> IIUC isn't the lab leak hypothesis still one valid possibility?
Lab leak and intentional bioweapon, one whose patient zero was in China, are totally different.
> Couldn't this be confused with (a) planes pollute and (b) contrails are bad for the environment too?
No, becuase of the "part of a secret government program" part.
There are reasonable hypotheses proximate to these conspiracy theories. There always are. But the claim per se is stupid. Incredibly stupid. They focussed on people who believed the claim as presented, without caveats.
> > IIUC isn't the lab leak hypothesis still one valid possibility?
> Lab leak and intentional bioweapon, one whose patient zero was in China, are totally different.
Any lab working on gain of function research is arguably by definition, working on bio weapons or bio weapon defense. I'm not saying I believe in the lab leak. I'm rather saying that it's not hard for me to believe that if you believe in a lab leak you believe the research that lab is doing is related to bioweapons, even if they weren't building a weapon.
> > Couldn't this be confused with (a) planes pollute and (b) contrails are bad for the environment too?
> No, becuase of the "part of a secret government program" part.
The article didn't mention a "secret governmen program". It just said "condensation from planes supposedly being harmful ‘chemtrails’"
stuff coming out of planes is harmful, full stop. So it's not hard to believe that seeing "condensation from planes supposedly being harmful ‘chemtrails’" is associated with / confused with, the actual harms.
> it's not hard for me to believe that if you believe in a lab leak you believe the research that lab is doing is related to bioweapons, even if they weren't building a weapon
Sure. But that isn't the claim. It's specifically "a biological weapon intentionally created and released by China" (emphasis mine) [1].
> The article didn't mention a "secret governmen program"
The study does. Chemtrails refer to "the trails left behind airplanes are toxic chemicals released as part of a secret government programme."
They're mostly water, though they can also contain impurities, e.g. "sulfur compounds (0.05% by weight in jet fuel)" [1].
More to the point: someone suspecting they're trails of pollution isn't unreasonable at first glance. Believing they're a secret government program to put toxic chemicals in the air is stupid. (I'm not ruling out governments poisoning their populations. Just that this particular way of going about it is incredibly stupid and obviously discoverable.)
Lab leak and intentional bioweapon, one whose patient zero was in China, are totally different.
> Couldn't this be confused with (a) planes pollute and (b) contrails are bad for the environment too?
No, becuase of the "part of a secret government program" part.
There are reasonable hypotheses proximate to these conspiracy theories. There always are. But the claim per se is stupid. Incredibly stupid. They focussed on people who believed the claim as presented, without caveats.