The word “debunked” has gained such popularity among journalists and pundits over the past several years because it helps them achieve one of their primary goals, which is to project the unearned impression of moral and political superiority. If you’re in a position to declare to the public that a Bad Idea has hereby been “debunked,” that must make you a Serious Person with access to Serious Knowledge, or otherwise in possession of some status marker associated with authority and expertise. This appropriation of status is fake — a scam — but that’s irrelevant to whether the status can be
Moral and political superiority is a heavy burden. Those who carry this need a space that is free from criticism and harm. They also need footrubs from the pleebs so that they can continue the work.
I have now got to the point with the US commercial media that I arrived at in the mid-'00s regarding the US Defense Dept: if the Pentagon says something, assume the opposite because they are lying.
I am now seriously wondering whether the election really was stolen . . . not because I have any evidence that it was, but simply because the media are so emphatic and vociferous in denying that it was.
In re: your headline, that’s exactly the approach I’ve used these last 5 years. You can discern the outline of the prevailing narrative of our masters by reading what Snopes, Politifact, et. al. have to say about the news of the day. They are pretty reliably standing the truth on it’s head day in and day out.
I've always seen "debunked" as short-hand for "X is untrue. I don't need to prove it all over again. Joe Smith has already done the work to prove it. You must take my word for it. No, I don't have to show you Joe's work. Wow, you live under a rock if you haven't heard of Joe's work. Everyone else already knows X is untrue. You're a special kind of confused and misinformed. No point talking to you."
For election fraud issues I recommend reviewing Matt Braynards work with the Boter Integrity Project. He concentrated on ballot issues only, nothing to do with computers. He matched voter info with Change of address and recorded death data bases. His group also did phone surveys in some cases calling “unlikely” voters (hadn’t voted in a while) who in fact voted this time. Many said they had not voted so clearly someone voted in their name. He did sampling and then projected the possible total impact and whether it could have affected the election. Very important to say that he doesn’t know which candidate benefited from the apparently illegal ballot. His findings covered votes by people who had moved, dead people, votes from commercial addresses, large number of votes from the same address. Large votes from the same P.O. Box, votes by unlikely voters. Etc. These are the issues the states are trying to address.
Based on your own assessment of the track record of elite "debunkings", not sure why you would be a "skeptic" of election fraud claims, at least more so than you would of any other claim.
Even though I think MT is tiptoeing around the tulips when it comes to the 2020 election, I'd listen to every episode of that, and give him moar of my money.
Can anybody recall an example of the NYT or WaPo asserting in a front-page story or headline that a statement made or theory supported by an elected Democrat is “false”? I don’t mean an argument or analysis: just flatly described as “false”, with no supporting material.
Completely agree but for one point: “ the lab leak theory was never “debunked” at the time journalists were confidently proclaiming it debunked; in fact, its plausibility was increasing.”
Nope. Its plausibility is exactly where it was months ago as the evidence available for and against has not changed one jot. There is a great temptation to take something that was un-debunked as more plausible than it was before claims that it was debunked. This is false. We are back to where we were before pundits ran their mouths about issues they knew nothing about. And that place is that we do not know how COVID originated. There are many many logical possibilities, but there are vast wholes. The most likely story is that it is a natural development as we have many instances of such e.g. Sars, Ebola etc. The lab leak only gained traction because it has proven hard IN ONE YEAR to give a convincing story of how it could have naturally arisen and infected humans. But one year is not a long time. Indeed it is a very very very short time. It took 15 years to het decent accounts for Sars, 20 for Ebola. So the raly wuestion right now is not if the lab leak story is true, but why we all of a sudden care. And it seems to me that there is every reason to think that this is tied to the bi-partisan efforts to ring fence China. It is part and parcel of the rest of the anti-China “news” we are constantly being fed. Dont get sucked in.
They've tested 80,000 animals and not found any with SARS-CoV-2. That, in and of itself, would make lab leak hypothesis more likely. There's also been new information about lab workers getting ill. It's hard to make a case that lab leak is no more likely now than when this matter first arose.
We have no evidence that lab workers were sick from covid. And this “evidence” came from the intelligence community (need I say more?) and were assertions not evidence.
As for the animal checks. The fact is we dont know how covid arose and the straight forward hypotheses have not been verified. How surprising is this? Not at all. As I noted, it took 15 years to figure out Sars. So here is the argument after 1 year we dont have a good transmission vector. In fact, after 1 year we are not exactly sure which bats are the source. Therefore, it must have been lab created. Pretty bad argument. Reasoning from ignorance is always weak. There is no evidence IN FAVOR of lab leak and no dispositive evidence AGAINST natural zoonotic source. In fact, there is no dispositive evidence that the virus originated in China only that the first major outbreak was there. So basically we don’t know much. And when you don’t know much many options are possible. But the big fact is that we currently don’t know and in that situation the most likely source is the one we find most commonly; natural transmission from some animal. Is this the right conclusion? Who knows. Maybe time will tell, though given the high level of politicization of the issue, if it is a lab leak we may never have any good evidence supporting this.
