ironic answers to good remarks makes it even worse. Sounds more like trying to evade the ~~points made~~ info given rather answering them.
As for the papers, origins of pandemic and origins of virus are distinct things. So, yes, we can all agree that evidence shows that pandemic started in the market, and as virus can infect animals sold there, this points towards that virus came from animals. But genetically is there anything that can distinguish a natural from a lab-made virus?