[POLL] China Virus Source

[TECSHARE]

(This being a Bitcoin related forum...)

If I fired up a CPU miner on my laptop and mined the next 5 blocks, it is possible?  Sure it is.  It is highly unlikely though.  Anyone who understands almost anything about the technology will seek alternate explanations to the 'got lucky' one.  Some individuals will hold fast to the 'just luck' explanation depending on their disposition, and a ton of them will see the ramifications and promote the 'just luck' explanation as a self-preservation mechanism.

In fact, Darwinian evolution and Bitcoin-style blockchain mining are quite similar:  A vast amount of random trials with an extraordinarily tiny chance that any one test will 'work'.  Success is all about 'hash rate'.  Intensive farming practices can and often do up the hash rate quite a bit.  Like getting a rack full of ASIC miner to replace your raspberry pi.

It may not be very clear to people, but viruses can only 'roll the dice' in living tissue because they rely on living cells to assemble new viruses.  On a factory farm they have a subject lifetime to cross-infect can replicate.  In a meat market with wild game additional viruses have between zero and one 'roll of the dice' to try to make something happen.


Think of things like this:

  - nature: blockchain mining on a raseberry pi with basically guessing the sha256 algorithm.

  - vintage [pre-1950s] lab (often a hostpital, school, military barracks) (pre-1960's):  blockchain mining with a GPU and an optimized algorithm.

  - modern facility:  As many ASIC as needed, but not many needed because sha256 has been broken.

Comparing new CRISPR genetic modification technology to previous iterations is like comparing a nuke to a party popper. We are technically at the point that it is feasible for an individual to start a world wide pandemic in their kitchen.

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[PrimeNumber7]

There seems to be enough early cases near the Wuhan "wet" market that the source to humans is likely to be from eating animals at the 'wet' market.

I am no bat expert, but I would be surprised if a bat, or a handful of bats was able to infect enough people so that it would spread as widely as it has spread to date. I think it would be more likely that a bat infected with the coronavirus infects another animal of another species that lives in a herd, and that animal infects other similar animals in the same herd. I believe animals in that herd infected humans who bought the animals at the 'wet' market.

I have no idea if the bat(s) got infected 'naturally' or via a bioweapon. There is a biolab about 20 miles from the 'wet' market, and it is possible the virus somehow 'leaked' out of the biolab. If this was the case, a bat could have bitten an animal that escaped from the lab, or a person who was infected and outside of the lab, and subsequently infected another animal referenced above. The virus leaking from the Wuhan biolab might explain why the Chinese government were quiet about the virus for so long.

I don't think this was something the Chinese government intentionally released on its own people. The Chinese government has been able to control its people via the social credit system. It has also been written that the virus, although unlikely, has the potential to topple the Chinese government.

The only other governments that I could imagine releasing a bioweapon on citizens are all generally allied with China, so I don't believe the virus was release by a foreign (to China) government.

The coronavirus is a very serious problem. I believe the Chinese people are very unhappy with how the Chinese government has handled the situation. Those outside of mainland China are not at especially high risk currently.

[tvbcof]

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I don't think this was something the Chinese government intentionally released on its own people. The Chinese government has been able to control its people via the social credit system. It has also been written that the virus, although unlikely, has the potential to topple the Chinese government.
...

'Controlling' a people is, generally speaking, not a terribly difficult thing to do.  Just make some modicum of effort toward maintaining and improving their quality of life usually does the trick.

The tricky part is to control people while de-populating them.  Because people have a natural built-in survival mechanism they don't always cooperate at culling time even if it is well and truly the case that a good culling will 'improve the quality of life' for more that just the ruling class once the deed is done.  Mao seems to have pulled it off in the 'great leap forward' which culled tens of millions.

It always seemed to me that the best way forward for Chinese people in mainland China would be to ask the Taiwanese to take charge of an integration and try to have the end-result be something sort of like modern day Taiwan.  Not that that country doesn't have some problems and phony political puppetry and so on, but generally speaking it seems like the actual peeps enjoy an enviable level of freedom and a reasonable quality of life.  The one positive thing which could come out of this SARS++ thing, no matter how it happened, would be if it takes down the CCP.  If so, it would be in the nick of time because I don't see it ever being possible under the surveillance technocracy which is fast rolling over the mainland.

