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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

#781

Post by camgunz »

idlewords wrote: post #761
camgunz wrote: post #718

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Man, you're a smart guy. Just once I want you to like, do the reading and argue in good faith. I'm sure a lot of people on HN respect you, including me! Let's say that any donation to any Democratic campaign makes you a Democrat (ignoring for a moment that being against Trump isn't the same as being for Democrats). By that logic maybe half of the signatories on that letter are Democrats--and also a few are Republican…

You can't tell someone you respect them in the same paragraph where you're accusing them of bad faith.

Maybe, but I think we're all subject to the temptation to make bad arguments to get one over on people we disagree with. I can respect some things about someone and not respect other things. I guess this comes from being low-key terrified I've been as bamboozled as conservatives have, and I hope if I started parroting various propaganda someone here would have respect enough to tell me respectfully. But, also I get the internet makes cynics of us all.

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

#782

Post by camgunz »

rayiner wrote: post #750
camgunz wrote: post #743

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wanna try and weight my reply right. I like a lot of your posts and learn from you not infrequently. I also respect the way you think. Sometimes though, you toss out a very Fox News talking point, which confuses me! Before Trump's reelection I was fine letting this kind of thing stand, I mean who has the energy. But it's clearly gone too far. Here's another great example: "the intelligence community [is] just tryin…

> Here's another great example: "the intelligence community [is] just trying to get us into war with Russia." I mean this respectfully: how old are you? Because that isn’t a “Fox News” comment at all! Until five minutes ago, Democrats were the ones who criticized Bush-era republicans for their fixation on Russia and efforts to keep fighting the Cold War: https://youtu.be/T1409sXBleg?si=Pz2Yd_vY4ZARbcvs And yes, the i…

Haha well, I think we're in the same cohort? I was a senior in HS when 9/11 happened. I've worked in Democratic politics in some capacity for over a decade, although I recently took a break to have kids. I know Russia's our enemy because I was working on the Hillary Clinton campaign when Trump asked them to hack into Hillary's emails and watched them actively trying to hack us; and they've since compromised a bunch of (dumb, like crunchyroll) accounts of mine.

I don't want to parse through everything here, and you definitely won't find me defending the intelligence establishment. All I'm saying is what tptacek said up there: stretching the Hunter Biden laptop letter signatories into "Democrats" stretches too far, and if that's the evidence you're bringing against the Iraq War and Valerie Plame you're coming up short. You have a big platform here; I think if you were a little more judicious about the claims you make you could do a lot of good, and I think we need that right now.

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

#783

Post by camgunz »

kasey_junk wrote: post #759
camgunz wrote: post #744

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's the full quote: "She is a radical war hawk. Let's put her with a rifle standing there with nine barrels shooting at her, OK? Let's see how she feels about it. You know, when the guns are trained on her face." Trump has a (literal) record of advocating for and perpetrating violence against women and minorities. I don't know of any elected Dems who called it anti-woman (there's a trend of taking any Dem on X as…

No. That’s not the full quote. The full quote was minutes long and rambling. But you removed this for instance that was near that quote “You know they're all war hawks when they're sitting in Washington in a nice building saying, 'Oh, gee, let's send 10,000 troops right into the mouth of the enemy”. Cheney comes from a family of chicken hawks and lots of people have had similar quotes about them.

I mean, you can't expect me to paste multiple paragraphs as a quote here. If you think Trump's clumsy ersatz nod to "Fortunate Son" contextualizes putting Liz Cheney in front of a firing squad, OK then. If you can find elected officials threatening to execute other electeds who were pro-Iraq War (so, so many people), go ahead and post it.

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

#784

Post by camgunz »

tptacek wrote: post #768
kasey_junk wrote: post #759

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. That’s not the full quote. The full quote was minutes long and rambling. But you removed this for instance that was near that quote “You know they're all war hawks when they're sitting in Washington in a nice building saying, 'Oh, gee, let's send 10,000 troops right into the mouth of the enemy”. Cheney comes from a family of chicken hawks and lots of people have had similar quotes about them.

I don't think this was as boneheaded as you both do. I think the Cheney political legacy overall is odious, but none of Liz Cheney's recent supporters are there for her foreign policy; it's because she sacrificed her political career to stand up to Donald Trump, which is admirable, and because Trump took the bait and cast her as an enemy of the party, which raised her profile. The idea was that there was some materia…

I'll mea culpa: I try pretty hard to not backseat campaign manage. My defense is I was posting after midnight and wine and I'm trying to find a balance between not suffering right wing talking points and offering olive branches. I do agree we should celebrate the kind of courage Cheney showed, especially given the kinds of threats she's experienced since.

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

#785

Post by mike_hearn »

Fomite wrote: post #772
mike_hearn wrote: post #643

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given that epidemiology features no biology whatsoever, being these days purely a matter of playing with statistics, why would you feel qualified to discuss anything related to labs, leaks, or GoF research?

Both because I hold a microbiology degree as well, and also because that's not actually how epidemiology works either.

I read dozens of epidemiological papers during COVID - the ones controlling policy - and didn't see microbiology feature in any of them. They were all just various forms of curve fitting. Where are these epidemiology papers that are built on a firm foundation of microbiology?

