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How QAnon became obsessed with adrenochrome - Printable Version

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How QAnon became obsessed with adrenochrome - Magical Realist - Feb 7, 2021

https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-qanon-became-obsessed-with-adrenochrome-an-imaginary-drug-hollywood-is-harvesting-from-kids

"In recent months, the YouTube comments for a song by the 1980s British post-punk band The Sisters of Mercy have veered slightly off-topic. “The favorite song [of] rich and depraved elites,” wrote user AlienDude30. “I like this song! - Hillary Clinton,” offered AdAJanuary. A Dean Latimer added: “Q chasing the goths!”

The track, which first appeared on a seven-inch in 1982, isn’t one of the Leeds-area band’s better-known songs. It’s an abrasive, theatrically dark tune, with early drum machine percussion and low, campy vocals. The lyrics are typical goth stuff, as is the black album artwork, which features the band’s logo: a medical scalp illustration overlaid on a pentacle. But it’s the title the commenters were drawn to: “Adrenochrome.”

Adrenochrome is an easy-to-come-by chemical compound, usually found as a light pink solution, that forms by the oxidation of adrenaline, the stress hormone. It is not approved for medical use by the Food and Drug Administration—though researchers can buy 25 milligrams of it for just $55—but doctors in other countries prescribe a version of it to treat blood clotting.

The compound has become an object of fascination, however, among COVID-19-truthers and adherents of QAnon, the fringe, baseless theory that a well-sourced government agent called “Q” leaks top-secret intel about a global cabal of Democratic and Hollywood pedophiles through cryptic and grandiose messages known as “Q-drops.” The quasi-cult’s sway has grown considerably in recent years, thanks in part to the tacit encouragement of Donald Trump. On Tuesday, a QAnon promoter named Marjorie Taylor Greene won 57 percent of the vote in a Republican primary for Georgia’s 14th congressional district, all but ensuring her victory in November. “There’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to take this global cabal of Satan-worshiping pedophiles out, and I think we have the president to do it,” Greene once said in a video from 2017. Trump applauded Greene’s primary victory.

For conspiracy theorists, adrenochrome represents a mystical psychedelic favored by the global elites for drug-crazed satanic rites, derived from torturing children to harvest their oxidized hormonal fear—a kind of real-life staging of the Pixar movie Monsters, Inc. “QAnon also likes to say that Monsters, Inc. is Hollywood telling on itself,” says QAnon researcher Mike Rains, “because the plot of scaring kids to get energy is what they really do.”


The highest-profile adrenochrome incident took place in 2018, when Google CEO Sundar Pichai was questioned by the House Judiciary Committee about a conspiracy called “Frazzledrip.” (“Heard of Frazzledrip?” reads one comment on The Sisters of Mercy song.) The crackpot theory involved a mythical video, supposedly squirreled away on Anthony Weiner’s laptop, that if leaked, would show Hillary Clinton and her one-time aide Huma Abedin performing a satanic sacrifice in which they slurped a child’s blood while wearing masks carved from the skin of her face.

Code-named “Frazzledrip,” the video was supposed to depict an adrenochrome “harvest.” It never materialized. But the drug has since become a common reference in conspiracies of the far right. In the past year, the compound has been name-checked by German soul singer Xavier Naidoo, right-wing evangelical and failed congressional candidate Dave Daubenmire, and ex-tabloid writer-turned-QAnon conspiracy theorist Liz Crokin.

“There’s a lot of anons [QAnon adherents] that believe the white hats tainted the elite’s adrenochrome supply with the coronavirus, and that’s why so many members of the elite are getting the coronavirus,” Crokin said in a YouTube video from March, reported by Right Wing Watch. “Adrenochrome is a drug that the elites love. It comes from children. The drug is extracted from the pituitary gland of tortured children. It’s sold on the black market. It’s the drug of the elites. It is their favorite drug. It is beyond evil. It is demonic. It is so sick. So there is a theory that the white hats tainted the adrenochrome supply with the coronavirus.”

Social media is filled with adrenochrome theories. From January of 2018, adrenochrome truthers also gathered on the subreddit r/adrenochrome, until the website banned it two weeks ago. A Reddit spokesperson told The Daily Beast the page had been suspended after its moderator was banned for violating their content policies (they declined to specify which). “The community was then banned because it was unmoderated,” the spokesperson said.

