Andy Paquette, Mask Science, Big Lie? |523|

Eric, I will make my argument extremely simpel. She projects the total number of deaths in 2020 to be 2,818,527. The current provisional number stands at 3,358,814 deaths.

Thanks for playing but........(obnoxious loud buzzer sound).........you fail.

Projecting deaths was not the point of her analysis. In fact, death count had nothing to do with the concept. The concept and the point was the percent of total deaths in each age band, which hadn't changed pre-covid to post-covid.

If covid was said to kill all age groups equally, the death count would have to be a key variable. However, covid is said to kill the elderly by far and away at a greater rate. Therefore the percent of elderly in the total death count would increase if there is a novel pathogen that is killing the elderly above and beyond their normal death rate. That didn't happen. This is very simple and very elegant.

The implication is that normal deaths are being labeled covid.

You're hung up on raw death counts. I already explained a good deal of what has happened there to result in increases in comments above.

Also, I don't see where projected deaths factored into her analysis at all. As far as I can see, she used the total deaths at the time of the analysis. Where did you get that she projected deaths? Is that something some internet zombie said? Maybe I missed it though, would be happy for you to point it out to me. You're not Ellis under a different name are you? This seems like an Ellis move.


For good measure, I'll repeat - though I'm getting tired of doing so for deliberately obtuse people - that raw death counts means nothing and are totally amateurish. One needs to use rates. the 2020 US mortality rate is lower than any year 2000 - 2004. Were you sounding the alarm bell along with Ellis in those years?
 
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Eric,

The excess mortality question is one of interest to me. You're asking good questions, to my view, regarding the statistical significance of a year or year analysis (vs a longer time frame).

Found a NYT article. Can't vouch for the analysis obviously, but it shows this historical:

View attachment 2220

This one is interesting for those railing against modern medicine, science, big pharma, etc. (i.e., not you Eric) as it shows the long term, steady decline in mortality rates:

View attachment 2221
Hard to tell exactly, but it looks like the death/thousand rate was at or below the year 2000. It does appear to be a meaningful data point.

Anyway, would be curious for your interpretation Eric as I know you look at this type of "big data" professionally. Sure feels like something happened. Exactly what is a worthwhile debate/analysis.

(Source article: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/04/23/us/covid-19-death-toll.html )
****
Didn't spend much time on your graph Silence, but just a quick look at the top one... did you consider population growth? The 2nd chart looks about right.

What I'm wondering today is... IF they knowingly made some nonsense up in lab 4 that they KNOWINGLY put out to the public... What does that mean? What is the agenda? I mean I got cash & fame even depopulation... but what is the end game here if that is true? And if "they" win?

Because as I recall the swine flu vac. was pulled at like 25-32 deaths (?) We're over 17,000 (reported)....

So either they are stupid or...
 
I asked for each of the past 20 years rates.

I didn't think there was much point in making the comparison from one year to the next, 20 times over. The graph Silence posted shows what has happened from year to year over the last 20 years (a very small change from year to year with a gradual downward trend). It's clearly 2020 which is a huge outlier in terms of the previous year mortality.

Was there a killer virus in 2000 - 2004? Were you shrieking about it then (if you were even born yet)?

What are you talking about? The change in mortality rate from 2000 to 2001 to 2002 to 2003 to 2004, were all small decreases, in line with the overall downward trend. Why would anybody think there was a killer virus those years?

You are not addressing my point. You are deflecting, as usual.
Obviously if mortality rate increases, then the rate for the elderly will increase. Obviously the elderly will die too from neglect,lack of care, etc. That's not what I'm talking about now.

What I am saying is that the % of total deaths represented by the elderly is the same post-covid as it was pre-covid. That is impossible if there is a disease that is killing more people than usually and the people it is killing are disproportionately the elderly (which every source claims- i.e. the avg age of alleged covid death is 79 to 81 depending on geography).

Basically, I am looking at the situation the same way the researcher in this link did - https://drive.google.com/file/d/1iO0K75EZAF8dkNDkDmM3L4zNNY0X-Xw5/view

Ah, I see. Thank you for clarifying.

