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I don't understand the mental gymnastics to discredit the lab leak hypothesis. The fact that the lab and epicenter of the virus are in the same geographic area

I don't understand the mental gymnastics to discredit the lab leak hypothesis. The fact that the lab and epicenter of the virus are in the same geographic area make it the likely scenario and warrants the most investigation. The efforts to look past this seem artificial.

actually_a_dog 4y ago
You don't need to "discredit" the hypothesis very much, because it shouldn't have any real "credit" to begin with. The only evidence for it at all seems to be the proximity of the Wuhan lab to the first known outbreak, plus the fact that 3 researchers got sick in November (i.e. flu season) with some unknown virus. If you ask me, that plus $5 might buy you a cup of coffee.
- ikrenji 4y ago
  it's a hell of coincidence that out of all chinese cities the outbreak started in the one city housing the premiere institute dedicated to researching coronaviruses... so there is no smoking gun evidence, but it's a reasonable hypothesis... anyway, no one apart from the chinese ministry of state security will ever know for sure one way or another
  - yibg 4y ago
    Isn’t that mixing causation with correlation. The lab is there because there are lots of virus sources there.
    - MichaelZuo 4y ago
      This is definitely the most sensible explanation, since it's quite well known that Wuhan is the most important transportation hub in China since even before the lab was a distant dream in some postdoc's imagination. And China does have the world's largest annual human migration, in the Spring Festival. If I was in the planning department at whichever ministry that made the final decision on placement, putting the most prestigious and well funded lab studying dangerous human transmissible viruses at the world's most likely place to originate such a virus is an obvious choice. i.e. during a few weeks every year Wuhan could easily be 10x more likely to be ground zero then any other city ever.
      - mwbajor 4y ago
        Wow, you did quite the somersault there.
        MichaelZuo 4y ago
        Account created 22 days ago with the profile description: "Long time lurker, only made an account to comment about FPGAs..." So this seems like low-effort trolling.
    - himinlomax 4y ago
      > The lab is there because there are lots of virus sources there. That's patently false.
      - actually_a_dog 4y ago
        I don't see any evidence in either your or the GP's post.
- selfmodruntime 4y ago
  So you discredit an incredibly likely theory that a rapidly spreading epidemic from an origin city in a totalitarian state with a highly specific lab focusing on coronaviruses, based on lack of credit? I don‘t know what to say.
  - actually_a_dog 4y ago
    It's called "lack of available evidence." You can't use the fact that there isn't evidence of a thing happening in order to give the theory weight. When the evidence comes out, if it exists, and if it ever does come out for general consumption, then my opinion is subject to change. Why not just say it came from North Korea? There's just about as much publicly available evidence for that as there is that it came from a lab leak in China.
    - selfmodruntime 4y ago
      > You can't use the fact that there isn't evidence of a thing happening in order to give the theory weight I can and I will, because of the fact that there is some evidence that the Chinese Government made efforts to hide evidence around Covid 19’s origins and their history regarding uncomfortable truths. You can not argue in good faith on grounds of evidence or no evidence if not all parties are playing open and fair. A totalitarian Government with an overarching system of controlling it‘s population and information is certainly not supporting good scientific research and discovery.
ecf 4y ago
[flagged]
- Tuna-Fish 4y ago
  > it’s unreasonable to assume it’s all because a freak mutation with some bats. I don't think this holds. Such freak mutations happen all the time. Note that this doesn't discredit lab leak either. It's entirely possible they were testing a new, entirely natural strain they found in some weird cave somewhere. And because that lab had terrible safety protocols (which has been documented extensively), possibly some got out. It's not really possible to rule out or confirm the lab leak hypothesis without inside information that we are unlikely to ever get. Other than as vague "intelligence report says this", which you can hardly trust.
- VerminOctopus1 4y ago
  Your claims: - The true origin of COVID-19 is known and being kept a secret [citation needed] - It’s unreasonable to assume a pandemic can be caused by a natural occurring genetic mutation [citation needed] - Global knowledge that the virus came from a Chinese lab (accidentally? intentionally?) would cause a world war [citation needed]
SV_BubbleTime 4y ago
> I don't understand the mental gymnastics to discredit the lab leak hypothesis. I’m not sure I beleive in Dead Internet Theory so much as I believe in some form of unknowing indoctrination theory. That if you take the people with these hardline defensive of authority opinions away from the internet for a bit, explain a new event to them, when they get back on the internet, none of the people they normally deal with have the same opinion of what they learned about “offline” at first. I think we unintentionally have created a mind control device.
tenpies 4y ago
A big problem was that Trump was into this theory early on: the Chinese virus, from Wuhan. Let's time travel back to May of 2020 for example: "Trump claims to have evidence coronavirus started in Chinese lab but offers no details" [1]. According to the Swamp, Trump cannot be right about anything ever, therefore the virus' origin is unknown and don't call it the Chinese flu because that's racist - even if the early Chinese accounts of the disease literally called it the "Wuhan pneumonia". This became Woke dogma the minute Trump said the opposite. This whole thing has been disgusting and if we were a serious society thousands in leadership positions would have been fired or resigned in disgrace. Instead, Hollywood made fan films about people who quite easily fit the definition of having committed crimes against humanity, Tedros still has a job, and the WHO won't see any reform - it will see a major expansion of its power. I fear for the next pandemic, because if it's anything deadlier than COVID it might legitimately end civilization given the amount of incompetence we've now entrenched into our civilizational safeguards. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/apr/30/donald-trump-coronavirus-chinese-lab-claim https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/apr/30/donald-trump...
- kerpotgh 4y ago
  [dead]
yibg 4y ago
I think this is the problem. Many are claiming a lab leak is the most likely / probable simply because of the proximity of the lab. We should investigate absolutely, but just saying the lab is there so a leak is the most likely doesn’t make sense.