For those interested in some science, here is Josh Rosenau making key points about the 80k (ooh a big number!) and putting it and the research to date in useful perspective: https://twitter.com/JoshRosenau/status/1402826462953017347
You have missed the point. Consider: You have a container with 1000 envelopes in it. One of them has a dollar in it, the others are empty. You pull an envelope from the container, open it, and find it empty. The odds of choosing the envelope with the dollar the next time are now greater. That is to say, they are not "exactly where they were" prior to eliminating the first envelope.
My mistake, I should have said we are not SUBSTANTIALLY more informed than we were before. As Rosenau points out, the space of options is HUGE or potentially so. The fact that we have not cracked the problem to date means little as the space of possible covid sources is vast and we have looked at a very very very small sample. How do we know we are just starting? Beciase this is exactly what we found with Sars and Ebola. It takes decades to figure this out, if then. So the 80k number is in practical terms a red herring, as he points out. Your reply is right technically, but irrelevant practically. That said, if you really want this win, I am happy to give it to you. Btw, if the options are vast then your example should be better presented as: a dollar in one of a billion envelopes. You open one. The odds of choosing the envelope with the dollar are now greater. Question: how much more would you be willing to give up for the next guess? Would you even take the bet? Doubt it. That’s what I mean by practically irrelevant.
Btw, did you note his discussion of the two strains of covid and how this argues against lab creation. This is a newish point that also speaks against the lab leak claims. If this is right, then we are not exactly where we were before, there is MORE reason to reject the lab leak account for now.
Technically yes, practically no. Numbers need a context, as Dean Baker has been pointing out for years. Michael’s point was technically sound, but it is practically irrelevant if Rosenau is right. And that, I think, is the main issue.
That said, you are 100% right. This is not a competition and I am sorry I snarkily treated it as one. Good point which I hope to be able to absorb fully. Thx.
You do not seem particularly informed on this point. There is a massive amount of strong circumstantial evidence for the lab leak - much has been discovered over the past year. There, so far, has not been one jot - NOT ONE JOT - of circumstantial evidence for a natural spillover. I hate to use this phrase, but here it is appropriate: Please educate yourself.
We will have to agree to disagree. There is very little decent evidence circumstantial or otherwise. There are many assertions and hypotheticals. There is enough uncertainty that those who wish to be persuaded by lab leak stories will find something to hang onto. However, the evidence is very thin, or so I believe. And worse, the sources for much of this evidence should be considered very suspect. I believe nothing the Intelligence Community peddles unless backed by surveyable evidence.
Good comment. I always ask “Cui Bono” when the mighty Wurlitzer propaganda machine kicks into overdrive on some subject. The slime-mold that is the western empire has every possible reason to fear the Chinese, not because they want to rule the world, but because they don’t want to be ruled by us. We can peacefully coexist with Russia and China (and Iran etc), if the psychopaths that run our empire would be happy with a multipolar world. They can’t because, well, they are psychopaths. It would be the most incredible irony and tragedy if the beautiful idea that is (was) America ends up causing the extermination of human civilization.
You mean Baltimore’s claims that there was a smoking gun that this was likely produced by gain of function interventions? This has been retracted by him and vigorously contested by many. Could you please reference the evidence. Thx
Two United States experts have said on June 6 that “damning” science strongly indicates that COVID-19 causing novel coronavirus, is man-made and optimised in a lab for maximum infectivity before leading to a pandemic last year. In an opinion piece for the Wall Street Journal published on Sunday, Dr. Steven Quay and Richard Muller noted two crucial pieces of evidence to back their claim of SARS-CoV-2 being manufactured in a laboratory after the theory was long derided as little more than speculation.
The reason it was crapped on my MSM earlier is because the story originated with Trump and the largely pro Dem media discredited it to discredit him. Since then, Biden has become president and there is now a bi-partisan consensus that China is the enemy. This consensus has resulted in reorientation of the defense budget to “contain” and weaken China and in a recently passed bill to make the US ready to take China on as our number 1 adversary. As part of this there has been a lot of coverage in the press about Chinese human rights abuses in both Honk Kong and Xiangxing wrt the Uyghers. Gary Zone has done some excellent coverage on this if you are interested. At any rate, as this anti China consensus built up, we get a reappraisal of the covid leak hypothesis. I doubt the Chinese did much to move the story in the US. The Trump antipathy sufficed. I have no doubt that once Trump weaponized the lab leak story the Chinese became very defensive. I doubt any country would have reacted differently. Indeed, for example, there are very credible reasons for thinking that the US engaged in bio warfare in Korea during the war (See Nicolson Baker’s book on this) and though it is over 60 years ago we are still not allowed to see the papers relating to this, as Baker’s book outlines in detail. So, China is acting defensively because it has reason to think that the leak story has been weaponized. Note, this is consistent with them also having something to hide (as the US probably does wrt Korean bio warfare) but given this reasonable perception on their part the behavior you see from them is overdetermined and so we can conclude little from their defensiveness.
Your last point is the most important one. It is claimed that we need to find out what happened so that we can prevent it from happening again. I think this IS true if the cause is zoonotic. It will plausibly help prevent future developments of covid like viruses if we can figure out what animals they came from and how they got to us. So it is important, though very hard, to figure out how this might have happened.