I'm not sure why you would choose that particular measure. You are only going to see a change in the percent of total deaths represented by the elderly if COVID only kills the elderly. Now, in terms of raw numbers, it disproportionately kills the elderly. But in terms of relative numbers (like age/sex adjusted mortality rates) the elderly aren't disproportionately affected. But we already know that by just looking at the changes in mortality rates.

It's a pretty useless measure. It's very insensitive unless the deaths follow a particular pattern (only one age group is affected). And we already know that that pattern is not present with COVID (although to be fair to the person doing the analysis, they didn't know that at that point). Still, it's a dumb idea, when the data doesn't fit your guess at a model, to assume that the data is lie rather than your guess was wrong.
 
Thanks for playing but........(obnoxious loud buzzer sound).........you fail.

Projecting deaths was not the point of her analysis. In fact, death count had nothing to do with the concept. The concept and the point was the percent of total deaths in each age band, which hadn't changed pre-covid to post-covid.

If covid was said to kill all age groups equally, the death count would have to be a key variable. However, covid is said to kill the elderly by far and away at a greater rate. Therefore the percent of elderly in the total death count would increase if there is a novel pathogen that is killing the elderly above and beyond their normal death rate. That didn't happen. This is very simple and very elegant.

A novel pathogen killed the elderly above and beyond their normal death rate. But the novel pathogen also killed everyone else above and beyond their normal death rate. The mortality rates increased in all age groups. That's why you don't see an increase in the percent of elderly in the total death count. Don't get hung up on raw death counts - it was only the raw death counts which were disproportionately greater in the elderly.

And that's a good illustration of why this is a poor measure. A whole lot of stuff was going on, but this measure completely missed it.
 
As I said, in the business, we were expecting to see an increase in mortality beginning in 2020 that will continue for the next couple of decades. I think you can easily find confirmation of everything I just said on line.

Where? It doesn't show up in the SSA Life Tables.
 
A novel pathogen killed the elderly above and beyond their normal death rate. But the novel pathogen also killed everyone else above and beyond their normal death rate. The mortality rates increased in all age groups. That's why you don't see an increase in the percent of elderly in the total death count. Don't get hung up on raw death counts - it was only the raw death counts which were disproportionately greater in the elderly.

And that's a good illustration of why this is a poor measure. A whole lot of stuff was going on, but this measure completely missed it.
That's not what the even the CDC says. You pulled that out of you ass, like everything you say. Everyone knows you're straight up confabulating data. No one except you, out of desperation for your failed meme, is saying the virus kills all age groups equally.

But go ahead, show your math and figures, LOL.
 
That's not what the even the CDC says. You pulled that out of you ass, like everything you say. Everyone knows you're straight up confabulating data. No one except you, out of desperation for your failed meme, is saying the virus kills all age groups equally.

But go ahead, show your math and figures, LOL.

That's exactly what the CDC says. There was a huge increase in mortality rate in every age group among adults.These are the numbers from the mortality links I have given you at least a half a dozen times.

Mortality rates are per 100,000. For each age group, first number is from 2019, second number is from 2020.

25-34, 128.8 increased to 157.9
35-44, 199.2 increased to 246.2
45-54, 392.4 increased to 467.8
55-64, 883.3 increased to 1028.5
65-74, 1764.6 increased to 2068.8
75-84, 4308.3 increased to 4980.2
85 + , 13,228.6 increased to 15,007.4

For comparison with a normal, non-pandemic difference, these are the numbers for the same age groups from 2018 and 2019.

128.8 to 128.8
194.7 to 199.2
395.9 to 392.4
886.7 to 883.3
1783.3 to 1764.6
4386.1 to 4308.3
13,450.7 to 13,228.6

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db395.htm
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7014e1.htm

You are confusing raw numbers with rates. Overall, the mortality rate increased by almost 16% from 2019 to 2020. And every adult age group saw that increase. Some age groups (25-34, 35-44) had an increase which was larger. Some age groups (85 + ) had an increase which was smaller. But all saw a huge increase. A 16% increase applied to a mortality rate of 13,228.6/100,000 gives you a much larger number of deaths, than a 16% increase applied to a mortality rate of 128.8/100,000.

