zlacker

>>lazycr+(OP)
First gen Chinese, grew up in NA. Have contact with relatives "on the ground".

My own experience: Don't ever trust the Chinese government on issues that could potentially involve the reputation of the party. Note that I'm not saying don't trust what CCP says, ever (sometimes they actually do good things) - just not on issues that involve anything to do with how the world might perceive them.

Which is exactly what this issue is about.

That's not to say we have compelling evidence that this was a lab virus, either. I think, for me, it's a, "we don't know, but I wouldn't be shocked at all if it was a lab virus".

>>ttz+rc
Do we / did we even have the tech co be able to build this in a lab? I don't think we do.

It MIGHT have been possible but Occam's Razor says it's more plausible it evolved naturally and just jumped species.

FAR FAR FAR more plausible.

>>getpol+Vj
Why does it have to be "built"? It could have been isolated from bats and studied, and an error / human mistake occurred and it got out.

There's a rational reason to study this one, since SARS (1.0) was a big deal in the early 2000's, and anyway why wouldn't you study something you don't fully understand as a matter of course. It's not a stretch if it was found that it leaked from the lab by accident and a cover-up ensued.

>>mancer+7o
The problem is that an accidental release from a lab has been deliberately conflated with the idea of a bioweapon and labeled a conspiracy theory. Coupled with aggressive propaganda efforts from China, and the fact that the Trump Administration pushed the theory of a lab release (turning the concept into political kryptonite for more than 50% of the US population) its discussion has become verboten.

>>ern+rp
Well that's not surprising, we're trending towards a world of increase tightening of the exchange of data, fact checking, labels of "conspiracy", and there will of course be fallout that people will see in retrospect. Today the mainstream view is to knock the non-mainstream views out of acceptable discourse. I would say with QAnon and vaccine shennanigans, a lot of people support that. At some point something important will be covered up (such as during a war) and they won't be so gung ho. So swings the pendulum.