I dont think the same is the case if it was a lab leak. Say it was. What will we learn that lab leaks are possible and we should take vigorous precautions to prevent them? Well we know this already and this is a constant theme wrt these fancy labs that do dangerous work. That there is a risk that comes from gain of function research? Well again, we know this but it seems the decision was made long ago to live with the risk. It seems that the US gvmt funds a lot of this kind of research already and I doubt it will stop. So what we stand to find out isthat soemthing we know to be dangerous and risky is dangerous and risky. What to do? We already know what to do, we just have not done it for various reasons.
So, to my mind there is an important asymmetry regarding the importance of these answers. The lab leak will tell us nothing new, the zoonotic story would. But, in addition, the lab leak story will play an important propaganda role in the current context. And the role is so useful that it will likely prevent any honest investigation anyhow. So, not only would we learn nothing much of value, but we are unlikely to get an honest investigation. The US currently has too much at stake in sticking it to China and so, like the Iraqi WMDs, it is unlikely truth is what will be the object of the investigation. You can, btw, see how politicized the issue is by noting that Biden asked the Intelligence community to lead it and gave them 90 days to come up with a result. If what you wanted was the truth you would have asked for a neutral international panel (if one is devisable) led by scientists, sorta like the WHO panel that already did an investigation which the US has rejected. At any rate, having the CIA lead the charge is not a recipe for honesty.
If you take a look at the news reports from places like the WSJ which revived the lab leak theory you will note that they are written by some of the same people (Gordon) who brought you the WMD reporting on Iraq. I dont know about you, but this does not fill me with confidence. Gordon is the recent source of the flu stricken Chinese scientists (no evidence provided except say so, btw). At any rate, my main point is that this story is going to be very hard to establish for reasons of US domestic anti China politics. We should be very very wary.
I suspect that there are some issues over which we don't agree. But let me try. I am no expert in these matters but I am happy to believe that gain of function research is dangerous and should be closely monitored. The points you make here suggest that we have known this for a while and so finding out if recent covid is due to a leak would not materially affect the conclusion that this kind of research should be very closely controlled, and maybe forbidden. That, in fact, was my point. We don't need to find out the "truth" in this case to come to this reasonable conclusion.
Where I think we disagree is on how China handled covid. I think that what you saw was what one would expect to see from the FIRST country recognizing that they were faced with a new disease. They acted slowly and cautiously. Also bureaucrats tried to control info flow because of the economic-political implications of declaring the disease a pandemic. Shutting Wuhan down was a very costly thing to do and deciding to do so was certainly a complex decision for ANYONE. Some of what the Chinese did, I believe that anyone would have done. Look at how long it took for the Europe and the US to jump into action even after it was clear what was afoot. The idea that going from discovery to public announcement in less than a month (discovery in early January, full disclosure and public action by end of January) was dilatory strikes me as harsh. I also suspect that most of the info control was due to local politicians trying to crises manage what they hoped was not a problem. It was when the central gvmt got involved that information flow sped up. The provincial attempts to "control" things there is not unlike what we have seen in such democracies as Florida, for example, where reasonable people trying to track the pandemic are fired and prosecuted. At any rate, within a month (if not less) China notified the WHO and sequenced the virus making it generally available to the world. Not bad IMO. If you compare this to what the western countries did having been forewarned, China comes out looking pretty good.
As for the data sharing: again reports are mixed. They shared some data but did not open their labs up to inspection. But they shared a lot of info that was critical very early and the US and Europe basically ignored it. Apparently, Xi even told Trump that covid infected via airborne transmission, something it took the CDC over a year to admit (just did so in last couple of weeks). The Asian countries listened and did considerably better. Did China act perfectly? Nope. But they acted reasonably and I see no evidence that they acted maliciously. If you have evidence to the contrary that I would love to see the links. Thx.
Ok, China is a "police state." It is certainly authoritarian and not a place I would like to live. But the gvmt has a lot of popular support and one recent poll I saw indicated the over 70% of the populace think it a democracy. This is much higher than the public perception in the US. Most Chinese apparently are quite satisfied with their gvmt, maybe far more than are satisfied with ours here. Does this mean I ant us to be like China. No, but it does indicate that it does not feel like a police state to its citizens, again if the evidence we have is any indication. It does seem that the Chinese are very satisfied with the way their gvmt handled covid, and given the very low numbers of fatalities and sickness I can see why.
Let me go a tad further. When it comes to the matters you discuss China is not clearly worse than the UK or the US. To my knowledge China has never used bio weapons. The US has. Many times. Read Nicholson Baker's book on the use of bio weapons against N. Korea and China in the Korean War. Read about our use of bio weapons against Cuban crops. We haev an extensive bio weapons program at Ft Dietric and we have very little idea about what is being done there, and likely never will despite our democratic ways. The US is one of the least open places in the world when it comes to gvmt activity of a classified nature. Certainly China is not more closed down than we are. So being a a non "police state" is no guarantee of good behavior. And being a dictatorship is no assurance of bad behavior IN SUCH MATTERS. So, it is pretty clear that the US has a far more aggressive foreign policy than China has. It is even arguable that when it comes to domestic repression the US is as bad as China. They do not have as many people in prisons as we do, for example. It is legal to use prison labor for private gain in the US. Indeed, strictly speaking, slavery is still legal for prisoners which accounts for the pittance prison labor is paid. China has no bases off the coast of the US like we do off of their shores. They do not "patrol" our waters like we do theirs. They don't invade countries on a regular basis like we do. And, so far as I can tell, they are nothing like Nazi Germany in their desires for foreign domination. Or, at least, they have not acted aggressively over the last 20 years. Whhen compared to the US, UK, France, they have not tried to topple foreign governments or militarily intrude in the internal affairs of any other country, in the last 20 years. Can the US say the same. that was a rhetorical question. So, the analogy of China to Nazi Germany strikes me as far fetched.