Those in search of adrenochrome theories, however, can still find them on Facebook, YouTube, or Amazon, where several self-published titles on the subject appear in top search results.

Those in search of adrenochrome theories, however, can still find them on Facebook, YouTube, or Amazon, where several self-published titles on the subject appear in top search results. (After The Daily Beast contacted Amazon about several of these books, they disappeared from the website. Facebook did not immediately respond to requests for comment.) One Facebook group, called “Adrenochrome / Adrenaline (Epinephrine),” provides a 70-part introduction to the drug, with chapter titles along the lines of: The Epstein/JonBenét CONNECTION and The deep meaning behind Justin Bieber’s ‘Yummy.’ The group has 22,460 members.

“The use of Adrenochrome is Prevalent in our Society and it Time we had a Mass Awakening to these Fact's and Started become Educated in the Reasons,” the group’s description reads. “WHY , HOW , WHEN , WHO , WHERE and WHY we should be more ‘Open Eye'd’ to our Society from the TOP DOWN .........................” [sic].

Scientific interest in adrenochrome dates back to the 1950s, when Canadian researchers Humphry Osmond and Abram Hoffer developed what they called the “Adrenochrome Hypothesis.” After a series of small studies between 1952 and 1954, the two concluded that excess adrenochrome could trigger symptoms of schizophrenia. Save for some failed studies of treatments, the theory went largely unexplored for several decades (Hoffer wrote a 1981 paper revisiting the proposal, concluding that it “accounts for the syndrome schizophrenia more accurately than do any of the competing hypotheses.”)

The hypothesis nevertheless impacted adrenochrome’s public perception, putting it in conversation with psychedelics like LSD or mescaline. Aldous Huxley described it in his 1954 book The Doors of Perception; Anthony Burgess nicknamed it ‘drenchrom’ in the argot of A Clockwork Orange. Frank Herbert described a character in Destination: Void as so high “he looked like someone who had just eaten a handful of pineal glands and washed them down with a pint of adrenochrome.” But most famously, gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson got offered a “tiny taste” from his unhinged lawyer in a scene from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

The compound’s supposedly psychedelic properties have been debunked, in part by Thompson himself, who reportedly told Terry Gilliam, director of the black comedy’s adaptation, that he had invented its effects.
“That stuff makes pure mescaline seem like ginger beer,” the lawyer said. “You’ll go completely crazy if you take too much.”


“There’s only one source for this stuff,” Thompson responded, “the adrenaline glands from a living human body. It’s no good if you get it out of a corpse.”

The compound’s supposedly psychedelic properties have been debunked, in part by Thompson himself, who reportedly told Terry Gilliam, director of the black comedy’s adaptation, that he had invented its effects. Eduardo Hidalgo Downing, a Spanish writer behind the meandering drug memoir Adrenochrome and Other Mythical Drugs, described it as “an absolute bullshit,” [sic], adding that “it is of no value in psychoactive terms... it is infinitely more useful to drink a cup of coffee.” Even Erowid, the harm-reduction nonprofit filled with drug experience reviews, had only negative things to say. “Effects were extremely weak, absolutely not fun nor psychedelic in anyway,” one user wrote.

Another user, in a review titled “Worst Headache Imaginable” described a racing heartbeat, profuse sweating, and “a headache that could have brought down an elephant.” The “incapacitating” pain allegedly subsided after two hours, but recurred periodically for the next seven days. “I had absolutely no hallucinations,” he concluded, “unless I was hallucinating the headaches.”

There’s an aspect of QAnon obsession that resembles demented literary criticism: every current event encoded with hidden meanings, global criminals desperate to signal their crimes through symbols, millions of messages waiting for the right close reader to unpack them. That Q’s adherents would seize upon a drug drummed up by a semi-fictional memoir makes sense. In that way, they’re not unlike The Sisters of Mercy, whose single, which describes schoolkids harvested by nuns, is a clear Thompson nod. (The catholic girls now / stark in their dark and white / Dread in monochrome / The sisters of mercy /.../ Panic in their eyes / Rise / Dead on adrenochrome.) The band just did a better job with the source material. Conspiracists missed some important subtext: the jokes.