So in terms of raw numbers, the elderly had the largest number of deaths from COVID (which is what you were looking at). But all age groups had a huge proportional increase in the number of deaths, which is why the percent of deaths in the elderly stayed roughly the same. It's basic math. If you multiple each number by the same amount, the proportions (percent) occupied by each number stay the same.

x/(x+y+z) = 2x/2(x+y+z)

Try it. You will be surprised by the result.
 
That's exactly what the CDC says. There was a huge increase in mortality rate in every age group among adults.These are the numbers from the mortality links I have given you at least a half a dozen times.

Mortality rates are per 100,000. For each age group, first number is from 2019, second number is from 2020.

25-34, 128.8 increased to 157.9
35-44, 199.2 increased to 246.2
45-54, 392.4 increased to 467.8
55-64, 883.3 increased to 1028.5
65-74, 1764.6 increased to 2068.8
75-84, 4308.3 increased to 4980.2
85 + , 13,228.6 increased to 15,007.4

For comparison with a normal, non-pandemic difference, these are the numbers for the same age groups from 2018 and 2019.

128.8 to 128.8
194.7 to 199.2
395.9 to 392.4
886.7 to 883.3
1783.3 to 1764.6
4386.1 to 4308.3
13,450.7 to 13,228.6

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db395.htm
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7014e1.htm

You are confusing raw numbers with rates. Overall, the mortality rate increased by almost 16% from 2019 to 2020. And every adult age group saw that increase. Some age groups (25-34, 35-44) had an increase which was larger. Some age groups (85 + ) had an increase which was smaller. But all saw a huge increase. A 16% increase applied to a mortality rate of 13,228.6/100,000 gives you a much larger number of deaths, than a 16% increase applied to a mortality rate of 128.8/100,000.

So in terms of raw numbers, the elderly had the largest number of deaths from COVID (which is what you were looking at). But all age groups had a huge proportional increase in the number of deaths, which is why the percent of deaths in the elderly stayed roughly the same. It's basic math. If you multiple each number by the same amount, the proportions (percent) occupied by each number stay the same.

x/(x+y+z) = 2x/2(x+y+z)

Try it. You will be surprised by the result.
You're lying again, blatantly.

Your first link has death rate for 2018 and 2019.

Your second link doesn't have anything like what you said it does.

I'm not confusing raw number and rates. We were talking about the % of total death accounted for by each group. Even the rate of death for younger age groups, allegedly by covid, is far lower than that of the older groups.

I'm going to ask Alex and Andrew about banning you as you are a deliberate disruption to discussion. Being honestly wrong is one thing, we all do it. But simply spewing lies at every turn is another.
 
For everyone not Ellis,
Here are the excess death rates, by age, based on CDC figures. As you can see, covid is said to impact the elderly at a much higher rate that those under 65. It is unfortunate that this link doesn't have the under 65 broken out into finer cuts because the difference in rate would be even more pronounced for the younger buckets (as age decreases, rate of covid excess mortality decreases).

https://www.statista.com/statistics...ortality-rate-in-the-us-by-age-and-ethnicity/

That suggests the John Hopkins analysis I linked to up-thread is valid. Contrary to what proven liar Ellis and SBU say, that analysis is not looking at raw numbers. It looks at the % of total deaths represented by each age group, which didn't change after covid. Covid is said to disproportionately kill the elderly. The link on this comment shows that. Thus, the proportion of all deaths represented by the elderly should have increased under covid. It didn't. The elderly labeled as covid deaths therefore probably must be something else. Recognizing this, Ellis tried to save his covidian panic meme by stating that covid kills all age groups equally. He knows better. He also tossed out a smoke grenade in the form of mumbo jumbo about rates versus raw numbers. Ellis is pure information op. IMO, he should be banned.
 
What are you talking about? The change in mortality rate from 2000 to 2001 to 2002 to 2003 to 2004, were all small decreases, in line with the overall downward trend. Why would anybody think there was a killer virus those years?

