a lot of what i read is in taylor and francis journals
Hmm. Whatever happened to âtrust the scienceâ?
I think itâs unfair to blame China for the corruption of Science, although academic fraud is par for the course there (in my own field, Iâve come across dozens of papers that have been blatantly ripped off from other researchers, copied almost word-for-word, and republished with Chinese names on them). âScienceâ has been on a downhill slide since (IMO) about 1965. The whole COVID shitshow has been marked by an infestation of experts-for-sale and unsavoury characters more interested in political power than in practicing their humble craft.
Whatever China might have done, it was enabled by The West, and Daszak was not some sort of outlier.
If anyone wants to follow up the âfurin cleavage siteâ issue, this article is pretty good:
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02039-y
It is widely speculated that the delta alteration was engineered, not natural. Which would perhaps hark back to a comment someone (@snowstorm?) made earlier, along the lines of âWhy on earth would China have infected themselves with a bioweapon? Wouldnât they have dumped it first on enemy territory?â
Well, India isnât exactly Chinaâs BFF. I dunno, perhaps the dots are joining up?
Yes, I was arguing against the point: âChina wouldnât release it on themselves, therefore it canât be deliberate, it must be an accidentâ. Thatâs not enough to excuse China IMO. In fact, I think thatâs more reason to believe they did it deliberately.
Hypothetically if they planned the virus release, the strategy would work only if they released it on themselves first, and at a minimum it can be an alibi so people would say âCant be Chinaâs fault, why would China do that to themselves?â They can point to SARS1 and say it probably came from another wet market, etc. They could also use their Communist Police State to monitor messages and social media in order to instantly shut any conversation about a virus, pneumonia, symptoms, numbers, etc. for an extended period of time to allow the virus to gain a foothold, and see if itâs actually working the way they intended - maybe they even cross-check with computer simulations. More importantly they can use all this extra time to funnel in all the PPE and Facemasks around the world into China so they can be better prepared than the rest of the world. Then after the virus has a foothold and itâs public knowledge, China would need the time to completely Lockdown, close factors, stop trains, etc (which triples as an Embargo, and also symbol to the world of what happens without China) and fully control the region to clean up and hide all information as much as possible.
If they released it elsewhere the plan might be more likely to fail; it would be talked about right away, China would give up the advantage of being first to funnel in all the PPE/Facemasks, and Doctors and Scientists would be flying in to study the situation long before it becomes a worldwide pandemic, the way SARS1 kind of ended up. Itâs also possible that China released the first SARS to learn from it â maybe China learned that they needed more uninterrupted time for the spread?
Additionally, China might not be too worried if they already gave themselves a genetic advantage, either with the original strain or with later variants. It is discussed in articles by CCP several years ago referencing âSpecific Ethnic Bioweaponsâ, see here:
https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2019/08/chinas-military-pursuing-biotech/159167/
On that note, it might have been Chinaâs strategy to release a first strain which effects the populations equally, and then sneak in later strains which effect Chinaâs population less, but other populations more. Thatâs really scary stuff!
Something else to look for is motive, and to me the trade war and the damage China suffered in 2018-2019, including the continued downward trend in foreign investments, the factory exodus in the Tech industry, and being labeled a currency manipulator by the US Treasury was significant enough for Beijing to take emergency countermeasures, so they released a game changing supply chain bioweapon, COVID-19. So far, hypothetically, it has worked wonders for China. Business is back, investments are pouring in again, and Chinaâs appearing to handle the Delta variant easily, possibly even exploiting port shut downs to put political pressure on the West by straining the supply chain once again.
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Ah, I knew there was a conversation about it, I just couldnât remember who was arguing which side 
I agree with your reasoning. My personal belief is that they let it loose on the Chinese population first, in full knowledge that wherever they released it, it would end up coming back to China eventually anyway. However Iâm starting to suspect that they made multiple releases, not just one. First in China. Perhaps Italy was a complete accident, perhaps intentional. Indiaâs epidemic was unusual in that they appeared to have no problems at all until the sudden emergence of Delta ⌠and where the hell did that come from? Had they been continuing to operate the âresearchâ while the pandemic raged (because it wasnât raging very hard) to hone the infectivity of the virus?
