comment: >
  
  Your point is conspiracy though. You literally think it's a man-made pathogen when there is zero evidence to back this up at all.
context: To /u/david-song, Your post is under consideration for removal for violating Rule B.
  In our experience, the best conversations genuinely consider the other person’s perspective. Here are some techniques for keeping yourself honest:
  
  Instead of only looking for flaws in a comment, be sure to engage with the commenters’ strongest arguments — not just their weakest.
  Steelman rather than strawman. When summarizing someone’s points, look for the most reasonable interpretation of their words.
  Avoid moving the goalposts. Reread the claims in your OP or first comments and if you need to change to a new set of claims to continue arguing for your position, you might want to consider acknowledging the change in view with a delta before proceeding.
  Ask questions and really try to understand the other side, rather than trying to prove why they are wrong.
  
  Please also take a moment to review our Rule B guidelines and really ask yourself - am I exhibiting any of these behaviors? If so, see what you can do to get the discussion back on track.  Remember, the goal of CMV is to try and understand why others think differently than you do. >
  
  I don't think I can or should change your mind to "It was 100% a wild virus that crossed over by random chance in Whuan" because I don't believe that to a high degree of certainty.  Rather, I think you should join me in Bayesian ambiguity.    
  So here's my pitch:
  It is possible that there was a lab leak.  There's a lab there, and humans are not perfectly competent.  It's not an unreasonable theory to entertain.    
  But pandemics, over human history, occur with a high degree of regularity.  They happen constantly.  Flu jumps back and forth from humans to other critters annually.  This has been the state of things for all of human history— and even before history began.  Meanwhile, virology centers are about a century old.  Virology labs are completely unnecessary to a virus making the animal/human jump, this is an known and indisputable fact, I'm sure you'll agree.  
  So if you have this perfectly good, been-happening-forever method of a pandemic generation, why suppose a more complicated route?  Entities Should Not Be Multiplied Unnecessarily, as Occam said.  
  It may seem sus that the virus was first detected in Wuhan, and that they were studying coronavirii there,  And I'll grant, that's potential evidence of a leak. But it's not strong evidence.  Consider: the first cases of AIDS were detected in New York, but they weren't the first cases to exist.  The first cases were in Africa, but the spread was undetected until it reached a dense population in a rich region with lots of healthcare where doctors could spot the outbreak as something unusual {they famously thought it was a "rare cancer" at first}.  The same could very well be true in Wuhan: it's a major population and trading center with 4 million more people than NYC has today, and is comparatively wealthy to rural China— the virus could have flown, sailed, or drove in from anywhere.  And while it might seem sus that WVI was studying rona, remember that the SARS outbreak in China in 2002 was also a coronavirus.  After that scare, of COURSE they were gonna study the virus at WVI.  The 2002 outbreak also servers as a reminder that novel coronoavirii are endemic to China, another fact that should also stack your priors in favor of "natural event" 
  So I'm not saying this is a slam dunk.  But for an event like this a reasonable evidence-based person should have their priors heavily stacked in favor of "natural event" {because of how frequent they are}, and only differ from that for an overwhelmingly good reason.  And I just don't think we're there.  So, while the lab leak not an unreasonable hypothesis, it's not one you should endorse as true— but merely as possible. >
  
  
  Consider: the first cases of AIDS were detected in New York, but they weren't the first cases to exist.  The first cases were in Africa, but the spread was undetected until it reached a dense population in a rich region with lots of healthcare where doctors could spot the outbreak as something unusual {they famously thought it was a "rare cancer" at first}.
  
  I like this. It's given me a new way of thinking about it, so Δ
  That said, the timeline is: intelligence reports about researchers being ill, then the WIV databases deleted in a hack, then about two months pass before it's officially reported, then the heavy handed response, suppression of anger towards "bat lady" by the Chinese people, the lies printed in The Lancet, censorship by US technology firms, labs worldwide scared of saying anything and becoming an enemy of China. And the background info and documents. They are all add up to a body of evidence that makes a lab leak far more likely in my mind. >
  
  
  intelligence reports about researchers being ill
  
  Do you have a source for this, or something I can google to bring up the right thing?  My googlefu is weak today, and I can't pull up a source for that claim.  
  Also, thanks for my first delta!  How often does the deltabot patrol? Since you're at delta14: is there anything I need to do to get the flair? >
  
  Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/_jericho (1∆).
  ^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards >
  
  
  I don't like this conclusion at all but from the evidence I've seen, a lab leak is the most likely cause of COVID-19.
  
  Realistically, you've got a series of coincidences compounded with a lack of hard information.
  We don't know exactly where COVID came from.
  A lab leak is a potential origin, one for which precedent exists, but there's nowhere close to enough evidence for us (here meaning the western medical establishment) to say conclusively one way or another.
  It's minimum at least as likely that COVID came from the vast wet market in Wuhan. 
  
  The second biggest clue is the Chinese government's heavy handed response to it at the start
  
  That's not really a clue, though.
  That's the Chinese government's response to just about everything.
  
  The next, the fact that no intermediate species was found after 3 years even though it's "scientific consensus" that it was transmitted from a bat to another species before jumping to humans
  
  There are plenty of diseases we've been studying for much, much longer than Covid-19 that we don't have a clear understanding of exactly how they jumped from a zoonotic host to humans.
  
  Can anyone change my view
  
  Doubtful to be honest, as fundamentally we'll probably never have an exact answer as to the origin of COVID-19.
  A virus emerged in a totalitarian state with reflexive and largely effective control of information flow and with several possible/probable points of origin.
  The hard pill to swallow is that well likely never know with 100% certainty the exact origins of COVID, for reasons ranging from the nature of the virus, to the length of time from its origin, and the fact that the CCP has exactly zero motivation to allow independent investigators in, no matter what the origin was. >
  
  Fair, but I still think it's most likely it emerged from a lab. Given the evidence we have, the information suppression and so on. I think it's utterly disgusting that the people who covered it up and lied about that will get away with it. Even if it did emerge naturally, the information control and propaganda is unforgivable.
  And it's extremely dangerous to not have a public conversation about it, we need tight regulations around research into biological hazards. >
  
  
  Even if it did emerge naturally, the information control and propaganda is unforgivable.
  
  Information control and propaganda from who? China? China has done multitudes of "unforgivable" things so not even sure what this is other than just grandstanding about "China bad".
  
  we need tight regulations around research into biological hazards.
  
  We do have tight regulations around this kind of biological research. It's why there are only a couple of labs in the entire world that have the proper security and clearance to do things like this... Again not really sure what your point is here. >
  
  My point is that BSL2 is not enough for biohazards like man-made plagues. The people who made it knew this, because BSL4 existed because of dangerous pathogens. But it's inconvenient, so they took a risk that killed 4 million people. Their masters covered it up, and played politics so it looked like anyone questioning the lies were ignorant conspiritards. They're scum, and shouldn't be defended.