That’s just wild. The one silver lining to T2 is that I’m not shocked by anything anymore. It’s still outrageous, but the surprise is gone.
The US government really is just being vandalised.
This is a group of people who feel they’ve been unfairly made fun of for too long finally getting their revenge.
Can someone help me understand what’s going on here?
Are they trying to throw shade on China because… they think it will help win the trade war?
So, this is wild speculation, but I’ll tell you my guess. I think it’s about TSMC, the world’s leading semiconductor manufacturer. China has, for years, been saying that Taiwan isn’t an independent country, but is instead “Chinese Taipei,” a part of China. They’ve been using this idea for years to gradually build towards an invasion of Taiwan. Taiwan, of course, does consider itself an independent nation. The US officially holds no position on this question, which is kinda bonkers; there’s this whole diplomatic dance about whether the US would defend Taiwan in the event of a Chinese invasion. The US might not care if it weren’t for TSMC, which runs the plants that produce a huge proportion of the world’s CPUs and GPUs and AI chips. All the best chip-making technology and know-how is with TSMC. It’s a major vulnerability in the US supply chain.
China has been ramping things up in the past several years. It’s suspected that a big part of why they’re going along with the Russian invasion of Ukraine is that Russia probably promised to go along with China invading Taiwan in exchange. It’s all very sub-rosa, but there’s been so much military maneuvering and posturing and so on back and forth around Taiwan that it’s been kind of dizzying.
This is, unfortunately, part of why China was enthusiastic about getting Trump back into the White House. Trump’s policies of isolating the US from its military allies, instigating worldwide trade chaos, and cozying up to dictators make the conditions a lot more ripe for China to make a move on Taiwan. And since the US has never been able to actually talk about Taiwan before, it’s gonna look absolutely batshit to the majority of Americans if China invades Taiwan and the US government suddenly wants to go to war against China over this, which seems like a huge risk. But since, as Trump so eloquently put it, “everything is computer,” we basically can’t stand by and let China take Taiwan without a fight.
So he’s trying to gin up sentiment against China on his own terms to lay the groundwork for a war that seems increasingly inevitable.
That is indeed wild speculation and sinophocic garbage
It’s possible to have a poor opinion of the Chinese government without having a bigoted opinion about the Chinese people.
Possible but not common.
Don’t tell me you haven’t seen plenty of racist comments online directed at Chinese people.
Same for Russians or whatever country/people we’re supposed to hate.
Actually this news makes me have a conspiracy theory now.
- Trump started trade war with china early January 2018
- The Wuhan was studying the corona virus in the wild as usually, mostly with relax work
- Wuhan lab start publishing about covid in mid 2018 studying different variation
- Wuhan lab start testing mixing covid with hiv and stuff
- Trump loses the Trade war around late 2019
- 2019 Military World Games is happening in Wuhan October 18–27, 2019 .
Here is my new conspiracy theory:
- “Ordered by trump - CIA cause the leak to happen from the lab to the market to damage the Chinese economy”
.
- First report of covid patient around November 2019
- First Cluster of patient around December 2019
Considering how the US government has been consistent of disregards of human life I see this as realistic case of why Trump keep circling back to this.
Here are some additional dots to tie pieces of string to.
The “ANDREW CUOMO: FAILURE” at the bottom of the government site is some random shade, but I enjoy that at least. Fuck Andrew Cuomo
Agreed. He’s such a piece of shit. I mean, fuck Trump, but also, fuck Cuomo.
Yeah, fuck Cuomo, but a lot of the reasons for New York’s poor performance at the start of COVID were structural issues that were out of his control.
I don’t think there’s enough evidence to conclusively say that it was natural or that it was a lab leak. There is actually quite a lot of evidence that it was a lab leak, but this website looks like such BS.
There’s also good evidence that Jeanne Calment was not the world’s oldest woman, but was instead her mother. Also, it’s well-understood that lightbulb manufacturers conspired to lower lifespans of bulbs throughout the 20th century. Just because there was a conspiracy don’t mean it ain’t real.
The lightbulb cartell existed, but it wasn’t like we could have had lightbulbs that would have lasted longer with the same efficiency and light output.
The difference between a conspiracy theory and a conspiracy is that the latter has actual evidence for it. I don’t think that’s the case for the lab leak “theory”.
Here’s an analysis of a debate about whether it is or is not a lab leak. There’s very compelling arguments on both sides, but I find the lab leak angle to have the most evidence for it.