Note btw, we cannot stop them from developing nukes, which are certainly as dangerous as bio weapons but they have built several hundred while we have about 5,000 and are in the process of modernizing them. China spends a very small fraction of what the US does on defense/weapons, sells a fraction to foreign countries as compared to us, has, in fact, very little in the way of offensive weapons. So even if dictatorships are "bad" (which I agree they are), and even if China is an authoritarian state (the current favorite State Dept description) China is not an aggressive country especially by comparison to the US and Europe. As such, I have no more fear of their developing bio weapons than I do the US doing so. Indeed, as I know the US has done so (while I don't know if China has), and the US has used these weapons (as well as nukes and chemical weapons) the issue of dictatorship vs democracy when it comes to weaponizing anything is really of no obvious relevance. But as I say, we likely disagree on this.
Here is one more link to a 4 part extensive review of the time line by Lemoine. It is very detailed and critically reviews the available evidence. It concludes that China did quite well given the circumstances and did not try to dissemble. The series is long and exhausting but I think you will find it fair and judicious.
Sorry, meant pneumonia. At any rate, look at time line. If they were hiding anything it must have been before the start of January. After that they seemed to be in close contact with WHO. Though they did not seem clear on what they had until Jan 12 and not clear human to human transmission till 22. Like I said, this looks bery fast and largely above board.
This says China reported serious flu like cases end of December. In 2 weeks sequenced covid and gave it to WHO. Reported week earlier serious sars like virus. This is not moving slowly. It is moving in ignorance initially, but it does not look like they dilly dallying. But I assume you have other info. I’d love to see it. Thx.
As I said, we will disagree. Again, please some references for the Chinese destroying evidence. I have seen nothing to suggest this, but if you have something a link would be nice. Second, the info was in fact shared very fast. In fact people got arrested for sharing it. Last, do you have evidence the central gvmt, not the local one, was responsible. From what I read, this is false. Local gvmt did want to slow things down, central stepped in and moved things along. That said, if you have other info, please share it. I’d love to see any links to any verified reports about this. Thx.
Funny I trust neither. I do know however that many pandemics dont originate where they break out big. Take the 1918 Spanish Flu. It broke out first in Europe but was brought there by US soldiers. It’s dubbed “Spanish” because they were the first to publicly discuss it.
There is evidence that Covid was circulating in Italy, Spain and even the US before recorded December outbreak in Wuhan. Does this mean it originated in these places? No. Could it have and then been brought to China via tourists or even returning workers? It is possible. Do we know this is what happened? No. Do we know it isn’t? No. Things are complicated. And one of the complications is that right now there is a big push in the US to demonize the Chinese. It is an entirely bi-partisan effort so it will have a lot of oomph behind it. We should beware of this, because it is both insidious and very dangerous. When the conventional wisdom turns 180 degrees in a flash, it is reasonable to think some mischief is afoot.
Maybe. But let’s consider a hypothetical. The Chinese ask to investigate Ft Detrick. How would that be taken here? Not well is my guess, even if the US has nothing to hide. Why? Well it’s obvious. The US would not trust that such an investigation would be above board. Now, let’s say you are China and the US wants to have an investigation of the Wuhan lab. Would you say sure we have nothing to hide go ahead. Do you think not having done anything precludes a conclusion by US investigators that there is nothing there? Think Iraqi WMDs. Was there anything there? Did the US accept there was nothing there?
Now as it turns out, the WHO did investigate the lab and concluded it was unlikely covid was manufactured there. And you say, but that was not a thorough investigation. Why do you say that (if you do?)? The Australian doctor on the team agreed with the report. But maybe he was in the pay of the CCP? Maybe. You get the point. This is no win for them and they won’t agree. Just like the USnever would. Indeed there is NO international investigative body or tribunal the US allows to check on its behavior. Ever.
Would I prefer both China and the US to be more open. Sure. Is this in the cards? No. Can one conclude anything from this? Sure, but nothing specific about covid. One can conclude that the US and China dont trust one another. And dont trust that any investigation that would satisfy the other is acceptable. The idea that having nothing to hide means that you should ready to have your enemies investigate you is something that I doubt anyone really believes. That, sadly, is not how the real world works. And both the US and Chinese know that. And I suspect you know that too.
The punching down on Canon by lower tier journos, and even some MSM, I don't know how they're not embarrassed. Their parents likely paid $$$ for prep schools and their mission to fulfill their noblesse obliges has been turned into one of abuse instead of advocacy!
t was painfully obvious that these mostly working class women had backgrounds with abuse, and this finally got vindicated in academia, not by reporters. Entire relationship and implicit bargain is beond broken.
Moral and political superiority is a heavy burden. Those who carry this need a space that is free from criticism and harm. They also need footrubs from the pleebs so that they can continue the work.