I didn't say anything about the change in rate in those years. I said the rate was higher in each of those years than it was in 2020.

If the death rate in 2020 is so terrible, allegedly because of covid, why wasn't there some kind of panic over the death rate in 2000 - 2004? Indeed, no one was squawking about it at all. What caused mortality rates to be higher in each of those years than the covid year?

Only a real dummy thinks that tends continue for ever (i.e. the rate increases for the past 20 years or so).

I'm giving you clues here. I know Ellis isn't interested because......well trolls gonna troll

What we are going to see is that mortality rate is going to dip in 2022 and then surge again in 2024. Fauci can invent a new pandemic at that time if he's still around. The mortality rate 1950 to present is mostly driven by demographics, better medical tech and lifestyles. Of those the virus killed (far fewer than alleged by the CDC) the vast majority were going to die soon anyhow. They died in 2020/2021 instead of 2022 or 2023. The mortality rate was always going to increase significantly 2020 - 2040, reversing the downward trend driven by age, medical improvements and lifestyle improvements over the past 50 years.
 
You can't argue or compare death rates from COVID without looking at each death on an individual basis to SEE exactly why the person died. We know that all you need is a positive COVID test to be counted as a COVID death. Let that sink in for a moment as you mull over statistics to make your arguments about excess death.
 
You can't argue or compare death rates from COVID without looking at each death on an individual basis to SEE exactly why the person died. We know that all you need is a positive COVID test to be counted as a COVID death. Let that sink in for a moment as you mull over statistics to make your arguments about excess death.
To be fair, the current discussion isn't focused on determining cause of death but rather the spike in morbidity overall. (i.e., what caused the jump in overall deaths and how or is it related to COVID)
 
To be fair, the current discussion isn't focused on determining cause of death but rather the spike in morbidity overall. (i.e., what caused the jump in overall deaths and how or is it related to COVID)

What part do lockdowns i.e. loss of work, social distancing i.e. like of human connection, and mask wearing i.e. higher consumption of your own exhaust contribute to the jump in overall deaths?
 
You can't argue or compare death rates from COVID without looking at each death on an individual basis to SEE exactly why the person died. We know that all you need is a positive COVID test to be counted as a COVID death. Let that sink in for a moment as you mull over statistics to make your arguments about excess death.
I am somewhat in agreement.

My point - and the point of the John Hopkins type analysis - is that even if we take the CDC statistics as our starting point, it doesn't add up, which in turn brings us back to your point.

Let's stay within the official narrative for a moment. No one, except Ellis, thinks that covid kills all age groups at the same rate. Indeed, covid kills the elderly proportionally, more. Or, in other words, it kills the elderly at a greater rate. Even the CDC says so. Therefore, the proportion of elderly deaths to all deaths should have increased in 2020. It didn't.

It's a very simple, yet elegant concept.

You have 100 green jelly beans, 100 red jelly beans and 100 yellow jelly beans and normally they are chosen and eaten at a rate of 10/100, 15/100 and 25/100 - or 3.3% of all jelly beans consumed are green, 5% red and 8.3% yellow (10/300, 15/300 and 25/300). The total jelly bean consumption is 50 out of 300 for a rate of 16.7/100.

Along comes some new unexpected consumer that prefers yellow beans. He eats them at twice the original rate (so 50/100). He does eat other colors, but not as much. He eats green ones at 11/100 and red ones at 17/100. The new over all rate of consumption is ( 78/300 --> 26/100).

The rates, though, are actually irrelevant to this analysis. What is relevant is that the proportions have changed. They have gone from
3.3% of all jelly beans consumed green, 5% red and 8.3% yellow
to
3.67% of all jelly beans consumed green, 5.6% red and 16.6% yellow.

It is that kind of change in proportions that we should see with covid among elderly mortality, but we don't.

Ellis' comment of 11/11 7:46 a.m. shows that mortality rate increased across all age groups. I haven't verified his figures - and that's something that you have to do with anything Ellis presents - but even accepting them as accurate, they still make my point and not his. Yes, his figures would mean that mortality increased across the board (all age groups). But we cannot conclude that covid killed all those people of all ages. There are other explanations (again, look at 2000 - 2004 wen there was no covid and mortality rates across the board were significantly higher than 2020).

