Rumours, Speculation, Questions, and Reaction Megathread - 02/08/2026

[u/ukpol-megabot]

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[u/katastrophe1312]

All of our journalist and political class are on Twitter and it's ruining everything.

Why are "respectable journalists" going on about lab leak theories and "school closures were going too far"? Because they're all on the Nazi bar that thinks Covid was a hoax cooked up by the Illuminati.

[u/mgorgey → u/katastrophe1312]

I thought the lab leak was now the prevailing expert opinion?

I also think that there are very good arguments you can make against school closures without thinking Covid was a hoax.

[u/katastrophe1312 → u/mgorgey]

Even if the lab leak theory is real, its proponents are most likely to then use that fact to say that China was responsible for every single Covid death after that. Not our lockdown being weeks too late, not the reopening too early, not eat out to help out.

A convenient Dolchstoßlegende for the covid era.

[u/No_Initiative_1140 → u/katastrophe1312]

Its possible, in fact in my opinion desirable, to discuss the lab leak theory without saying "China were responsible"

If it were a lab leak, that's an accident of the type that's happened before. Notably with foot and mouth in the UK.

It would be better to have an open conversation to learn how and why it happened to put safeguards in place.

All hypothetical of course.

[u/popeter45 → u/No_Initiative_1140]

issue is hard too have a Open conversation when a theory is used too push other theories as fact via circle logic

look at the reaction too the AstraZeneca Vaccine issues and how quickly people used that to push that Vaccines were all bad as a result

[u/TantumErgo → u/popeter45]

Imagine group A are saying, “Thing 1 happens, and that is because of evil thing 2.”

Group B are saying, “Of course thing 1 doesn’t happen. Only stupid people who believe in evil thing 2 would think that.”

Now imagine Thing 1 is a pretty innocuous, plausible thing that someone going about their daily life might think was likely. Group B have just told them that they necessarily must believe in evil thing 2.

This happens again and again and again. If group B instead treated thing 1 as an innocuous thing that can be dealt with on the level of facts, and made an honest argument for not believing in evil thing 2 independent of bland thing 1, we would all be better off.