I think I understand why people assume it can’t be a leak – it sounds like fiction; people have said this about previous events and turned out to be wrong; it would be bad for China if true, so it must be politically motivated. It’s okay, you can relax and join me in the ranks of people who are open minded to either outcome.
(Edit: This is a stupid aside, but you define theory as something with no evidence for it, and then put lab leak “theory” in quotes as though you don’t think it fits that definition.)
First this, then releasing 10000 pages worth of John F. Kennedy files. lol these are right out of the dictator’s handbook to public agenda manipulation. Trump can’t even do the dictator thing very well, it is such a rookie level move.
I would have preferred a simple 1 page faq with who did it and how was the government involved if at all.
So the narrative is COVID was a dangerous lab leak - but also, you don’t have to wear a mask?
Consistency is not a strong point of these dumbasses.
It’s pretty standard to play both extremes simultaneously, and people just pick whichever they want to relate to at any given moment.
eg.
- (such-and-such group) are lazy, but also they are taking all the jobs.
- They are stupid, but also have secret organisations that control the world, with mind-control, and lasers that control the weather, etc.
- They are snowflakes obsessed with inclusiveness, but also they want (target-minority-group) to take over.
- They are against free speech; and we must silence them.
I’m sure others can think of more, and variations on those.
Just a note: It would have been easier to read your post if you used brackets instead of parentheses.
The enemy is both strong and weak.
Regardless of where it actually came from (probably bats) this site is just propaganda.
By nearly all measures of science, if there was evidence of a natural origin it would have already surfaced
Ah yes, we’ve already discovered everything. Science is over, everyone, let’s go home.
The longer it takes to find the zoonotic link the higher the probability of lab origin.
We already have plenty of evidence to conclude zoonotic origin. Bat RNA. Positive cultures in the wet market. Covid genome.
The closest sample [BatCoV RaTG13] is a 96.1% match and was collected 7 years and 1000km away from the wuhan outbreak.
Positive cultures were found in the wet market, but the origin is not confirmed to be zoonotic. Neither bats nor pangolins were being sold at the market. The virus could have arrived there on the shoe of a lab worker.
The virus could have arrived there on the shoe of a lab worker
And it could have been sprayed by flying saucers. How is that any less probable?
You’re using the words without understanding virology or epidemiology or basic probabilities. We have evidence of prior outbreaks like SARS from the wild and positive cultures in the wet market are major pieces of evidence to back up the origin.
And it could have been sprayed by flying saucers. How is that any less probable?
Because only a trail of infected animals arriving at the market would imply a zoonotic origin.
positive cultures in the wet market are major pieces of evidence to back up the origin.
No, because we cannot determine if those virus cultures arrived to the market on an animal, on the shoe of a lab worker or even by ufo.
The data does not help determine the origin. It only documents the spread.
Not at all. You think animals naturally migrated on their own from the forest to the market and would leave a trail? Someone picked one up and brought it in a cage. It only takes one.
I love how everyone online is an armchair zoonotic expert. Your ideas are inexperienced.
Someone picked one up and brought it in a cage.
Possibly, but there is no evidence that this happened. No animals in captivatity or in the wild outside of the wuhan market have been found with early strains of sars-cov-2.
This is why a lab leak remains as a possible origin.
I love how everyone online is an armchair zoonotic expert. Your ideas are inexperienced.
Expertise is not required to understand what NO EVIDENCE means.
The longer it takes to find the lab origin link the higher the probability of zoonotic origin. /s
The problem with conspiracy theories is they’re non-falsifiable. That something is possible is not evidence that it is probable, that something is probable is not evidence that it happened.
Maybe a lab had something go wrong. Maybe that was because they were careless. Maybe that’s because Trump withdrew funding and oversight from the programs that helped labs like this. That should all be investigated. There’s a difference between asking for a due diligence after action report and assigning blame because “it had to be someone’s fault.”
Conspiracy theories are falsifiable! It just means a theory that somebody kept or tried to keep something a secret. I wish the phrase “conspiracy theory” wasn’t universally conflated with “crackpot conspiracy theory” like flat earthers or q-anon. Covid lab leak is not a crackpot theory. People just think it is because we call it a conspiracy theory.
I think we’re long past trying to be prescriptive about the phrase “conspiracy theory”.
