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I guess, but that imparts a level of uniform direction that isn't really known. It could very well be that the PRC government does not know themselves whether

I guess, but that imparts a level of uniform direction that isn't really known. It could very well be that the PRC government does not know themselves whether or not covid was a lab leak, because who the fuck knows what those beaker heads were doing. They just want to be sure that if it was a lab leak, that no one ever knows. Basically: totalitarian governments suppress everything. It's what they do. It's not like the west had clear access inside facilities like WIV before the pandemic, so why do we expect different behavior now? I remain really dubious, personally. Imagine it was a leak. Dozens or hundreds of people -- researchers with PhDs and international cred and travel ability -- would have had to be knowledgeable about the research and in on the coverup. Someone would have swung themselves an appointment at UCSF or Johns Hopkins or wherever in exchange for blabbing. It's an attractive conspiracy, but really that's all there is. The existing circumstantial evidence is a big nothingburger (Chinese Institute of Virology studies known Chinese Viruses; News at 11!). The ONLY significant evidence, itself still just a single source, is that the Journal reported that it was known to western intelligence agencies at the time that there was an outbreak of something flu-like among WIV employees in October 2020. That's I guess a little suspicious, but still unconfirmed and... really not enough to move the needle. Add to that the fact that covid is a close cousin of already-known endemic viruses and that nothing about it looks engineered at all, and... this is still just a natural virus, sorry.

z3ncyberpunk 5y ago
Yeah, that's a lot of mental gymnastics to avoid the obvious reality.
s1artibartfast 5y ago
>Imagine it was a leak. Dozens or hundreds of people -- researchers with PhDs and international cred and travel ability -- would have had to be knowledgeable about the research and in on the coverup. I don't see why this would be the case. It could be a lab leak with nobody at the being aware or having evidence. Why must people be in on a secret coverup? Many activities that make evaluating the lab leak hypothesis difficult were done in the open: Destruction of early virus samples and deletion of Gene sequencing from public databases. >Add to that the fact that covid is a close cousin of already-known endemic viruses and that nothing about it looks engineered at all, and... this is still just a natural virus, sorry. The virus does not need to have been engineered to have leaked from a lab. Natural viruses can and do leak from labs as well.
- newacct583 5y ago
  You're doing the conspiracist thing where you respond to my examples of plausible explanations with more hypotheses that could alternately explain my guesses. But who cares? That's not how proof works. This is just a gish gallop. I told you why I find existing evidence unconvincing. You need to convince me with evidence, not hypotheses.
- nickff 5y ago
  >"Why must people be in on a secret coverup?" I hadn't considered this before, but you're right that most of the people dismissing the 'lab leak' theory seem to believe that their intellectual opponents are proposing that a 'premeditated conspiracy' took place. In any case, if I were a PRoC official, I would try to reduce the chance of any (direct or circumstantial) evidence of a lab leak came to light. That said, even suppression of circumstantial evidence is not necessarily evidence of either a lab leak or pre-meditated conspiracy.
  - newacct583 5y ago
    To be fair, a lot of you nuts are absolutely alleging "premeditated conspiracy", or even loopier notions like bioweapon engineering. It's extremely hard to figure out who we're talking to. If you want to argue for some weak form of the conspiracy, then maybe give it another name or something. But note that the weak form you seem to be thinking about (that it was benign research on natural viruses and just a routine mistake that caused the leak) seems to be even more susceptible to my suspicion. If you're a researcher who was doing this benign work, why keep silent? You could literally write a book fingering all your superiors as the villains and sell it for tens of millions of dollars and retire in Taipei or San Francisco.
    - nickff 5y ago
      >"To be fair, a lot of you nuts are absolutely alleging "premeditated conspiracy", or even loopier notions like bioweapon engineering. " Why are you insulting me? I honestly don't know where this virus came from, and am more interested in what the polarized discourse says about our current state of affairs.
hammock 5y ago
>Imagine it was a leak. Dozens or hundreds of people -- researchers with PhDs and international cred and travel ability -- would have had to be knowledgeable about the research and in on the coverup Maybe. And? Dozens or hundreds of internationally-relevant people would have been knowledgeable about the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia's specific involvement in 9/11, but that didn't stop it from being covered up for almost a decade.
- SantalBlush 5y ago
  The Saudi Government's involvement in 9/11 was public knowledge shortly after it happened. I read about it around 2002. It just didn't get media coverage.

z3ncyberpunk 5y ago

Yeah, that's a lot of mental gymnastics to avoid the obvious reality.

s1artibartfast 5y ago

>Imagine it was a leak. Dozens or hundreds of people -- researchers with PhDs and international cred and travel ability -- would have had to be knowledgeable about the research and in on the coverup. I don't see why this would be the case. It could be a lab leak with nobody at the being aware or having evidence. Why must people be in on a secret coverup? Many activities that make evaluating the lab leak hypothesis difficult were done in the open: Destruction of early virus samples and deletion of Gene sequencing from public databases. >Add to that the fact that covid is a close cousin of already-known endemic viruses and that nothing about it looks engineered at all, and... this is still just a natural virus, sorry. The virus does not need to have been engineered to have leaked from a lab. Natural viruses can and do leak from labs as well.

newacct583 5y ago
You're doing the conspiracist thing where you respond to my examples of plausible explanations with more hypotheses that could alternately explain my guesses. But who cares? That's not how proof works. This is just a gish gallop. I told you why I find existing evidence unconvincing. You need to convince me with evidence, not hypotheses.
nickff 5y ago
>"Why must people be in on a secret coverup?" I hadn't considered this before, but you're right that most of the people dismissing the 'lab leak' theory seem to believe that their intellectual opponents are proposing that a 'premeditated conspiracy' took place. In any case, if I were a PRoC official, I would try to reduce the chance of any (direct or circumstantial) evidence of a lab leak came to light. That said, even suppression of circumstantial evidence is not necessarily evidence of either a lab leak or pre-meditated conspiracy.
- newacct583 5y ago
  To be fair, a lot of you nuts are absolutely alleging "premeditated conspiracy", or even loopier notions like bioweapon engineering. It's extremely hard to figure out who we're talking to. If you want to argue for some weak form of the conspiracy, then maybe give it another name or something. But note that the weak form you seem to be thinking about (that it was benign research on natural viruses and just a routine mistake that caused the leak) seems to be even more susceptible to my suspicion. If you're a researcher who was doing this benign work, why keep silent? You could literally write a book fingering all your superiors as the villains and sell it for tens of millions of dollars and retire in Taipei or San Francisco.
  - nickff 5y ago
    >"To be fair, a lot of you nuts are absolutely alleging "premeditated conspiracy", or even loopier notions like bioweapon engineering. " Why are you insulting me? I honestly don't know where this virus came from, and am more interested in what the polarized discourse says about our current state of affairs.

hammock 5y ago

>Imagine it was a leak. Dozens or hundreds of people -- researchers with PhDs and international cred and travel ability -- would have had to be knowledgeable about the research and in on the coverup Maybe. And? Dozens or hundreds of internationally-relevant people would have been knowledgeable about the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia's specific involvement in 9/11, but that didn't stop it from being covered up for almost a decade.

SantalBlush 5y ago
The Saudi Government's involvement in 9/11 was public knowledge shortly after it happened. I read about it around 2002. It just didn't get media coverage.