Arguing with an engineer is like mud wrestling with a pig.
Then, after a couple of hours, you realize the pig likes it.
You think arguing with an engineer is like mud wrestling with a pig!?! Arguing with a lawyer...it's literally my job to argue. It's how I've paid my mortgage for 17 years, and it's what my graduate degree is in.
Look, the whole thing about "keeping politics out of this" is really hard when people go back to this "made in a lab in Wuhan" and refer to this as the "China Virus."
First, don't take this crazy lib's word for it, go to Snopes:
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/li-meng-yan-covid-19-lab/Second, as shown in that write-up--if you bother to read it--this "made in a lab in Wuhan" thing is driven by political actors (e.g. Tucker Carlson, and "The Federalist"--the definition of political actors), as is referring to COVID-19 as the "China Virus." Using that latter terminology is inherently political because it has zero basis in science. None. Even if you were to ignore everything pointed out in the Snopes write up and actually believe that this was somehow intentional, no scientific discussion refers to this virus as the "China Virus." That is political, pure and simple.
Conspiracy theories that gain traction rely on hints, whisps of information, that prey on people's beliefs. I agree: China is a bad actor on the global scale, and has an authoritarian, bad government. I also agree that China very likely did a very bad job managing this virus when the outbreak began. So if both of things are true (or more to the point, if I believe they are true), it's not a huge leap to
wanting to believe that this was a devious, intentional act (because unquestionably, the Chinese government is capable of intentional, devious acts). And that's where the conspiracy theories get you. You read the opinion pieces of the people you agree with (I do, too), and they become the source of your facts. But they aren't facts; they are opinions--and political ones, at that.
I'm all for keeping politics out of things--including this thing--but let's not allow some politics, but not others.