Sometimes very active discussions about peripheral issues overwhelm a thread, so this is a permanent home for those conversations.
I’ve opened a new “Sandbox” thread as a post as the new “ignore commenter” plug-in only works on threads started as posts.
Alan Fox,
Conspiracy theorists of course think they are citing facts. And if not, then they are “just asking a question”. I see the same behaviour in petrushka.
This post is very illustrative: He does not cite a single specific example of an NGO laundering money, but for his theory to work, most NGOs need to be laundering money.
I happen to know about this topic and I can easily tell that petrushka does not know (a) why NGOs exist and what they are, (b) what the relationship of USAID is with NGOs, and (c) what money laundering is.
By the end of his post, without citing evidence, he claims to have sorted it all out (or somebody else has sorted it out to his satisfaction) by means of AI, while it is clear from earlier discussions that he does not know what AI is capable of and what it is not capable of. He knows literally nothing, he spews absolute nonsense, but nobody is stopping him.
Of course, I do not expect the situation to improve, because USA is right now run by total lunatics. It is clear that Elon Musk does not know the first thing about accounting and data analysis, but he has been given a position where he is allegedly doing an audit of the government agencies. Nobody is stopping him either.
I thought Macron married his father. I read it on the internet, so it must be true.
I repeat. Please verify facts before posting and include facts when posting
https://www-sciencesetavenir-fr.translate.goog/sante/origine-du-covid-19-un-quasi-consensus-en-faveur-de-la-sortie-de-laboratoire_185031?_x_tr_sl=fr&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=wapp
petrushka,
What did you conclude from that paper?
I haven’t concluded anything yet. I’m not familiar with the source and was curious whether it was tabloid journalism, or a representative sample of French scientific opinion.
I tend to think the origin of covid is a forensic problem rather than a scientific one. It has been difficult to figure out which witnesses are truthful.
Well, there seem to be three hypotheses for Sars viruses causing epidemics among humans:
1. Cross-species transmission. Plenty of examples of this having happened.
2. Artificial synthesis of pathogens as bioweapons. No credible evidence of this ever happening.
3. Research labs studying pathogens (source 1) mess up and allow such pathogens to escape. Nobody has owned up to this.
The French study suggests a research facility at Wuhan was guilty of 3. Maybe DNA_Jock could weigh in on the plausibility if he happens by.
I have not been able to access the underlying report, but I have not tried very hard yet. I am interested in their take, but I am worried that there is quite the self-selecting sample effect here. That is, researchers agonizing over whether it was a lab leak (of an unengineered virus: the evidence that the virus was NOT engineered is strong and has not changed) vs zoonosis really need to get out more — they are coming across as racist. Some of the sound-bites offered up by Ms. Gaubert are of the “engineered, therefore lab-leak” variety, so OBVIOUSLY wrong. Others, like the statement that the research at Wuhan was performed at BSL2, are quite frightening: I have no reason to doubt this statement, and if true it is HORRENDOUS.
If pathogens can’t be modified, the whole industry of biological warfare is dead… No? How much money and jobs would that involve Jock?
Would yours?
Pathogens such as Yersinia pestis have already been used in biological warfare.
The specific issue here is whether the RNA sequences in coronaviruses that translate into changes in the spike protein that make it suitable as a biological weapon can be artificially modified in the lab and whether this was happening in Wuhan.
Seems more likely to me, if that was someone’s goal, that selective breeding would get you there more quickly and more simply.
Regarding DNA-Jock’s concern about lax lab procedures, and what we know of authoritarian regimes, it is unlikely we will ever know if that is what happened at Wuhan.
Might I point out that many people in the mainstream asserted they knew what was going on and what was not going on.
Some of us were derided for pointing out that the Chinese destroyed all the potential evidence. And tried to hide digital evidence.
I mentioned that a multi-billion dollar corporation, Enron, was dismantled for the crime of destroying emails. Destroying evidence is in itself a crime.
Regardless of the exact origin of the virus, we do know that the Chinese knew something dangerous was loose, and they did the opposite of containing it. They blocked flights from Wuhan to the rest of China, but allowed international flights.
Not a good look, in my opinion.
I remember a news report about Li Wenliang, the Chinese doctor who tried to raise the alarm and was told to be quiet.
Nobody in the right frame of mind denies that bacteria can be modified… what it means is the issue… I modify my microbiome bacteria each time I eat fast food. But if I get Coca Cola or Pepsi, they kill everything…
We’ve tested it many times even over the last few days… I wonder if ear infection can be treated with colas.. no joke..
He was told with extreme prejudice.
By all means, pump that shit in your empty skull to your heart’s content, but don’t try it on your kids, you blithering idiot.
I just heard that Harvard University get $50 billion of federal funding… I’m sure nothing goes to waste there but Donny the Great thinks it might be too much… as if he had never worked with mafia before… this time the mafiosos claim to be intellectuals… big deal… lol