I have now got to the point with the US commercial media that I arrived at in the mid-'00s regarding the US Defense Dept: if the Pentagon says something, assume the opposite because they are lying.
I am now seriously wondering whether the election really was stolen . . . not because I have any evidence that it was, but simply because the media are so emphatic and vociferous in denying that it was.
In re: your headline, that’s exactly the approach I’ve used these last 5 years. You can discern the outline of the prevailing narrative of our masters by reading what Snopes, Politifact, et. al. have to say about the news of the day. They are pretty reliably standing the truth on it’s head day in and day out.
I've always seen "debunked" as short-hand for "X is untrue. I don't need to prove it all over again. Joe Smith has already done the work to prove it. You must take my word for it. No, I don't have to show you Joe's work. Wow, you live under a rock if you haven't heard of Joe's work. Everyone else already knows X is untrue. You're a special kind of confused and misinformed. No point talking to you."
For election fraud issues I recommend reviewing Matt Braynards work with the Boter Integrity Project. He concentrated on ballot issues only, nothing to do with computers. He matched voter info with Change of address and recorded death data bases. His group also did phone surveys in some cases calling “unlikely” voters (hadn’t voted in a while) who in fact voted this time. Many said they had not voted so clearly someone voted in their name. He did sampling and then projected the possible total impact and whether it could have affected the election. Very important to say that he doesn’t know which candidate benefited from the apparently illegal ballot. His findings covered votes by people who had moved, dead people, votes from commercial addresses, large number of votes from the same address. Large votes from the same P.O. Box, votes by unlikely voters. Etc. These are the issues the states are trying to address.
Based on your own assessment of the track record of elite "debunkings", not sure why you would be a "skeptic" of election fraud claims, at least more so than you would of any other claim.
You should do a podcast called Unbunked with Michael Tracey in which you un-debunk things.
Even though I think MT is tiptoeing around the tulips when it comes to the 2020 election, I'd listen to every episode of that, and give him moar of my money.
Debunkification- a media alert signaling the need for an evidence free consensus.
Or maybe dispropagandizing?
Can anybody recall an example of the NYT or WaPo asserting in a front-page story or headline that a statement made or theory supported by an elected Democrat is “false”? I don’t mean an argument or analysis: just flatly described as “false”, with no supporting material.
Completely agree but for one point: “ the lab leak theory was never “debunked” at the time journalists were confidently proclaiming it debunked; in fact, its plausibility was increasing.”
Nope. Its plausibility is exactly where it was months ago as the evidence available for and against has not changed one jot. There is a great temptation to take something that was un-debunked as more plausible than it was before claims that it was debunked. This is false. We are back to where we were before pundits ran their mouths about issues they knew nothing about. And that place is that we do not know how COVID originated. There are many many logical possibilities, but there are vast wholes. The most likely story is that it is a natural development as we have many instances of such e.g. Sars, Ebola etc. The lab leak only gained traction because it has proven hard IN ONE YEAR to give a convincing story of how it could have naturally arisen and infected humans. But one year is not a long time. Indeed it is a very very very short time. It took 15 years to het decent accounts for Sars, 20 for Ebola. So the raly wuestion right now is not if the lab leak story is true, but why we all of a sudden care. And it seems to me that there is every reason to think that this is tied to the bi-partisan efforts to ring fence China. It is part and parcel of the rest of the anti-China “news” we are constantly being fed. Dont get sucked in.
They've tested 80,000 animals and not found any with SARS-CoV-2. That, in and of itself, would make lab leak hypothesis more likely. There's also been new information about lab workers getting ill. It's hard to make a case that lab leak is no more likely now than when this matter first arose.
We have no evidence that lab workers were sick from covid. And this “evidence” came from the intelligence community (need I say more?) and were assertions not evidence.
As for the animal checks. The fact is we dont know how covid arose and the straight forward hypotheses have not been verified. How surprising is this? Not at all. As I noted, it took 15 years to figure out Sars. So here is the argument after 1 year we dont have a good transmission vector. In fact, after 1 year we are not exactly sure which bats are the source. Therefore, it must have been lab created. Pretty bad argument. Reasoning from ignorance is always weak. There is no evidence IN FAVOR of lab leak and no dispositive evidence AGAINST natural zoonotic source. In fact, there is no dispositive evidence that the virus originated in China only that the first major outbreak was there. So basically we don’t know much. And when you don’t know much many options are possible. But the big fact is that we currently don’t know and in that situation the most likely source is the one we find most commonly; natural transmission from some animal. Is this the right conclusion? Who knows. Maybe time will tell, though given the high level of politicization of the issue, if it is a lab leak we may never have any good evidence supporting this.
For those interested in some science, here is Josh Rosenau making key points about the 80k (ooh a big number!) and putting it and the research to date in useful perspective: https://twitter.com/JoshRosenau/status/1402826462953017347
You have missed the point. Consider: You have a container with 1000 envelopes in it. One of them has a dollar in it, the others are empty. You pull an envelope from the container, open it, and find it empty. The odds of choosing the envelope with the dollar the next time are now greater. That is to say, they are not "exactly where they were" prior to eliminating the first envelope.