The CDC has excess mortality due to covid as follows (rate per 100K):
age 15 - 64 = 60
age 65 - 74 = 435.4
age 75 and above = 1,263

Contrary to Ellis' scurrilous assertions I am not looking at raw numbers, nor is covid alleged to kill equally (proportionally/at the same rate) across all age groups. Again, Ellis is the only one I ever heard say that. Not even the the most fear mongering govt agency says such a thing.

Ellis is either incredibly stupid, like functionally retarded level, or a liar. Same with SBU. I vote for the latter.
 
To be fair, the current discussion isn't focused on determining cause of death but rather the spike in morbidity overall. (i.e., what caused the jump in overall deaths and how or is it related to COVID)

Silence,
I pretty much explained already.

1. Some covid (yes, there really is virus). This is about the same as a bad flu season like we have every so often. It culled those at or near their expected year of death. So a clustering of deaths that would have been spread out over the next one to three years if no covid
2. Influx of third world immigrants (legal and illegal) with bad health culture
3. Drug overdoses/suicides increased
4. An aging sub-population (boomers) hitting the critical deadline (pardon the pun)
5. And, mostly, deferred care for critical conditions. That is the main reason why we see an increase in mortality rates across all ages.

I will ask you again, what was going on in years 2000 - 2004 that the US mortality rate was significantly higher than the dreaded 2020 pandemic? Did you notice bodies piled in the streets? Did anything seem weird and terrifying to you back then? Legit question.
 
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interesting discussion... but kinda/slightly misses the point re bioweapon... I I mean, in the psyop world there's all sorts of different "bioweapons"