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

#786

Post by shakow »

DiogenesKynikos wrote: post #778
shakow wrote: post #712

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it were coming from a farm population, I would have expected the said farm to have been found pretty easily by the Chinese investigation – and they would have had no incentive to hide it, as it would have pinned covid on basically a bad luck case once and for all.

They identified the at-risk farms right away and ordered them to immediately cull their stocks. The Chinese government has been very sensitive about the idea that the virus came from a farm. > it would have pinned covid on basically a bad luck case once and for all. The US would still have tried to make maximum propaganda use of that. If you recall the early "wet market" discussion, it was highly accusatory, and ofte…

> They identified the at-risk farms right away

Yes, the “at-risk”, not the “incubator”, and notice the plural form to “farms”. China has never pretended having found a farm that would have been the source of the virus.

> The US would still have tried to make maximum propaganda use of that

The US (the state & government) was very far from having tried to make maximum propaganda use of anything regarding covid.

> it was highly accusatory

Well yes, it was highly accusatory of the typically awful hygienic condition of these markets. That's not racist so, that's just a fact.

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

#787

Post by VMG »

disambiguation wrote: post #684
VMG wrote: post #659

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If we knew for certain that covid began in the Wuhan lab, it would be World War 3. 1. why? 2. that attitude strongly disincentives the discovery of the truth. If that were true I would support a cover up!

"Why" because of all the latent anger and frustration from the mass death and pain of the pandemic. Its naive to underestimate it. How it unfolds, think WWI reparations from Germany. "Cover it up anyway" pretty much. There's precedent for this, we never got the full truth about 9/11 either. To this day the 100 page dossier is off limits to the public, probably for similar reasoning. The USA wants to play the board op…

> "Why" because of all the latent anger and frustration from the mass death and pain of the pandemic. Its naive to underestimate it. How it unfolds, think WWI reparations from Germany.

Why is a lab outbreak worse than a wet market outbreak?

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

#788

Post by rob_c »

drewbug01 wrote: post #767
rob_c wrote: post #721

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How dare you paint it as “mostly harmless.” Yes I am sorry for your loss. Now let's get to the point. Because I understand statistics and am making sweeping statements I can and will make them from an objective viewpoint. Please do NOT sensor proven facts. I don't care for bible thumping tora humping nonsense that does not match reality. I'll take 2k years of religion and raise you 50 years of tech, oled TVs and mi…

> Yes I am sorry for your loss. Now let's get to the point I hope that people do not treat you with the callousness with which you treat others. > Because I understand statistics and am making sweeping statements I can and will make them from an objective viewpoint. Please do NOT sensor proven facts. I don't care for bible thumping tora humping nonsense that does not match reality. I'll take 2k years of religion and…

> be kinder to others.

You effectively told me to shut up because of the way you feel when talking about facts. This is the ultimate in anti-intellectual, dishonest and selfish statements.

Check yourself before engaging in conversations about FACTS.

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

#789

Post by maxglute »

sumedh wrote: post #728
maxglute wrote: post #676

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it validates US propaganda that virus originated in PRC, instead of PRC position that they were merely first to detect and warn. There is no reason to give WHO unfettered access based on US/western propaganda - that's stupid amount of soverign leverage to cede because Trump/Pompeo wants to pressure PRC via WHO. PRC has also asked WHO to investigate Fort Detrick, until US reciprocates, which they haven't? Does…

Can you post some videos from people who posted on social media reporting that people are dying in the US before Chinese people did it?

The narrative is Fort Detrick was temperorily shutdown in 2019, later determined via congressional testimony because they were "cutting corners". At around the same time, from april 2019, series unusual respiratory illnesses similar to convid, later categorized as related to vaping related killed ~50, infected a few 1000s across 30+ states. PRC asserts this was origin of covid or something, and coverup by US gov (CDC/FDA linking to vapes) and thus US should open up sovereign oil for WHO investigation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fAiWSk8bYg4`

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

#790

Post by rayiner »

camgunz wrote: post #782
rayiner wrote: post #750

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Here's another great example: "the intelligence community [is] just trying to get us into war with Russia." I mean this respectfully: how old are you? Because that isn’t a “Fox News” comment at all! Until five minutes ago, Democrats were the ones who criticized Bush-era republicans for their fixation on Russia and efforts to keep fighting the Cold War: https://youtu.be/T1409sXBleg?si=Pz2Yd_vY4ZARbcvs And yes, the i…

Haha well, I think we're in the same cohort? I was a senior in HS when 9/11 happened. I've worked in Democratic politics in some capacity for over a decade, although I recently took a break to have kids. I know Russia's our enemy because I was working on the Hillary Clinton campaign when Trump asked them to hack into Hillary's emails and watched them actively trying to hack us; and they've since compromised a bunch o…

We must be the exact same age. You saw what I saw. How could you trust Clinton on foreign policy after that? I don’t think she even regrets the Iraq War, and wishes we were still in Afghanistan. She sounded like the Weekly Standard the way she went after Tulsi Gabbard for trying to keep us out of a war in Syria.

I don’t know what’s in the inner minds of other democrats. But out of the two parties, they’re cuddling up to all the ones who have been wrong for the last 50 years about foreign policy.

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