So what happens with the next virus?

[Andrew NDB]

I'm not stirring the pot. I'm genuinely curious. The next time there's a COVID-caliber virus... what is going to happen? The same stuff as this time? Shut everything down, stay home, "mask up" and so on for untold months or what?

What do you see happening? Because this will happen again. Like, it didn't happen with Swine Flu (which was actually killing tons of young people), but it happened with this.

[FredWolfLeonardo]

Interesting question.

I think that if another virus strikes us again, most people won't really care unless it's directly affecting their loved ones.

We humans as a species aren't really the type to be concerned with stuff outside of our tribe(s), so that's why you'll find that many are completely indifferent when asked about things like Climate Change.

[Leo656]

We actually hold China accountable and force them to give us the damn vaccine they're sitting on so we can get back to normal?

Hah. One would think. But probably not.

If anything the masks/distancing/etc. will be permanent if it ever happens again. There's already people pushing for it. "There's just too much risk! It's just a mask, there's no reason people can't just wear one ALL the time forever." And so on. There'll be an emergency executive order or whatever and leaving your house without a mask will be illegal under penalty of giant fines and such.

And then, as now, a lot of people Up Top will be using the ordeal as an excuse to push through a lot of things they've been not-so-secretly trying to do for years anyway. Like just giving up on schools and getting people back to work, and instead just paying people to stay at home because "It's not safe outside". Although they'll find out very quickly that they won't be able to tax people enough to pay for those programs on account of people being unable to work.

I'unno, not looking forward to it. But as you said, it's inevitable. Were it ME in charge, I would've waved some bombs at China and made them give us the vaccine by now, since they started this mess. But nobody up top asked me about it. They probably did figure they could reverse-engineer a vaccine by now without China's help, but obviously some very devious dealings went into this little cocktail of theirs and thus it's been more difficult than expected. What a mess. It amazes me that nobody even talks about holding them accountable anymore. I guess they actually believe that insipid "It came from tainted meat" cover story, which... well, I'll be blunt, that's the dumbest thing I ever heard and I absolutely don't believe that. And I never will, so don't "@" me. Born at night, but not LAST night.

[IMJ]

I think the reactions to the "next" pandemic will have a lot to do with what is determined long-term about this one's origins. And I'm really interested to see if the "evidence" rears it's head and how airtight it is. If it is, then the Chineese government is going to have to deal with the world for sure.


Chinese virologist claims she has proof COVID-19 was made in Wuhan lab

and

COVID-19 was manufactured by in Wuhan lab, Chinese 'whistleblower' claims

I've got to say though - all conspiracies aside, given how this virus relentlessly attacks a human being and has so many symptomatic manifestations and ease of transmission, it's not very hard to believe that it was manufactured. I mean cmon man, it literally gets into a person and does damage like a body-wide shotgun blast rather than the single mechanism of action that most other viruses in nature have.

But either way, I want the evidence.

On that note, if you find that you are ever a whistleblower on a government conspiracy and you believe that you are being hunted or crossed-off, then don't announce to the world that you have "the evidence". Instead just drop the evidence in the announcement.

[Leo656]

Too many "coincidences" all at once for it to NOT be man-made. I never even believe in ONE coincidence happening at once; this would require, like, multiple "coincidences". Along with willfully ignoring that Chinese nationals were getting caught sneaking manufactured biological weapons into the U.S. as recently as five or so years ago. Along with ignoring that the Obama administration paid money to and assisted the Chinese government in developing said weapons for reasons mysterious. Technically High Treason, BUT what else is new with That Guy. He gave guns to Mexican drug cartels, gave dangerous diseases to China, dropped bombs on thousands of civilians via drone strikes while nestled in the safety of his country club... BEST President EVAR!

The dots are big and bold and very easy to connect. China was tinkering with population control methods, possibly with our government's "help", and things went south from there. "Oops". But no, ALL of that stuff can't be true AND this just happens by accident for no reason. ALL things are connected.

