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It is both a racist rightie conspiracy theory and a plausible possibility worthy of serious consideration. Any reasonable person needs to recognize it as both

It is both a racist rightie conspiracy theory and a plausible possibility worthy of serious consideration. Any reasonable person needs to recognize it as both simultaneously and will have no trouble fitting in among anyone outside the fringe at either end of the political spectrum.

ShinyLeftPad 14d ago
It can't be two mutually exclusive things simultaneously. I don't think it's just the fringes, at least it wasn't the case in 2022, now it's just not something many people talk about anymore
- ball_of_lint 12d ago
  What is mutually exclusive about those two things?
  - ShinyLeftPad 8d ago
    "conspiracy theory" specifically means choosing the crazy explanation while more reasonable explanations exist. If you say the explanation is NOT crazy because it deserves investigation then it's automatically not a conspiracy theory.
    - ball_of_lint 8d ago
      "choosing" is the keyword here. You have to reason probabilistically. There was a point at which lot of people would have put 100% or 99% confidence that covid came from a lab leak. That's the conspiracy theory side. A lot of more reasonable people would have put 1% or 5% confidence on covid coming from a lab leak, saying roughly "It's unlikely, but hard to rule out because China isn't being transparent". And then ask for more investigation, which is exactly what happened. So at no point was it rationally worth a 99% probability estimate, but it was worth investigation.
      - ShinyLeftPad 7d ago
        What validity do you put on earth being flat? So that's the validity some people put on covid lab leak theory. You may be surprised. Calling something a conspiracy theory means rejecting its validity for investigation out of hand. Maybe you don't use it like that but that's how most people apparently use it. > There was a point at which lot of people would have put 100% or 99% confidence that covid came from a lab leak Why was? Now it is a point at which a lot of people put 100% confidence that covid came from a lab leak. And a lot of other people put 100% confidence that it was Wuhan market bat. And that's the problem I tried to express.

ShinyLeftPad 14d ago

It can't be two mutually exclusive things simultaneously. I don't think it's just the fringes, at least it wasn't the case in 2022, now it's just not something many people talk about anymore

ball_of_lint 12d ago
What is mutually exclusive about those two things?
- ShinyLeftPad 8d ago
  "conspiracy theory" specifically means choosing the crazy explanation while more reasonable explanations exist. If you say the explanation is NOT crazy because it deserves investigation then it's automatically not a conspiracy theory.
  - ball_of_lint 8d ago
    "choosing" is the keyword here. You have to reason probabilistically. There was a point at which lot of people would have put 100% or 99% confidence that covid came from a lab leak. That's the conspiracy theory side. A lot of more reasonable people would have put 1% or 5% confidence on covid coming from a lab leak, saying roughly "It's unlikely, but hard to rule out because China isn't being transparent". And then ask for more investigation, which is exactly what happened. So at no point was it rationally worth a 99% probability estimate, but it was worth investigation.
    - ShinyLeftPad 7d ago
      What validity do you put on earth being flat? So that's the validity some people put on covid lab leak theory. You may be surprised. Calling something a conspiracy theory means rejecting its validity for investigation out of hand. Maybe you don't use it like that but that's how most people apparently use it. > There was a point at which lot of people would have put 100% or 99% confidence that covid came from a lab leak Why was? Now it is a point at which a lot of people put 100% confidence that covid came from a lab leak. And a lot of other people put 100% confidence that it was Wuhan market bat. And that's the problem I tried to express.