[PrimeNumber7]

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I don't think this was something the Chinese government intentionally released on its own people. The Chinese government has been able to control its people via the social credit system. It has also been written that the virus, although unlikely, has the potential to topple the Chinese government.
...

'Controlling' a people is, generally speaking, not a terribly difficult thing to do.  Just make some modicum of effort toward maintaining and improving their quality of life usually does the trick.

The tricky part is to control people while de-populating them.  Because people have a natural built-in survival mechanism they don't always cooperate at culling time even if it is well and truly the case that a good culling will 'improve the quality of life' for more that just the ruling class once the deed is done.  Mao seems to have pulled it off in the 'great leap forward' which culled tens of millions.

I am not aware of a reason why the Chinese government would want to de-populate their people. Why would they want to reduce their population? I am not aware of China being short on any resources.

[tvbcof]

...
I don't think this was something the Chinese government intentionally released on its own people. The Chinese government has been able to control its people via the social credit system. It has also been written that the virus, although unlikely, has the potential to topple the Chinese government.
...

'Controlling' a people is, generally speaking, not a terribly difficult thing to do.  Just make some modicum of effort toward maintaining and improving their quality of life usually does the trick.

The tricky part is to control people while de-populating them.  Because people have a natural built-in survival mechanism they don't always cooperate at culling time even if it is well and truly the case that a good culling will 'improve the quality of life' for more that just the ruling class once the deed is done.  Mao seems to have pulled it off in the 'great leap forward' which culled tens of millions.

I am not aware of a reason why the Chinese government would want to de-populate their people. Why would they want to reduce their population? I am not aware of China being short on any resources.

China's one-child policy is/was prima facie evidence that the policy makers consider(ed) population size to be an important enough aspect to enact and enforce a pretty socially difficult and costly program.

Modulating family size is not an uncommon undertaking by political leaderships.  Through history (including fairly recent history in places like Mongolia) it tended to go the other way.  That is to say, increased family sizes were rewarded.  When a leadership sees a use and need for bullet-stoppers that is usually how it goes.

As I personally look at things, it looks to me as though China is not particularly blessed with an abundance of arable land relative to their population.  If anyone has a genuine problem with problematic population density numbers it probably really is the Chinese.

Everyone knows about the hypothetical demographic issues which will eventually result from the one-child policy (to few workers to care for the aged.)  It wasn't long before this issue was put forward as a possible reason why China might have created a self-inflicted wound in the form of the SARS++ event.  For my part I don't have much doubt that the CPP could and would employ such a 'solution', but it remains just another hypothesis worth exploring.

Even if the CPP didn't have the 'strength' to do the deed, they probably don't have the final word in terms of how China is run any more than Trump does for the U.S..  If told by those who operate the monetary system to jump, both Xi and Trump will say 'how high?'  They wouldn't be where they are otherwise.

[Mometaskers]

There is only really 2 possible place of origin within Wuhan, either the wet market or the biolab. If it's the former, then it doesn't matter which animal it originated from and how many species it jumped before getting to humans, it's the result of the unsanitary conditions, even just the mere fact of having those animals together in the first place. IIRC that's how SARS started, they were raising chickens on coops above pig pens, increasing the chance a virus would jump specie.

If it's the latter though, this is where the conspiracy theories start.

[TECSHARE]

...
I don't think this was something the Chinese government intentionally released on its own people. The Chinese government has been able to control its people via the social credit system. It has also been written that the virus, although unlikely, has the potential to topple the Chinese government.
...

'Controlling' a people is, generally speaking, not a terribly difficult thing to do.  Just make some modicum of effort toward maintaining and improving their quality of life usually does the trick.

The tricky part is to control people while de-populating them.  Because people have a natural built-in survival mechanism they don't always cooperate at culling time even if it is well and truly the case that a good culling will 'improve the quality of life' for more that just the ruling class once the deed is done.  Mao seems to have pulled it off in the 'great leap forward' which culled tens of millions.

I am not aware of a reason why the Chinese government would want to de-populate their people. Why would they want to reduce their population? I am not aware of China being short on any resources.

You have to realize there is the Chinese government (technically), then the CCP, which controls it. Essentially you should stop looking at it like a government, and more like a country run by gangsters and cartels. A country run by gangsters and cartels depends on revenue to grease the wheels to maintain order. The Chinese economy is failing, that makes its one and a half billion residents dangerous to the CCP. In that light, depopulation seems quite a bit more realistic. After all, it is not like China was already the home to the largest mass depopulation of its own people on Earth or anything... oh wait...