They wouldn't create a plague without also having a way to reign it in. Nobody's THAT stupid. But, they also have ALL the leverage over the entire world because the entire world relies on their slave labor. They don't have to share anything they don't want to, they know nobody's gonna do anything about it. They're sitting there laughing while everybody else tries to reverse-engineer something that they already have in hand, just waiting for the U.S. government to cave in and write 'em a big, fat check so we can have a little bit of medicine, while we pray they didn't put something horrible in THAT, either.

I mean, sure, anything is possible technically. As in maybe this was the one kind of "bad meat" that gives you a respiratory illness instead of a gastrointestinal one like, y'know, everything else does. By the same exact logic that, "Well, we can't entirely DISPROVE Santa Claus. He might be there, for all we know!"

When things like this happens, you should ALWAYS ask, "Who benefits?" The answer, in this case, being China. They're up there playing a fiddle while the world burns. And they know nothing's gonna happen to them because everyone is enslaved to them and their cheap labor.

That's what happens when you cultivate a global society that values cheap thrills and cheap sneakers over people's lives. This was inevitable.

[IndigoErth]

Well obviously it was the Shadow People.


No really, it is what it is -- but not in the way the president means. We don't live in a vacuum, there is no exact playbook or magic tome of prediction for WHEN or WHAT or HOW any of this can, could, or will happen or how it would need to be responded to if a similar one occurred.

And I wouldn't assume it's destined for this to suddenly now become a constant thing that keeps happening. Few in the large coronavirus family infect humans, even fewer are bad news. This was a rare one. Just like the 1918 influenza pandemic was a rare one, because most flu strains generally aren't that bad for most and in over 100 years it hasn't mutated another strain that has repeated the severity of that one.

Sure, it could any day now, but that's like always waiting and expecting "the big one" to hit in a relatively seismic stable region... What is the sick joy in the fear of assuming it'll happen any day now even when the probabilities are low. I guess the same brain quirk that causes some to repeatedly try to "predict" yet another date that the world will end.

But back then in 1918 they also didn't have quite as much of the knowledge or the tools at their disposal to combat it as we do now.


Humanity is smart, it is capable of so much, yet it insists on failing so greatly even when we could be capable of getting through near anything if we'd cut the crap and just do what's needed to get past a challenge like this. Some try, but not enough. Really, just wtf.

Honestly, I'm just disappointed in us, as human beings, in general and esp in my own nation. We are the ONE species on this planet capable of understanding how this stuff works, the only species smart enough to respond in a knowledgeable enough way to protect ourselves, and yet we can't deal with it. Instead it devolves into a global drama queen meltdown of blame, conspiracy, and other bulls*** because temporary masks and other "best practices" are inconvenient and empathy isn't cool anymore. Again... wtf.


And sorry, this whole "China did it, it HAD to be done on purpose" conspiracy crap is utter BS. (Possibly stupid habits from them such as the wet markets? Sure. On purpose...highly doubtful.) Even if it WAS, why are many people who believe that so weak in their response? No, they are probably not going to get their wish and see China bombed for it, so the response to it has been what then? Just allow a virus to continue to run rampant because masks, etc are inconvenient? Don't try to cut a "manufactured" virus off at the pass by responding in ways that limit it's ability to continue? Nah, forget that, just come on in, Virus, make yourself at home, we'll just allow you to keep spreading because... I dunno... muh freedom and maybe it feeds a victim complex and drama is fun to some people. Yeah, that's real cute.



In before thread lock.

[Leo656]

You're over-simplifying and projecting.

- China being responsible isn't "Complete and utter BS", it's what probably actually happened. Bad meat doesn't give you the sniffles, it gives you a tummy ache. Outbreak happened right around the corner from the largest biological weapons lab in the entire world. 2+2. C'mon. Their own PEOPLE don't even believe the cover story. Every Single Thing the Chinese government said from Day one has been proven to be a lie, from "It's not that bad" to "it's getting better already". But they're gonna tell the truth about THIS part?

