[FRIAM] whackadoodles go mainstream!
Prof David West
profwest at fastmail.fm
Mon Apr 20 18:40:19 EDT 2020
If a lab was the origin, the possibility exists that the lab, or one or more scientists at that lab, might have information about the virus that would be worth sharing. If the origin was a market then no such information would exist.
I do not believe that any of the "theories" about the origin have any purpose other than to point fingers, place blame. One reason for this would be to advance other arguments — typical conspiracy nonsense, Another would be to identify a government or a lab or any entity with deep pockets. You can't sue a wet market.
It would be nice to believe that scientists are ethical people, and if the virus originated in a lab, and if there was a block of information about the virus, those aware of that information would find some way to smuggle it out, at least to WHO.
davew
On Mon, Apr 20, 2020, at 3:23 PM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
> My main concern would be about their priorities: We should figure out
> what to do about this rather than who to blame for it. If the original
> source were a lab that changes little right now compared to if it were
> a market.
>
> On 4/20/20, 1:51 PM, "Friam on behalf of uǝlƃ ☣"
> <friam-bounces at redfish.com on behalf of gepropella at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> You can't *objectively* tell. That's the whole point. But what you
> can do is check your impressions against those of others. My personal
> impression is that this "article" is complete bullshit. I feel
> *certain* that at least some of the people here, if they read the whole
> article, will conclude the opposite.
>
> I won't list my bullshit triggers the article sets off. Bullshit
> replicates exponentially faster and more efficient than its debunking.
> So my debunking would be lost in the wind. But I can point to 1 easy
> step you can take:
>
> https://smmry.com/https://project-evidence.github.io/#&SM_LENGTH=10
>
> Play around with the length. It's interesting.
>
> On 4/20/20 1:12 PM, Steven A Smith wrote:
> > Thanks for that link/reference. I appreciate that there ARE
> such things as "influence operations" and Schneier's description is
> helpful, but I guess I'm still not clear on how I can tell objectively
> that "project evidence" is up to that. To build my own strawman that
> maybe you can bolster up to more of a steelman:
> >
> > 1. I have a gut reaction to it that says "this feels like the
> kind of conspiracy-theory the trolls-I-know-to-hate are likely to be
> hatching".
> > 2. The EPSTEIN thing is weird... I guess if they'd just removed
> the reference and not referenced it, THAT would have been even more of
> a hint that they were up to no good.
> > 3. The tone of the introduction, etc. seems a bit "protest too
> much"
> > 4. The sheer bulk of the material without obvious additional
> organization feels like a "dogpile" technique (ro maybe as you suggest
> "baffle-em-with-bullshit" or TL;DR ?
> >
> > I guess what I was asking for is whether you found any specific
> elements or if there is a more specific (than my lame list above)
> structural thing to question. I *didn't* follow the myriad references
> and validate them, and I *don't* have a broad enough understanding of
> the field to estimate how biased their list of articles is... if they
> are blatantly cherry picking or what?
> >
> > When publication like this was much harder, the volume of
> material was small enough that it seems like traditional journalists
> could possibly keep up with more in-depth analysis?
> >
> > I suppose rather than asking YOU if/how you have done its, or if
> I should go search for other critical analysis of this "project"...
>
>
> --
> ☣ uǝlƃ
>
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