4 ms·

This is just gratuitous name calling and it has no part in a meaningful conversation. I would hesitate to call people crazy for believing in a theory that is in

This is just gratuitous name calling and it has no part in a meaningful conversation. I would hesitate to call people crazy for believing in a theory that is increasingly well supported by the evidence. Please consider that the origin of Covid19 and the response to it are two different issues and the main factions do not overlap 100%. Plenty of people believed that covid was a lab leak and also a deadly serious disease to be prevented at almost all costs. Perhaps more people would have taken more caution if they were told that this was an engineered bioweapon and not yet another zoonotic disease instead of being told to be quiet.

tehjoker 3y ago
I personally support a natural origins theory, but I was referring to the disproportionate energy people invest in origins when so many of the same people have dropped mitigations. It's contradictory behavior. Either you believe it's a serious threat and treat it that way, or it's a totally disconnected reality X-files TV show. If COVID is so unserious that people won't clean the air, wear respirators, test, isolate, or vaccinate, then why should anyone care about origins outside of public health professionals?
- blululu 3y ago
  There is a lot of overlap between people who support a lab leak hypothesis and people who did nothing to try to mitigate the effects of Covid-19. You are correct that these two behaviors represent an illogical contradiction, but the two issues are also separate and dismissing one position by its common association with the other is illogical and generally unhelpful for having a serious discussion. I personally can't condone people who did nothing to try to mitigate the effects of Covid-19 but that doesn't really have much bearing to the origin of Covid-19. Ultimately we should be trying to understand what lessons we can draw from the pandemic and how we can prevent or forestall the emergence of future pandemics. If the origin is technological in nature then we should be looking for policy directives to prevent such technologies from being misused in the future. Having worked with grad students the idea that they would make a colossal mess of things seems pretty realistic so implementing some basic international restrictions on things like gain of function research seems like it would be a good move going forward, but maybe less urgent if we are 100% sure that Covid was zoonotic in origin.

tehjoker 3y ago

I personally support a natural origins theory, but I was referring to the disproportionate energy people invest in origins when so many of the same people have dropped mitigations. It's contradictory behavior. Either you believe it's a serious threat and treat it that way, or it's a totally disconnected reality X-files TV show. If COVID is so unserious that people won't clean the air, wear respirators, test, isolate, or vaccinate, then why should anyone care about origins outside of public health professionals?

blululu 3y ago
There is a lot of overlap between people who support a lab leak hypothesis and people who did nothing to try to mitigate the effects of Covid-19. You are correct that these two behaviors represent an illogical contradiction, but the two issues are also separate and dismissing one position by its common association with the other is illogical and generally unhelpful for having a serious discussion. I personally can't condone people who did nothing to try to mitigate the effects of Covid-19 but that doesn't really have much bearing to the origin of Covid-19. Ultimately we should be trying to understand what lessons we can draw from the pandemic and how we can prevent or forestall the emergence of future pandemics. If the origin is technological in nature then we should be looking for policy directives to prevent such technologies from being misused in the future. Having worked with grad students the idea that they would make a colossal mess of things seems pretty realistic so implementing some basic international restrictions on things like gain of function research seems like it would be a good move going forward, but maybe less urgent if we are 100% sure that Covid was zoonotic in origin.