Can The Lab Leak Debate Ever Find A Consensus?
Like our fights around masks, lockdowns, ivermectin, vaccines and beyond, the question of ‘where COVID-19 came from’ has been devoured by the same engine churn of polarised political thinking. Since the beginning of the outbreak, so-called ‘lab leak’ proponents have been prone to being painted as conspiracy theorists and cranks; those who argued for the mainstream position, that of zoonosis or natural origin, are sometimes-framed as mainstream stooges, or useful idiots for the CCP.
Given the heat and passion online, getting the two sides together for friendly dialogue has been a challenge. In a rare cultural moment, however, Rebel Wisdom has brought figures from both sides to hear their cases and their objections.
On the ‘lab leak’ side, Yuri Deigin: the Russian biomedical entrepreneur and leader of DRASTIC, the decentralised research collective whose dogged research brought the possibility of a lab leak to mainstream consideration. Arguing for zoonosis, Dr. Stuart Neil of King’s College, London: a virologist who bills himself as the “zoonati to the lab leak glitterati”.
We wrote a full briefing document about the lab leak hypothesis earlier in the summer. We've updated it here.​
On the ‘lab leak’ side, Yuri Deigin: the Russian biomedical entrepreneur and leader of DRASTIC, the decentralised research collective whose dogged research brought the possibility of a lab leak to mainstream consideration. Arguing for zoonosis, Dr. Stuart Neil of King’s College, London: a virologist who bills himself as the “zoonati to the lab leak glitterati”.
We hope the conversation will break some ground - and we’re thankful for Yuri and Stuart for taking the gloves off and agreeing to talk. Even putting polarisation aside, though, the lab leak debate in itself presents a difficult sensemaking challenge. It’s difficult, dense, and outsourcing our trust to some kind of outside authority is unavoidable. Rebel Wisdom has updated its briefing book summation of both sides, which you can see here.
Whether or not you find either Yuri or Stuart’s arguments convincing, we hope you see that both are both trying their best to make sense of a complex picture, with solid reasoning on both sides. In a debate that is rife with accusations of ‘shill’, ‘conspiracy theorist’ and other ad hominem accusations, even the fact of the dialogue itself looks like progress.
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On the ‘lab leak’ side, Yuri Deigin: the Russian biomedical entrepreneur and leader of DRASTIC, the decentralised research collective whose dogged research brought the possibility of a lab leak to mainstream consideration. Arguing for zoonosis, Dr. Stuart Neil of King’s College, London: a virologist who bills himself as the “zoonati to the lab leak glitterati”.
We hope the conversation will break some ground - and we’re thankful for Yuri and Stuart for taking the gloves off and agreeing to talk. Even putting polarisation aside, though, the lab leak debate in itself presents a difficult sensemaking challenge. It’s difficult, dense, and outsourcing our trust to some kind of outside authority is unavoidable. Rebel Wisdom has updated its briefing book summation of both sides, which you can see here.
Whether or not you find either Yuri or Stuart’s arguments convincing, we hope you see that both are both trying their best to make sense of a complex picture, with solid reasoning on both sides. In a debate that is rife with accusations of ‘shill’, ‘conspiracy theorist’ and other ad hominem accusations, even the fact of the dialogue itself looks like progress.
Crucially, however, both agreed on some foundational points. “It makes absolutely zero sense to me to make coronavirus into a bioweapon”, Neil said.
“Yeah, that much, I think we agree upon”, Yuri added, while also acknowledging that bioengineering - that lab workers purposefully manufactured a deadly virus - is far from certain as a scenario for lab leak. “I don't know. I think there's just so many different scenarios that are possible within the lab leak hypothesis - starting from yes, engineering”, to vaccine development or a culture experiment gone-wrong.
In the debate’s first phase, Rebel Wisdom asked both to outline the core reasons behind their case. For Deigin, the geographic origin of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, seems insurmountable. “What are the chances of a complete freak accident of this virus that is not normally found in this geography to pop up next door to a lab that's been collecting and modifying these viruses for years?”, he asked Neil.
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As Deigin’s DRASTIC uncovered, the Wuhan Institute of Virology had been experimenting with bat coronaviruses for gain-of-function research, which involves the use of deliberate techniques to raise the transmissibility and infectivity of viruses. Gain-of-function research has been considered by some as risky, and was even banned by President Obama (before being re-commenced under President Trump). The Wuhan Lab specifically fell foul of regulators in a 2018 review that questioned its health and safety practice. Included in the Lab’s viral database was RaTG13, a virus with 96% structural similarity to SARS-CoV-2, which had been renamed and subsequently taken offline in September 2019 as part of a public database the Lab deleted (and claimed was hacked). Other signs of a cover-up can be seen: the destruction of viral samples on government orders, the blocking of BBC journalists, the reported silencing of Lab personnel, low cooperation from staff in the WHO investigation. In September, Xi Jinping ordered new schemes of safety review for labs.
For Neil, the cover-ups of the CCP may look like red flags, but they’re more like red herrings: dictatorships run on a delicate game of legitimacy with their populations, and they’re likely to try and silence everything - including areas that weren’t involved in real trouble. And what of the possible (if not also likely) cover-up of the role of animal markets in and around Wuhan, which the scientific consensus deems the most probable origin site?
While tests of 80,000 animal samples found no link with SARS-CoV-2, Neil suggests that “none of these [were] relevant”, but rather included a range of implausible zoonotic vectors like chickens and pigs. “The only relevant things that were ever tested were a few frozen carcases in the Yuannan Market. Everything else was cleared out. No one found a damn thing.”
Another worry for Deigin, however, is a specific feature of SARS-CoV-2, which may suggest the handiwork of gain-of-function research: its ‘furin cleavage site’, an asset of the virus not seen in any counterpart in its immediate family, which raises infectivity. These concerns came to a head in September, when DRASTIC leaked a rejected 2018 application (by a team including Shi Zhengli, the head of the Wuhan Lab, and Peter Daszak, one of the Lab’s benefactors) to DARPA for $14.2 million to fund dedicated gain-of-function work with bat coronaviruses. For lab leak proponents, part of the application - on whose fine-print Deigin and Neil disagree - involves work with manipulating the furin cleavage site: the signature of SARS-CoV-2.
The application was rejected, though. And even if it were financed, Neil points out, it was to take place specifically on campus in Carolina, not the Wuhan Lab - though Alina Chan and Nicholson Baker of the lab leak side think this doesn’t rule out Wuhan taking the reins and the blueprint themselves. Yet, more importantly, what if the furin site isn’t special? While not found in SARS-CoV-2’s closest family, it is found in respiratory coronaviruses of many kinds, Neil says. We don’t know, either, if the supposed effect of this feature - the virus’ elevated transmissibility and infectivity - was borne out in the controlled environments of the first infections.
“The reason [SARS-CoV-2] comes on the radar is when it rocks up in the big city and you get so much sustained transmission that the more e rare and more serious effects of infection get easily seen”, he says. “You wouldn't have necessarily seen this in a rural population”, like those on the border of Wuhan - which may, as it happens, explain how the virus ended up in the same city as the Lab, too.
So, where do Neil and Deigin agree? Three key points. First, that one creative hypothesis made around RaTG13 - that the counterpart virus mutated into SARS-CoV-2 in miners’ lungs - is short of evidence.
Second: However COVID-19 came to be, it was probably not a bioweapon - let alone one intentionally-released. Not only would SARS-CoV-2 and coronaviruses more generally make for an odd - or “inconsistent”, as the US intelligence services put it - choice of bioweapon, but the claim stems from a single unreviewed Hong Kong virologist, who made several technical errors in his presentation. Claiming a malicious release also assumes an additional layer of explanation that, short of facts, we should be wary of crossing.
Third: We will likely never know the true story of its origins.
“Ultimately, we need to know. We need to know exactly what was in the freezer”, Neil says. “I mean, the trouble is that the well has been poisoned so much… It’s so intensely political.” Imagine if the CCP and the Wuhan Lab changed its course, opened up, and came out with a deep government review, Neil asks - and concluded a lab leak couldn’t have happened.

