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I think it has more to do with the fact that one opinion is supported by more conspiracy nuts. Doesn’t mean it isn’t the right answer, but having lots of crazie

I think it has more to do with the fact that one opinion is supported by more conspiracy nuts. Doesn’t mean it isn’t the right answer, but having lots of crazies insisting it is the only possible answer makes more grounded people less credible in the eyes of others.

jonhohle 4y ago
Are the pejoratives really necessary? From the beginning the "lab leak" theory satisfied Occam's Razor more than the convoluted "wet market" theory or the "pangolin" theory. Meanwhile, a lot of departments at a lot of universities got a lot of funding to pursue their pet theories.
- autoexec 4y ago
  At the time trump and his people were first pushing lab leak/bio-weapon conspiracies it was without evidence (and Occam's Razor isn't evidence), and worse the actual evidence we did have at the time suggested it wasn't leaked from a lab. That didn't stop the "crazies" from insisting it was true though. Anyone can have their own theory of things, but what separates Trump and the "crazies" from the rest of us (including many of those who suspected the lab leak theory was true) is that one group accepted the possibility and investigated that, while the others were running around calling for "china to pay" and beating up random Asian people in the streets at a time when the evidence we had for the the lab leak theory was weaker than the evidence we had for other theories. Even today, while the evidence is inconclusive, what changed was that we have additional evidence that has raised the level of credibility of the lab leak theory. "Crazies" went all in regardless of evidence or reason, and for that the pejorative is well earned.
  - dangwhy 4y ago
    how were the people pushing wet market theory not "crazies" also then.
    - autoexec 4y ago
      > how were the people pushing wet market theory not "crazies" also then. Because they had evidence that made the wet market theory the one most likely to be true, and a lack of stronger evidence for the lab leak theory. Investigating and supporting the theory that is best supported by the evidence you have isn't crazy, it's science. When you look at all the facts you have, and then ignore that because it doesn't support what you want to be true, and then you act on what you wish was true instead, that's crazy. That's exactly what Trump and many of his supporters were doing. We have new evidence now that suggests the lab leak theory is more likely than the wet market one, so once it is released non-crazy people will support the lab leak theory when they could not (and should not) have before.
      - dangwhy 4y ago
        > Because they had evidence that made the wet market theory the one most likely to be true sorry but what was evidence supporting wet market theory when this article was published https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/19/health/coronavirus-animals-markets.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/19/health/coronavirus-animal... > The new virus seems to have leapt from wildlife to humans in a seafood and meat market in Wuhan, China, where live animals were slaughtered and sold as food. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/10/science/pangolin-coronavirus.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/10/science/pangolin-coronavi... None of these qualify as evidence that you say the claim was based on.
        autoexec 4y ago
        Your own links contain the evidence you're looking for. Your pangolin link mentions one paper: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.02.07.939207v1.article-info https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.02.07.939207v1.... There was a lot of evidence supporting the wet market theory at the time and supporting that it wasn't made in a lab (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-0820-9 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-0820-9) including exposure to the market by early patients (https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30183-5/fulltext#%20 https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...) and the fact that wet markets have been guilty of spreading similar diseases in the past (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/14738798/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/14738798/)
  - smsm42 4y ago
    Lab leak and bio weapon are two completely different theories, and conflating them means you don't actually bother to learn the argument of the opposing side(s), before dismissing them as "crazies". I think if you attempt to have serious discussion the minimum you should do is to learn what the disagreement is about. If you don't bother to do even that, then what's the point in it? Just booing the outgroup one more time? > is that one group accepted the possibility and investigated that I'm not sure what group you mean here, but that was certainly not mainstream media, "The Experts (TM)" and the medical-political establishment. Those spent 100% of the effort on suppressing any possibility of the lab leak theory being seriously considered and investigated and declaring anybody who disagreed "crazies", and 0% of the effort investigating anything. To the honor of the actual scientific community, they managed to fight back and re-legitimize the leak theory, but it took significant time and effort, and significant struggle. And the PR damage (and career damage, etc.) to the people who dared to dissent was already done. > and beating up random Asian people in the streets I think mentioning people who considered lab leak theory a viable possibility together with people who beat up Asian people on the street, or even suggesting that there's a connection between the two, they have a common cause, and the former bear any responsibility on the latter - is an extremely dishonest move and you should apologize for making such connection. > "Crazies" went all in regardless of evidence or reason, and for that the pejorative is well earned. The "bat soup" propagandists went all in much further than the "crazies" - while the crazies only talked about the possibility of the lab leak (or bioweapon lab, ok) - the non-crazies banned, fired, ruined careers, declared opponents racist, and all that with even less evidence - at least for the lab leak theory there's a lab to leak from. By the time the "bat soup" theory was declared the only truth possible there was nothing to support it evidentially, let alone on the level of the only viable possibility. So "the crazies" earned their name, then "bat soup" propagandists must be named "super crazies on crazy juice while taking crazy pills and bathing in the crazy ocean". Or we can go back to actually discussing the evidence, if anybody is interested in that, of course.
