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Pangolins were highlighted as a possible link in 2020 but I think that was never more than just a theory. The closest relative to SARS cov 2 has been found in bats, not pangolins. And viruses can travel from bats to humans.
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Oct 1, 2022 14:21
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Rabelais D posted:I mean we know they were working with live bats in the Wuhan lab, they think the virus came from bats, China has had many lab leaks before, and the first mass outbreak happened to be in Wuhan where they were working with bat coronaviruses. Of all the places in the world. Not Yunnan, where those bats are from, but Wuhan. It's not exactly some crazy theory. Saying that the virus was deliberately engineered or whatever is the dumb fringe theory. To try to explain: Getting a virus to jump from an animal to a human host is extremely unlikely. Having the virus that infected that human then be able to infect other humans is also unlikely. These two things put together therefore become extremely unlikely. It is relatively (only relatively) easy to deliberately tweak a virus for a new host range, but doing so will leave... editing marks, I guess is the easy way to put it. In the absence of those editing marks, which again have not been found on any of the covid-19 strains, we have to assume that the virus is one of several wild strains. Wild strains transmission to human is a simple numbers game. That's it. So the question is, what percentage of total human-virus interaction occurs based on wildlife trade, and what percentage based on labwork? The answer, unless there are a *lot* of labs, is "mostly via wildlife trade". Now, it is theoretically possible that a lab could be set up to deliberately expose humans to wild strain viruses on an industrial scale, but that would be... really weird, since engineering gain-of-function would be much, much faster/cheaper/more reliable, if that's what you wanted. Coronaviruses emerge from wildlife or farmed animal populations every few years. SARS, MERS, more that never got popular names because they never got anywhere. Covid isn't unusual in that sense. It's unusual in being more transmissible than usual, and apparently in emerging and then spreading through places where local governments weren't ready or willing to do poo poo about it - first Wuhan, then Europe and the USA. Anyway, that's my assessment as someone who ran microbiology/virology journals for a few years. Take it or leave it, but if you're going to take a perspective based on "$country bad!", at least leave scientific stuff out of it.
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Oct 1, 2022 15:21
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Asymptomatic transmission was unusual too, from what I understand. Original SARS both was less contagious and didn't have asymptomatic carriers, so it was able to be contained even after breaking out of China.
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Oct 1, 2022 18:16
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The Economist released an 8 part series about the life of Xi Jinping https://www.economist.com/podcasts/2022/09/28/1-redder-than-red It covers his early life, as told by himself and the party, and major shifts in his policy changes. It's framed as a scathing tell all, but most of the things in this podcast have been mentioned in this thread around the time they happened. Still not a bad review or for people who only sometimes read the thread.
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Oct 2, 2022 04:24
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Atopian posted:To try to explain: And yet we have so many examples of it happening that your reasoning here becomes moot.
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Oct 2, 2022 04:34
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Megillah Gorilla posted:And yet we have so many examples of it happening that your reasoning here becomes moot. It's not a significant counter to say "your extremely unlikely thing actually happens several times a year!" when that is considered across all the animals and people on Earth. The point of "extremely unlikely" was to establish that if you want to have a solid chance at a virus jumping from animal host to human host, then brief/limited/occasional contact with a non-engineered virus - whether from a farm, wildlife, or a lab, won't cut it. Your options are either engineering a virus for a new host, which leaves traces in the genome of that virus and all descendants, or arranging exposure on a much wider scale - say, by farming or by routinely hunting/capturing/selling/eating wildlife for years. So for a hypothetical singular/occasional lab leak to have a reasonable chance of causing a host-shift event like this, it would be necessary for the virus to have been engineered to do so. Which, as mentioned, leaves traces. And, again as mentioned, such traces have not been found by any country on any covid strain, at least that I'm aware of.
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Oct 2, 2022 05:21
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https://twitter.com/doctorkarl/status/1241602531366539266
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Oct 2, 2022 13:42
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ninjoatse.cx posted:The Economist released an 8 part series about the life of Xi Jinping Is Xi more popular than jesus?
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Oct 2, 2022 18:30
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Ups_rail posted:Is Xi more popular than jesus? Not quite yet. There are 2.4 billion Christians and only 1.4 billion Chinese.
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Oct 2, 2022 18:56
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What about the overlap though? A small percentage (of a very large mumber) of Chinese are Christians so that should be subtracted from the total.
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Oct 2, 2022 19:15
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2nd Amendment posted:What about the overlap though? A small percentage (of a very large mumber) of Chinese are Christians so that should be subtracted from the total. Until the secret police finish confirming their allegiance they will be counted in both camps.
