The chance of a gain of function superlab, statistically being right next to where the pandemic started and the leaks from the Intercept about Ecohealth funding from the US kept secret to this very laboratory - Yeah no, this isn't as clearcut as this "anti conspiracy" article makes it out to be.
This whole premise where two junior academics come some conclusion and then the debate is apparently over, just lol when there's still lots of debate around this topic by serious professors in an actually scientific arena, many of them who've kept their beliefs secret because of not rocking the boat (another leak).
This new "liberal" or radical centrist but authoritarian line of thinking where you just smear opponents as truthers or conspiracy people and then ignore all the leaks and data, the money, the networks of power - what was once known as classic journalism, is a bit dystopian in my eyes, because people apparently aren't sceptical about the state / security state / big corp and the nexuses between them anymore and what was "local paper level research journalism" is often today seen as "you are a conspiracy lunatic" - i think much of this has to do with stuff like Q, and it makes you wonder how "grassroots" (astroturfing) that movement really was, because of how conveniently it has destroyed the reputation of anyone asking non state approved questions.
> i think much of this has to do with stuff like Q, and it makes you wonder how "grassroots" (astroturfing) that movement really was, because of how conveniently it has destroyed the reputation of anyone asking non state approved questions.
Am I understanding this correctly? Are you suggesting that there was a meta-conspiracy that started the Q conspiracy theory to destroy the reputation of politically undesirable people?
Watch the pretty mainstream movie "Get Me Roger Stone" about how gamed certain segments of the population is to mobilise them politically, maybe read the book "Toxic sludge is good for you" about the history of astroturfing in the US - all what used to be mainstream views, that propaganda and fake grassroots group mobilisation has been rampant for over 100 years, then realise how many fed and mil connected people were in Q, and how there's been hundreds of thousands people rioting right in front of the white house with no one getting near the entrance, then suddenly a tiny group of people waltz in with cameras all over - makes absolutely zero sense in a historical or organisational context but already functions as judicial and political leverage almost weekly.
I'm not concluding anything, but sceptical speculation about state-, military pretexts, or corporate action like this didn't use to be as fringe as it is today, where it will quickly earn you an "enemy actor", "russia bot", "china bot", or "enemy of the state" badge - the oldest play in the book in my opinion, echoing mccarthyism, ww2 state sponsored xenophobia or similar strategies.
Since Bernais et. al. wrote about propaganda and the mouldable psyche of the masses for state power and profit in the 1920's it's like these perspectives have been forgotten.
In my view this is how business and politics have always worked until the modern "everything is just chaos and randomness" discourse conveniently became the paradigm - and conveniently that is for the ownership classes - even rather tame marxist historians or a plurality of historiographies outside of the tiny anglosphere bubble would laugh at this perspective and say the state and the upper classes have always and will always conspire in class warfare, propaganda and PR to spin, mobilise and smokescreen resource political and judicial strategies that people wouldn't support organically via PR playbooks, campaigning and event driven political action.
Regardless of the source of illness, the pandemic response was another iteration of economic “shock therapy”, ushering us one step closer to a world of technofeudalism, which our leaders openly endorse.
This whole premise where two junior academics come some conclusion and then the debate is apparently over, just lol when there's still lots of debate around this topic by serious professors in an actually scientific arena, many of them who've kept their beliefs secret because of not rocking the boat (another leak).
This new "liberal" or radical centrist but authoritarian line of thinking where you just smear opponents as truthers or conspiracy people and then ignore all the leaks and data, the money, the networks of power - what was once known as classic journalism, is a bit dystopian in my eyes, because people apparently aren't sceptical about the state / security state / big corp and the nexuses between them anymore and what was "local paper level research journalism" is often today seen as "you are a conspiracy lunatic" - i think much of this has to do with stuff like Q, and it makes you wonder how "grassroots" (astroturfing) that movement really was, because of how conveniently it has destroyed the reputation of anyone asking non state approved questions.