Azza Bamboo posted:

What about aliens?

Mugsbaloney posted:

It might have implications for the field of immunology for a start, and the people who attempted to obfuscate it's origins.

I haven't been able to find anything that convincingly refutes this article from earlier in the year- iirc at the time people in this thread pointed out that some of those associated with a prior article were some sort of racist phrenologists, but didn't really engage with the argument

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/06/the-lab-leak-theory-inside-the-fight-to-uncover-covid-19s-origins?intcid=inline_amp

The issue for some reason became politicised as can be seen by the reaction of the hooting chimp upthread, but I don't see why that should prevent anyone from being interested in why it happened. Regardless of who their imagined fellow travellers are


In response to the comments above, if someone wants to refute the points actually made in the article, I'm all ears.

therattle posted:

Here’s a question: why does it matter? What difference does it make if it escaped or was contracted naturally?

deano posted:

Na just quicker to tell you to gently caress off.

so uh gently caress off?

crispix posted:

saj says open a window (if you can)

Mugsbaloney posted:

Well that's not very nice. Why would you say something like that?

JeremoudCorbynejad posted:

It really is like climate change isn't it. Each little wave of covid is like climate change. The longer we wait the more drastic the action we have to take to avert disaster until oops too late we're all hosed

crispix posted:

right wingers always seem to have this idea that you have a duty to debate them but actually you can tell them to gently caress off and get on with something more worthwhile

(i wasn't following the debate here, but it's a time saving tip nonetheless)

Mugsbaloney posted:

Sure here's a few- " Research for to make virus deadlier on basis that it can be used to study and pre empt dangerous evolutionary changes." For the rest imagine I typed the phrase gently caress off oval office a few hundred times

crispix posted:

right wingers always seem to have this idea that you have a duty to debate them but actually you can tell them to gently caress off and get on with something more worthwhile

(i wasn't following the debate here, but it's a time saving tip nonetheless)

Mugsbaloney posted:

Sure here's a few- " Research for to make virus deadlier on basis that it can be used to study and pre empt dangerous evolutionary changes."

Guavanaut posted:

In reality it shouldn't. If it was a Chinese lab bioweapon we should have copied the countries that had most preparedness for that: Japan, ROC/Taiwan, South Korea. If it wasn't then we should have copied them anyway because they seemed to do pretty well while we were eating poo poo.

As a conspiracy, it matters because if They know this and They aren't telling you about it, you are free to distrust everything else that They say about masks and lockdowns, which is why "it's a Chinese bioweapon" is often comorbid with "and masks don't work" and so on rather than "and that's why it's far more serious than the 'flu and we should really do something about it."

Necrothatcher posted:

I thought the latest official position was that it is very likely natural in origin but there's no conclusive evidence either way.

Doesn't exactly seem like tinfoil hat territory.

goddamnedtwisto posted:

The scary "gain of function" phrase was glommed onto by Infowars, Icke et. al. very, very early in the pandemic as absolute proof that this was an engineered bioweapon in the exact same way they took excerpts of extremely boring lanyardwank like Lockstep and The Great Reset of absolute proof of... gently caress it I don't even know what they're claiming they mean any more. It's all intimately woven into the Grand Unified Field Theory of white supremacy though and anyone Kramering into a thread throwing phrases around like that is less than half a step from telling you about white genocide.

It's like how there's nothing at all wrong to be opposed to globalised capitalism but if you hear someone ranting about The Globalists you can safely assume they're considerably more worried that George Soros using his Jewish Space Laser to make their kids not talk to them than they are about the neocolonialist looting of the Global South.

Mugsbaloney posted:

Ok so for those of you who are not super interested in assigning me sinister motives/ bad understanding of science/ calling me various names, Katherine Egan on episode 443 of Longform goes into some of the problems/ subtleties around this topic (which I think the reaction here exemplifies).

Suffice it to say that I think you don't have to be a wingnut to entertain a non-zoonotic origin, nor to entertain the idea that They- in this case, specific people at the WHO/ NIH indeed might have a motive to cover it up. The right has always used a kernel of truth to build its narratives around and piss in the well of knowledge. In the modern era it is impossible to stop information, but you can tarnish it by association.

I'm not going to engage with a lot of the stuff people have posted other than observe that I don't take it too seriously. I myself found the reasoning presented in the article and in the podcast persuasive- I'd be interested to know if you did too. If you didn't, then I'd be interested to know why.

If you want to call me names, that's a separate thing. I'm a morbidly obese man with poo poo eyesight and 0-0 amateur boxing record, come fight me irl i guess.

goddamnedtwisto posted:

"I opened a discussion with a direct crib of a fascist conspiracy theory with no surrounding context, why are you all being so mean to meeeee?"

kecske posted:

imo cases have been either been underreported or people who might usually regularly test have avoided testing entirely in order to not lose seeing family for christmas

feedmegin posted:

this is absolutely anecdotal but a several people I know have got it recently, and none of them (all vaxxed at least twice) have caught a serious case.

Bobby Deluxe posted:

post 1: please stop calling me names and engage with my arguments

post 2: *ignores argument and calls name*

Mugsbaloney posted:

Simple question, what if it isn't *just* a fascist conspiracy theory?

Mugsbaloney posted:

Mugsbaloney posted:

"Peter you've added nothing"

Seriously though get your in group warm and fuzzies somewhere else.

Mugsbaloney posted:

Simple question, what if it isn't *just* a fascist conspiracy theory?

Julio Cruz posted:

personally I think that the theory that covid was caused by mugsbaloney having sex with a dead badger is interesting and I'm yet to see any evidence to disprove it

why won't you debate meeeeeeeee

Jakabite posted:

I don’t think it’s all that outrageous to think that it could have come from a failure of containment. It’s just that usually when people harp on about it it’s an excuse to do a racism against Chinese people.

Strom Cuzewon posted:

If the who and un start to suggest it's a lab leak, then I'll pay attention.

goddamnedtwisto posted:

Simpler question, why did you feel the need to bring it up in the middle of a discussion of the current situation in the UK? I mean let's just pretend for a second that it's not been peddled from the very beginning by the fash - like even before the British government completely and totally botched their response - and been enthusiastically boosted by them ever since to excuse their Big Special Boy's inability to fulfill the simplest functions of government (search/replace US as appropriate) - what extra insight does it bring?

Hell let's go one step further and say the GoF tests being run at the Wuhan lab *were* responsible (there's literally no evidence of this whatsoever but hell I'll humour you) *and* the lab then allowed it to escape, or even deliberately released it... what? What is the thing you are asking us to think here? Time to gird our loins, fire up the Tridents, and go give Johnny Chinaman what-for like it was 1860 again? I mean best-case scenario here, if you're absolutely 100% right *and* don't actually want us to do anything about it, all you're actually doing is belting in to go "Heh, you *idiots* don't know this fact".

This late into this year though, with hundreds of thousands of deaths directly attributable to the rank incompetence and inadequacy of the neoliberal project to deal with anything that isn't tweaking tax credits, I don't particularly feel inclined to give the benefit of the doubt. Talks, like a fash, walks like a fash, I don't see why it behooves me to play twenty questions to work out if you're Just Asking Questions because you want the thrill of being the knower of secrets or because you want me to petrol-bomb a vaccination clinic.