4 ms·

I personally believe in Rootlclaim's Bayesian analysis (https://www.rootclaim.com/analysis/What-is-the-source-of-COVID-19-SARS-CoV-2 https://www.rootclaim.com/a

by Xen9 3y ago

I personally believe in Rootlclaim's Bayesian analysis (https://www.rootclaim.com/analysis/What-is-the-source-of-COVID-19-SARS-CoV-2 https://www.rootclaim.com/analysis/What-is-the-source-of-COV...) which states that "the virus was developed during gain-of-function research and was released by accident (89% probability)" This is consistent with David Martin's speech in Europe: https://twitter.com/KimDotcom/status/1661698114917646336 https://twitter.com/KimDotcom/status/1661698114917646336 I haven't checked the "publicly available references" but many who inssist on a natural cause read about the bat theory in the first few months and then haven't updated & aren't willing to update their models. If you find any faults that can really change the results in the analysis Rootclaim made, I would be interested.

th0ma5 3y ago
[flagged]
- cubefox 3y ago
  > But why do you think it is important to prove a lab leak? Perhaps because it is slightly interesting what caused the worst pandemic since the Spanish flu? Because millions of people died? Because knowing the cause could perhaps prevent something similar happen again? Perhaps prevent millions of deaths? I'm astonished by this question.
  - th0ma5 3y ago
    Sure but what if it just isn't knowable?
    - cubefox 3y ago
      Historians are still finding out things that happened hundreds of years ago. Do you really think the origins of Covid are lost in the mists of time?
      - th0ma5 3y ago
        Yes, why do you not? Or why do you need it so bad? You can do whatever you were going to do anyway.
- nepthar 3y ago
  I'd ask the inverse question to you - why would you think it is unimportant to determine the cause of things that happen in the world?
  - th0ma5 3y ago
    I don't
- peteradio 3y ago
  You can't in one comment complain about investigations using "made up priors" and then in another complain that we are investigating something which could actually provide a measured prior.
  - th0ma5 3y ago
    Could! But hasn't... Otherwise yes good points. I don't see how they measure all the rest of the probabilities and the article seems to be designed to settle arguments among dumb people or something? It is not even remotely scientific.
    - peteradio 3y ago
      > I think the whole premise that arbitrary priors and dreaming up probabilities and then washing them all together isn't applicable to a unicorn type event. Now I believe you said it. Maybe not exactly "made up priors" so pardon me for the misquote. But I'd be interested to see if you can make a distinction.
some_random 3y ago
I remember when this was first released, everyone clowned on it (including me) for a few reasons the biggest one being the classic problem with these sorts of Bayesian analyses. That being, the individual weights per piece of evidence are pretty arbitrary. Meanwhile, it seems quite likely to have produced the correct results so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
- th0ma5 3y ago
  [flagged]
tsss 3y ago
Regardless of the merits of the lab leak theory, David Martin is a NWO-level conspiracy theorist who thinks that Pfizer colluded with Bill Gates and the US government and infected the whole world with a virus, on purpose, just to push their vaccine on people. The conference that you allude to has nothing to do with the European union. It was organized by two equally nutty far right EU-politicians in one of the parliament's public rooms to give a false legitimacy to their "conference" and mislead people to think that it was an official event.
- Xen9 3y ago
  He seems to have worked on projects that are questionable in importance / authenticity but likely to have made profits. Claiming that the video filmed in EU was from an "official EU conference" would be uniformed or mispresenting him, indeed. But I think it's worth watching; Phizer's patent application and other claims he made are interesting and haven't been repeated elsewhere (from my perspective).
jmull 3y ago
> If you find any faults that can really change the results in the analysis Rootclaim made, I would be interested. This is an interesting way to analyze the problem but the set of criteria and weights applied at each step are made up. The flaw is that you can use this form of analysis to reach any conclusion you want. For example, the "Already well adapted" section -- a "2x" factor for lab escape. We wouldn't even be thinking about this virus if it wasn't well adapted to spread among humans. So that's baked into the ground and isn't a factor of anything. Then take "Furin cleavage" -- a whopping 8x factor for lab escape relative to zoonotic. This is the same thing as already well adapted, so now we've got a combined 16x for something that should be 1x. The weight for "Chimera" -- another whopping 8x for lab escape relative to zoonotic -- seems really high for something that is found both in nature and in labs that merely "seems less likely to combine in nature". We should probably be arguing about whether this is 1.5x or 2x. The real conclusion is we don't know. The Chinese probably do, but it would be a very closely guarded secret and obviously they would never admit to a lab leak. I lot of people hate ambiguity and want an answer, but in this case it doesn't seem that we are going to get one.
- throwaway290 3y ago
  > it would be a very closely guarded secret and obviously they would never admit to a lab leak A complicating factor is that some (much?) of the funding came from the US. Which means admitting to a leak is against the interest of not only Chinese but also the US government which would have a hell of a time explaining to taxpayers how pandemic was engineered on their money doing research banned in the US. (Though I don't think US government played any part in resisting the research tbh, CCP probably did all that at their accord.) I think all in all we shouldn't give up, and even if we don't find the actual data I don't see the world can be okay without big fat follow up over not some lab making a mistake (humans make those) but all obstruction of research into the origins of what could have been an extinction level event if the virus was a bit better engineered, whether it came from Chinese communist party or US scientists scared for grant money.
  - th0ma5 3y ago
    [flagged]
hn_thrwn 3y ago
[flagged]
LodeOfCode 3y ago
That Rootclaim analysis seems sloppy as hell. From the "Show More" of the outbreak location section: >Thus, the ratio of zoonotic:bioweapon:zoonotic collection:modified lab escape is 2:5:100:50, or a reduction of a zoonotic origin by 50x, a bioweapon origin by 20x, and a lab escape by 0.5x. Those aren't the same ratio. >To account for the possibility that there is a yet unidentified reason why Wuhan is a more likely location for a zoonotic outbreak, these numbers are generously adjusted to a reduction of a zoonotic origin by 20x and a bioweapon origin by 15x, with lab escape remaining at 0.5x. But what they actually apply is a reduction of a zoonotic origin by 20x and a bioweapon origin by 15x, with zoonotic collection at 2x. Which isn't the result of applying that adjustment to either of the original ratios, so apparently they've just applied the lab escape factor to wrong category
whimsicalism 3y ago
This sort of thing is only going to give more ammunition to people saying STEM students must take ethics/reasoning/philosophy courses :)
- CatWChainsaw 3y ago
  Is that supposed to sound like a bad idea?
nova22033 3y ago
This David Martin? https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-factcheck-covid-vaccine/fact-check-the-mrna-coronavirus-vaccine-is-a-vaccine-and-it-is-designed-to-prevent-illness-idUSKBN2AM0SS https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-factcheck-covid-vaccine/f...
Xen9 3y ago
2023-06-15-01-22 Also consistent with: https://public.substack.com/p/first-people-sickened-by-covid-19 https://public.substack.com/p/first-people-sickened-by-covid...