- People argue against wearing masks because they don't believe the official story. And little by little, the "official story" has been PROVEN to be exaggerated at best and outright lies at worst. Has NOTHING to do with "lack of empathy", and everything to do with people looking objectively at a situation and saying, "SOMEthing is wrong. These things DON'T add up. They're manipulating the situation for some reason and therefore I Don't Trust These People."

I don't trust them either. Oh, I follow "The Rules", but once it came out and was PROVEN that hospitals were puffing up the numbers of COVID deaths so they could get more grant money, I stopped believing the "official" story.

- The long-term economic ramifications of this are going to be WAY worse than a few people dying from a virus, people who we're now finding out were most likely gonna die anyway. 70% of small businesses, closed forever. Entire families homeless. Amazon and Netflix make record profits. Do The Math. Far-left Democrats want to create Universal basic Income and create a nation of freeloaders who don't work. NOW we suddenly have a society where going outside makes you an irresponsible nitwit. "Just stay at home and don't work, we'll even pay you!" Again, Do The Math.

There are LOTS of very Good Reasons why people are raging against the machine right now, and not all of it is politically or racially-motivated. It's just plain common sense.

- China lied about the virus's origins.
- The media capitalized on it being an election year and used it as ammo for their "Anyone But Trump" narrative.
- The numbers of deaths are fake.
- More people are going to die from being Poor than will from being Sick when this is all said and done.
- MOST people don't get sick.
- MOST people will be fine even if they do get sick.
- None of this needed to happen.

But sure. Let's all just keep bending over and believing The Official Report when it's been factually proven to be nothing but agenda-driven misinformation.

We'll see how fast this all goes away post-November, depending on how the election goes.

But no, in the meantime let's not demonize people for walking around with their eyes open. What's REALLY going on is plain as day for anyone to see, the rest is just a matter of how adamantly a person NEEDS to believe that their side are "The Good Guys".

You can't be "paranoid" when the facts say there really IS more than meets the eye.

And please, let's stop the "Blame America" stuff. We didn't do anything wrong and it's in our nature to disbelieve obvious lies and bullsh*t. "It's better in other countries, the numbers aren't as bad in other countries." Y'know WHY? Because it's not an election year over there! THUS they don't have to float a bunch of inflated and artificial statistics and try to pin this all on some demonic boogeyman whose absolute worst sin was trying to avoid mass panic by telling the truth: "It ain't that bad and most people aren't gonna get it." Whaaaat a monster.

But yeah, it's not our fault. I have a reeeeaaaaaal problem with accepting any blame that isn't mine. So if people wouldn't do that, that'd be great.

China's fault. Blame China. Nobody else. Just China.
----------

Meanwhile, in this part of Joisey, numbers going down. It's about 75% of people wearing masks when they go to a store or something but to a man, every single person will tell you that they think this is all bullsh*t. Nobody's gotten sick or knows a single person who has. And one wonders WHY some people have a hard time going along? In such a densely populated area full of "Can't tell me what to do" types, there ought to have been a ton of outbreaks. But there weren't. Everybody is Fine. So again... can't fault people for calling it as they see it. They're gonna trust what's in front of their own face more than they're going to believe some empty suit on TV. That's just the way it is, AND they're not wrong for doing it.

[Sumac]

Economy will crash.
Governments will become more authoritarian under the cover, of "caring about safety of people".
Corporations will further encroach on people's privacy by pretending that "everything they do is for people".

Eventually system will crash.
Revolutions are everywhere, millions of dead, military comes in power and starts genuine tyranny to save everyone from fighting everyone.
At some point they transform into democracy and so on and so on.

The same old dance humanity was doing for the rest of its history.

Unless someone will have a bright idea to swing around some nuclear missiles.

[CylonsKlingonsDaleksOhMy]

What happens next?

I stay home, keep working remotely, have a great excuse to avoid people I don't like, and keep paying Netflix.

[triplexxx]

Since most if not all of us, who weren't born this year, won't be around to see 2118-2120, I don't believe we need worry about the next time.

[neatoman]

I've been thinking, how long can this sort of thing realistically go on? Let's say a virus with the kill rate of COVID-19 hits again and it doesn't seem to go away at all, how long can the safety measures be enforced before it's a bigger inconvenience than the virus itself? It seems like, eventually, you'd have to let society take the hit.

