Earlier quoted context omitted.
There was never a consensus for or against lockdowns. Cant speak for the US and it's utterly broken media landscape but in Europe experts were asking for this from day one. It is also a known tool of any epidemic/pandemic management, it just has rarely been necessary at such scale given the intensity and wide distribution of COVID.
> There was never a consensus for or against lockdowns. So when was the last lockdown before covid?
Inside the Wuhan lab weeks before Covid
611–620 of 1001 posts
Re: Inside the Wuhan lab weeks before Covid
#612Earlier quoted context omitted.
There was never a consensus for or against lockdowns. Cant speak for the US and it's utterly broken media landscape but in Europe experts were asking for this from day one. It is also a known tool of any epidemic/pandemic management, it just has rarely been necessary at such scale given the intensity and wide distribution of COVID.
This is revisionism. The only place in Europe that didn't lock down was Sweden and they were viciously attacked in the media for it, additionally Anders Tegnall was also attacked by other epidemiologists. I followed it all very closely at the time. Tegnall and his mentor stood alone. With the exception of the Great Barrington crew and maybe Ioannidis, all the other so-called experts were loudly and vocally demanding…
Second, there is no "debate" regarding efficacy of masks and limiting exposure via quarantining. Masking reduces the likelihood of contracting SARS from others, and staying home reduces the spread to others and strain on hospitals. Unsurprisingly, the people attempting to debate this typically had no medical background whatsoever.
Millions died in the US alone, and a non-trivial percentage of them would likely still be alive if our public officials did a better job of respecting the medical professionals and their recommendations.
Re: Inside the Wuhan lab weeks before Covid
#613Earlier quoted context omitted.
i think you’d find that in just about every significant crisis of any significant timeframe plenty of examples of clamping down on witch-hunts in these very democracies. am i advocating for this? of course not, however, we have countless examples where conspiracies and just plain paranoid thinking spun out and resulted in very very real atrocities. significant atrocities that were much more real and much more severe…
Could you please elaborate on what atrocities were caused by conspiracy theories?
Violence (including mass shootings and church burnings) inspired by replacement theory and incelism.
Anti-vax beliefs led to more deaths due to COVID, and greater economic and systemic stress than otherwise would have occurred had a significant number of people afraid of adrenochrome harvesting and the New World Order not purposely undermined pandemic control efforts.
Currently the "groomer" conspiracy theories seem to be headed towards some mass cultural violence event towards trangender people, with politicians openly calling for the "elimination" of transgerism, but that remains to be seen.
But let's ask what atrocities have ever been prevented by conspiracy theories? None. QAnon has been more of a hindrance to efforts to combat child abuse and human trafficking than a benefit, and they were entirely focused on "decoding" the Podesta emails and "exposing" satanic rituals in the Democratic Party while Epstein was going about his business.
It should go without saying that none of the doomsday scenarios the COVID conspiracy theorists predicted came to pass. All they accomplished was making the pandemic worse. And no doubt the seeds of paranoia and mistrust they laid will make the next pandemic worse as well.
Hell, even MKUltra wasn't uncovered by conspiracy theorists - it was exposed by accident through an unrelated FOIA leak. NSA spying? The Simpsons did a bit about that before Snowden, but conspiracy theorists were going on about mind-control rays being beamed through televisions and mass hypnosis.
These people want the world to believe they are the the ones constantly telling truth to power, the only ones who can see the dark truths hidden behind the curtain, and they'll insist they are always right. But at best they only coincidentally appear to be right, in the same way as a stopped clock, and always in a way that does more harm than good.
Re: Inside the Wuhan lab weeks before Covid
#614Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's a whole lot of Russian expats who have been quite vocal in supporting the war against Ukraine by Russia. When Russians complain they're being victimised, it might behold you to consider that "Russian" is pretty much not an identifiable group amongst the wide range of eastern Europeans who have immigrated - including Ukrainians. So when Russians complain they're being mistreated, is worth asking what they were…
The point I was making is not whether Russians feel mistreated or Asians feel mistreated etc. That is a separate debate. I am only making a limited point on "Lab leak theory was censored because it lead to rise in Asian hate crime". This makes absolutely no sense to me. Investigating possible lab leak theory that lead to one of the worst pandemics in recent times should be done irrespective of whether there is hate c…
Re: Inside the Wuhan lab weeks before Covid
#615Earlier quoted context omitted.
i think you’d find that in just about every significant crisis of any significant timeframe plenty of examples of clamping down on witch-hunts in these very democracies. am i advocating for this? of course not, however, we have countless examples where conspiracies and just plain paranoid thinking spun out and resulted in very very real atrocities. significant atrocities that were much more real and much more severe…
Could you please elaborate on what atrocities were caused by conspiracy theories?
