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There's also "non-engineered lab leak theory," that the place that actively collects coronaviruses and has had safety issues in the past accidentally leaked (another?) one. I find this much more plausible than the sheer volume of coincidences that require it to be wet market a few blocks away or the actively engineered version.
Wet market theory strikes me as motivated reasoning by people too smart for their own good.
well tbf for a few years talking about it would get you banned from most social media and possibly get you fired, getting the government to care now is no easier than it was then, AI has sucked all the doomer-energy up, etc.
Shitposting and buying a UVC light are a reasonable stopping point for fighting a massively uphill battle that most people just want to forget and ignore.
edit: the fight about the origin is largely nerd-sniping at this point, and it is interesting/depressing that more people haven't latched on to "the specific origin doesn't matter; GoF is dangerous and should be banned anyways."
That one is far better except for as the rootclaim debate and Scott Alexander pointed out, an accidental release just happening to point to the wet market is incredibly odd too.
Of the many many more crowded and indoor areas for a leaked virus to spread, it happened to be the one place, and only the one place, where natural origin makes the most sense? Not a researchers apartment complex, or nearby stores, or movie theaters, or their children's school, or anything else?
The lab leak theory can either say "that's how well it was covered up" in which case okay you can just do that endlessly there is no beating an argument that lack of proof doesn't matter or say "it was intentionally released there to look natural" in which case it's no longer accidental leak theory.
The wet market is not the one and only place where zoonosis makes sense.
The zoonosis theory is that bats spread it to an intermediary animal (like a raccoon dog, civet, or pangolin) and from there to humans. So anywhere that one of these animals were handled or sold could spread it to humans, literally thousands of places. People have some of these animals as pets even. And the zoonosis people still have no idea which animal is the missing link. No animal sold at the market had a natural reservoir of the Covid-19 virus in its native population.
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It's not even odd, let alone "incredibly odd". I hope Scott didn't say those exact words; it's foolish.
Does it really need explaining why a wet market is better for spreading a virus than an apartment complex?
In what apartment complex do you get:
You're a virus, intent on spreading as much as possible. Do you want to spawn in (a) a wet market, or (b) an apartment complex?
It's utterly absurd to suggest that it just "happened" to be a wet market, pretty much the optimal place for a virus to spread. You know this, obviously.
Not an argument, which is why you gloss over it. And if "lack of proof" doesn't matter, your comment doesn't matter. Evidence is what matters, and that's a little more complicated than just scoffing at people.
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The American public - like all publics - now cares about everything equally due to knowing and hearing about everything.
If this were post wwii but pre Vietnam we would be at war.
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