[Leo656]

Originally Posted by Sumac

Economy will crash.
Governments will become more authoritarian under the cover, of "caring about safety of people".
Corporations will further encroach on people's privacy by pretending that "everything they do is for people".

Eventually system will crash.
Revolutions are everywhere, millions of dead, military comes in power and starts genuine tyranny to save everyone from fighting everyone.
At some point they transform into democracy and so on and so on.

The same old dance humanity was doing for the rest of its history.

Unless someone will have a bright idea to swing around some nuclear missiles.

Yep.

Originally Posted by neatoman

I've been thinking, how long can this sort of thing realistically go on? Let's say a virus with the kill rate of COVID-19 hits again and it doesn't seem to go away at all, how long can the safety measures be enforced before it's a bigger inconvenience than the virus itself? It seems like, eventually, you'd have to let society take the hit.

Yep.

Originally Posted by CylonsKlingonsDaleksOhMy

What happens next?

I stay home, keep working remotely, have a great excuse to avoid people I don't like, and keep paying Netflix.

Meanwhile, my livelihood was entirely wiped out. "Because something bad MIGHT happen." I have serious doubts I'll ever be able to work again, quite frankly. I'm very good at a few specific things, but those skills no longer apply in "The New Normal" so I'm pretty well f*cked.

And oh boy, are all the people who used to go to my gym pissed off. Y'see, THEY didn't get sick, either. And neither did anyone they know. They're asking why this all had to happen "for no good reason" and I frankly don't have any answers besides, "I know, it's bullsh*t."

I kinda think next time something like this happens you're going to see even more resistance to "protocol", because MOST people are not convinced that this whole "scorched Earth" approach was even necessary. But we're damn sure all paying for it regardless.

I get it. Nobody wants to kill Grandma. But y'know, at some point enough is enough. If Pelosi can get her hair done and walk around without a mask on at her leisure, people need to be allowed to go back to normal already.

If it ain't any better by now after six months, then it's as much "better" as it's gonna get. And if it gets worse, well... Nobody lives forever.

[Sumac]

Originally Posted by neatoman

I've been thinking, how long can this sort of thing realistically go on? Let's say a virus with the kill rate of COVID-19 hits again and it doesn't seem to go away at all, how long can the safety measures be enforced before it's a bigger inconvenience than the virus itself? It seems like, eventually, you'd have to let society take the hit.

That is the most logical conclusion.
Even if people will survive, the economy and infrastructure will be in shambles, which means a lot of people will die, fighting for whats left of the resources. Others will commit suicide or leave wherever they can.

I've seen it back in the 90s and it was pretty bad. But Russia survived mooching of USSR legacy. Imagine if country has no legacy of the superpower it might lead to complete collapse.

[Voltron]

Originally Posted by neatoman

I've been thinking, how long can this sort of thing realistically go on? Let's say a virus with the kill rate of COVID-19 hits again and it doesn't seem to go away at all, how long can the safety measures be enforced before it's a bigger inconvenience than the virus itself? It seems like, eventually, you'd have to let society take the hit.

Until the systems we have in place can compensate for the change.

Any social system we invent is inevitably going to have a delay when a big change comes.

When COVID hit, we didn't have the supplies necessary to meet the projected demand. Hence the whole "flatten the curve" campaign and the focus on PPE and ventilators.

Should this become the new norm, everything will adjust to that new norm.

Or we could just blame other people and demand a cure that probably isn't there. Seriously, if this was a biological attack, it is a really crappy one.

[MsMarvelDuckie]

Originally Posted by Voltron

Until the systems we have in place can compensate for the change.

Any social system we invent is inevitably going to have a delay when a big change comes.

When COVID hit, we didn't have the supplies necessary to meet the projected demand. Hence the whole "flatten the curve" campaign and the focus on PPE and ventilators.

Should this become the new norm, everything will adjust to that new norm.

Or we could just blame other people and demand a cure that probably isn't there. Seriously, if this was a biological attack, it is a really crappy one.