RE: How QAnon became obsessed with adrenochrome - Syne - Feb 7, 2021

QAnon gets much more attention than it warrants just because Democrats like to use it to defame all Republicans. Only 17% or less of people believe conspiracies specifically from QAnon, but leftists, in their usual human piece of shit fashion, try to lump in every political disagreement with them, trying to undermine them with guilt by association or genetic fallacies.

https://www.wbur.org/npr/951095644/even-if-its-bonkers-poll-finds-many-believe-qanon-and-other-conspiracy-theories


RE: How QAnon became obsessed with adrenochrome - confused2 - Feb 7, 2021

From the link Syne gives ^^^^
https://www.wbur.org/npr/951095644/even-if-its-bonkers-poll-finds-many-believe-qanon-and-other-conspiracy-theories

"A group of Satan-worshipping elites who run a child sex ring are trying to control our politics and media"
17% responded 'True'
37% responded 'Don't know'
47% responded 'False'

Given that the story was created to discredit Democrats it seems unlikely many (any?) would believe it.

Assuming a 50-50 split between Democrats and Republicans this leaves 34% of Republicans convinced by the story and the rest apparently unable to distinguish between fact and fiction with any degree of certainty.

From a Republican point of view the inability to tell fact from fiction would, of course, be of no consequence while others might (reasonably) view it as extremely worrying.


RE: How QAnon became obsessed with adrenochrome - Zinjanthropos - Feb 7, 2021

QAnon is taking on Church of the FSM proportions. Maybe surpassing it.


RE: How QAnon became obsessed with adrenochrome - Yazata - Feb 7, 2021

The question that interests me isn't the question of the subject line, "How QAnon became obsessed with adrenochrome". It's the question, "How the US Democratic party became obsessed with QAnon".

(Feb 7, 2021 08:20 AM)Syne Wrote: QAnon gets much more attention than it warrants just because Democrats like to use it to defame all Republicans.

The righteous talk by Democrats about conspiracy theories is ironic.

Have we already forgotten all the "Russia collusion" theories that were headlines for the whole Trump administration? Trump was supposed to be a foreign agent!! Trump was "Putin's puppet"!! Complete bullshit, but it was pushed by all of the mainstream "quality" media.

Conspiracy theories are how politics are conducted these days. They can't unleash it and then sneer it back into the closet once it has served their partisan purpose. They can't suddenly back away from it and pretend that it never happened.

Quote:Only 17% or less of people believe conspiracies specifically from QAnon

The mere fact that the Democrats denounce QAnon so passionately suggests to me that there may be some basis in fact in some of the things they say. So I'm becoming more curious about them. The smoke and fire thing.

Personally, I'm very much a Trump supporter. Voted for him both times. But... I'd hardly heard of QAnon. I certainly paid no attention to it. The only place where I encounter people talking about QAnon, whatever they are supposed to be, is on the internet where it's always Democrats trying to use QAnon to discredit people like me.

Of course the idea that some mysterious thing called "QAnon" is controlling the views of half the electorate is a conspiracy theory in its own right. That's supposed to be ignored, I guess, when we are denouncing "bonkers" conspiracy theories.


RE: How QAnon became obsessed with adrenochrome - C C - Feb 7, 2021

(Feb 7, 2021 05:23 PM)Yazata Wrote: Conspiracy theories are how politics are conducted these days.


The contemporary "[white, male, etc] privilege" and "systemic racism" factoids promoted by Leftangelicals are a strategy template borrowed from the hegemonic conspiracies of Marxism. While such were originally motivated reasoning diatribes of the humanities, ideologically sympathetic social scientists and allied journalists portray these "just-so" stories as a truth covertly coordinated on a grand scale by the applicable "devious" population groups.

Jerry Coyne: "... if people think that the differential representation is due to preference rather than bias, and it’s a preference based on political affiliation (which may be correlated with other traits), why are we so eager to assume that other differential representations, like those involving gender or ethnicity, are based solely on bias and bigotry rather than preference? As we know, this kind of representation is automatically assumed to be based on prejudice, but I’ve always said that we can’t assume that without the needed research."

