My question is, why? What does it matter whether the virus originated from a lab or from a wet market - it isn't any more dangerous if it came from a lab, nor does knowing the origin really help dealing with this crisis at all.
It is certainly interesting to know where it did originate, and that knowledge could inform a debate on the future of (respectively) wet markets and animal husbandry practices, or BSL facilities, but these don't strike me as particularly emotionally charged topics, and in any case the posts I'm referring to don't mention these debates...
Anybody care to explain why you would respond so strongly to claims of lab origin?
In my "bat-shit insane" worldview, wars (including recent ones such as Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya) are fought for power and control over resources and global policies. They are not fought for the reasons given such as deposing dictators because they are dictators.
So in this "insane" worldview, the activities of some states take on a less altruistic character and more a brutal practicality. In this worldview, the operating paradigm is not essentially civil. It is "might makes right".
Now if you go further and put the deployment of nuclear weapons into that context, you will have an even more "extreme" worldview.
So in this paradigm, China may, like other countries before it, seek to improve it's access to resources and general power. And like other countries before it, it would be operating in the "brutally practical" paradigm.
So if one was brave and "crazy" then one could speculate that the Covid-19 event may have been the Hiroshima of the bioweapon age. And even if it wasn't intentional, it could be said to serve that purpose.
Even "crazy" people hope that isn't truly part of the paradigm now. But some of the braver "crazies" might still be able to admit some slight possibility.
It is and always has, since the beginning of conflict. That's the only rule that can't be broken.
>Hiroshima of the bioweapon age.
It's not crazy, it's certainly plausible. I've heard theories that China would suffer the outbreak better because they would be better at locking down the population than the West and therefore suffer less economic damage. Such a thing could destroy the Western economy, particularly the US economy (no safety nets) so China could recover more ground or possibly take the economic lead.
It's the, "lets both take poison but I have built up an immunity," strategy as seen on The Princess Bride. Total lockdowns being the immunity.
Having said that, if it did come from a lab, I suspect the lab was designed to counter outbreaks (China has been wearing masks for several years now due to various outbreaks), and an accident happened. Due to the contagiousness during the incubation period and lack of serious symptoms in much of the infected, it had spread and already taken hold of the population before the government could effectively react.