Extremely crappy. It hit the REST OF THE WORLD before it ever really even got going here. China itself, along with Italy (why there?) were the hardest hit until we overtook them both out of sheer pig-headedness and stupidity. No, that has no markings of a bio weapon, more like a bad flu gone "viral", as it were. And as with most such things, the origin point was among the worst hit, simply because literally NO ONE saw it coming!

[Leo656]

So it's entirely outside the realm of possibility that a country like China, full of billions of people and constantly struggling with the realities of massive overpopulation, with an evil totalitarian government that literally keeps their people slaves and would be perfectly happy stuffing 1/3 or more of their population into ovens so long as they didn't have to feed them if only they could get away with it, and who dabble in bio-weapons research like it's a goddamn hobby and who had people already caught repeatedly smuggling dangerous diseases into the U.S. not even five years ago... whose own civilian population do not believe this was an accident and generally feel that the government of China did this on purpose... a government who's been caught lying about every single aspect of the pandemic since the very beginning of it and even before... they would NEVER have manufactured a disease designed to kill off huge swaths of their own population by way of controlling the numbers of said population, and there's also NO way the experiment could have gotten out of hand.

The Chinese government isn't evil, they don't screw around with diseases, they didn't get caught sneaking samples of manufactured plague viruses into the U.S. multiple times, the Wuhan lab being near the outbreak was a big coincidence, and they haven't lied once throughout the entire affair. That's what you're telling me, and what you expect me to believe. "Because other places got it too." Am I getting this right?

So... these are all just big giant dots floating in space, then, and anyone who can easily connect them into a crystal clear picture is a paranoid fool. That's what "rational-minded" people believe?

That's adorable. It's absolutely adorable that THAT's the picture you can form out of the plethora of factual information that exists and is all too easy to find. I don't mean the conspiracy nut bullsh*t, I mean simply The Facts As We Know Them, which I've already laid out in full.

I can believe that the virus wasn't meant to spread outside of China's borders. Or that if it was, they thought it would be contained better than it ended up being. I can not and will not believe this was all an accident over some tainted beef. That's the LEAST likely scenario out of a million possible scenarios. The pedo ring conspiracies are ludicrous, but so is "Someone ate a ________ and now everyone's coughing themselves to death." For one thing, that's not even generally what happens when a person eats tainted meat, but OKAY then. For the sake of argument, we'll pretend that This One Time some bad meat unleashed a plague of people coughing themselves to death instead of bleeding out the ass like every other time. It's STILL the least-likely scenario and requires ignoring all other Facts in order to believe it. And I can't ignore THAT many things at once.

Tell me WHY the Chinese government has been experimenting with manufactured plague viruses for years upon years, then, if NOT for reasons of controlling their population numbers. These aren't things I or anyone else simply made up, there are facts everyone knows. So, what then... they have people working in a lab 24/7-365 making designer viruses that are meant to... NOT be used? The U.S government has even been quietly complicit in said experiments, something else that's been (quietly) exposed and reported more than once. We've sold them our own research and experiments into designer viruses and such. Part of our little "quid pro quo" with them, as it were.

If people are tinkering with homemade killer germs, it's so they can use them one day. And anyone who manufactures a plague and doesn't also manufacture a way to control it is an idiot. Therefore I'm inclined to believe there's a vaccine. Nobody working for either the U.S. OR Chinese government has died from this "killer virus", and they're never going to. Which leads me to even more questions, like "How much of this virus came from the stuff WE sold China a few years ago?" Unsettling questions, sure, but you have to ask them.

You can blame a President for all of this simply because you hate the guy, despite the fact that he has everything to lose by the numbers going up because it's going to potentially cost him re-election. Still, you can believe that him telling people bad advice born of ignorance is all part of his Evil Master Plan rather than just him being an idiot. But you CAN'T believe that a government run by actual super-villains was playing God over in Wuhan and it turned out worse than they planned for it to.

Again, that's adorable, but it's not what's going on.