However, such research would be conducted by the horribly unreliable social sciences, which in addition to their sloppy practices and interpretations of data are the individual scientists or teams being rewarded with funding and publication for adhering to the political policies and philosophical convictions of institutions and journals they work for and submit to. (Science needs a radical overhaul)

Daniel Ouka: "Reni Eddo Lodge’s 2018 "Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race" has scooped six literary awards and received near-universal praise and Lodge has recently been voted one of the Sunday Times’ Women of the Year 2020. The book offers an uncompromising attack on whiteness and fits into an emerging canon of third-wave anti-racist literature spearheaded by US thinkers like Ibram X Kendi and Robin Di Angelo, with notable British contributions from writers including Akala and Afua Hirsh. The book covers black British history, systemic racism, white privilege, white fears, the relationship between race and class and the pitfalls of white feminism, all interwoven with Lodge’s negative personal experiences with whites who are in a state of racial denial.

While the book is probably accessible and appealing to those who share the author’s totalising vision of race, it lacks sociological depth. Its factual assertions are tightly wrapped up in events experienced, words said and emotions felt. This means that any criticism levelled at the book risks eliciting a charge of insensitivity. Worse still, as with Robin DiAngelo’s concept of white fragility, it also, as Jonathan Church has pointed out, sets a Kafka trap for those who question its claims. Just as, for Di Angelo, rejecting the notion of white fragility is itself a tell-tale sign of white fragility, Lodge implies that those who question her assertions are demonstrating “white denial.” It is important to withstand this kind of gaslighting, since the author’s ideas—like any other ideas—are open to a range of objections.


Quote:[...] The only place where I encounter people talking about QAnon, whatever they are supposed to be, is on the internet where it's always Democrats trying to use QAnon to discredit people like me.

Of course the fact QAnon is a conspiracy theory in its own right is supposed to be ignored, I guess.


On a "sort of" flip side to this, there was conspiracy-crazed Lyndon LaRouche and his followers. Although the media pegged him as an ex-communist turned conservative, he and his chosen ran as Democrats. He accused various GOP members of cabalistic activities over the decades, and of orchestrating a negative public image of his movement and imprisoning him on false charges.

"He [LaRouche] once published a book alleging that some members of President George W. Bush's administration were 'children of Satan' [...] LaRouche first ran for president in 1976, and he entered every presidential campaign afterward through Bush's re-election in 2004, usually as a Democrat, much to the annoyance of the Democratic National Committee. ... In 1986, his movement reached its height in electoral success when Larouchite candidates won several Democratic primaries for state offices in Illinois." --Lyndon LaRouche, bizarre political theorist and perennial presidential candidate, dies at 96(NBC NEWS) + Wikipedia

pro-LaRouche POV: "Millions of Americans have been the victims of what amounts to a brainwashing campaign against LaRouche, carried out between 1984 and 1988, in the USA and internationally, with more intensity, duration, and scope, than against any personality not a major figure of government. As a result, even still today, there are millions of U.S. citizens who have been so thoroughly brainwashed by a mass-media campaign coordinated through Henry Kissinger, George Bush, et al., that those duped persons react with knee-jerk outbrusts of baseless, irrational rage, at the mere mention of the name 'LaRouche.' [...] In addition, after two associates of LaRouche won the Democratic Party primary in Illinois in March 1986, a new wave of defamation took off." https://archive.schillerinstitute.com/exon/exon.html

alt-Right POV about LaRouche: "The Liberty Lobby soon pronounced itself disillusioned with LaRouche, citing his movement's adherence to "basic socialist positions" and his softness on 'the major Zionist groups' as fundamental points of difference. According to George and Wilcox, American neo-Nazi leaders expressed misgivings over the number of Jews and members of other minority groups in his organization, and did not consider LaRouche an ally. George Johnson, in Architects of Fear, similarly states that LaRouche's overtures to far right groups were pragmatic rather than sincere. A 1975 party memo spoke of [LaRouche movement] uniting with these groups only to overthrow the established order, adding that once that goal had been accomplished, 'eliminating our right-wing opposition will be comparatively easy'."--Wikipedia


RE: How QAnon became obsessed with adrenochrome - Syne - Feb 7, 2021

(Feb 7, 2021 11:19 AM)confused2 Wrote: From the link Syne gives ^^^^
https://www.wbur.org/npr/951095644/even-if-its-bonkers-poll-finds-many-believe-qanon-and-other-conspiracy-theories

"A group of Satan-worshipping elites who run a child sex ring are trying to control our politics and media"
17% responded 'True'
37% responded 'Don't know'
47% responded 'False'

Given that the story was created to discredit Democrats it seems unlikely many (any?) would believe it.