[tvbcof]

...

You have to realize there is the Chinese government (technically), then the CCP, which controls it. Essentially you should stop looking at it like a government, and more like a country run by gangsters and cartels. A country run by gangsters and cartels depends on revenue to grease the wheels to maintain order. The Chinese economy is failing, that makes its one and a half billion residents dangerous to the CCP. In that light, depopulation seems quite a bit more realistic. After all, it is not like China was already the home to the largest mass depopulation of its own people on Earth or anything... oh wait...

I think it fair to say that the leadership of most countries of significant size, and especially most of those who have access to nuclear and similar weapons,  fear their domestic population more than external enemies.  That is the one force which could actually topple the leadership from power.  Being out maneuvered by an adversary will cost money but won't get a guy hung from a meat hook.

I wouldn't say that China differs significantly from any other comparable country in this way, but I don't have reason to doubt the general idea behind this:

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Across China, domestic security accounted for 6.1% of government spending in 2017, the Ministry of Finance said. That translates into 1.24 trillion yuan ($196 billion) and compares with 1.02 trillion yuan in central-government funding for the military.

I believe that the U.S. probably spends a great deal more than China on internal security, but we spend such a vast amount externally in maintaining our empire that we are one of the few who actually does spend more on classic military than on internal security.
I'll bet that the U.S..

As for "a country run by gangsters and cartels", I could not come up with a better description of the oligarchy which runs the United States at this time.  Probably China too, but I don't know enough about the politics of that country to say one way or another.

[TECSHARE]

...

You have to realize there is the Chinese government (technically), then the CCP, which controls it. Essentially you should stop looking at it like a government, and more like a country run by gangsters and cartels. A country run by gangsters and cartels depends on revenue to grease the wheels to maintain order. The Chinese economy is failing, that makes its one and a half billion residents dangerous to the CCP. In that light, depopulation seems quite a bit more realistic. After all, it is not like China was already the home to the largest mass depopulation of its own people on Earth or anything... oh wait...

I think it fair to say that the leadership of most countries of significant size, and especially most of those who have access to nuclear and similar weapons,  fear their domestic population more than external enemies.  That is the one force which could actually topple the leadership from power.  Being out maneuvered by an adversary will cost money but won't get a guy hung from a meat hook.

I wouldn't say that China differs significantly from any other comparable country in this way, but I don't have reason to doubt the general idea behind this:

...
Across China, domestic security accounted for 6.1% of government spending in 2017, the Ministry of Finance said. That translates into 1.24 trillion yuan ($196 billion) and compares with 1.02 trillion yuan in central-government funding for the military.

I believe that the U.S. probably spends a great deal more than China on internal security, but we spend such a vast amount externally in maintaining our empire that we are one of the few who actually does spend more on classic military than on internal security.
I'll bet that the U.S..

As for "a country run by gangsters and cartels", I could not come up with a better description of the oligarchy which runs the United States at this time.  Probably China too, but I don't know enough about the politics of that country to say one way or another.

When you are done with your defensive false equivalence, maybe we can get back to the topic?

[tvbcof]

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When you are done with your defensive false equivalence, maybe we can get back to the topic?

'Defensive'?  How so?  Perhaps just a wee bit of projection going on there, amigo?

Neither of us would probably shed many tears if this thing, no matter how it went down, took out the CCP, but it would be a severe disappointment to me if the peeps jumped out of the frying pan and into the fire.  I want the truth no matter what it is.

[TECSHARE]

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When you are done with your defensive false equivalence, maybe we can get back to the topic?

'Defensive'?  How so?  Perhaps just a wee bit of projection going on there, amigo?

Neither of us would probably shed many tears if this thing, no matter how it went down, took out the CCP, but it would be a severe disappointment to me if the peeps jumped out of the frying pan and into the fire.  I want the truth no matter what it is.

Well we are here talking about the corona virus and the CCP and you go on a little rant about how the US is the same. No projection, just you shoehorning in some false equivalence.

[tvbcof]

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When you are done with your defensive false equivalence, maybe we can get back to the topic?

'Defensive'?  How so?  Perhaps just a wee bit of projection going on there, amigo?

