False dialectic exactly according to the lack of evidence formula. Also we lack evidence exactly because Chinese communist institutions refused to cooperate in independent investigation and actively acted against it - they destroyed data, slaughtered animals on the market, bleached residual evidence and gagged researchers. So it is doubly ignorant to use lack of public evidence as evidence of absence.
I can also reverse it and say that based on the publicly available information none of the animals was proven NOT to be infected with SARS-CoV-2. It is just Chinese government communication that none of the staff or animals tested positive, none of the live samples or anything like that remains. Which is highly suspicious as it seems unlikely that none of the hundreds of staff were tested positive in the middle of supposedly zoonotic outbreak inside Wuhan in March-April of 2020. But this is not even the main point, it is possible that the leaked animal was from some earlier batch of research that leaked on the market in 2019. Testing animals in March 2020 would not be proof of absence of a virus in animals in 2019. But again, we do not even have that as Chinese government refused to cooperate.
I can also say that there is no publicly available information that would provide evidence of any actual zoonotic link. Zoonotic origin is all circumstantial, there is no "animal zero" proven, there is no cluster of infected animals or any physical link of infection and mutation from bat to human. There is no hard evidence of zoonotic origin, so it is pure speculation and fantasy story bordering on conspiracy.
And I literally mean it - it presupposes that some breeders traded various animals including bats in some hidden breeding stations where the virus spread between animals until it reached Wuhan market and jumped on a human. There is no proof for any of that - there is no evidence of any breeding farms with the final virus strain or any of its its precursors, there is no link leading from bats to any other animal virus reservoir or anything like that. It is a literal conspiracy theory inventing invisible wildlife smugglers, underhanded breeders and unscrupulous sellers in complex supply chain who delivered deadly virus to Wuhan and killed millions of people on Earth without leaving a shred of evidence. In past zoonotic outbreaks, we were able to trace animal reservoirs and vectors easily such as SARS-1 in 2002-3 or MERS 2012. How is such a preposterous hypothesis more plausible than a another lab leak that happens all the time.
"A lab leak virus that looks plausibly zoonotic just happened to have its first superspreader event at a wet market 10km from the lab" is not an unlikely coincidence - see Rootclaim's post-debate rebuttal."
I can revert it. Is it plausible that one of the hundreds of provably infected animals held in cages in lab down the road was the source? What kind of false dialectic was presented in the debate - if the source of infection was the market or the lab - and if it was the market it automatically was zoonotic, meaning no lab leak?
I don't think there ever was a real disagreement of null hypothesis of the origin of COVID. The situation is as follows. We have the only biolab with Biosafety level 4 certification in China that studies bat coronaviruses related to SARS for decades, that biolab is Wuhan Institute of Virology. They produce papers where they admit that they engineer specific bat coronaviruses such as this one from 2016 named Bat Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome-Like Coronavirus ORF_X Modulates the Host Immune Response in Journal of Virology. And now mysteriously in a country of 1.4 billion people with 100 cities with population of over 1 million people and out of almost 40,000 wet markets in China we see a new strain of bat coronavirus turning into COVID-19. And this event happens a few miles from the institute. By this fact alone the likelihood is overwhelming on human origin of the virus.
Add to the opaque nature of Chinese communist institutions. We have precedents for this such as in Soviet Union, where they wanted to bury even catastrophes like Chernobyl, which only had to be confirmed by outside sources - two days later in Sweden where they detected increased radiation. This is nothing new. We have proof of Chinese scrubbing data from the lab - they literally deleted their database of tens of thousands of tested animals in September 2019 due to "hacking". They bleached everything in the market destroying biological data. We also have circulation of claims and counterclaims of Wuhan employees being hospitalized for alergies or cold. By the way, to this day we do not have any confirmed deaths from COVID of any of the hundreds of staff of the institute, including any old goats and administrators - despite the supposed zoonotic origin of the Virus and catastrophic situation in Wuhan. And now some people just say we lack evidence for lab leak hypothesis. No shit, but we also lack evidence for zoonotic origin, it is all just circumstantial.
Lab leak is the most parsimonious and likely explanation of the whole thing and any other explanation such as some mysterious transmission from bat to pangolin to thousand of miles travel to Wuhan is the real conspiracy theory. Also it is not without precedent, there were two documented leaks of SARS just in 2004 in Bejing biolevel 3 lab investigating SARS. Back then it was concluded that the lab was hugely negligent and did not apply the safety level to proper standards. By the way the ascendancy of Wuhan lab to study viruses was exactly in the aftermath of Beijng catastrophe and by 2010 the Wuhan became the crown jewel of Chinese research into SARS and other coronavirus infections. In fact this Beijing-Wuhan rivalry was fueled by different commie institutional players inside the Chinese power structures (Ministry of Health vs Army/Academy of Sciences) and could potentially be one of the reasons and motivations for cutting the corners when it comes to safety, including conducting part of the research in Biolevel 2 and 3 facilities.