If the âethnic bioweaponâ thing is feasible, it would explain why Taiwan has been supposedly âCOVID-freeâ. That article amounts to an admission from the Chinese military that they are (or have been?) considering bioweapons as a legitimate development target, despite international conventions on such things and a huge effort in the 20th century to shut it all down. If theyâre determined to go down that route, humanity is probably finished.
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You believe that @finley ? Damn! The CCP are getting away with being incompetent morons. Theyâre actually criminal geniuses.
CCP in action:
What, the article, or my âChina attacked Indiaâ theory?
I donât know what to believe anymore. Pretty much everything weâre told these days turns out to be a blatant lie, if you take the time to go and look at the data. Sometimes TPTB do an about-face and tell us that something that was definitely true last year is false this year, or vice versa (as in the case of the lab leak hypothesis, for example). That messes with your head a bit. It would not surprise me in the least if China were developing biological weapons and decided to test them on India for shits and giggles. Iâm not saying thatâs what definitely happened with Delta, but itâs hardly beyond the realms of possibility. Have a look at the Nature article about the furin cleavage enhancement and then google the research on the possible implications.
I was referring to the âthey let it loose on the Chinese population firstâŚâ bit.
You should be able to figure out what to believe nowadays. TPTB are a bunch of incompetent idiots, so theyâre easy to figure out.
That sort of depends who TPTB actually are, surely?
âThe skillful employer of men will employ the wise man, the brave man, the covetous man, and the stupid man. For the wise man delights in establishing his merit, the brave man likes to show his courage in action, the covetous man is quick at seizing advantages, and the stupid man has no fear of death."
You donât get to rule over a country of 1.3 billion people by being stupid, I reckon.
As for âthey let it loose on the Chinese population firstâŚâ, well, frankly, itâs what I would do if I were a mad dictator intent on global domination. Itâd be absolutely bulletproof, precisely because everyone would assume such a thing to be either outrageously stupid or outrageously mad.
Yeah I have heard this one beforeâŚ
If that was even remotely true, many foreigners in Taiwan would be getting hit by COVID donât you think? The numbers arenât showing that.
There arenât enough of them, and their demographics are skewed to the younger end. COVID âhitsâ something like 10% of any given population over a long period of time, and kills a small fraction of a percent of those under 70. Itâs unlikely anybody would have noticed or cared, particularly when Taiwan was âCOVID freeâ. Can you imagine the loss of face?
Of course stupid people can become dictators, unless weâre looking at relative intelligences. Mao Zedong was thick as a brick.
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True enough, although clearly Mao was smart in certain ways. He had a very special set of skills. Idi Amin likewise.
The âown goalâ hypothesis is just an untestable hypothesis. It canât be proved or disproved, which is (partly) why it would be such an effective strategy.
He liked little girls and he was a coward. The cowardice could have worked out well against the Japanese.
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Indeed.
But somehow or other he managed to convince an entire nation he was the Messiah, and I suspect he did that by leveraging the skills of other people, as per the Sun Tzu quote; and those people in turn had their ambitions, as things transpired. He was a useful idiot. The point is perhaps clearer in the case of the Nazi hierarchy, where Hitler was one of those people of mediocre intellect but forceful personality, who managed to surround himself with supremely competent lieutenants.
Will a lack of response to the lab leak be Bidenâs next humilation?
This reflects more on the nation who were convinced.
TPTB, whoever you or I decide they are, have no interest in pushing some Mussolini type into power.
Unless the US is ready to declare war on China for the virus, it will definitely be an âinconclusiveâ study, with a finger pointed at some animal at a wetmarket. So yes, it will be another humiliation for the Master of Disaster.
I have no idea what they intend. Itâs entirely possible, I suppose, that certain leaders are caught up in their own hysteria. That seems to have been true of Matt Hancock, and it seems to be true in Israel. But looking at the big picture, I donât see mindless chaos there. This isnât WW1.
Logically, TPTB will be looking to retain the status quo. If it works, why risk breaking it with some unknown factor?