[extremely space orc voice] Gotta be red to build faster.

My response from the last time I saw this question:

• Trillbilly Worker’s Party - Kentucky-centric Marxist jokers hanging out. They always know how to put a smile on my face, even if they’re talking about bleak stuff.
• Fun City - Well produced live role playing of Shadowrun. The game is a few years in and I am just invested.
• ALAB - Lawyers talking shit. They’re funny and I like learning about interesting cases. One of the characters they covered actually sued them and settled for an interview on the show.
• Desert Oracle Radio - Joshua Tree-centric paranormal stuff. Good for an old X-Files head like me.

I don’t have any bookmarked, but I did a quick search and found this one from 2023, which looks at the available data and circumstances to argue that the lab leak hypothesis is stronger than the wet market one. I’m not aware of any evidence that has been published that definitively proves or disproves either.

People seem to have a stronger aversion to the lab leak hypothesis, which I don’t understand. To me it seems like the simplest, most benign explanation. However, it does open up the possibility of sabotage. Maybe that’s the issue.

That seems like a reasonable challenge to the lab leak hypothesis, but I have to defer to my wife on it. She has a relevant background in microbiology, medicinal chemistry, and pharmacology and says that something about the structure of the viruses suggests convincingly that at least one of the COVID variants was of man-made origin. She’s also been working in labs for almost twenty years and has seen too many accidents and near-misses. As a lay person, that explanation makes enough sense to me to find the lab leak hypothesis plausible. Also, I’m not going to disagree with a well-published scientist who is also my wife.

At least the lab leak hypothesis isn’t as sinophobic as the “wet market” one.

I really don’t think it’s that hard to believe that some postdoc in Wuhan screwed up and let it loose accidentally.