It is (more of an analogy I would suggest)
That was my first instinct, but then it looked like he got some serious replies, so I became unsure.
No, but if they isolated a bat coronavirus to study and THEN someone got infected with it, I think that makes a difference to researching COVID-19. I think in that scenario, with full early disclosure, scientists might have started off knowing it was more different from SARS and MERS than we originally thought.
Could also impact the policy of other countries to mitigate risk.
Scenario A: A random novel coronavirus is spreading.
Scenario B: A novel coronavirus that was being studied because it was more dangerous, less understood, more difficult for T cells to kill, etc is spreading.
Governments might have locked down harder and faster in Scenario B… Sort of like China has continued to do.
The Trump administration pushing similar theories makes me less inclined to think this is likely, not more. I just maintain that putting the chances at 0 is just as crazy as thinking it’s definitely what happened. Five to 10 percent is reasonable IMO.
10% chance something happened with zero available evidence doesn’t sound reasonable to me. it probably works for poker but idk if that kind of reasoning can be applied all over
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10% chance this virus started at a poker table, so do with that information what you will. spread that misinformation around and see what happens
There would never be any available evidence to support this. So I guess we just have to conclude that no Chinese lab in all of history ever has or ever will or ever could fuck up something like this, assign it a probability of zero, and move along.
And sure this kind of reasoning can be applied all over. With most things like it, the probability is close enough to zero to ignore. Like I would have had no qualms about walking around that part of Wuhan in November, sharing a beer with some researchers from that lab, etc… The probability of something like that happening was ~ 0.
But the probability of a dangerous novel virus spreading in the world in a given year is probably 10-20%, then within that subset the probability of it starting in a city with one of those types of labs is probably still <5% if not lower. Once we know it started in that city, the odds of it starting that close to the lab is still probably < 20% if not lower.
Once we’ve drilled down into that subset of the subset etc etc of all possibilities, we have to adjust the likelihood of this event.
Or to put it another way, if something is .000000000001% to happen but it always happens within another event that is .00000000001% to happen, once we’re living inside that .00000000001% event the odds of the first one having happened are 10%.
great analysis, i’m sure trump will retweet it shortly. congratulations
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I get what you’re saying about not putting it at zero, but 5-10% just seems incredibly high given what beetlejuice has said. A poorly-rated lab is still being graded on the curve of bio-research labs, for one thing, and along with the other stuff he told me, I don’t think it’s really likely enough to be worth discussing. Like I said, I put it at ~0.05% and move on, no point mulling over the negligible.
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There are experts in the field, (including an expert who clearly hates Trump with a fiery passion), and people with actual experience working with that lab who say it is possible although unlikely. Additionally, I’ve read enough today to understand that a SARS like coronavirus doesn’t necessarily need an intermediary species, it could potentially jump directly to humans.
But I guess because Trump’s a gigantic asshole we’re supposed to suspend reality and pretend it’s literally impossible.
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scientists are super duper careful about “possible”. they hate to rule shit out even when for all practical purposes that possibility is zero. i’m a cool regular scientist, i’m gonna let you know it’s zero without trying to cover my ass for the 0.001%
even in a bsl2 lab that i work in, there’s controlled air flow, gloves, goggles, full sleeve lab coats. in a bsl4 it’s practically like a clean room, it’s ridiculous. and outside is a city larger than nyc where people are eating fuckin bushmeat and butcher shops have zero regulation. come on
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We already know that mistakes happen at these kinds of labs frequently enough to set the chance of a mistake at 0.001% chance a joke. I’ve left plenty of quotes and links above in the thread to prove that beyond a doubt. SARS has escaped labs 3 fucking times.
The real driver to a small probability here is the chance of a lab mistake combined with a chance of a jump straight to humans and/or somehow an intermediary species combined with a lab mistake.
Anyway we’re apparently not going to reach any kind of common ground here so I’ll just drop from the conversation now. And still quite comfortable with my opinion.
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Just jumping in to say that a “wet market” just means a place selling fresh food, meat fish and vegetables.
Most wet markets don’t sell anything more exotic than your local store.
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At the moment it doesn’t matter but it is important to know at some point where the virus came from as that could be a continuing source of the virus. So it coming from the lab would be a good thing as by now they would have destroyed those samples. If it came from one of the farms near Wuhan or the wet market then there could still be animals infecting each other and humans with all the mutation risk that gives.
This is begging the question. If I ask how you know he’s cheating, you can’t say it’s because his results were very different after cheating. That requires me to assume the conclusion.
Impossible? It seems like the only way a winrate could literally be impossible is if he won more than was ever in play or something. Why couldn’t he play perfect merely from guessing correctly a bunch of times in a row? It’s obviously not impossible.
You are merely claiming it cannot be done and I don’t really see why it can’t. I watched TV poker on Travel Channel back around 2003 and remember it was quite a setup. There was some unknown angular Swede winning every pot against a cadre of old Vegas pros and the announcers were suggesting it was so improbable and they’d never seen anything like it. He was intimidating–sleek and muscular like a jungle cat. I remember this one announcer in an off-the-rack suit said something like “You can’t put in another raise with an Ace Jack here, folks.” I’m thinking why not–these players are all giant pussies. Sure enough this Swede does exactly that and some idiot reluctantly counts out a call. “Now the ten of spade comes off. He really has to hate that card.” And this balls-of-steel Swede wastes no time sliding another clay castle into the middle with absolutely nothing and the hefty fellow sighs and folds. Of course, this dude could have simply whipped all of their asses at any point like Tiger Woods on the 97 pro tour. And, predictably, they kept folding the winning hands until he was hoisting a giant dinner plate. I suppose he must have been cheating too.
This is like a madlib for every conspiracy theory I’ve ever read.
I don’t believe this is accurate. He wasn’t absolutely 100% perfect. I remember people showing some examples where he called and lost.
So basically your position so far is that he must be cheating because no one has ever been this good before. The things he’s doing are impossible because no other person has done them. I think you need more specific arguments than that because it’s not clear to me why he can’t simply be that good. Like, just looking at it as an outsider I see a guy owning a bunch of sore losers who decided to retaliate. There must be some esoteric reasons specific to poker you can give since so many pros seem convinced he’s cheating.
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Your series of posts in this thread might be my favorite level of all time.
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Yup. I have been to wet markets on basically every continent outside of Antarctica and Australia and I have never seen people munching on raw bats even when I was pretty much the only non-local. 99%+ of these places have to be basically harmless. That being said while I think it isn’t a zero percent chance it escaped from a lab I am pretty much in team beetlejuice on this one.
It’s really lame and boring actually given it’s a derail and the “but ah shucks AK ain’t a pair” routine has been done far better in other gimmick accounts in 2+2. His effort is C- at best.
That’s not how you get coronavirus.