Assuming a 50-50 split between Democrats and Republicans this leaves 34% of Republicans convinced by the story and the rest apparently unable to distinguish between fact and fiction with any degree of certainty.

From a Republican point of view the inability to tell fact from fiction would, of course, be of no consequence while others might (reasonably) view it as extremely worrying.

"Don't know" tends to mean that people either haven't paid enough attention to form an opinion either way or they think there's likely some truth or grey area. No credible survey assumes that "Don't know" means an inability to tell truth from fiction, but apparently ignorant people do.

Do more Satan-worshipers identify as Democrats than Republicans? Certainly. Are there elites who engage in child sex rings? According to all the evidence of so many of the rich and powerful visiting Jeffery Epstein's island, also a certainty. Does the left hold a hegemonic control of our media, and thus undue sway over our politics? Absolutely. Are all three the same group? Probably not very likely. The Venn diagram of those might have a very small intersection of all three, but certainly much more likely to include some intersections.

And most likely, that 17% "True" includes many that simply assume any intersection at all is technically true, even if that group is as few as two.



(Feb 7, 2021 05:23 PM)Yazata Wrote: The question that interests me isn't the question of the subject line, "How QAnon became obsessed with adrenochrome". It's the question, "How the US Democratic party became obsessed with QAnon".

Yeah, I couldn't care less about QAnon, and I wouldn't even know about it if it weren't for leftist media smears and faux outrage.

Quote:
(Feb 7, 2021 08:20 AM)Syne Wrote: QAnon gets much more attention than it warrants just because Democrats like to use it to defame all Republicans.

The righteous talk by Democrats about conspiracy theories is ironic.

Have we already forgotten all the "Russia collusion" theories that were headlines for the whole Trump administration? Trump was supposed to be a foreign agent!! Trump was "Putin's puppet"!! Complete bullshit, but it was pushed by all of the mainstream "quality" media.

Conspiracy theories are how politics are conducted these days. They can't unleash it and then sneer it back into the closet once it has served their partisan purpose. They can't suddenly back away from it and pretend that it never happened.

Absolutely, and leftists like MR still believe those conspiracy theories, even though they were conclusively debunked. But hypocrisy is part and parcel with leftism. They have the hegemonic cabal of media to cover for them.

Quote:
Quote:Only 17% or less of people believe conspiracies specifically from QAnon

The mere fact that the Democrats denounce QAnon so passionately suggests to me that there may be some basis in fact in some of the things they say. So I'm becoming more curious about them. The smoke and fire thing.

As I just told C2 above, there certainly is a case to be made, even if a limited one. And the left doesn't usually work so hard to shut down things that are complete fiction. Evidence Hunter Biden's laptop and voting irregularities.

Quote:Personally, I'm very much a Trump supporter. Voted for him both times. But... I'd hardly heard of QAnon. I certainly paid no attention to it. The only place where I encounter people talking about QAnon, whatever they are supposed to be, is on the internet where it's always Democrats trying to use QAnon to discredit people like me.

Of course the idea that some mysterious thing called "QAnon" is controlling the views of half the electorate is a conspiracy theory in its own right. That's supposed to be ignored, I guess, when we are denouncing "bonkers" conspiracy theories.

Yeah, that survey I posted above, which shows only 17% "True", demonstrates the left's conspiracy theory about the prevalence of QAnon believers.


RE: How QAnon became obsessed with adrenochrome - Yazata - Feb 7, 2021

I'm not sure how seriously I'd take that WBUR "survey". It was a poll, commissioned by npr, reported by a Boston npr station owned by Boston University. So I think that we already know what its biases are likely to be.

It begins:

"A significant number of Americans believe misinformation about the origins of the coronavirus and the recent presidential election, as well as conspiracy theories like QAnon, according to a new npr/ipsos poll.

Forty percent of respondents said they believe the coronavirus was made in a lab in China even though there is no evidence for this. Scientists say the virus was transmitted to humans from another species."

I think that's false and misleading on several levels.

First of all, there does seem to be some evidence. China's top virology lab is in Wuhan, not very far from the wet-market the Chinese government blamed (without any real evidence) as the source of the disease. The lab is known (from its publications and American collaborators) to have been conducting research on how animal viruses cross over into humans. (According to some reports their work included research into how changing virus coat proteins alter transmissability.) They had already been called out for poorly trained technicians and sloppy safety procedure. And it's just been revealed that several workers in the lab fell ill with a mystery illness with symptoms very much like covid in Fall 2019, before the disease had appeared in the general population outside the lab.