by Xen9 3y ago

th0ma5 3y ago

[flagged]

cubefox 3y ago
> But why do you think it is important to prove a lab leak? Perhaps because it is slightly interesting what caused the worst pandemic since the Spanish flu? Because millions of people died? Because knowing the cause could perhaps prevent something similar happen again? Perhaps prevent millions of deaths? I'm astonished by this question.
- th0ma5 3y ago
  Sure but what if it just isn't knowable?
  - cubefox 3y ago
    Historians are still finding out things that happened hundreds of years ago. Do you really think the origins of Covid are lost in the mists of time?
    - th0ma5 3y ago
      Yes, why do you not? Or why do you need it so bad? You can do whatever you were going to do anyway.
nepthar 3y ago
I'd ask the inverse question to you - why would you think it is unimportant to determine the cause of things that happen in the world?
- th0ma5 3y ago
  I don't
peteradio 3y ago
You can't in one comment complain about investigations using "made up priors" and then in another complain that we are investigating something which could actually provide a measured prior.
- th0ma5 3y ago
  Could! But hasn't... Otherwise yes good points. I don't see how they measure all the rest of the probabilities and the article seems to be designed to settle arguments among dumb people or something? It is not even remotely scientific.
  - peteradio 3y ago
    > I think the whole premise that arbitrary priors and dreaming up probabilities and then washing them all together isn't applicable to a unicorn type event. Now I believe you said it. Maybe not exactly "made up priors" so pardon me for the misquote. But I'd be interested to see if you can make a distinction.

some_random 3y ago

I remember when this was first released, everyone clowned on it (including me) for a few reasons the biggest one being the classic problem with these sorts of Bayesian analyses. That being, the individual weights per piece of evidence are pretty arbitrary. Meanwhile, it seems quite likely to have produced the correct results so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

th0ma5 3y ago
[flagged]

tsss 3y ago

Regardless of the merits of the lab leak theory, David Martin is a NWO-level conspiracy theorist who thinks that Pfizer colluded with Bill Gates and the US government and infected the whole world with a virus, on purpose, just to push their vaccine on people. The conference that you allude to has nothing to do with the European union. It was organized by two equally nutty far right EU-politicians in one of the parliament's public rooms to give a false legitimacy to their "conference" and mislead people to think that it was an official event.