How would lab leak proponents react? They wouldn’t trust the findings, of course.

Conversely, imagine if the White House and the Intelligence services, or the WHO, say, emerged with an in-depth report that suggested a natural origin. It’d be viewed as a compromise to Chinese interests. Or if they concluded a lab leak was likely, it’d be viewed as a club against China in global geopolitics.

No one gets out of culture war alive. Not least real sensemaking.​
 
interesting discussion... but kinda/slightly misses the point re bioweapon... I I mean, in the psyop world there's all sorts of different "bioweapons"





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No one gets out of culture war alive. Not least real sensemaking.
I lean toward lab leak/gain of function research. But well outside my area of experience/expertise. So unable to debate or to determine who won.

I find deliberate biowarfare against the world (or against the West with everyone else collateral damage) to be too far into CT territory to consider without some extremely strong evidence. + it's a piss poor bio weapon. It's only killing the elderly and infirm that were going to die anyhow + too traceable. We would know China did it.

Corporate and political suppression of China's responsibility (and Fauci's)? Definitely something that could happen in the real world.

All kinds of profiteers, politicians and ideologues opportunists using covid for gain and ginning up the perfect IO storm to keep it going? Yep. I am convinced that is happening.

"No one gets out of culture war alive. Not least real sensemaking."

But that's all there is and ever has been. As I have said, humans are story tellers above all else - way above all else. The Western world is precious because, for a time, there was the Enlightenment. That's how the west advanced while the rest of the world remained primitive. It wasn't racism/colonialism. The Western way, its values, are openly under attack these days. When people today reject "whiteness" and buy into all of the other "woke" crap, they are rejecting the Enlightenment. These same people say to just believe the official source (the govt and the gov't's media outlets). They prefer a world of myths and stories and, yes, lies. It's a perpetual information op world they want. Therein is a way to gain power - an almost satanic power - over others. You can easily be the wizard behind the idol in such a world. If not seeking wizard status, then alignment with the wizard is reassuring for most.

The gas lighting, the lies, the putting of oneself in the position of The Truth - the one and only truth - breaks the will of the subjects. It makes them into slaves. It makes the one in control godlike. That is the definition of evil.