My mistake, I should have said we are not SUBSTANTIALLY more informed than we were before. As Rosenau points out, the space of options is HUGE or potentially so. The fact that we have not cracked the problem to date means little as the space of possible covid sources is vast and we have looked at a very very very small sample. How do we know we are just starting? Beciase this is exactly what we found with Sars and Ebola. It takes decades to figure this out, if then. So the 80k number is in practical terms a red herring, as he points out. Your reply is right technically, but irrelevant practically. That said, if you really want this win, I am happy to give it to you. Btw, if the options are vast then your example should be better presented as: a dollar in one of a billion envelopes. You open one. The odds of choosing the envelope with the dollar are now greater. Question: how much more would you be willing to give up for the next guess? Would you even take the bet? Doubt it. That’s what I mean by practically irrelevant.
Btw, did you note his discussion of the two strains of covid and how this argues against lab creation. This is a newish point that also speaks against the lab leak claims. If this is right, then we are not exactly where we were before, there is MORE reason to reject the lab leak account for now.
Didn't know I was in a competition. Just pointing out what Michael wrote was accurate.
Technically yes, practically no. Numbers need a context, as Dean Baker has been pointing out for years. Michael’s point was technically sound, but it is practically irrelevant if Rosenau is right. And that, I think, is the main issue.
That said, you are 100% right. This is not a competition and I am sorry I snarkily treated it as one. Good point which I hope to be able to absorb fully. Thx.
You do not seem particularly informed on this point. There is a massive amount of strong circumstantial evidence for the lab leak - much has been discovered over the past year. There, so far, has not been one jot - NOT ONE JOT - of circumstantial evidence for a natural spillover. I hate to use this phrase, but here it is appropriate: Please educate yourself.
We will have to agree to disagree. There is very little decent evidence circumstantial or otherwise. There are many assertions and hypotheticals. There is enough uncertainty that those who wish to be persuaded by lab leak stories will find something to hang onto. However, the evidence is very thin, or so I believe. And worse, the sources for much of this evidence should be considered very suspect. I believe nothing the Intelligence Community peddles unless backed by surveyable evidence.
Good comment. I always ask “Cui Bono” when the mighty Wurlitzer propaganda machine kicks into overdrive on some subject. The slime-mold that is the western empire has every possible reason to fear the Chinese, not because they want to rule the world, but because they don’t want to be ruled by us. We can peacefully coexist with Russia and China (and Iran etc), if the psychopaths that run our empire would be happy with a multipolar world. They can’t because, well, they are psychopaths. It would be the most incredible irony and tragedy if the beautiful idea that is (was) America ends up causing the extermination of human civilization.
Agree. Who benefits is always a good place to start.
As well, there has been some further evidence in the virus genome. Maybe it’s old evidence that is just now being reported.
You mean Baltimore’s claims that there was a smoking gun that this was likely produced by gain of function interventions? This has been retracted by him and vigorously contested by many. Could you please reference the evidence. Thx
Two United States experts have said on June 6 that “damning” science strongly indicates that COVID-19 causing novel coronavirus, is man-made and optimised in a lab for maximum infectivity before leading to a pandemic last year. In an opinion piece for the Wall Street Journal published on Sunday, Dr. Steven Quay and Richard Muller noted two crucial pieces of evidence to back their claim of SARS-CoV-2 being manufactured in a laboratory after the theory was long derided as little more than speculation.
The reason it was crapped on my MSM earlier is because the story originated with Trump and the largely pro Dem media discredited it to discredit him. Since then, Biden has become president and there is now a bi-partisan consensus that China is the enemy. This consensus has resulted in reorientation of the defense budget to “contain” and weaken China and in a recently passed bill to make the US ready to take China on as our number 1 adversary. As part of this there has been a lot of coverage in the press about Chinese human rights abuses in both Honk Kong and Xiangxing wrt the Uyghers. Gary Zone has done some excellent coverage on this if you are interested. At any rate, as this anti China consensus built up, we get a reappraisal of the covid leak hypothesis. I doubt the Chinese did much to move the story in the US. The Trump antipathy sufficed. I have no doubt that once Trump weaponized the lab leak story the Chinese became very defensive. I doubt any country would have reacted differently. Indeed, for example, there are very credible reasons for thinking that the US engaged in bio warfare in Korea during the war (See Nicolson Baker’s book on this) and though it is over 60 years ago we are still not allowed to see the papers relating to this, as Baker’s book outlines in detail. So, China is acting defensively because it has reason to think that the leak story has been weaponized. Note, this is consistent with them also having something to hide (as the US probably does wrt Korean bio warfare) but given this reasonable perception on their part the behavior you see from them is overdetermined and so we can conclude little from their defensiveness.
Your last point is the most important one. It is claimed that we need to find out what happened so that we can prevent it from happening again. I think this IS true if the cause is zoonotic. It will plausibly help prevent future developments of covid like viruses if we can figure out what animals they came from and how they got to us. So it is important, though very hard, to figure out how this might have happened.
I dont think the same is the case if it was a lab leak. Say it was. What will we learn that lab leaks are possible and we should take vigorous precautions to prevent them? Well we know this already and this is a constant theme wrt these fancy labs that do dangerous work. That there is a risk that comes from gain of function research? Well again, we know this but it seems the decision was made long ago to live with the risk. It seems that the US gvmt funds a lot of this kind of research already and I doubt it will stop. So what we stand to find out isthat soemthing we know to be dangerous and risky is dangerous and risky. What to do? We already know what to do, we just have not done it for various reasons.
