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CIA now favors lab leak theory to explain Covid's origins

nytimes.com

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Re: CIA now favors lab leak theory to explain Covid's origins

#201

Post by sojournerc »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #70
CMay wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Concern about China is not partisan anymore, pretty much everyone is on board now. Also from the article: "Officials said the agency was not bending its views to a new boss, and that the new assessment had been in the works for some time."

But we know Trump lies, and that people around him change their story and lie for him, and we know he gets rid of personnel who don't 'kiss the ring'... and this comes at the exact instant that he says he's going to start his import tariffs for Chinese goods and needs media support to convince USA-ians that making all goods coming from China now expensive is a good idea... I mean you're going to need extraordinary ev…

Every thing wrong or suspicious in the world is not suddenly Trump's fault. This is trump derangement syndrome.

Re: CIA now favors lab leak theory to explain Covid's origins

#202

Post by eightysixfour »

florbo wrote: post #199
eightysixfour wrote: post #29

I had a pretty long post about this here before, due to the politicization of the issue it is highly unlikely any of us will ever know “the truth” without a surprise smoking gun. There are good reasons to believe the natural or the lab leak hypotheses. I think you have to accept it is now unlikely we normies will ever know the truth. The post, and its comments, are worth reading still IMO: https://news.ycombinator.co…

> There are good reasons to believe the natural or the lab leak hypotheses. Given the ridiculous response from everyone involved, I'm just going to assume it was an accidental biosecurity breach of a natural specimen. It happens frequently enough and enough puzzle pieces seem to fit. Not that I care or think anything should come of it, other than hopefully learning better biosecurity procedures.

> I'm just going to assume it was an accidental biosecurity breach of a natural specimen.

Why bother assuming? Why isn’t “I don’t know” good enough?

Re: CIA now favors lab leak theory to explain Covid's origins

#203

Post by hnbad »

CMay wrote: post #154

Things that are true: "Officials said the agency was not bending its views to a new boss, and that the new assessment had been in the works for some time." The Department of Energy concluded with low confidence that it was a lab leak. The FBI concluded with moderate confidence that it was a lab leak. The CIA's new report also concludes that they have low confidence that it was a lab leak. It's important to note that…

I'm not sure what the Department of Energy's qualifications are (I know they're in charges of nukes so maybe also bioweapons?) but I don't see what relevance the FBI's opinion has.

Re: CIA now favors lab leak theory to explain Covid's origins

#204

Post by PoignardAzur »

chowells wrote: post #159
steveBK123 wrote: post #62

It was never an implausible theory so the censorship over it was foolish. Of course the immediate jump to conclusion in the first few months by some who found it politically expedient was no better either. People need to be more comfortable saying I don’t know but we are looking into it.

[dead]

The fact that there's a biolab doing gain-of-function research a few blocks away from ground zero is much stronger bayesian evidence than "but maybe it's true".

(And then the fact that ground zero is a wet market is strong evidence against. It's so weird that we have two plausible origins for this virus and they're almost right next to each other.)

Re: CIA now favors lab leak theory to explain Covid's origins

#205

Post by hansvm »

scarface_74 wrote: post #169
drewbug01 wrote: post #17

> The agency made its new assessment with “low confidence,” which means the intelligence behind it is fragmentary and incomplete. I do believe that's all one really needs to know about this shift in their thinking. In other words: it's really far from certain. --- One thing that is, however, quite certain: there are very real political reasons to favor one theory or another. For example, Sen. Tom Cotton is quoted as…

> Now the most important thing is to make China pay for unleashing a plague on the world Does COVID being a “plague” jibe with the talking point that COVID is “no worse than a cold”

[flagged]

Re: CIA now favors lab leak theory to explain Covid's origins

#206

Post by snailmailstare »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #190
twh123751 wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ... giving Trump leverage in a trade negotiation. That is a perfectly valid hypothesis. In the EU there are also doubts as to what Trump's actual goals are. People are preparing for the scenario that first Biden and now Trump are driving a wedge between the EU and China, whereupon Trump will suddenly change course and be China's best friend. (The unspoken second thesis is that the same scheme applies to Russia): ht…

My point is nobody at the CIA is winning a promotion for helping on a trade negotiation like this. It's unlikely this was politically motivated in substance. (Timing may be.)

I'm not sure what they would be doing with their time if they didn't have the substance and multiple reports of various quality for such a hypothesis.

Re: CIA now favors lab leak theory to explain Covid's origins

#207

Post by florbo »

eightysixfour wrote: post #202
florbo wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are good reasons to believe the natural or the lab leak hypotheses. Given the ridiculous response from everyone involved, I'm just going to assume it was an accidental biosecurity breach of a natural specimen. It happens frequently enough and enough puzzle pieces seem to fit. Not that I care or think anything should come of it, other than hopefully learning better biosecurity procedures.

> I'm just going to assume it was an accidental biosecurity breach of a natural specimen. Why bother assuming? Why isn’t “I don’t know” good enough?

Sorry, it was a given. We don't know. I don't know. I do enjoy postulating for this particular incident, though.

Re: CIA now favors lab leak theory to explain Covid's origins

#208

Post by PoignardAzur »

gigatree wrote: post #186
nxm wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Back then anyone who suggested the lab leak theory was immediately labeled a conspiracy theorist by main stream media.

Hopefully this helps people realize how meaningless it is to be labeled a conspiracy theorist.

I think the conspiracy theorist label is associated with common patterns (believing in a cover up in cases where there's no incentive / the cover up would be more expensive than the crime / the evidence would be impossible to cover up, etc) but in this case these patterns don't apply.

The lab leak theory was extremely plausible even assuming no secret conspiracy at all. Lab leaks do happen, that lab did do gain of function research, the State did shut down investigations, etc.

Re: CIA now favors lab leak theory to explain Covid's origins

#209

Post by scarface_74 »

hansvm wrote: post #205
scarface_74 wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Now the most important thing is to make China pay for unleashing a plague on the world Does COVID being a “plague” jibe with the talking point that COVID is “no worse than a cold”

[flagged]

And don’t forget that TikTok should be banned and now it should be saved.

Re: CIA now favors lab leak theory to explain Covid's origins

#210

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

mrandish wrote: post #197
RajT88 wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Officials said the agency was not bending its views to a new boss, and that the new assessment had been in the works for some time." Officials are saying that, true. I have "low confidence" it actually is true. Everyone since the election has been scrambling to kowtow to the new boss to avoid his wrath.

> Officials are saying that, true. I have no idea if the report's conclusions are correct, but I doubt a report like that was created in three or four days. Tasking expert analysts, reassigning the manpower necessary and going through legal and secrecy review in 96 hours would be extraordinary for a large bureaucratic agency. Sure, it could happen but that kind of all-hands, crisis urgency is hard to keep quiet. It's…

They've had two months to prep for the new felon.
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