Neither of us would probably shed many tears if this thing, no matter how it went down, took out the CCP, but it would be a severe disappointment to me if the peeps jumped out of the frying pan and into the fire.  I want the truth no matter what it is.

Well we are here talking about the corona virus and the CCP and you go on a little rant about how the US is the same. No projection, just you shoehorning in some false equivalence.

Correction: _You_ were talking about the CCP.  A lot.  Hmmm...

As a matter of fact, if the virus did jump to humans first in the 'wet market' I would take it as a strong indication that the WHO/CCP and their BL4 lab may have had nothing to do with it.  Since I'm quite sure it came from a lab, being 'detonated' in the wet market guarantees that it was a deliberate act which any BL4 lab could have originated...and there are a lot of BL4 labs around and about.  In other words, that it was a classic 'false flag.'

[TECSHARE]

Correction: _You_ were talking about the CCP.  A lot.  Hmmm...

As a matter of fact, if the virus did jump to humans first in the 'wet market' I would take it as a strong indication that the WHO/CCP and their BL4 lab may have had nothing to do with it.  Since I'm quite sure it came from a lab, being 'detonated' in the wet market guarantees that it was a deliberate act which any BL4 lab could have originated...and there are a lot of BL4 labs around and about.  In other words, that it was a classic 'false flag.'

Whatever you say...

CCP.

Not like the CCP has anything to do with China, the origin nation of the outbreak right? I think we agree that this could be described as a "false flag". The question is who benefits, and who perpetrated it.

[Cnut237]

Whilst I certainly believe that China are experimenting with bio-agents in secret labs, there are some things that make me lean towards the "natural" explanation of unsanitary conditions and illegal under-the-counter infected animals.

One point in particular is the whistleblower Li Wenliang who was famously (or indeed infamously) strong-armed into silence for trying to spread the original warning. This was at the end of December. But it wasn't until 23 Jan, three and a half weeks later that China began the shutdown of Wuhan/Hubei. If it really was a government-engineered super virus, they'd not be waiting nearly a month after the initial warnings. Instead, it's likely the whistleblower would have been immediately and unequivocally silenced, in the proper Chinese style where you don't see them again for months/years afterwards if indeed ever again, and the lockdown would have been a damned sight quicker. The thing with a central economy like China is that they can do big things quickly. They could have made the shutdown instant if they'd wanted to.

As for it being a deliberate leak in order to control the population, suppress unrest, etc, most of the stuff below, I don't buy that at all - China does this anyway; they've never needed an excuse before.

This outbreak checks a lot of boxes the CCP likes:

-Justifies total lock down
-Effectively ends all legal dissent
-Perfect cover for rounding up dissidents
-Depopulation of an increasingly rebellious population they are losing control of & dependents
-Provides a good scapegoat for the failing economy
-Provides good fodder for spreading stories it was a Western attack to incite hatred & nationalism
-Provides a "controlled" environment to practice their bio-warfare defensive and offensive abilities

I am sure there is more, but this is what immediately comes to mind. The CCP sees life as being cheap, I wouldn't put this past them. When suspicious events happen, the first question should always be... cui bono?

[PrimeNumber7]

China's one-child policy is/was prima facie evidence that the policy makers consider(ed) population size to be an important enough aspect to enact and enforce a pretty socially difficult and costly program.

Modulating family size is not an uncommon undertaking by political leaderships.  Through history (including fairly recent history in places like Mongolia) it tended to go the other way.  That is to say, increased family sizes were rewarded.  When a leadership sees a use and need for bullet-stoppers that is usually how it goes.

As I personally look at things, it looks to me as though China is not particularly blessed with an abundance of arable land relative to their population.  If anyone has a genuine problem with problematic population density numbers it probably really is the Chinese.

Everyone knows about the hypothetical demographic issues which will eventually result from the one-child policy (to few workers to care for the aged.)  It wasn't long before this issue was put forward as a possible reason why China might have created a self-inflicted wound in the form of the SARS++ event.  For my part I don't have much doubt that the CPP could and would employ such a 'solution', but it remains just another hypothesis worth exploring.

Even if the CPP didn't have the 'strength' to do the deed, they probably don't have the final word in terms of how China is run any more than Trump does for the U.S..  If told by those who operate the monetary system to jump, both Xi and Trump will say 'how high?'  They wouldn't be where they are otherwise.

I agree the one child per family policy was a problem, and will cause depopulation over the next generation, however this policy was retired in 2016.

