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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

#841

Post by camgunz »

rayiner wrote: post #838
camgunz wrote: post #833

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think reasonable people can disagree about this. Trump is pretty good with the "flimsy excuse", like "look I said 'stand back' as well as 'stand by'" or "hey I said 'peacefully and patriotically'". Probably whether you're willing to give him the benefit of the doubt on these kinds of things is some kind of political ink blot test, but to me, he definitely has the instinct and pattern of "say it without saying it".…

Like many Trump quotes, this isn’t an “ink blot” test: > I don’t blame (Dick Cheney) for sticking with his daughter, but his daughter is a very dumb individual, very dumb. 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. She has a rifle, and there are nine other guns pointed at…

I know I skipped my usual edit sweep and my post above was pretty wordy as a result, but TL;DR I think giving her a rifle fits with Trump's pattern of "say it without saying it". If you don't agree, I'm fine conceding this is about combat. Trump is still dehumanizing and advocating for violence against his political enemies. The reason other politicians avoid this kind of rhetoric is they don't want to take the political gain at the risk of causing violence. Despite his rhetoric having led to violence multiple times, Trump continues to take the risk. Draw whatever conclusion you want from that.

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

#842

Post by rob_c »

drewbug01 wrote: post #791
rob_c wrote: post #788

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

> You effectively told me to shut up because of the way you feel when talking about facts. You waltzed into a thread about the CIA suddenly changing their tune about where COVID came from; and started making assertions that it wasn’t that bad. I shared a deeply personal story about exactly how bad it was, from my vantage point. I expressed outrage at your dismissal of the suffering and many deaths that occurred. “How…

Touching grass is honestly not a problem for me. But I like that you think I'm trapped behind a keyboard. Must have hit a nerve if we're getting close to name calling. Please refrain from this.

I'm telling you facts because for 4+ years nobody listens.

I've been correct in calling every detail about CV19 because I was involved and shut out of the early criticisms of the modelling based on the data. I'm correct and I'm just shouting into the void so that I can go away and rest easy that "I told you so", I tried ignoring it but frankly shouting until blue in the face helps my conscience easier.

You didn't just share a story you took offence to my position and tried to shut it down. Again, not approaching discourse honestly and openly. Please learn to be wrong. I know I can be. But again not when I'm stating hammer and nail facts. The earth is round, sky blue and water wet. Not the Orwellian everyone has a story type "facts". Words have meanings, please don't let that get lost for the sake of future generations.

Again mostly harmless is met with, the worst story I personally have is discomfort and complications. This unfortunately is not deaths by the millions of healthy people. But it is obviously real, it's just a different thing.

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

#843

Post by 542354234235 »

rayiner wrote: post #825
camgunz wrote: post #808

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We must be the exact same age. See I knew there was something I liked about you haha. Hopefully this doesn't come across as deflecting or whatever (HRC has a lot of takes I disagree with, I think she would have been a very good president, but I'm more of a Warren or Booker guy). I think being an effective leader in the US at the level HRC was for decades is a lot harder than people really know. I'm not talking abou…

So I guess it depends on why you think the Iraq War was bad. To me, the Iraq War was bad because, even if the intel had been correct, the notion that you could create a democracy in Iraq was fundamentally foolish, along with the idea that it was America’s job to do it. To me, the Iraq War was a predictable disaster rooted not in bad intel, but the mistaken concept of liberal universalism (emphasis on universalism, no…

“Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof -- the smoking gun -- that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud.” George W Bush.

The Iraq war was not about bringing democracy to Iraq. It was bad intel about a nuclear weapons program in Iraq. The intel for a nuclear weapons program was weak and flimsy and the disagreement within the intel community was strong, but the White House pushed hard to support the pro-nuclear program viewpoint.

While I agree we should not have gone into Iraq, I disagree that it was an inevitable disaster. Iraq was a disaster because there was zero post invasion plan in place. The government was purged of “regime loyalists” which was basically everyone. This did two major things that shaped the country. First, it put thousands of police and soldiers out of work, giving the later insurgency a large employment pool of trained personnel that needed money and resented the US for destroying their lives. Second, it created a security vacuum directly after the invasion, creating crime waves throughout the country when it needed stability. Iraq was a primarily urban society used to central governance (unlike rural/tribal Afghanistan, for instance) and it is likely it could have transitioned to a new government.

While it is dangerous to think everyone can be like Americans, it is just as dangerous to think Iraq and Afghanistan are basically the same, or that all interventions and goals are the same (nation building in Afghanistan vs minimizing genocidal civil war in Syria).

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

#844

Post by drewbug01 »

rob_c wrote: post #842
drewbug01 wrote: post #791

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You effectively told me to shut up because of the way you feel when talking about facts. You waltzed into a thread about the CIA suddenly changing their tune about where COVID came from; and started making assertions that it wasn’t that bad. I shared a deeply personal story about exactly how bad it was, from my vantage point. I expressed outrage at your dismissal of the suffering and many deaths that occurred. “How…

Touching grass is honestly not a problem for me. But I like that you think I'm trapped behind a keyboard. Must have hit a nerve if we're getting close to name calling. Please refrain from this. I'm telling you facts because for 4+ years nobody listens. I've been correct in calling every detail about CV19 because I was involved and shut out of the early criticisms of the modelling based on the data. I'm correct and I'…

My friend, this is not productive or rational discourse. It’s certainly not empathetic. There is no place for it on this site. Perhaps you would feel more comfortable in a different community, one more amenable to listening to the “facts” that you’ve shared.