There are real conspiracies, but conspiracy theories tend to start from a place of “X must have been at fault” and work backwards from there. Which leads to endless loops of whataboutisms and excuses to try and excuse the existence of the theory at all costs instead of being interested in what actually happened.
It sounds like you’re suggesting “lab leak implies China is to blame” should be seen as evidence against it being a lab leak? Or that any theory which implies blame must be suspect. This just sounds like an excuse to disregard any evidence that it’s a lab leak, since surely anyone who is arguing that it’s a lab-leak must be motivated to do so.
The converse is also true though – surely you must see that there is similarly motivation to argue in reverse. Why don’t we just set aside assuming that we’re all arguing in bad faith.
It’s possible there was a lab leak, and relevant labs should be investigated for the same reason we investigate all plane crashes, it either leads to finding gaps in processes or confirms whether or not a systemic issue was a factor. The probability has decreased as COVID has been further researched and shows more markers of a ‘natural’ development, but it’s generally beneficial to have a comprehensive audit when processes are in question.
That’s not what these people are arguing. They’re arguing that it’s China’s fault and not Trump’s. That’s it. For that to be the case it ‘must’ be a lab leak, and so they’re retroactively finding justification for how that is possible. That they’re running parallel to a reasonable line of logic for a portion of their argument does not validate their argument.
The problem with conspiracy theories is they’re non-falsifiable.
Disagree. Some conspiracies can be proven with evidence. E.g. Watergate.
The virus had to come from somewhere. Finding a zoonotic trail of evidence (or at least a partial one) adds weight to a natural origin. There is lots of opportunity for new evidence to naturally come to light.
On the lab leak side evidence has already been destroyed by the Chinese government. New evidence is unlikely to surface naturally.
So lack of evidence on the zoonotic side gradually moves the balance of probability towards a lab leak.
The general public is unlikely reach certainty about either scenario. I bet the Chinese government has a certain answer.
That’ll be a relief for high school students everywhere.
By nearly all measures of religion, if there was evidence for a god, it would have already surfaced.
He really has to put his ugly ass face on everything.
This is a huge waste of money. They should doge it.
Yeah, I agree with that, seems to me the most recent plot twists in The Story of America certainly makes people to feel Free… after they are no longer in America. I’m not American, I feel pretty Free, and I do hope Americans one day feel Free again.
Something something Manifest Destiny
Everyone except for the people who get sent to El Salvador…
Why would he want his photo in the middle of that text? He’s associating himself with negativity, I feel like this is marketing/propaganda 101. It honestly looks like a movie poster where he’s the one leaking it.
So did it originate in a Wuhan Lab or not? I keep hearing one thing then another.
Not trying to confuse the issue, I legitimately don’t know.
At this point, I don’t care. It’s just something that can be weaponized.
No one know because China are not going to admit if it was a lab leak. Also lab leaks doesn’t mean the virus is human made. However there are some un-answerd questions. There were scientists spies that got caught with sample from Canadian labs flying to China, and there was some concern about military funding and other few things that support the leak theory. However it is not conclusive evidence. So it stay at the theory level.
… Is this the new age dark ages?
For the US maybe, but right now it seems like the wider world may survive.
I moderate the bad religion community (they have a song called The New Dark Ages). Its pretty bitchin. it was written during the W Bush presidency but their material get progressively more relevant as time goes on
Such a good song. I have not thought about or listened to that song or album in at least a decade. Thanks for the reference to rekindle my fond memories. Time to go listen to some Bad Religion… :-)
They released a record called Age of Unreason during the first trump term. Its some of the strongest material of their career imo.
New Maps of Hell was pretty killer though
“We’ve got the American Jesus. He helped build the President’s estate.”
Yup.
We’re Doomed then
I feel like I’m screaming, “help” at the top of a mountain, yet nobody can hear me. I feel like almost all online interactions are false. I feel like my day to day life is shrinking from country scale to community to household scale. This is where we are divided and we don’t care for another, but only ourselves. Not out of greed, but out of perceived necessity. It’s all fake.
I’m with you. Corporations have figured out how to fully monetize the internet and information in general. Knowledge and education have been paywalled. What does filter through is manipulation and brainwashing in some form.
I completely understand sometimes it feels like everyone has their head buried in the sand or worse is lapping up the misinformation without a second thought, living in a post truth society is truly hell for the analytical.
All those DOGE savings went to this. They really hate science and anything factual.