So, to my mind there is an important asymmetry regarding the importance of these answers. The lab leak will tell us nothing new, the zoonotic story would. But, in addition, the lab leak story will play an important propaganda role in the current context. And the role is so useful that it will likely prevent any honest investigation anyhow. So, not only would we learn nothing much of value, but we are unlikely to get an honest investigation. The US currently has too much at stake in sticking it to China and so, like the Iraqi WMDs, it is unlikely truth is what will be the object of the investigation. You can, btw, see how politicized the issue is by noting that Biden asked the Intelligence community to lead it and gave them 90 days to come up with a result. If what you wanted was the truth you would have asked for a neutral international panel (if one is devisable) led by scientists, sorta like the WHO panel that already did an investigation which the US has rejected. At any rate, having the CIA lead the charge is not a recipe for honesty.
If you take a look at the news reports from places like the WSJ which revived the lab leak theory you will note that they are written by some of the same people (Gordon) who brought you the WMD reporting on Iraq. I dont know about you, but this does not fill me with confidence. Gordon is the recent source of the flu stricken Chinese scientists (no evidence provided except say so, btw). At any rate, my main point is that this story is going to be very hard to establish for reasons of US domestic anti China politics. We should be very very wary.
I suspect that there are some issues over which we don't agree. But let me try. I am no expert in these matters but I am happy to believe that gain of function research is dangerous and should be closely monitored. The points you make here suggest that we have known this for a while and so finding out if recent covid is due to a leak would not materially affect the conclusion that this kind of research should be very closely controlled, and maybe forbidden. That, in fact, was my point. We don't need to find out the "truth" in this case to come to this reasonable conclusion.
Where I think we disagree is on how China handled covid. I think that what you saw was what one would expect to see from the FIRST country recognizing that they were faced with a new disease. They acted slowly and cautiously. Also bureaucrats tried to control info flow because of the economic-political implications of declaring the disease a pandemic. Shutting Wuhan down was a very costly thing to do and deciding to do so was certainly a complex decision for ANYONE. Some of what the Chinese did, I believe that anyone would have done. Look at how long it took for the Europe and the US to jump into action even after it was clear what was afoot. The idea that going from discovery to public announcement in less than a month (discovery in early January, full disclosure and public action by end of January) was dilatory strikes me as harsh. I also suspect that most of the info control was due to local politicians trying to crises manage what they hoped was not a problem. It was when the central gvmt got involved that information flow sped up. The provincial attempts to "control" things there is not unlike what we have seen in such democracies as Florida, for example, where reasonable people trying to track the pandemic are fired and prosecuted. At any rate, within a month (if not less) China notified the WHO and sequenced the virus making it generally available to the world. Not bad IMO. If you compare this to what the western countries did having been forewarned, China comes out looking pretty good.
As for the data sharing: again reports are mixed. They shared some data but did not open their labs up to inspection. But they shared a lot of info that was critical very early and the US and Europe basically ignored it. Apparently, Xi even told Trump that covid infected via airborne transmission, something it took the CDC over a year to admit (just did so in last couple of weeks). The Asian countries listened and did considerably better. Did China act perfectly? Nope. But they acted reasonably and I see no evidence that they acted maliciously. If you have evidence to the contrary that I would love to see the links. Thx.
Ok, China is a "police state." It is certainly authoritarian and not a place I would like to live. But the gvmt has a lot of popular support and one recent poll I saw indicated the over 70% of the populace think it a democracy. This is much higher than the public perception in the US. Most Chinese apparently are quite satisfied with their gvmt, maybe far more than are satisfied with ours here. Does this mean I ant us to be like China. No, but it does indicate that it does not feel like a police state to its citizens, again if the evidence we have is any indication. It does seem that the Chinese are very satisfied with the way their gvmt handled covid, and given the very low numbers of fatalities and sickness I can see why.
Let me go a tad further. When it comes to the matters you discuss China is not clearly worse than the UK or the US. To my knowledge China has never used bio weapons. The US has. Many times. Read Nicholson Baker's book on the use of bio weapons against N. Korea and China in the Korean War. Read about our use of bio weapons against Cuban crops. We haev an extensive bio weapons program at Ft Dietric and we have very little idea about what is being done there, and likely never will despite our democratic ways. The US is one of the least open places in the world when it comes to gvmt activity of a classified nature. Certainly China is not more closed down than we are. So being a a non "police state" is no guarantee of good behavior. And being a dictatorship is no assurance of bad behavior IN SUCH MATTERS. So, it is pretty clear that the US has a far more aggressive foreign policy than China has. It is even arguable that when it comes to domestic repression the US is as bad as China. They do not have as many people in prisons as we do, for example. It is legal to use prison labor for private gain in the US. Indeed, strictly speaking, slavery is still legal for prisoners which accounts for the pittance prison labor is paid. China has no bases off the coast of the US like we do off of their shores. They do not "patrol" our waters like we do theirs. They don't invade countries on a regular basis like we do. And, so far as I can tell, they are nothing like Nazi Germany in their desires for foreign domination. Or, at least, they have not acted aggressively over the last 20 years. Whhen compared to the US, UK, France, they have not tried to topple foreign governments or militarily intrude in the internal affairs of any other country, in the last 20 years. Can the US say the same. that was a rhetorical question. So, the analogy of China to Nazi Germany strikes me as far fetched.