Xen9 3y ago
He seems to have worked on projects that are questionable in importance / authenticity but likely to have made profits. Claiming that the video filmed in EU was from an "official EU conference" would be uniformed or mispresenting him, indeed. But I think it's worth watching; Phizer's patent application and other claims he made are interesting and haven't been repeated elsewhere (from my perspective).

jmull 3y ago

> If you find any faults that can really change the results in the analysis Rootclaim made, I would be interested. This is an interesting way to analyze the problem but the set of criteria and weights applied at each step are made up. The flaw is that you can use this form of analysis to reach any conclusion you want. For example, the "Already well adapted" section -- a "2x" factor for lab escape. We wouldn't even be thinking about this virus if it wasn't well adapted to spread among humans. So that's baked into the ground and isn't a factor of anything. Then take "Furin cleavage" -- a whopping 8x factor for lab escape relative to zoonotic. This is the same thing as already well adapted, so now we've got a combined 16x for something that should be 1x. The weight for "Chimera" -- another whopping 8x for lab escape relative to zoonotic -- seems really high for something that is found both in nature and in labs that merely "seems less likely to combine in nature". We should probably be arguing about whether this is 1.5x or 2x. The real conclusion is we don't know. The Chinese probably do, but it would be a very closely guarded secret and obviously they would never admit to a lab leak. I lot of people hate ambiguity and want an answer, but in this case it doesn't seem that we are going to get one.

throwaway290 3y ago
> it would be a very closely guarded secret and obviously they would never admit to a lab leak A complicating factor is that some (much?) of the funding came from the US. Which means admitting to a leak is against the interest of not only Chinese but also the US government which would have a hell of a time explaining to taxpayers how pandemic was engineered on their money doing research banned in the US. (Though I don't think US government played any part in resisting the research tbh, CCP probably did all that at their accord.) I think all in all we shouldn't give up, and even if we don't find the actual data I don't see the world can be okay without big fat follow up over not some lab making a mistake (humans make those) but all obstruction of research into the origins of what could have been an extinction level event if the virus was a bit better engineered, whether it came from Chinese communist party or US scientists scared for grant money.
- th0ma5 3y ago
  [flagged]

hn_thrwn 3y ago

[flagged]

LodeOfCode 3y ago

That Rootclaim analysis seems sloppy as hell. From the "Show More" of the outbreak location section: >Thus, the ratio of zoonotic:bioweapon:zoonotic collection:modified lab escape is 2:5:100:50, or a reduction of a zoonotic origin by 50x, a bioweapon origin by 20x, and a lab escape by 0.5x. Those aren't the same ratio. >To account for the possibility that there is a yet unidentified reason why Wuhan is a more likely location for a zoonotic outbreak, these numbers are generously adjusted to a reduction of a zoonotic origin by 20x and a bioweapon origin by 15x, with lab escape remaining at 0.5x. But what they actually apply is a reduction of a zoonotic origin by 20x and a bioweapon origin by 15x, with zoonotic collection at 2x. Which isn't the result of applying that adjustment to either of the original ratios, so apparently they've just applied the lab escape factor to wrong category

whimsicalism 3y ago

This sort of thing is only going to give more ammunition to people saying STEM students must take ethics/reasoning/philosophy courses :)

CatWChainsaw 3y ago
Is that supposed to sound like a bad idea?

nova22033 3y ago

This David Martin? https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-factcheck-covid-vaccine/fact-check-the-mrna-coronavirus-vaccine-is-a-vaccine-and-it-is-designed-to-prevent-illness-idUSKBN2AM0SS https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-factcheck-covid-vaccine/f...

Xen9 3y ago

2023-06-15-01-22 Also consistent with: https://public.substack.com/p/first-people-sickened-by-covid-19 https://public.substack.com/p/first-people-sickened-by-covid...