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Oct 2, 2022 19:41
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Ups_rail posted:Is Xi more popular than jesus? Possibly on Twitter
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Oct 2, 2022 19:42
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Ups_rail posted:Is Xi more popular than jesus? Are there any big religious figures whose whole Deal was being staid instead of charismatic? ascetics don’t count imho
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Oct 2, 2022 19:47
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eSports Chaebol posted:Are there any big religious figures whose whole Deal was being staid instead of charismatic? ascetics don’t count imho If you count the Roman deification of Emperors post-mortem, then Marcus Aurelius.
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Oct 2, 2022 19:50
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The junk collector posted:Until the secret police finish confirming their allegiance they will be counted in both camps. Please don't say camps that has negative connotations
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Oct 2, 2022 20:00
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Speaking of not speaking of camps. Why is Canada (and other governments) allowing the CCP to set up police stations in their countries? https://www.theglobeandmail.com/world/article-china-police-stations-citizen-crackdown/
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Oct 2, 2022 20:30
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The junk collector posted:Speaking of not speaking of camps. Probably because they dont know about them quote:
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Oct 2, 2022 20:38
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A person said that I hated Chinese people and women because I don’t think ghosts are real so now I’m curious about the Chinese relationship with the supernatural. Is belief in ghosts widespread? Are the ghost stories different than the types we have in America and Europe? I’m curious
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Oct 2, 2022 22:28
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thetoughestbean posted:A person said that I hated Chinese people and women because I don’t think ghosts are real so now I’m curious about the Chinese relationship with the supernatural. Is belief in ghosts widespread? Are the ghost stories different than the types we have in America and Europe? I’m curious non-believer ITT 
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Oct 2, 2022 22:33
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ninjoatse.cx posted:non-believer ITT My dead grandpa showed up at the end of my bed one night to tell me that ghosts aren’t real and if he’s going to come back all the way from the dead to tell me that then I’m going to believe him
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Oct 2, 2022 22:48
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thetoughestbean posted:A person said that I hated Chinese people and women because I don’t think ghosts are real so now I’m curious about the Chinese relationship with the supernatural. Is belief in ghosts widespread? Are the ghost stories different than the types we have in America and Europe? I’m curious In Hong Kong I was once waiting for someone, so I leaned up against a stone wall, and started whistling a little waiting tune. People started crossing the middle of the street to avoid me with looks of horror on their faces. It look me a while to realize I was leaning up against a graveyard wall, whistling, during ghost month (Ghosts can grab you through walls, don't lean on any, whistling attracts ghosts, graveyards are always haunted, and during ghost month all that is even worse)
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Oct 2, 2022 22:55
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thetoughestbean posted:A person said that I hated Chinese people and women because I don’t think ghosts are real so now I’m curious about the Chinese relationship with the supernatural. Is belief in ghosts widespread? Are the ghost stories different than the types we have in America and Europe? I’m curious I can't offer data but everyone I ever brought it up with in China believed ghosts were real and was terrified of them. Easiest way to gently caress with students. I've heard a lot about hungry ghosts but I never looked up the stories. I know there are a bunch of different ones. My favorite Asia ghost thing was in Korea, not sure if it exists elsewhere, but you're not supposed to clean your apartment when you move because then the ghosts will know you're leaving and follow you. Absolute chad move by whichever lazy rear end originally invented that story to justify not cleaning. Horatius Bonar posted:whistling attracts ghosts Whistling at night in Korea causes a snake to attack you.
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Oct 2, 2022 22:58
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thetoughestbean posted:A person said that I hated Chinese people and women because I don’t think ghosts are real so now I’m curious about the Chinese relationship with the supernatural. Is belief in ghosts widespread? Are the ghost stories different than the types we have in America and Europe? I’m curious Asian condo owners at the University of B.C. are protesting plans to build a hospice nearby, saying they're afraid of plummeting property values -- and ghosts.
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Oct 2, 2022 23:31
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I was having dinner recently with a mainlander, a Hong Konger, and a Malaysian Chinese and all nodded sagely and agreed with the Hong Konger that her recent apartment troubles most likely had to do with ghosts. Also this isn't ghost-related exactly, but my mother once scolded me for carrying a book with me onto the casino floor in Macao during a family vacation since "book" is a homonym for "lose." Not that SHE believed it, of course, but it would make people upset and we can't be having that.
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Oct 2, 2022 23:49
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thetoughestbean posted:A person said that I hated Chinese people and women because I don’t think ghosts are real so now I’m curious about the Chinese relationship with the supernatural. Is belief in ghosts widespread? Are the ghost stories different than the types we have in America and Europe? I’m curious Let’s put it this way - the Chinese Communist Party has a policy to censor or ban films that depict ghosts mostly because they’re often a metaphor for corrupt government officials lol
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Oct 2, 2022 23:52
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My cantonese partner doesn't really believe in the old superstitions because she's a modern educated woman but also she absolutely believes in them right down to her core. Long time ago I had a taiwanese partner and she would tell restaurants we had three plus one people to avoid saying four.