I will debate Alex and anyone else all day long over sketchy conspiracy theories based on flimsy evidence*. However, I will defend his right to CT to his heart's delight. Once the right to honestly express oneself, to explore and question and test hypotheses is eliminated, we're in hell. That said, I will debate CTs because most of them are so far into the realm of story telling that they threaten to throw us back into primitive world, themselves. That is to say that CTs are also a form of info op and wizard behind the idol. I think that many CT promoters sense the rush of power that propagating the CT gives them (as wizard); however much they consciously tell themselves that they are truth tellers. There must be a balance in all things in life.

A once good friend of mine who ended up working in DARPA used to think it would be cool to create virtual reality for mass social consumption. He envisioned putting chips in peoples' heads to that end. We'd stay up late smoking and debating this thing he wanted to do. He was way on the leading of all that tech shit. Then the movie Matrix came out. I sarcastically told him it looked like his dream come true. He admonished me that his dream was better because it would be programmed to be a nice virtual world. I asked him what would happen if an evil programmer took control of the thing, like a Hitler. He never had a good answer other than it simply wouldn't happen because, well because. He thought guys like him were the smartest so they should direct the rest of us. They know better. I told him that was his inner Satan talking. Pour another tumbler of scotch and debate that point all night. He could never understand why a smart guy like me wouldn't want in on the new world he/they wanted to create.

Beware, that mindset is as old as dirt. It's within us all and nurtured by many.

*(my fav - CIA running The Finders because 1. an alleged CIA guy owned a storage unit rented to the cult - assuming background is even true, there are a gazillion "CIA guys" in the DC area. 2. CIA allegedly wouldn't help a junior customs agent with international intel - yeah not happening on a criminal case of any kind/ short of international terrorism, not the CIA's wheel house. 3. Finders cult leader allegedly had mil intel background - so what? There are a gazillion pimple faced high school graduates in the service branches' with an intel MOS, even attached to the DIA. They do stuff like read/create maps, image collection/analysis, filing of classified cables, etc, etc, etc. Being in the intel community doesn't mean you're James Bond or MK Ultra or even have a clue what's going on in the realm beyond the stack of product on your own desk. All pure CT fantasy).
 
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Second: However COVID-19 came to be, it was probably not a bioweapon - let alone one intentionally-released. Not only would SARS-CoV-2 and coronaviruses more generally make for an odd - or “inconsistent”, as the US intelligence services put it - choice of bioweapon, but the claim stems from a single unreviewed Hong Kong virologist, who made several technical errors in his presentation. Claiming a malicious release also assumes an additional layer of explanation that, short of facts, we should be wary of crossing.

I'd have thought that given all the pandemic planning, there was a rational reason to create this virus and release it - whether you call it a 'bioweapon' or not. Big Pharma may have simply paid for it!

I suspect that a classical viral bioweapon may be something of a myth, because:

1) Viruses evolve, and typically they evolve to become less damaging, and thus spread more regularly.

2) Once released, viruses are very hard to control, and might hurt the country that deployed them rather than an opponent.

3) It would be damn near impossible to do a realistic test of your new weapon in the field.

David
 
I'd have thought that given all the pandemic planning, there was a rational reason to create this virus and release it - whether you call it a 'bioweapon' or not. Big Pharma may have simply paid for it!

I suspect that a classical viral bioweapon may be something of a myth, because:

1) Viruses evolve, and typically they evolve to become less damaging, and thus spread more regularly.

2) Once released, viruses are very hard to control, and might hurt the country that deployed them rather than an opponent.

3) It would be damn near impossible to do a realistic test of your new weapon in the field.

David
Several developed nations experiment w/ bio-weapons in top security labs. Some of that is for offense capability development and much of it is for defensive development. Leaks are not unheard of.

Think about it, all these labs and these microscopic organisms and DNA strands. It is inevitable that some get out. That's just odds and reality.

For perspective, nuclear facilities have melted down, "killer bees" are a lab escape. No one profits from that or wants it. That kind of shit happens. It doesn't require a conspiracy and a deliberate release; just humans being humans.

That doesn't mean there wasn't a conspiracy to release covid. It's just points out that a conspiracy isn't necessary to explain a lab leak, despite whatever motives one wishes to impute to shadowy villains like "Big Pharma".
 
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