zlacker

>>nnx+(OP)
It's interesting to see that with Donald Trump out of office, the "lab escape" hypothesis is not roundly dismissed as a right-wing conspiracy theory anymore.

>>incrud+I2
Nobody ever dismissed it. It has been a viable theory since the beginning. What was dangerous was pointing the finger at China and saying “this is all their fault!” without any evidence. There STILL is not evidence, but that doesn’t mean it should not be investigated as a source.

Dismissing the theory outright has never and will never be an option. I don’t like that this is what the team decided to do, and I suspect there is a lot of tension in this investigation.

>>beowul+N6
They absolutely did. See this NYT article. Ben Thompson of Stratechery discussed it in an excellent article linked below. Key excerpt from the NYT piece. Doesn’t get more official than that:

> Hoaxes, lies and collective delusions aren’t new, but the extent to which millions of Americans have embraced them may be. Thirty percent of Republicans have a favorable view of QAnon, according to a recent YouGov poll. According to other polls, more than 70 percent of Republicans believe Mr. Trump legitimately won the election, and 40 percent of Americans — including plenty of Democrats — believe the baseless theory that COVID-19 was manufactured in a Chinese lab.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/02/technology/biden-reality-...

https://stratechery.com/2021/mistakes-memes-and-foreign-grou...

>>graeme+s8
That is addressing the theory that the virus was manufactured in a lab, i.e with the intent to release. Not the idea that it was released accidentally. It is very different.

>>beowul+59
It doesn't say anything about "intent". The hypothesis that the virus was modified in a gain-of-function experiment in Wuhan is plausible.