    - autoexec 4y ago
      > Lab leak and bio weapon are two completely different theories, and conflating them means you don't actually bother to learn the argument of the opposing side(s), before dismissing them as "crazies". I never said they were the same thing. They are different, but they were both BS conspiracy theories because they were pushed without sufficient evidence to support them and while ignoring stronger evidence for other theories. > I'm not sure what group you mean here, but that was certainly not mainstream media, the mainstream media acknowledged that the science was still primarily, and that there were a lot of questions, but they mostly reported on our best understanding of the facts that we have and not on conspiracy theories that ignored our best understanding of the facts that we had. > "The Experts (TM)" and the medical-political establishment. Those spent 100% of the effort on suppressing any possibility of the lab leak theory being seriously considered and investigated and declaring anybody who disagreed "crazies", and 0% of the effort investigating anything. Who exactly is the ""The Experts (TM)" and the medical-political establishment"? As you yourself acknowledge scientists and governments continued to investigate the origins of the virus including the possibility of a lab leak to find evidence. > I think mentioning people who considered lab leak theory a viable possibility together with people who beat up Asian people on the street, or even suggesting that there's a connection between the two, they have a common cause, and the former bear any responsibility on the latter - is an extremely dishonest move and you should apologize for making such connection. I clearly made a distinction between the people who believed a BS conspiracy theory and acted on it (in some cases by beating asian people) and those who accepted it was possible, and investigated that, but followed the available evidence and supported the theory that best fit the facts that we had. > By the time the "bat soup" theory was declared the only truth possible Declared by who? When? There was constant questioning of the origin and acknowledgement that there were multiple conflicting theories in mainstream media. I don't know where you were getting your information from, but it sounds like you weren't paying much attention to what mainstream media was actually saying.
- brookst 4y ago
  What pejoratives? There are literally conspiracy nuts out there who strongly support the lab leak theory, mostly because China was the enemy du jour before drag queens. There is a lot of absolutely batshit stuff out there, including Trump himself accusing China of intentionally launching covid as a “bioweapon”. As I said, that environment makes it hard to separate the legit, well-informed, grounded people who also advance real evidence of a lab leak. My point was that they very loud, very nutty lab leak enthusiasts discredit legit discussion of the real possibility. I think you may have illustrated my point.
deleted 4y ago
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smsm42 4y ago
Well, if you ban and ostracize people for supporting some idea, then a lot of supporters for this idea would be people who are not afraid of being banned and ostracized - and this category of people has a lot of conspiracy nuts, because they have nothing to lose anyway. You can not use the consequence of the suppression policy as a justification of the same suppression policy.
yanderekko 4y ago
>I think it has more to do with the fact that one opinion is supported by more conspiracy nuts. Evaluating an empirical claim based on the aggregate character of those who are supporting it rather than actual steelmanned arguments is poor epistemic hygiene. It's a commonly-used justification for tribal epistemic closure - "the red tribe has lower IQ than average, therefore they are wrong in every disagreement with the blue tribe." There's an equally-negative opposite of a "conspiracy nut" here - something like "sheeple".
- brookst 4y ago
  I agree. And yet that is human nature and I hope it is not surprising and inexplicable.
plutonorm 4y ago
You have been taught to associate the lab leak theory with low status conspiracy theorists. Your emotional mind has then sought to achieve higher status by siding with the non crazy people. As someone that is not easily swayed it is absolutely stunning to see how social dynamics sway people's opinions. As a younger person I just did understand how the opinions of the people I interacted with were driven by pure emotion, as this is something I fought with before I reached adolescence. I assumed everyone else had. Even those who claim to be 'scientific' are not in pursuit of truth, but social status. This whole thread is just one giant cope by the people who have sided with authority in search of status. They see that the gain in status they achieved through their allegiance being threatened and attack the facts by obfuscating them. DOE thinks it's the most likely scenario, they're not confident, but it's the best they can come up with. The FBI has done the same. That means intelligent rational people in receipt of all the facts have come to a conclusion you cast out and ridiculed in your dopaminergic dash for upvotes. Be better.