If you see a giant puddle of milk on the floor, and a cracked jug of milk sitting on the counter top and your kid has a guilty look on their face... are you gonna BELIEVE their silly story that some other random kid ran in with their own milk, spilled it on the floor and then left, just to make your kid look bad? No, of course not, that's silly. Just like it's silly to believe that there's a giant f*cking bio-weapons lab right next door to Patient Zero and they magically had NOTHING to do with any of this.

Dots. Gigantic f*cking dots. Connect them or don't, but don't pretend Your Version of the story isn't patently ridiculous in ignoring them.

China wanted to kill off a few stragglers inside their own borders. It got messy. Now we're all dealing with it. And we will be until Uncle Sam cuts them a check. Hence the constant back-and-forth over relief funds, who gets what and when... they have to make sure they can afford all that AND afford to pay the Chinese government for the vaccine. This Is Reality.

You can say it's outrageous. I say it's all perfectly logical, A-B-C. Again, we're not talking pedo rings or 5G or Bill Gates, or jet fuel melting steel beams or "blood for oil". I don't entertain that nonsense as it has nothing to do with The Facts As We Know Them. We're talking about facts, logic, and cause-and-effect, nothing more. China creates plague viruses. One of them slipped out of the lab. "Oops." Deal with it. If the people living there believe it - and many of them apparently do - then that's enough to reinforce my belief in what I already know. If the people living at Ground Zero think their own government did this, then you should too. The facts do NOT support the "It was all a big cosmic accident" narrative. I'm sorry, but they don't.

I could live with people's naivete if they weren't so smarmy and preachy about it, pointing fingers at everyone except the people who actually DID this. Bad People Did A Bad Thing. It was inevitable, it HAD to happen eventually. I know you all like your cheap sneakers, but the fact that nobody's ever going to be held accountable for this sh*t is horrific.

They or anyone should not be allowed to play God and tinker with homemade plague viruses. But they do, and they did, and Now This. This is what you get. What did you/they THINK was gonna happen? That they could just have their little germ warfare facility and we could all just look the other way forever and nothing bad was EVER gonna happen?

C'mon. Just accept that Bad People Did A Bad Thing and we're all paying for it. Anything else, you may as well believe in Santa Claus. Sorry, these things matter.

They matter because IF we all look the other way on this, and IF China gets away with it, then mark my words... it WILL happen again, only much worse. Because that's what happens when you give a mouse a cookie.

If we're serious about fixing sh*t, and furthermore preventing it from ever happening again, you HAVE to 1. Point the finger at the actual guilty party, and 2. F*cking spank 'em. Otherwise, they don't learn nothin'.

OR, just sit on your hands and pray. Lord knows THAT always gets results.

[Voltron]

Is it within the realm of possibility? Sure.

But what was their goal? To control their population? To destabilize rival powers?

First, they currently have extermination camps. Everyone knows about them. There's also a video of a tank running over a guy in the middle of the street. There was a one child policy. Population control isn't a big deal here.

Why the hell would you go to all the work of synthesizing a disease to do something you're already doing in broad daylight, anyway? To destabilize rival nations? Facebook and Tumblr do that already for free.

So I'm supposed to believe that China poured millions, if not billions of dollars and heaven knows how many hours into creating a disease to kill off a few people that they could've just shot?

That doesn't make any sense.

Then comes the argument that COVID isn't that bad. People have argued that there's no sense being worried or taking precautions because

A. It doesn't affect healthy people

and

B. We're all going to die eventually anyway.

So now we have a virus that is both deadly and devastating AND not a big deal so we should all just go to work. It was masterfully designed by evil geniuses to kill people somewhere but it doesn't work that well. There's a cure for it that no one has seen or heard of.

Spies exist. Someone would've said SOMETHING by now.

Do you know what kind of windfall a cure for COVID would be at the moment? And while it would be tantamount to a guilty plea, I doubt the Chinese government would have any qualms about selling it to the rest of the world, playing the hero and getting rich at the same time. Again, they have concentration camps operating in full view of the world.

Nothing you're saying adds up. The furthest I'd go is that there may have been an accident at a lab somewhere and COVID happened to get out by chance.