Anyways, I do not care if it was some sort of breach of containment, a bioweapon research or even age old communist corruption where some janitor sold infected animals scheduled for incineration to the Wuhan wet market for $10 profit as it is usual in communist countries. Which by the way shows the false dialectic of "Market Origin" vs "Lab Leak" - these are not mutually exclusive, it is not impossible that an infected personnel or even infected animals leaked from the Lab into the market few miles from said lab. Both theories have plausible explanation of "infected animals at the market", just competing source of said animals. And even in this scenario - what is the most likely source of said infected animals. A bat cave thousand of miles away transmitting it to to pangolin or racoon or dog or civet that ended up in said market? Or that the source was literal hundreds of provably infected animals in cages a few miles down the road. That the virus leaked from the lab is still the most ready explanation of the situation especially by virtue of opaqueness of communist regime.
Imagine that you had the same standard for any other thing. Let's say that a local corrupt politician who had provable ties to local mafia suddenly won $1 million in a lottery. What would be the most plausible explanation:
- He was just a lucky winner
- He was gifted the winning lottery ticket from local mafia, who purchased or even robbed it from some anonymous local lottery winner
And now it seems that all journalists and academia are for some reason going for "nothing to see here", or "lottery ticket is valid and not counterfeit" and any other number of explanations. And moreover they would claim that the mafia tie is a "conspiracy theory" and an offence, for which you will be depersoned and cancelled. In the past no respectable journalist would drop this story, and the corruption angle would never be declared as "conspiracy theory" using strawman story of how the lottery ticket is not fake etc.
georgioz
1d ago
When I read something that, presumably, is the human author's thoughts, only for it to turn out to be LLM's output, I feel a similar betrayal of trust as when I read something purportedly factual that turns out to be fictional, even if not actively meant to deceive.
I agree, but only partially. My red line is AI assisted human writing as opposed to pure AI bot writing. The point being that we already lived in this reality. For instance for years and years youtubers and bloggers and forum posters used computer algorithms to evaluate their content creation. If everything you create in your video is informed by the algorithm from the length, language used, thumbnail even to analysis of content that has highest chance of viral impact - you were as much a slave to "AI" in 2019 as you are in 2026 if you use AI for research or refining of your post. The original idea of "human writing for humans by humans" is long gone.
Right to bodily autonomy means the right to suicide.
Why? People in USA literally have second amendment right and it is curtailed by many, many stipulations but yet everybody pretends or even firmly believes that the right exists. Why you cannot have right to bodily autonomy except suicide? You already have many such stipulations, for instance your right to bodily autonomy and many other rights are suspended if you are in prison. There is right to bodily autonomy except certain mandatory vaccinations etc. What is another stipulation changing?
georgioz
6d ago
I like Matt Walsh take on this. Some people believe that AI has very significant apocalypse potential, thus AI executives are literally building a bomb about to kill us all. And the response? "Ah, you are silly! AI executives only spread fake doomsday propaganda trying to scare the population in order to get competitive advantage, power and money."
And this is supposed to be "there is nothing to worry about, just move along, nothing to see here" argument? It is horrible either way.
They were "provably infected" by coronavirus and it is proven by loads of research on that published by WIV. You shifted the goalpost that there is no proof of animals in the lab being infected by this specific SARS-CoV-2 strain. I agree, there is no proof mostly due to purposeful destruction of data and samples. On the other hand there is also no proof of any animal infected by any coronavirus in some mystical smuggler/breeder supply chain leading to Wuhan needed for zoonotic origin.
Quite to the contrary. The zoonotic origin story has the same problem that you presented - there is no direct ancestor found anywhere in the wild. It was not found near Wuhan or anywhere else. The distance toward COVID-19 strains require quite a leap. So this fact does not save zoonotic origin. So you require rigorous proof of plausible research in biolab that could produce the exact SARS-CoV-2 strain of the virus. And lack of evidence is evidence of absence. But you do not require the same evidence for zoonotic origin, which should leave massive trail up until it reached Wuhan market from either Laos or Yunnan or some other unknown bat cave thousand miles and decades of natural mutations away from what was produced in form of two lineages of SARS-CoV-2. That is isolated demand for rigor.
Also I am not slinging "allegations" but facts about Red Chinese authorities. They refused to cooperate, provide data, samples or anything. How is that an allegation? You yourself agree by saying that:
So yes, Red Chinese authorities are purposefully obtuse and dishonest.
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