So while there's no evidence that I know of that the disease was released intentionally, there is a very real possibility that workers in the lab accidently infected themselves with something and then carried it outside the lab.

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2021/jan/26/wuhan-lab-theory-coronavirus-outbreak-bolstered-de/

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9153885/Mike-Pompeo-reveals-intel-implicating-Wuhan-lab-origins-COVID-19-pandemic.html

https://www.foxnews.com/world/state-department-cables-coronavirus-origin-chinese-lab-bats

Another defect with the npr story is that it doesn't make any distinction between 'believe with 100% certainty' on one hand, and 'believe that it's a legitimate possibility' on the other. I personally wouldn't agree with the former regarding the origin of the coronavirus, but would agree with the latter. So those of us who don't know how coronavirus originated but believe that it's a possibility that it escaped from the lab would have the option of either choosing 'don't know' which suggests 'no opinion', or choosing 'believe', which communicates more certainty than 'believe that it might have' would suggest. It's a badly worded poll (like virtually all polls).

In real life, even if (some) scientists say (that they believe that) the disease originated with another species, even if that is actually true doesn't mean that the virus jumped directly from animals to man, without taking a little detour through the Wuhan virology lab first. Conceivably where viruses isolated from animals received a little genetic modification to see if that increased transmissability between species. (A valid research topic since it would cast light on why many animal viruses never jump to humans but some do.) After which one of these viruses perhaps infected some lab workers and then escaped into the human population. (The genetic modification part remains speculative, based largely on the fact that the lab was doing that kind of research.)

There's a WHO team at the lab now investigating all this, but after the year in which the Chinese government has had to cover things up, they probably won't find anything conclusive. (Assuming that the WHO was even interested in finding anything that would embarrass China.) Which will inevitably be trumpeted as "There's no evidence that the disease originated in the lab!". And that will in turn be treated by the dimmer sorts of political media as if it was saying "There is evidence that it didn't originate in the lab", which is a very different proposition.


RE: How QAnon became obsessed with adrenochrome - Magical Realist - Feb 7, 2021

I'm not naive enough to attribute QAnon beliefs to all Trumpers, even though they both appear to posit a vast liberal conspiracy involving Hollywood and the mainstream media and Democratic elitests. I'm mainly just interested in it as a sociological phenomenon--as a movement or cult-like ideology that seems to have been solely originated by the Internet. It interests me how everyday people you might work with can believe in such obvious BS, even though its narrative of prophetic pronouncements has turned out to be false. Trump is gone, and he didn't save the day by declaring martial law. To me this all bears a resemblance to apocalyptic movements and the way they recover when their prophecies don't come true. Even Christianity has its roots as a Messianic cult that had to reinvent itself after its promised Messiah was executed. How will QAnon reinvent itself with Trump now gone? What new figure will emerge as the anointed Savior to keep the sheep in drooling anticipation? Michael Flynn? Time will tell I guess..


RE: How QAnon became obsessed with adrenochrome - Syne - Feb 7, 2021

(Feb 7, 2021 10:17 PM)Yazata Wrote: I'm not sure how seriously I'd take that WBUR "survey". It was a poll, commissioned by npr, reported by a Boston npr station owned by Boston University. So I think that we already know what its biases are likely to be.

Oh, I'd grant you that. I'm use to using leftist sources, so I can at least bypass leftist genetic fallacies and get on with an actual discussion, such as it is.

Quote:It begins:

"A significant number of Americans believe misinformation about the origins of the coronavirus and the recent presidential election, as well as conspiracy theories like QAnon, according to a new npr/ipsos poll.

Forty percent of respondents said they believe the coronavirus was made in a lab in China even though there is no evidence for this. Scientists say the virus was transmitted to humans from another species."

I think that's false and misleading on several levels.

