As it should be

[gcode]

I am no expert on epidemics. Like everyone else I know, I spent the pandemic doing as I was told. A few months ago I even tried to talk a Fox News viewer out of believing in the lab-leak theory of Covid's origins. The reason I did that is because the newspapers I read and the TV shows I watched had assured me on many occasions that the lab-leak theory wasn't true, that it was a racist conspiracy theory, that only deluded Trumpists believed it, that it got infinite pants-on-fire ratings from the fact-checkers, and because (despite all my cynicism) I am the sort who has always trusted the mainstream news media.

My own complacency on the matter was dynamited by the lab-leak essay that ran in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists earlier this month; a few weeks later everyone from Doctor Fauci to President Biden is acknowledging that the lab-accident hypothesis might have some merit. We don't know the real answer yet, and we probably will never know, but this is the moment to anticipate what such a finding might ultimately mean. What if this crazy story turns out to be true?

The answer is that this is the kind of thing that could obliterate the faith of millions.

And it should, because the institutions in question were not worthy of faith, and were themselves faithless. Plus:

Consider the details of the story as we have learned them in the last few weeks:

• Lab leaks happen. They aren't the result of conspiracies: "a lab accident is an accident," as Nathan Robinson points out; they happen all the time, in this country and in others, and people die from them.

• There is evidence that the lab in question, which studies bat coronaviruses, may have been conducting what is called "gain of function" research, a dangerous innovation in which diseases are deliberately made more virulent. By the way, right-wingers didn't dream up "gain of function": all the cool virologists have been doing it (in this country and in others) even as the squares have been warning against it for years.

• There are strong hints that some of the bat-virus research at the Wuhan lab was funded in part by the American national-medical establishment — which is to say, the lab-leak hypothesis doesn't implicate China alone.

• There seem to have been astonishing conflicts of interest among the people assigned to get to the bottom of it all, and (as we know from Enron and the housing bubble) conflicts of interest are always what trip up the well-credentialed professionals whom liberals insist we must all heed, honor, and obey.

• The news media, in its zealous policing of the boundaries of the permissible, insisted that Russiagate was ever so true but that the lab-leak hypothesis was false false false, and woe unto anyone who dared disagree. Reporters gulped down whatever line was most flattering to the experts they were quoting and then insisted that it was 100% right and absolutely incontrovertible — that anything else was only unhinged Trumpist folly, that democracy dies when unbelievers get to speak, and so on.

• The social media monopolies actually censored posts about the lab-leak hypothesis. Of course they did! Because we're at war with misinformation, you know, and people need to be brought back to the true and correct faith — as agreed upon by experts. . . .

If it does indeed turn out that the lab-leak hypothesis is the right explanation for how it began — that the common people of the world have been forced into a real-life lab experiment, at tremendous cost — there is a moral earthquake on the way.

Because if the hypothesis is right, it will soon start to dawn on people that our mistake was not insufficient reverence for scientists, or inadequate respect for expertise, or not enough censorship on Facebook. It was a failure to think critically about all of the above, to understand that there is no such thing as absolute expertise.

In fact, when virtually every institution in America decided in lockstep that it was "racist" to call it a Chinese virus, or Wuhan virus, even though it was clearly a virus that came from Wuhan, China, it told the discerning observer two things: First, that it was indeed China's fault, and second, that all of these institutions were on the Chinese payroll, or at least on the Chinese team.

Those "experts" were arrogant, ignorant, and often dishonest and corrupt. Why wouldn't people lose faith in them? Why shouldn't they?

Related: The Suicide of Expertise.

https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/453456/">https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/453456/

Personally,  I never believed the lies the liars were peddling
I always thought CV-19 came from a lab.
The only thing I am unsure of it whether it was an accidental leak, or an intentional release

[Del.]

I think it was just a test and something worse is coming.

[byte]

I think it was just a test and something worse is coming.

I said the same..

[Jim at Gentex]

In September 2020, Dr. Li-Meng Yan was a guest on the Tucker Carlson show.
She said that she worked in the Wuhan facility, that the virus was definitely man-made (or at least genetically tinkered with), and that she believed it was released on purpose.

Of course, she was savagely attacked by the MSM, and Snopes agrees that what she said is not true, so I have concluded that she probably was telling the absolute truth.

In today's world, the more effort that is put forth to suppress someone's opinion, the more credibility it gives them IMO.

[Surface]

Taking the Wuhan lab theory seriously would mean admitting the possibility that President Trump might have been right... at least on this one thing.

Even Anthony Fauci has changed his tune and now says he cannot be 100% certain the virus came about naturally and the 'wet market theory' becomes harder to square with the accumulating evidence.

Meanwhile, the intelligence investigation Mr. Biden has relaunched will only set up further clashes and contradictions with China, given that Beijing will continue to refuse cooperation, as well as with the discredited WHO, which the Biden administration has rejoined because . . . well . . . Trump took us out of it.

[Dan_AKA_ROY23]

Wuhan Lab vote here.

Accidental or on purpose? Could be either. They were using a level 3 safety protocol, which isn't very 'safe'. A virus like this should have been in the very least level 4. Level 5 reserved for the 'really dangerous ones'. So, a worker could have become infected and bam it's out. Just an accident. I am not ruling out the 'on purpose' hypothesis, though.

[Tim Johnson]

The fact that Wuhan was completely shut down with exception to the airport flights leaving for destinations around the globe other than China tells the story. It was intentional.

[mkd]

I posted a pretty good Stephan Molynuex video on eMC right after the outbreak. Had an expert on describing the factors of the actual virus having all these markers of a man made, juiced up cocktail including HIV components. Too many coincidences to be naturally occurring.

And of course HIV itself is widely suspected as a gain of function leak.

[Matthew Hajicek]

If you've ever played Plague Inc. Evolved, the Covid19 virus has almost everything you would design into a malicious contagion.  Long gestation time before symptoms appear, difficult detection, and long term debilitating symptoms such as brain fog.  It appears optimized to cause economic damage.

[DUM1]

vote for lab here , all planned . Which lab ? Probably a team effort of several.
Jesse Ventura talked to a doctor back in 2009 she described exactly how this is happening now and what's going to happen next.

[mkd]

WWMD?
What Would Machiavelli Do? :ice:
 
As an executive of any country, if you admit what is plainly obvious, intentional lab leak, it's a lose/lose:
1. admit the travesty but have no response, you are a weak leader letting your people suffer?
2. admit the travesty and sanction the other party you might just be a war hawk making it truly worse?
3. Or use propaganda and confusion to turn the population against each other instead of you?

Fauci chooses #3, eh?