East China, especially the North East that borders the Pacific/China Sea, is very densely populated, however West China is not. There is also the potential for technology that the Chinese Government will steal from the West that can take care of its elderly population more efficiently. The Coronavirus has the potential to kill both the elderly and working aged men, and the very young.

You have to realize there is the Chinese government (technically), then the CCP, which controls it. Essentially you should stop looking at it like a government, and more like a country run by gangsters and cartels. A country run by gangsters and cartels depends on revenue to grease the wheels to maintain order. The Chinese economy is failing, that makes its one and a half billion residents dangerous to the CCP. In that light, depopulation seems quite a bit more realistic. After all, it is not like China was already the home to the largest mass depopulation of its own people on Earth or anything... oh wait...

The Chinese economy is growing, although at a slower rate than it has in the past. I would generally view the Chinese government and the CCP to be one and the same.

I am hesitant to believe this is intentional depopulation by the Chinese government because I can see scenarios in which the Chinese government is either overthrown, or its people find ways to get information to flow more freely. The Chinese government has been propping up its economy for years, if not decades by doing things such as building cities that are vacant.

[tvbcof]

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The Chinese government has been propping up its economy for years, if not decades by doing things such as building cities that are vacant.

Some say that these cities have been built for certain of the chosen elite when the U.S. is imploded.  Interesting theory.  Time will tell.  Of course if it works out that way it doesn't mean it was planned or anything like that.

http://www.visiontimes.com/2017/12/04/arabella-kushner-shook-the-chinese-community-with-her-fluent-mandarin.html

[TECSHARE]

You have to realize there is the Chinese government (technically), then the CCP, which controls it. Essentially you should stop looking at it like a government, and more like a country run by gangsters and cartels. A country run by gangsters and cartels depends on revenue to grease the wheels to maintain order. The Chinese economy is failing, that makes its one and a half billion residents dangerous to the CCP. In that light, depopulation seems quite a bit more realistic. After all, it is not like China was already the home to the largest mass depopulation of its own people on Earth or anything... oh wait...

The Chinese economy is growing, although at a slower rate than it has in the past. I would generally view the Chinese government and the CCP to be one and the same.

I am hesitant to believe this is intentional depopulation by the Chinese government because I can see scenarios in which the Chinese government is either overthrown, or its people find ways to get information to flow more freely. The Chinese government has been propping up its economy for years, if not decades by doing things such as building cities that are vacant.

Effectively the CCP and the Chinese government are the same. Technically they are not. It is hard to understand here living in the West, but imagine the Democrat and Republican party merged into one, and ruled completely by gangster oligarchs. They wouldn't technically be the government, but would in all intents and purposes control it. The Chinese government and the CCP are divisible, and the Chinese people would be much better off without the CCP.

The Chinese economy has not been growing for some time now, it is contracting. The last few years of "growth" are based on fraud and money printing. The USA experienced a correction when similar issues were (at least partially) addressed here in 2008-2009 in the housing market crisis and the "credit crunch". China never had this correction and continued to ride that wave of fraud. The amount of hidden debt they have dwarfs anything the US has.

The "ghost cities" you are referring to are not propping up anything, but are simply a mad dash to exploit their money printing and debt exploitation as much as possible to create real assets before the system implodes. It is a lot like some one who is about to go bankrupt maxing out all of their credit cards before they file so they can get the maximum benefit out of it. They are a symptom of failure, not a way to keep the system running.

I am suggesting that the threat of being overthrown is in fact motivation for depopulation. These people know once they lose their iron grip on their gangster system, they are likely to get the Qaddafi treatment. The CCP has already demonstrated they are willing to murder their own people to keep control. The people are finding ways to break free, and the events in Hong Kong as well as resistance in Taiwan and other places have them terrified of losing control. Cornered animals get vicious.

[Balthazar]

but imagine the Democrat and Republican party merged into one, and ruled completely by gangster oligarchs

Just imagine that roses are red and violets are blue. 

[Last of the V8s]

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Corona memes also accepted..

[Artemis3]

Natural source, but not from eating. The handling of the animals, or simply having them close to the human, made possible for the virus to jump species. Of course you could say they kept those animals close so they could eat them...

Sometimes it just jumps to an intermediary animal first, such things are possible in farms or where many animals are kept or maybe processed (slaughtered, etc).

Its too weak for a bioweapon...