First of all, there does seem to be some evidence. China's top virology lab is in Wuhan, not very far from the wet-market the Chinese government blamed (without any real evidence) as the source of the disease. The lab is known (from its publications and American collaborators) to have been conducting research on how animal viruses cross over into humans. (According to some reports their work included research into how changing virus coat proteins alter transmissability.) They had already been called out for poorly trained technicians and sloppy safety procedure. And it's just been revealed that several workers in the lab fell ill with a mystery illness with symptoms very much like covid in Fall 2019, before the disease had appeared in the general population outside the lab.

So while there's no evidence that I know of that the disease was released intentionally, there is a very real possibility that workers in the lab accidently infected themselves with something and then carried it outside the lab.

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2021/jan/26/wuhan-lab-theory-coronavirus-outbreak-bolstered-de/

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9153885/Mike-Pompeo-reveals-intel-implicating-Wuhan-lab-origins-COVID-19-pandemic.html

https://www.foxnews.com/world/state-department-cables-coronavirus-origin-chinese-lab-bats

Yeah, than Wuhan lab had advertised for researchers to study novel coronaviruses, and studied bats from some 40 miles from the lab and wet-market. No evidence it was "created" in a lab, but all evidence points to it being accidentally spread to humans in such a lab. Considering the news blitz to absolve China of any blame, I wouldn't fault anyone for failing to note the relatively minor difference between "created by" and "spread from" a lab. The circumstances for the spread certainly seem to have been created in a lab.

Quote:Another defect with the npr story is that it doesn't make any distinction between 'believe with 100% certainty' on one hand, and 'believe that it's a legitimate possibility' on the other. I personally wouldn't agree with the former regarding the origin of the coronavirus, but would agree with the latter. So those of us who don't know how coronavirus originated but believe that it's a possibility that it escaped from the lab would have the option of either choosing 'don't know' which suggests 'no opinion', or choosing 'believe', which communicates more certainty than 'believe that it might have' would suggest. It's a badly worded poll (like virtually all polls).

Yeah, as I told C2 above, "Don't know" often means some grey area, degree of uncertainty, or outright unfamiliarity with the subject. That and a simple "True" both cover a lot of, even overlapping, ground.

Quote:In real life, even if (some) scientists say (that they believe that) the disease originated with another species, even if that is actually true doesn't mean that the virus jumped directly from animals to man, without taking a little detour through the Wuhan virology lab first. Conceivably where viruses isolated from animals received a little genetic modification to see if that increased transmissability between species. (A valid research topic since it would cast light on why many animal viruses never jump to humans but some do.) After which one of these viruses perhaps infected some lab workers and then escaped into the human population. (The genetic modification part remains speculative, based largely on the fact that the lab was doing that kind of research.)

There's a WHO team at the lab now investigating all this, but after the year in which the Chinese government has had to cover things up, they probably won't find anything conclusive. (Assuming that the WHO was even interested in finding anything that would embarrass China.) Which will inevitably be trumpeted as "There's no evidence that the disease originated in the lab!". And that will in turn be treated by the dimmer sorts of political media as if it was saying "There is evidence that it didn't originate in the lab", which is a very different proposition.

Yeah, I don't trust the WHO to investigate anything, even presuming China's cooperation. And you're right, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

(Feb 7, 2021 10:54 PM)Magical Realist Wrote: I'm not naive enough to attribute QAnon beliefs to all Trumpers, even they both appear to posit a vast liberal conspiracy involving Hollywood and the mainstream media and Democratic elitests.

For the umpteenth time. There is no need to posit a conspiracy where all the bad actors have the same individual motivations to act wholly on their own, only cooperating to reinforce each others biases and shut down dissenting voices. The characterization that people on the right believe it is a conspiracy is, itself, just a leftist conspiracy...projected on the right.

Quote:I'm mainly just interested in it as a sociological phenomenon--as a movement or cult-like ideology that seems to have been solely originated by the Internet. It interests me how everyday people you might work with can believe in such obvious BS, even though its narrative of prophetic pronouncements has turned out to be false. Trump is gone, and he didn't save the day by declaring martial law. To me this all bears a resemblance to apocalyptic movements and the way they recover when their prophecies don't come true. Even Christianity has its roots as a Messianic cult that had to reinvent itself after its promised Messiah was executed. How will QAnon reinvent itself with Trump now gone? What new figure will emerge as the anointed Savior to keep the sheep in drooling anticipation? Michael Flynn? Time will tell I guess..

You're more interested in, and know more about, QAnon than any conservative/Republican I know of. It's become a boogeyman of the left.