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[return to "The WHO-China search for the origins of the coronavirus"]
1. dimgl+Di1[view] [source] 2021-03-28 20:58:52
>>nnx+(OP)
I was called a conspiracy theorist on Reddit last year for saying that this likely came from the lab in Wuhan. Now it's a possibility? It's getting incredibly frustrating to go online and be constantly attacked for having common sense views.
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2. 13415+Mo1[view] [source] 2021-03-28 21:37:14
>>dimgl+Di1
"possible" does not imply "likely". It was always a possibility, the only thing we know with relative certainty is that it originated from near Wuhan and that the virus is not engineered. But it could have been lab grown. The problem is the lack of concrete evidence for this thesis.

I'd say that it's very likely that you did not present any concrete evidence for the lab theory last year, neither do you have any now. So as far as I'm concerned you're still in conspiracy theory territory.

Here is the real problem, though: It's not really a common sense view. The only reasonable common sense view is to remain agnostic in such matters until enough evidence is discovered. If you have thousands of conspiracy theorists throwing around thousands of different claims around about something, then surely one or two may in hindsight turn out to be right. That doesn't mean they presented a reasonable view or aren't conspiracy theorists.

Just to make this clear, I'm not talking about you personally, of course. Maybe you argued very well and convincingly and presented some great evidence a year ago. But the fallacious thought pattern is a huge problem in online discussions. Sometimes you don't even need to consider thousands of conspiracy theorists, some people are so prolific online that they make a lot of different claims about a lot of of different topics, and then, when they happen to be right in hindsight once, feel confirmed.

On a side note (not related to the above post at all), another issue in online debates I've grown to really hate is that many people online have become extremely dismissive towards experts and come up with extremely obvious counter-arguments as if the experts hadn't considered them. In every single case they have, of course. It's crazy how much stupidity some people tend to attribute to experts but not to themselves.

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