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

#845

Post by 542354234235 »

oneshtein wrote: post #654
the_why_of_y wrote: post #601

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The CIA did not cook up the Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction hoax. Paul Wolfowitz had to create an entirely new intelligence agency with hand-picked analysts to get that result, because the existing agencies refused to make that claim. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Special_Plans

According to Iraq general, WMD were moved to Syria about 6 month prior to invasion, then Syrian government used them against rebels. HANNITY: So he had them. SADA: Yes. HANNITY: Where were they? And were they moved and where? SADA: Well, up to the year 2002, 2002, in summer, they were in Iraq. And after that, when Saddam realized that the inspectors are coming on the first of November and the Americans are coming, so…

“Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof -- the smoking gun -- that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud.” George W Bush.

We went into Iraq because the White House latched on to insufficient and contested intel of a nuclear weapons program in Iraq (the yellowcake and the aluminum tubes). It wasn’t about some rusted old artillery rounds with chemical weapons in them.

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

#846

Post by galangalalgol »

lamontcg wrote: post #733
galangalalgol wrote: post #682

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article I read indicated a number of researchers did become ill and die in the right timeframe, with the wet market they routinely visited following that.

The article that was written in the NYT by the same author that wrote the "yellow cake uranium in Niger" article that was the basis for the Iraq War. I don't give that a lot of credit.

Pretty sure I read it on Vox, but it might have been a republishing of the same AP or Reuters source. It was a kind of retrospective of how problematic it is when someone so wrong about so many things is right about something.

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

#847

Post by rob_c »

drewbug01 wrote: post #844
rob_c wrote: post #842

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Touching grass is honestly not a problem for me. But I like that you think I'm trapped behind a keyboard. Must have hit a nerve if we're getting close to name calling. Please refrain from this. I'm telling you facts because for 4+ years nobody listens. I've been correct in calling every detail about CV19 because I was involved and shut out of the early criticisms of the modelling based on the data. I'm correct and I'…

My friend, this is not productive or rational discourse. It’s certainly not empathetic. There is no place for it on this site. Perhaps you would feel more comfortable in a different community, one more amenable to listening to the “facts” that you’ve shared.

I think it is as your engaging which means you'll be more likely to listen to statistics next time they're presented to you with a "non immediately obvious" outcome.

If it were fruitless you wouldn't have engaged from an aggressive stance and I wouldn't be telling you why your wrong. Cognitive dissodence does hurt when it breaks but it's all for the better :)

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

#848

Post by mikeyouse »

DiogenesKynikos wrote: post #723
pclmulqdq wrote: post #711

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In the case of SARS, the animals were not culled for months. The entire SARS response was slow - the virus kept spreading in farmed animal populations and kept spilling over into humans. It's been 4 years. When are we culling the COVID animals? The answer is that there's no culling because there's no animal population with a virus that is close enough that it could have been the basis for COVID. The closest known w…

> It's been 4 years. When are we culling the COVID animals? The answer is that there's no culling because there's no animal population with a virus that is close enough that it could have been the basis for COVID. The animals were culled right at the beginning of the pandemic. The Chinese government immediately ordered all of the farms that raise the types of animals that caused the original SARS to cull their stock.…

Just wanted to say I appreciate that a few people here have actually been paying attention to the evidence re: lab leak and are willing to bash their head against the wall 'educating' the rest of the community. It's a repetitive, thankless task but I'm heartened that the comments aren't all just the same low-brow "is anyone surprised, it was obviously a lab leak from day-1" nonsense that shows up in almost every discussion of this.

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

#849

Post by maxglute »

sumedh wrote: post #840
maxglute wrote: post #789

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Check the date of that video, if you are trying to spread propaganda at least do it right.

The video is September 2019. Before December 2019. Hence PRC narrative that there were signs of covid like infections in US before PRC. I'm clarifying the propaganda. You can look up EVALI to see full timeline, which starts early 2019, in line with PRC narrative.

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

#850

Post by rob_c »

latentcall wrote: post #794
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…

Ah the “COVID wasn’t that bad” denial psychosis. Haven’t seen it in a while.

Given the original reason for lockdown in the UK was 20% all cause mortality.

100% expected fatalities above about 70 and hospitals struggling for oxygen supplies. Yes it was not that bad.

No that’s not an exaggeration, that’s why lockdown 1 happened.

After that is just memeing from both sides about microchips and death walkers without masks on.

The it wasn’t that bad is honestly true. Again it was a novel virus introduced into a population with no immunity, but frankly keeping the economy going would have been better than paying people to stay at home and worry.

The cost is starting to come home to roost if we’re not careful and the socioeconomic results of a global depression could genuinely kill more, displace more and lead to political turmoil and violence.

That is not worth just telling gran I’m sorry, the rest of us can go outside but we recommend you don’t.

Again practicing lecturer in applied stats talking so I understand the gritty details of the models and projections.

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