jonhohle 4y ago

Are the pejoratives really necessary? From the beginning the "lab leak" theory satisfied Occam's Razor more than the convoluted "wet market" theory or the "pangolin" theory. Meanwhile, a lot of departments at a lot of universities got a lot of funding to pursue their pet theories.

autoexec 4y ago
At the time trump and his people were first pushing lab leak/bio-weapon conspiracies it was without evidence (and Occam's Razor isn't evidence), and worse the actual evidence we did have at the time suggested it wasn't leaked from a lab. That didn't stop the "crazies" from insisting it was true though. Anyone can have their own theory of things, but what separates Trump and the "crazies" from the rest of us (including many of those who suspected the lab leak theory was true) is that one group accepted the possibility and investigated that, while the others were running around calling for "china to pay" and beating up random Asian people in the streets at a time when the evidence we had for the the lab leak theory was weaker than the evidence we had for other theories. Even today, while the evidence is inconclusive, what changed was that we have additional evidence that has raised the level of credibility of the lab leak theory. "Crazies" went all in regardless of evidence or reason, and for that the pejorative is well earned.
- dangwhy 4y ago
  how were the people pushing wet market theory not "crazies" also then.
  - autoexec 4y ago
    > how were the people pushing wet market theory not "crazies" also then. Because they had evidence that made the wet market theory the one most likely to be true, and a lack of stronger evidence for the lab leak theory. Investigating and supporting the theory that is best supported by the evidence you have isn't crazy, it's science. When you look at all the facts you have, and then ignore that because it doesn't support what you want to be true, and then you act on what you wish was true instead, that's crazy. That's exactly what Trump and many of his supporters were doing. We have new evidence now that suggests the lab leak theory is more likely than the wet market one, so once it is released non-crazy people will support the lab leak theory when they could not (and should not) have before.
    - dangwhy 4y ago
      > Because they had evidence that made the wet market theory the one most likely to be true sorry but what was evidence supporting wet market theory when this article was published https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/19/health/coronavirus-animals-markets.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/19/health/coronavirus-animal... > The new virus seems to have leapt from wildlife to humans in a seafood and meat market in Wuhan, China, where live animals were slaughtered and sold as food. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/10/science/pangolin-coronavirus.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/10/science/pangolin-coronavi... None of these qualify as evidence that you say the claim was based on.
      - autoexec 4y ago
        Your own links contain the evidence you're looking for. Your pangolin link mentions one paper: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.02.07.939207v1.article-info https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.02.07.939207v1.... There was a lot of evidence supporting the wet market theory at the time and supporting that it wasn't made in a lab (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-0820-9 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-0820-9) including exposure to the market by early patients (https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30183-5/fulltext#%20 https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...) and the fact that wet markets have been guilty of spreading similar diseases in the past (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/14738798/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/14738798/)
- smsm42 4y ago
  Lab leak and bio weapon are two completely different theories, and conflating them means you don't actually bother to learn the argument of the opposing side(s), before dismissing them as "crazies". I think if you attempt to have serious discussion the minimum you should do is to learn what the disagreement is about. If you don't bother to do even that, then what's the point in it? Just booing the outgroup one more time? > is that one group accepted the possibility and investigated that I'm not sure what group you mean here, but that was certainly not mainstream media, "The Experts (TM)" and the medical-political establishment. Those spent 100% of the effort on suppressing any possibility of the lab leak theory being seriously considered and investigated and declaring anybody who disagreed "crazies", and 0% of the effort investigating anything. To the honor of the actual scientific community, they managed to fight back and re-legitimize the leak theory, but it took significant time and effort, and significant struggle. And the PR damage (and career damage, etc.) to the people who dared to dissent was already done. > and beating up random Asian people in the streets I think mentioning people who considered lab leak theory a viable possibility together with people who beat up Asian people on the street, or even suggesting that there's a connection between the two, they have a common cause, and the former bear any responsibility on the latter - is an extremely dishonest move and you should apologize for making such connection. > "Crazies" went all in regardless of evidence or reason, and for that the pejorative is well earned. The "bat soup" propagandists went all in much further than the "crazies" - while the crazies only talked about the possibility of the lab leak (or bioweapon lab, ok) - the non-crazies banned, fired, ruined careers, declared opponents racist, and all that with even less evidence - at least for the lab leak theory there's a lab to leak from. By the time the "bat soup" theory was declared the only truth possible there was nothing to support it evidentially, let alone on the level of the only viable possibility. So "the crazies" earned their name, then "bat soup" propagandists must be named "super crazies on crazy juice while taking crazy pills and bathing in the crazy ocean". Or we can go back to actually discussing the evidence, if anybody is interested in that, of course.
  - autoexec 4y ago
    > Lab leak and bio weapon are two completely different theories, and conflating them means you don't actually bother to learn the argument of the opposing side(s), before dismissing them as "crazies". I never said they were the same thing. They are different, but they were both BS conspiracy theories because they were pushed without sufficient evidence to support them and while ignoring stronger evidence for other theories. > I'm not sure what group you mean here, but that was certainly not mainstream media, the mainstream media acknowledged that the science was still primarily, and that there were a lot of questions, but they mostly reported on our best understanding of the facts that we have and not on conspiracy theories that ignored our best understanding of the facts that we had. > "The Experts (TM)" and the medical-political establishment. Those spent 100% of the effort on suppressing any possibility of the lab leak theory being seriously considered and investigated and declaring anybody who disagreed "crazies", and 0% of the effort investigating anything. Who exactly is the ""The Experts (TM)" and the medical-political establishment"? As you yourself acknowledge scientists and governments continued to investigate the origins of the virus including the possibility of a lab leak to find evidence. > I think mentioning people who considered lab leak theory a viable possibility together with people who beat up Asian people on the street, or even suggesting that there's a connection between the two, they have a common cause, and the former bear any responsibility on the latter - is an extremely dishonest move and you should apologize for making such connection. I clearly made a distinction between the people who believed a BS conspiracy theory and acted on it (in some cases by beating asian people) and those who accepted it was possible, and investigated that, but followed the available evidence and supported the theory that best fit the facts that we had. > By the time the "bat soup" theory was declared the only truth possible Declared by who? When? There was constant questioning of the origin and acknowledgement that there were multiple conflicting theories in mainstream media. I don't know where you were getting your information from, but it sounds like you weren't paying much attention to what mainstream media was actually saying.
brookst 4y ago
What pejoratives? There are literally conspiracy nuts out there who strongly support the lab leak theory, mostly because China was the enemy du jour before drag queens. There is a lot of absolutely batshit stuff out there, including Trump himself accusing China of intentionally launching covid as a “bioweapon”. As I said, that environment makes it hard to separate the legit, well-informed, grounded people who also advance real evidence of a lab leak. My point was that they very loud, very nutty lab leak enthusiasts discredit legit discussion of the real possibility. I think you may have illustrated my point.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