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Oct 3, 2022 00:13
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thetoughestbean posted:My dead grandpa showed up at the end of my bed one night to tell me that ghosts aren’t real and if he’s going to come back all the way from the dead to tell me that then I’m going to believe him lol
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Oct 3, 2022 00:20
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ili posted:Long time ago I had a taiwanese partner and she would tell restaurants we had three plus one people to avoid saying four. lol Related - my students flipped out when I mentioned my phone number had multiple 4’s in it
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Oct 3, 2022 00:22
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maybe they keep those phone numbers in reserve to give to foreigners
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Oct 3, 2022 00:28
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bob dobbs is dead posted:maybe they keep those phone numbers in reserve to give to foreigners a number ending in 4444 would be pretty sweet
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Oct 3, 2022 00:33
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Tomn posted:
I worked as a dealer in the Melbourne Casino for 2 1/2 years, and I can fully believe that. Chinese people, Malaysian Chinese people, and Vietnamese people were our bread and butter. And the amount of seemingly minor random things that were considered "lucky" or "unlucky" was astounding. As was the deathly serious manner in which these things were treated. But this also could just be the insanity of problem gamblers, as opposed to a cultural thing.
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Oct 3, 2022 00:45
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sticksy posted:Let’s put it this way - the Chinese Communist Party has a policy to censor or ban films that depict ghosts Are there any articles on this? Everything I've read shows it stemming from superstition being viewed as "feudal" as opposed to the rational immortal science of Marxism. Also I feel like the censors would be very bad at picking up subtext of any kind.
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Oct 3, 2022 00:52
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When looking for apartments in HK earlier this year, realtors would occasionally respond like this.  Getting a 6 month fixed period agreement in HK is tough so I'd let Satan himself claw on my walls to get one in a flat that isn't an utterly filthy shoebox.
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Oct 3, 2022 01:00
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I remember I had a classmate in elementary school who was Korean and requested that her homework get marked with a pen that wasn’t red. She said something about names being written in red was supposed to be for dead people iirc
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Oct 3, 2022 01:06
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In my experience, supernatural beliefs regarding ghosts are nearly ubiquitous among Chinese people. In the west, there seems to be a culture of telling children that ghosts aren't real and can't hurt you, even among people who secretly fear ghosts. In the east, it's more like "we don't talk or even joke about that poo poo but if it comes up yeah it's fuckin real." There are even home listings dedicated to selling at a discount if the property is significantly/recently haunted https://www.spacious.hk/en/hong-kong/resources/tragic-events
Devils Affricate fucked around with this message at 01:22 on Oct 3, 2022 |
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Oct 3, 2022 01:10
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My wife is Chinese and Roman Catholic and she crosses her fingers every time she passes a graveyard, told her parents not to buy a house thats address was 44 Deepdale or something where the owner's kid had drowned in the pool, and won't let me watch any ghost hunting reality shows whenever she's around.
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Oct 3, 2022 01:20
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McGavin posted:My wife is Chinese and Roman Catholic
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Oct 3, 2022 01:35
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ili posted:My cantonese partner doesn't really believe in the old superstitions because she's a modern educated woman but also she absolutely believes in them right down to her core. Something like this is super common. Ask a bunch of young/educated/city people about this, list off a bunch of beliefs, and some big % will be utterly ridiculous superstition, some big % will be real and dangerous. Of course, if they're from different regions, different beliefs will swap categories, so then the argument starts in earnest. Which is hilarious. But I mean, ask Germans if water has a special sort of energy in it, ask British people about what happened in India a couple of hundred years ago, ask Americans about their system of government. People have lots of unjustified or unjustifiable beliefs despite theoretically being educated in logic and critical thinking. And it's also hilarious to ask groups of them.
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Oct 3, 2022 02:11
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Atopian posted:Something like this is super common. Hey wait, a lot of Americans know that our system of government is fundamentally broken, we just don’t know how to fix it
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Oct 3, 2022 02:19
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My wife and I are looking to buy a place, and we went to see a super cheap place near a nice part of Taichung 6 months ago. Huge 4bd/2br apartment with ample balcony space for laundry (although I would buy a dryer because my god, hanging laundry sucks.) I loved it. It would have been maybe 150,000 USD cheaper in comparison for a similar size and location, and age (which for Taiwanese homes, there is a significant difference if you are buying a place built pre-and-post 9/21 earthquake. Getting something made in the mid-90s has a much higher chance of being tofu construction) Wife said absolutely not. Bad feng shui. Like everything that you could think of for bad feng shui this place had it. I was very furious, and I called my parents to complain. My dad said to me, "everything bad that happens in your life will now be blamed on living there if you buy it. Do you want to have 50 years of arguments about it?" Good dad advice. Bad with money but hopefully good with life. Still looking for a place.
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Oct 3, 2022 02:54
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