zlacker

>>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.

>>dimgl+Di1
It might be because you were saying it was "likely" despite any evidence? Ending up being right isn't a to anybody's credit if the original assumption was groundless.

(I'm not attacking you, I don't know what was your exact argument)

>>willia+Ek1
The initial outbreak was literally covered up. Conditioning on that fact, common sense would place more belief on “lab leak” and less on “natural origin.” Thus, in the Bayesian sense, one might describe a lab leak as “likely” relatively speaking despite lacking direct evidence such as lab notebooks for or against that hypothesis.

>>peytn+Ur1
Partly agree, but also keep in mind that the CCP is by nature secretive and authoritarian. IMO the cover-up still shifts the probability, but less than it might in another country where cover-ups are less "business as usual".

>>gred+Gt1
Devil’s advocate: the CCP seems quite proud of its pandemic response and appears to have had procedures in place to deal with SARS-like disease outbreaks. Their tone is triumphant. Given its past history with SARS and the fact that the WIV was specifically tasked with research on mitigation strategies for SARS-like illnesses, the CCP must have developed a playbook for outbreaks of natural SARS-like illnesses. Given their current tone, it’s very unlikely that playbook started with “first, cover up.” To me, it’s much more likely an accident happened given their behavior.