• The Octonaut@mander.xyz
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    1 year ago

    I don’t know why anyone is still talking about a lab outbreak in Wuhan because of the wet market nearby being suspected in mid December, when we know for sure that Covid was in Italy in September/October and possibly as early as May. The world just shrugged at this info because faecal treatment samples aren’t as interesting as as bat soup and bioterrorism.

    • Infamousblt [any]@hexbear.net
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      1 year ago

      Racism mostly. Easier to just be racist against the Chinese than to admit COVID is the result of something more nuanced and systemic

      • Zorque@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        It’s also about laziness. It’s much less effort to just point a finger than to think about the complexities of a situation.

        • PowerCrazy@lemmy.ml
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          1 year ago

          It’s also really easy to dismiss the uncomfortable origin (It came from a Chinese lab) and point to the “complexities of the situation” instead.

        • PosadistInevitablity [he/him]@hexbear.net
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          1 year ago

          “We don’t hate the Chinese just the government that they like and has made their people prosperous.”

          Check what happened to the Russians after the Soviet Union fell and tell me it’s not hate to wish that on the Chinese next.

          • InvertedParallax@lemm.ee
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            1 year ago

            The USSR (Stalin mostly) broke the Russian people, which is why they’re so weak after its fall.

            The CCP broke the Chinese people too. Seems like a common theme.

            • TheGamingLuddite [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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              1 year ago

              What does it mean to “break” a people?

              The Chinese people were certainly already “broken” in 1949. They had undergone a century of collapse, most were illiterate, women were essentially chattel, and every single grain of wheat or rice more than what was required to keep them alive was stolen by unelected landlords.

              The communists took power and every single one of them was taught to read, women were enfranchised, no-fault divorce and abortion were legalized, political rights were expanded, opium and gangs were chased out of the mainland and the feudal lords were held to account.

              30 years after the revolution they had turned a society of feudal peasants into a nuclear power, 30 years after that and it’s the world’s largest economy by PPP.

              The same things can be said about the Bolsheviks, who defeated a nazi army which sought to annihilate them.

            • Thordros [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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              1 year ago

              “I’m not racist, nobody has a problem with Chinese people.”

              “Also, the Chinese are wild animals that were broken and domesticated.”

              Okay there, buckaroo. Keep telling yourself that.

              • GenderIsOpSec [she/her]@hexbear.net
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                1 year ago

                stalin-comical-spoon going around people’s houses, knocking on doors and telling them that stroganoff had to be made with pork now to break them mentally. it’s true, my grandma told me cri

            • BelieveRevolt [he/him]@hexbear.net
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              1 year ago

              I’m not racist, but here’s my thoughts generalizing entire populations of millions as “weak people” because of their Asiatic brainpans.

        • Infamousblt [any]@hexbear.net
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          1 year ago

          And by every major polling organizations metrics the Chinese people overwhelmingly approve of the CPC.

          Typical westoid wants to destroy a government that is liked by it’s people. What’s your countries government approval rating? Do you want to overthrow your government too?

          • InvertedParallax@lemm.ee
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            1 year ago

            I worked there for a good while.

            They don’t hate it, they treat it like the weather, something to fear, but nothing you can do anything about.

            The CCP broke them completely, much like the USSR broke the Russian people.

            • Tankiedesantski [he/him]@hexbear.net
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              1 year ago

              I worked there for a good while.

              Tell us of the deep abiding wisdom you gained from teaching English at a barely-regulated “school” for 12 months.

        • deft@ttrpg.network
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          1 year ago

          “signaling that it might have spread beyond China earlier than thought.”

          they still suggest Chinese origin

          • The Octonaut@mander.xyz
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            1 year ago

            Well, no, it’s not an “idea”. It just means there’s nothing special about Wuhan that should make us look at everything there as a suspect.

            • alternative_factor@kbin.social
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              1 year ago

              You are wrong, the assumption of people who post this is that there wasn’t COVID-19 in China before the CCP announced it was around.

              • The Octonaut@mander.xyz
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                1 year ago

                You’re the one making assumptions I’m afraid.

                We don’t know where Covid-19 came from. That is the outcome. It quite well could have come from China. We have no idea. What we do know is that it didn’t spread globally from a wet market in Wuhan that happens to be near a virology research centre. Because that idea hangs entirely on it appearing there first in December.

                Covid-19 could have started in China. Or Italy. Or anywhere. We don’t know, and as a species we seem to be very reluctant to find out - we’ve just accepted bat soup or bioterrorism and just moved on. Meaning that we’ve learned absolutely nothing to prevent it happening again.

                • alternative_factor@kbin.social
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                  1 year ago

                  From the genetics of the virus we can tell it originally came from either Pangolins or species of bats which are local to Asia only, which is why the wet market hypothesis is so popular in the first place because the virus is 99% similar to that of one found in Chinese pangolins. The 1% genetic difference could come from a lab on accident, but that would most likely be from the Wuhan lab and not for Detrick because the Wuhan lab was in fact experimenting with Chinese bats.

                  EDIT for sources:
                  https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abh0117

                  • The Octonaut@mander.xyz
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                    1 year ago

                    Do you understand that still the leap from “It’s 99% similar to Chinese pangolin coronavirus” (and hey, you’re 99% similar to a Ugandan chimp) and “so the other 1% probably came from a lab in Wuhan”? Again, Wuhan is literally only linked to this story as the first place it was reported. No evidence at all places it in Wuhan first. We can say that’s a Chinese cover-up, but go ahead and say that, and recognise it as speculation.