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Declassified U.S. report on origins of Covid-19 virus [pdf]

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Re: Declassified U.S. report on origins of Covid-19 virus [pdf]

#181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't read those words up there? Literally the entire diatribe is ascribing motivations, internal dialogs, ideas, words and actions to entire groups of people you don't likely know.

It doesn't ascribe words to anyone. For the rest, yes, that's what political analysis is. Do you find all political commentary illegitimate or just the stuff you don't like? "Putting words in someone's mouth" is different. It means ascribing a quote to them that they didn't actually say. It doesn't cover all speculation about what people think.

Pedantry - claiming ideas in other's heads is not much different.. That kind of 'political analysis' is similar to playground taunting - "you so stupid, you go gaa gaa gaa!" while making faces. Too shallow, broad and general to be useful as anything but rationalization.

Re: Declassified U.S. report on origins of Covid-19 virus [pdf]

#182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't ascribe words to anyone. For the rest, yes, that's what political analysis is. Do you find all political commentary illegitimate or just the stuff you don't like? "Putting words in someone's mouth" is different. It means ascribing a quote to them that they didn't actually say. It doesn't cover all speculation about what people think.

Pedantry - claiming ideas in other's heads is not much different.. That kind of 'political analysis' is similar to playground taunting - "you so stupid, you go gaa gaa gaa!" while making faces. Too shallow, broad and general to be useful as anything but rationalization.

Feel free to write your own analysis of the original question!

Re: Declassified U.S. report on origins of Covid-19 virus [pdf]

#183
post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding is that they said that as a path to avoid hoarding of N95 supplies which they knew were in short supply for those who most needed it at the time, medical professionals. That doesn't aren't right, precisely because it validates conspiracy minded people.

> That doesn't aren't right, precisely because it validates conspiracy minded people. That’s putting it far too lightly. It proved a “conspiracy” 100% true. I had masks early in the pandemic only because a “nutty” colleague said “they’re going to try to take the masks from us” and he brought me a box.

I agree it was terrible, because it undermines public trust.

But now people use those statements to say "aha you people are silly for wearing masks" when that old comment is clearly, well, out of date.

Re: Declassified U.S. report on origins of Covid-19 virus [pdf]

#184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the time, it was absolutely misinformation. That it may actually be true doesn’t make it less so.

What? It was misinformation then but it might be true so its ok now? That means it wasn't misinformation then either. Also who decides what is misinformation?

Any unsubstantiated claims presented as fact are misinformation, and when that misinformation is causing mental and physical harm, keeping it off your platform is the easy, correct decision.

I'm not sure if you remember, but the early lab leak suggestions were leading to a lot of abuse, threats, and in some cases even violence towards people of Asian decent.

Re: Declassified U.S. report on origins of Covid-19 virus [pdf]

#185
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It does seem odd they would want to set up a lab in close proximity to what they wanted to study The lab was nowhere near the site of what they were studying. The coronavirus strains came from a cave 600 miles away and brought to Wuhan for further study. Again, none of these viruses have a unique furin cleavage site for ACE-2. If you read the FOIA document requests, one of the people who got grant money said "I jus…

> The lab was nowhere near the site of what they were studying. > The coronavirus strains came from a cave 600 miles away and brought to Wuhan for further study. The best theory I've come across is that patient zero was a person collecting bats in caves for the lab in Wuhan. By all records, they wore woefully inadequate PPE (unlike the people in the lab itself who had well-established procedures). This theory explain…

> The best theory I've come across is that patient zero was a person collecting bats in caves for the lab in Wuhan.

There are literally millions of people in China who live in close proximity to bats. You don't have to invoke the 1-in-a-million lab worker here (who will be much more careful than the other 999,999 people, anyways). There are literally people who go shovel bat poop out of caves for a living. Then there are all the millions of farmed animals that have contact with bats - this is how the original SARS got into people.

A lab worker getting infected in a cave and then going back to Wuhan is not the best theory. It's an extremely improbable explanation for the pandemic, when you realize just how much contact people and farmed animals have with bats.

Re: Declassified U.S. report on origins of Covid-19 virus [pdf]

#186
post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does matter. Because if it came from a lab, it means the restrictions and regulations surrounding that lab were completely insufficient to contain the leak. It means that we are all under a constant threat that other, worse leaks, will happen, and that millions have died and a good percentage of the GDP of the entire world was lost due to gain of function experiments done without enough precaution. It deeply matte…

I would say that I don’t think it matters whether it was a lab leak or not, COVID shows that we shouldn’t be doing this kind of research either way.

This research allowed us to create a vaccine within weeks of discovery. If this was not a lab leak, and we had not done that research, many might still be dying from Covid-19. But it's clear that governments cannot afford to allow even a single research facility to be un-regulated or poorly managed.
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