Note btw, we cannot stop them from developing nukes, which are certainly as dangerous as bio weapons but they have built several hundred while we have about 5,000 and are in the process of modernizing them. China spends a very small fraction of what the US does on defense/weapons, sells a fraction to foreign countries as compared to us, has, in fact, very little in the way of offensive weapons. So even if dictatorships are "bad" (which I agree they are), and even if China is an authoritarian state (the current favorite State Dept description) China is not an aggressive country especially by comparison to the US and Europe. As such, I have no more fear of their developing bio weapons than I do the US doing so. Indeed, as I know the US has done so (while I don't know if China has), and the US has used these weapons (as well as nukes and chemical weapons) the issue of dictatorship vs democracy when it comes to weaponizing anything is really of no obvious relevance. But as I say, we likely disagree on this.
Thx for the discussion.
Here is one more link to a 4 part extensive review of the time line by Lemoine. It is very detailed and critically reviews the available evidence. It concludes that China did quite well given the circumstances and did not try to dissemble. The series is long and exhausting but I think you will find it fair and judicious.
https://quillette.com/author/philippe-lemoine/
Sorry, meant pneumonia. At any rate, look at time line. If they were hiding anything it must have been before the start of January. After that they seemed to be in close contact with WHO. Though they did not seem clear on what they had until Jan 12 and not clear human to human transmission till 22. Like I said, this looks bery fast and largely above board.
Here is a timeline of what happened. https://www.who.int/news/item/27-04-2020-who-timeline---covid-19
This says China reported serious flu like cases end of December. In 2 weeks sequenced covid and gave it to WHO. Reported week earlier serious sars like virus. This is not moving slowly. It is moving in ignorance initially, but it does not look like they dilly dallying. But I assume you have other info. I’d love to see it. Thx.
As I said, we will disagree. Again, please some references for the Chinese destroying evidence. I have seen nothing to suggest this, but if you have something a link would be nice. Second, the info was in fact shared very fast. In fact people got arrested for sharing it. Last, do you have evidence the central gvmt, not the local one, was responsible. From what I read, this is false. Local gvmt did want to slow things down, central stepped in and moved things along. That said, if you have other info, please share it. I’d love to see any links to any verified reports about this. Thx.
Hmm. Maybe we put different faith in Cotton’s assertions.
Funny I trust neither. I do know however that many pandemics dont originate where they break out big. Take the 1918 Spanish Flu. It broke out first in Europe but was brought there by US soldiers. It’s dubbed “Spanish” because they were the first to publicly discuss it.
There is evidence that Covid was circulating in Italy, Spain and even the US before recorded December outbreak in Wuhan. Does this mean it originated in these places? No. Could it have and then been brought to China via tourists or even returning workers? It is possible. Do we know this is what happened? No. Do we know it isn’t? No. Things are complicated. And one of the complications is that right now there is a big push in the US to demonize the Chinese. It is an entirely bi-partisan effort so it will have a lot of oomph behind it. We should beware of this, because it is both insidious and very dangerous. When the conventional wisdom turns 180 degrees in a flash, it is reasonable to think some mischief is afoot.
Maybe. But let’s consider a hypothetical. The Chinese ask to investigate Ft Detrick. How would that be taken here? Not well is my guess, even if the US has nothing to hide. Why? Well it’s obvious. The US would not trust that such an investigation would be above board. Now, let’s say you are China and the US wants to have an investigation of the Wuhan lab. Would you say sure we have nothing to hide go ahead. Do you think not having done anything precludes a conclusion by US investigators that there is nothing there? Think Iraqi WMDs. Was there anything there? Did the US accept there was nothing there?
Now as it turns out, the WHO did investigate the lab and concluded it was unlikely covid was manufactured there. And you say, but that was not a thorough investigation. Why do you say that (if you do?)? The Australian doctor on the team agreed with the report. But maybe he was in the pay of the CCP? Maybe. You get the point. This is no win for them and they won’t agree. Just like the USnever would. Indeed there is NO international investigative body or tribunal the US allows to check on its behavior. Ever.
Would I prefer both China and the US to be more open. Sure. Is this in the cards? No. Can one conclude anything from this? Sure, but nothing specific about covid. One can conclude that the US and China dont trust one another. And dont trust that any investigation that would satisfy the other is acceptable. The idea that having nothing to hide means that you should ready to have your enemies investigate you is something that I doubt anyone really believes. That, sadly, is not how the real world works. And both the US and Chinese know that. And I suspect you know that too.
The punching down on Canon by lower tier journos, and even some MSM, I don't know how they're not embarrassed. Their parents likely paid $$$ for prep schools and their mission to fulfill their noblesse obliges has been turned into one of abuse instead of advocacy!
t was painfully obvious that these mostly working class women had backgrounds with abuse, and this finally got vindicated in academia, not by reporters. Entire relationship and implicit bargain is beond broken.
How do I edit a post?
The only way I have found is to copy it, delete the original, start a new post, paste in the old post, and edit it.