Mervin, have you ever had a security clearance and had access to secret or top secret information?
Those of us who have know that sharing information must be balanced against the risk of revealing and thereby endangering the source.
As for the “so what,” there are several whats. A few include:
Is China responsible for the deaths and damage?
Should gain of function research be done on these deadly pathogens?
Should lab security be tightened?
Should the US support research in a country that destroys evidence and records when something goes wrong?
Should social media be allowed to censor and dismiss discussion as they did?
I could go on
That is not evident to me, and you statement is an insult to many thinking people,
Prevention of a future release is also a motivation. Reduction of censorship is a motivation. Holding government officials accountable for misleading the country is another. Many others…
Perhaps. And that maybe only through negligent practice of some kind - if even that. It’s pretty hard to make a case of malicious intent when their own country suffered and still suffers a good share of the consequences.
I trust the scientists to make good judgement calls on those things. Because they are right a whole lot more often than those who follow tribal allegiance rather than evidence.
That’s probably never a bad thing regardless of the answers to any of these questions.
That’s always been a live question with China (and other courntries too no doubt) for generations now. That not a new dilemma with COVID.
What censorship? It’s blindingly obvious to me you don’t have a clue what real censorship looks like. You need to visit some other countries (like China perhaps). If there were real censorship in this country, then we wouldn’t have around a third of our country believing all the stuff that you somehow think is being censored. And many media outlets are created just for the purpose of spreading ideologies that support all this stuff. Does that look like censorship? Just because there are a few organizations (like this one) that try to doggedly pursue actual truth and evidence, and see no need to be yet another platform alongside the many who spew ideology instead, that does not censorship constitute. It just means there are still a few responsible journalists and organizations left out there who see no need to give yet one more megaphone to all the conspiracy mongers that dominate so much of our national attention.
I’ll begin to take that more seriously when I see anybody consistently apply it to anything other than whatever political tribe they’re against.
I don’t travel anywhere near that much. But at least I know better. It sounds like you should too. You have even less excuse than I do for being taken in by this stuff.
Is this a joke? You honestly think that discussion of the lab leak was shut down? Discussion amongst who? Because I had plenty of conspiratorial friends who were sharing and talking about it and discussing it over and over and over from the beginning of the pandemic. People were going on major media outlets. It seemed like an entire political party got behind the lab leak idea and kept repeating it and sharing it and repeating it and sharing it. We discussed it at various points here on these forums as various people talked about it.
Here are some of the major threads that tended to popup everytime the public was discussing things:
From September 2020:
From May 2021:
From October 2021:
From July 2022:
Today, people remarkably claim discussion was “shut down.” And remarkably they now say statements by the FBI presented with no evidence are to be taken on authority, while probably not even a month ago dismissing many things that the FBI says without a shred of thought. The same people also have an impressive skill of rejecting or ignoring the evidence that points to a natural origins and have throughout the entire pandemic. They follow bloggers who scour the CDC site and find random tidbits of information that they then misunderstand and take out of context, as if they know better than actual scientists. And thus the CDC becomes a lying organization who publishes misleading statistics, but secretly has true statistics at the same time that real scientists are too incompetent to understand.
The “true discussion” was shut down argument is one of the oldest tricks in the book for pseudoscientific positions. You can literally and lazily do it for humans causing climate change, young earth creationism, anti-evolution positions, flat earth positions, the electric universe nonsense, etc.
The whole thing seems quite absurd to me. Especially because many people who are convinced of the lab leak and how serious of an issue this is- Also downplayed the pandemic every chance they got. So the virus is really no big deal, yet it’s a really really really really really really really really really really really really big deal that it leaked out of a lab and Anthony Fauci needs to answer to Marjorie Taylor Greene and the American people for the evil that he’s done for this virus that’s no big deal yet is the biggest deal in the entire world.
I regretted making the comment, and thought I exaggerated my reading of what was said:
As much as I would like to revise what I said about Mervin insulting himself, his comment is insulting to me as I learn more about what people behind the scenes were saying among themselves about the lab leak theory compared to what they said publicly.
And the reference to latest news cycle evidently makes reference to the video footage that has come out recently regarding the events on 1/6/21.
On many social media platforms discussion was either deleted or stamped with “this has been debunked.”
And here on this forum a moderator told me that the lab leak theory was like believing the moon landing was faked and people who supported it were just stroking their egos. Then the thread was moved private.
The exact quotes:
“As far as I am aware the “lab origin” of COVID theory is on par with believing the US government faked the moon landing. Also, social media is hardly a great sources of factual information even without US Government meddling. ‘
“Not to mention that it strokes the ego (speaking as an ex-conspiracy theory believer). It taps into the part to of sinful nature that gets a buzz out believing that we’ve stumbled on to some secret, hidden knowledge that makes us feel superior to all those poor deluded ‘sheeple’.”
That’s fine, I know someone who will have something good to say about some people on both sides of this issue and I’m pretty sure it will be specifically in regards to their motivation in the controversy
We are in good company on our better days. I began reading Christopher Watkins’ Biblical Critical Theory, and liked this summary of Augustine’s City of God:
“Like an expert judoka, Augustine makes Hellenic culture fall under the weight of its own contradictions and absurdities. It is clear that he has a respect for Rome. He knows its culture from the inside: its writers, its poets, its orators, and its deities. He knows why it sparkles, why it causes pride to swell in those who love it. He can be brutal and even sarcastic about the Roman gods, but never flippant or careless.”
Biblical Critical Theory is on my short list to read, and I am interested in your impressions. Feel free to comment, maybe on the “Pithy quotes” thread;
“I have attempted to take the biblical-theological structure that I find so compelling in Augustine and use it as a way to frame some contributions to a biblical social theory for today.” Watkins
“The current book contributes to painting a picture of Christianity that may nudge some skeptical readers towards thinking it would be great if Christianity were true and may counterpoint their breezy “whatever!” with a quietly insistent “what if—?””
One of the interesting things i have noted about the lab leak argument, conspiracy theorists are convinced that the Kabal (have i spelt that correctly?) are behind this and the shadowy world leaders behind all the big corporations control us via the democatic electoral system (using vote rigging and false advertising) they would have us believe that:
a Chinese lab unleashed a deadly virus on its own population in order to attack the west and,
Somehow this secretive organisation is behind it as a means of advancing its own wealth and power. (Bill Gates, you are a very bad man for funding the development of this virus, I am really upset my Microsoft shares have lost value in the last couple of years…really disappointed your plan didn’t help Microsoft’s share price and my own bottom line…really disappointed.)
I for one tend to vote along the lines of my upbringing. Rarely do i change from this position. Usually when i do vote outside of my upbringing, i vote for a minor candidate. I am not sure how that advances the wishes of the Kabal?
Then again, perhaps my “one vote” is irrelevant because the Kabal are only interested in stupid people? (such as conspiracy theorists)
I have visited communist countries and countries that shook off communism. I have talked to people who lived under authoritarian rule where state censorship stifled communication.
So to see the government colluding with technology companies to stop discussions is troubling.
Much as I respect our law enforcement agencies and intelligence agencies, the mindset they have is not scientific proof, but rather to decide if there is enough information to indict. No motive, but opportunity and suspicious behavior regarding information provided. It would only be expected to see their evidence before taking their conclusions as fact.
and I’m pretty sure it will be specifically in regards to their motivation in the controversy