smsm42 4y ago

Well, if you ban and ostracize people for supporting some idea, then a lot of supporters for this idea would be people who are not afraid of being banned and ostracized - and this category of people has a lot of conspiracy nuts, because they have nothing to lose anyway. You can not use the consequence of the suppression policy as a justification of the same suppression policy.

yanderekko 4y ago

>I think it has more to do with the fact that one opinion is supported by more conspiracy nuts. Evaluating an empirical claim based on the aggregate character of those who are supporting it rather than actual steelmanned arguments is poor epistemic hygiene. It's a commonly-used justification for tribal epistemic closure - "the red tribe has lower IQ than average, therefore they are wrong in every disagreement with the blue tribe." There's an equally-negative opposite of a "conspiracy nut" here - something like "sheeple".

brookst 4y ago
I agree. And yet that is human nature and I hope it is not surprising and inexplicable.

plutonorm 4y ago

You have been taught to associate the lab leak theory with low status conspiracy theorists. Your emotional mind has then sought to achieve higher status by siding with the non crazy people. As someone that is not easily swayed it is absolutely stunning to see how social dynamics sway people's opinions. As a younger person I just did understand how the opinions of the people I interacted with were driven by pure emotion, as this is something I fought with before I reached adolescence. I assumed everyone else had. Even those who claim to be 'scientific' are not in pursuit of truth, but social status. This whole thread is just one giant cope by the people who have sided with authority in search of status. They see that the gain in status they achieved through their allegiance being threatened and attack the facts by obfuscating them. DOE thinks it's the most likely scenario, they're not confident, but it's the best they can come up with. The FBI has done the same. That means intelligent rational people in receipt of all the facts have come to a conclusion you cast out and ridiculed in your dopaminergic dash for upvotes. Be better.