Otherwise, if you're aiming to really cause some havoc, release a deadlier disease. Give a nuke to terrorists. Fund revolutionary militant political fringe groups.

EDIT:

Also, why the hell would someone release a virus in the hopes of destabilizing a global economy they're benefiting from? The West gives billions upon billions of dollars to China for all sorts of goods. China's just going to end that cash flow? Because they're evil? This sounds like something from a Saturday morning cartoon.

[Leo656]

Originally Posted by Voltron

The furthest I'd go is that there may have been an accident at a lab somewhere and COVID happened to get out by chance.

This is ultimately what I believe happened. But I allow for the fact that there may have been aspirations for something much "worse" to happen at a later date. Others can disbelieve if they choose. I don't think what happened was entirely on purpose but I do believe they were, and are, dealing in shady sh*t and that we're all now paying the fright on their mistake.

Past that, a LOT of sh*t happens in dark rooms behind closed doors that we're never going to be privy to and I don't think we'll ever know the full story, but that in the end there's a more sinister hand at work here. I think it's naive to dismiss that possibility outright, and on at least a superficial level, you agree with that.

Otherwise, we can agree to disagree, and that's fine. Like I said, we'll never know. Some Chinese scientist could come out tomorrow and say outright that he/she created it, and they still might just be a patsy for the state, assigned to take the fall so that it looks like things are wrapped up neat and tidy, all the while being a distraction for something else. And still, we'd never know. That's how these things go, unfortunately.

All I'll say in closing is that NOTHING is "by accident" and things don't just happen. There ARE no "accidents", merely a lack of care. And that remains fundamentally true whether we're talking about a government experimenting with bio-weapons, or a country where people in 2020 think it's still okay to eat raw bats and pangolins. Either way, people look the other way and call it "culture", and they shouldn't do that.

There needs to be accountability. No matter which version of events is true, this happened because people looked the other way on things they should not have looked the other way on. And now we're all paying for it.

Whether it's their death-dealing experiments or the fact that they have billions of dollars yet force their people to live like it's a third-world country, their "culture" needs an intervention. And if it had happened sooner, we wouldn't be in this mess.

That's really all I can say about it. Either way, too late now.

[Voltron]

[QUOTE=Leo656;1861166]

Originally Posted by Leo656

All I'll say in closing is that NOTHING is "by accident" and things don't just happen. There ARE no "accidents", merely a lack of care. And that remains fundamentally true whether we're talking about a government experimenting with bio-weapons, or a country where people in 2020 think it's still okay to eat raw bats and pangolins. Either way, people look the other way and call it "culture", and they shouldn't do that.

Here's the problem: this idea of dangerous aspects of culture cuts both ways. Look at the Oscar thread. That's a criticism of our "culture". A lot of people feel it's an unnecessary attack and that it poses an existential threat.

Demanding a group of people change who they are isn't going to happen unless everyone gets on board with the same definition of civilization.

There needs to be accountability. No matter which version of events is true, this happened because people looked the other way on things they should not have looked the other way on. And now we're all paying for it.

THIS is the killer, though. What does accountability look like? Is it war? Is it increased sanctions? What is to be done to punish a world power?

What if the United States was guilty of something like this? I mean, we've been accused of hundreds of crimes against humanity, and we've never ONCE faced accountability for it.

What's to be done?

[Andrew NDB]

Myself, I'm not of the mind that the virus was bio-engineered or created for some nefarious purpose (population control, whether in China or here). At the same time, I don't completely rule that out either.

It is interesting, though, that the virus is juuuust lethal enough (as in, basically just killing obese people or immuno-compromised people or the very old) to cause a pandemic lockdown to devastate the economy (the one thing that you-know-who could always point to as flourishing under his watch, previously) and forcibly taking jobs away from people, forcing them to rely on the government's teet and getting them used to that. Because all of this really seems to create very favorable conditions for one very vocal side of the country. Could a people hate a man soooo much? I mean, apparently.

Now, I'm not even suggesting something nefarious. I just find it very interesting.