1. Larped as a Viking 2. Stole a podium 3. Placed feet on a desk 4. Broke a window 5. Caused a woman, who was not in the same building, to cry
There were several other terrible acts committed by these evil people, but these were the most commonly cited ones. Sicknick's death was widely publicized at first, but then magically got blackholed later when it turned out that a group of QAnon-influenced platelets formed a blood clot that killed the poor patriot.
Fortunately for us, these evil insurrectionists were denied their due process rights for years, and our hallowed and beloved Congress members spent a full month of their valuable time on hearings to get to the bottom of this genocide.
January 6th: Never Again.
Re: Inside the Wuhan lab weeks before Covid
#616Earlier quoted context omitted.
[flagged]
Go ahead.
Sure, so to change 0.5% of the vote, we would find people with demographics that people vote for.
For instance, if there is a women on the ballot, run another women because at least 0.5% of people vote for a women, so this splits the vote. Or find someone with similar/same names, bonus points if their signage only has their last name.
Anyone with the enemy's yard sign, gets the negative ad. Each neg ad was tested considerably.
There is a huge database of every voter, their petitions they signed, odds of being dem/gop, odds of voting, their pet names(if registered), etc... You go up to someone's house knowing they support guns because they signed a petition. Heck, the candidate would pretend they remembered the dog's name from a few years ago.
Lying and plausible deniability is like a daily thing. Looking back on it, I would have been sacrificed in a second for putting neg ads in people's mailboxes illegally.
Those are some heavy hitters. I feel like I forgot like 2 major stomach churning events, maybe I blocked them out. (Oh gosh, when I went to the enemy's campaign rally and put neg ads on everyone's cars, got followed by their staff, jumped over a fence/bush area to escape...) Okay, I'm only missing 1 stomach churning event from my memory. I think it was strategy related, maybe it had to do with old people.
Re: Inside the Wuhan lab weeks before Covid
#617Earlier quoted context omitted.
It could be as simple as someone got infected in the lab and went to the market.
Right? As if any handling or safety gear and equipment is 100% perfect. Never any needle stick or glove failures. Respirators and protective clothing always 100% perfect. Everyone perfectly followed all lab safety precautions with no absent minded failures. Just perfect all the time forever. I’ve always thought it was a handling contamination that got into community spread. It’s a very parsimonious explanation.
Re: Inside the Wuhan lab weeks before Covid
#618After a quick read of the article, it presents no new data, and is replete with innuendo pointing at the Wuhan lab, rather than any direct evidence. Most importantly, the general reader should know that all labs researching viruses do research on dangerous viruses. After all there is no incentive to research benign viruses. So the fact that the Wuhan lab worked on coronaviruses is not in itself an indication of any i…
Actually, the closest natural viruses to covid were sent to Wuhan for study. I mean, that is what the Wuhan institute of coronaviruses was built to do right? The indirect evidence of a lab leak theory is overwhelming frankly. And it doesn't require any malice. No one credible is saying china intentionally released the virus or built it with the intention of building a weapon. Gain of function research is real, scient…
To quote Doyle - "never theorize before you have data [...] you end up twisting facts to suit theories instead of theories to suit facts".
Re: Inside the Wuhan lab weeks before Covid
#619Re: Inside the Wuhan lab weeks before Covid
#620After a quick read of the article, it presents no new data, and is replete with innuendo pointing at the Wuhan lab, rather than any direct evidence. Most importantly, the general reader should know that all labs researching viruses do research on dangerous viruses. After all there is no incentive to research benign viruses. So the fact that the Wuhan lab worked on coronaviruses is not in itself an indication of any i…
Actually, the closest natural viruses to covid were sent to Wuhan for study. I mean, that is what the Wuhan institute of coronaviruses was built to do right? The indirect evidence of a lab leak theory is overwhelming frankly. And it doesn't require any malice. No one credible is saying china intentionally released the virus or built it with the intention of building a weapon. Gain of function research is real, scient…
The latter is what the article above is suggesting, that the Wuhan lab was working for the Chinese military to develop a virus for biological warfare research. For example, if you look at the ridiculous hero image of the article, you'll see someone who looks like they might be a Chinese military officer holding a clipboard and wearing a mask, while the Chinese flag's star is surrounded by what look like little stylised coronaviruses.