actually_a_dog 4y ago

You don't need to "discredit" the hypothesis very much, because it shouldn't have any real "credit" to begin with. The only evidence for it at all seems to be the proximity of the Wuhan lab to the first known outbreak, plus the fact that 3 researchers got sick in November (i.e. flu season) with some unknown virus. If you ask me, that plus $5 might buy you a cup of coffee.

ikrenji 4y ago
it's a hell of coincidence that out of all chinese cities the outbreak started in the one city housing the premiere institute dedicated to researching coronaviruses... so there is no smoking gun evidence, but it's a reasonable hypothesis... anyway, no one apart from the chinese ministry of state security will ever know for sure one way or another
- yibg 4y ago
  Isn’t that mixing causation with correlation. The lab is there because there are lots of virus sources there.
  - MichaelZuo 4y ago
    This is definitely the most sensible explanation, since it's quite well known that Wuhan is the most important transportation hub in China since even before the lab was a distant dream in some postdoc's imagination. And China does have the world's largest annual human migration, in the Spring Festival. If I was in the planning department at whichever ministry that made the final decision on placement, putting the most prestigious and well funded lab studying dangerous human transmissible viruses at the world's most likely place to originate such a virus is an obvious choice. i.e. during a few weeks every year Wuhan could easily be 10x more likely to be ground zero then any other city ever.
    - mwbajor 4y ago
      Wow, you did quite the somersault there.
      - MichaelZuo 4y ago
        Account created 22 days ago with the profile description: "Long time lurker, only made an account to comment about FPGAs..." So this seems like low-effort trolling.
  - himinlomax 4y ago
    > The lab is there because there are lots of virus sources there. That's patently false.
    - actually_a_dog 4y ago
      I don't see any evidence in either your or the GP's post.
selfmodruntime 4y ago
So you discredit an incredibly likely theory that a rapidly spreading epidemic from an origin city in a totalitarian state with a highly specific lab focusing on coronaviruses, based on lack of credit? I don‘t know what to say.
- actually_a_dog 4y ago
  It's called "lack of available evidence." You can't use the fact that there isn't evidence of a thing happening in order to give the theory weight. When the evidence comes out, if it exists, and if it ever does come out for general consumption, then my opinion is subject to change. Why not just say it came from North Korea? There's just about as much publicly available evidence for that as there is that it came from a lab leak in China.
  - selfmodruntime 4y ago
    > You can't use the fact that there isn't evidence of a thing happening in order to give the theory weight I can and I will, because of the fact that there is some evidence that the Chinese Government made efforts to hide evidence around Covid 19’s origins and their history regarding uncomfortable truths. You can not argue in good faith on grounds of evidence or no evidence if not all parties are playing open and fair. A totalitarian Government with an overarching system of controlling it‘s population and information is certainly not supporting good scientific research and discovery.

ecf 4y ago

[flagged]

Tuna-Fish 4y ago
> it’s unreasonable to assume it’s all because a freak mutation with some bats. I don't think this holds. Such freak mutations happen all the time. Note that this doesn't discredit lab leak either. It's entirely possible they were testing a new, entirely natural strain they found in some weird cave somewhere. And because that lab had terrible safety protocols (which has been documented extensively), possibly some got out. It's not really possible to rule out or confirm the lab leak hypothesis without inside information that we are unlikely to ever get. Other than as vague "intelligence report says this", which you can hardly trust.
VerminOctopus1 4y ago
Your claims: - The true origin of COVID-19 is known and being kept a secret [citation needed] - It’s unreasonable to assume a pandemic can be caused by a natural occurring genetic mutation [citation needed] - Global knowledge that the virus came from a Chinese lab (accidentally? intentionally?) would cause a world war [citation needed]

SV_BubbleTime 4y ago

> I don't understand the mental gymnastics to discredit the lab leak hypothesis. I’m not sure I beleive in Dead Internet Theory so much as I believe in some form of unknowing indoctrination theory. That if you take the people with these hardline defensive of authority opinions away from the internet for a bit, explain a new event to them, when they get back on the internet, none of the people they normally deal with have the same opinion of what they learned about “offline” at first. I think we unintentionally have created a mind control device.

tenpies 4y ago

A big problem was that Trump was into this theory early on: the Chinese virus, from Wuhan. Let's time travel back to May of 2020 for example: "Trump claims to have evidence coronavirus started in Chinese lab but offers no details" [1]. According to the Swamp, Trump cannot be right about anything ever, therefore the virus' origin is unknown and don't call it the Chinese flu because that's racist - even if the early Chinese accounts of the disease literally called it the "Wuhan pneumonia". This became Woke dogma the minute Trump said the opposite. This whole thing has been disgusting and if we were a serious society thousands in leadership positions would have been fired or resigned in disgrace. Instead, Hollywood made fan films about people who quite easily fit the definition of having committed crimes against humanity, Tedros still has a job, and the WHO won't see any reform - it will see a major expansion of its power. I fear for the next pandemic, because if it's anything deadlier than COVID it might legitimately end civilization given the amount of incompetence we've now entrenched into our civilizational safeguards. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/apr/30/donald-trump-coronavirus-chinese-lab-claim https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/apr/30/donald-trump...

kerpotgh 4y ago
[dead]

yibg 4y ago

I think this is the problem. Many are claiming a lab leak is the most likely / probable simply because of the proximity of the lab. We should investigate absolutely, but just saying the lab is there so a leak is the most likely doesn’t make sense.