Not, “was it a lab leak?”
Rather: if proven it was a lab leak, what would the remediation be?
Would it be a) for tightening of biosecurity controls, b) toughening of wild animal trade, or c) war with China.
We will get a) and b) without knowing where it came from; as prudent steps to prevent this from happening again; they are already happening.
Perhaps we can avoid c) if we never “really know”.
That would be nice.
This is not a strong argument.
Regardless of all these wild pontifications, those who have run interference on the truth need to suffer the reputational consequences.
Having a immediate target that is clearly to blame and already an “enemy” isn't going to just result in a ideological slap on the wrist.
What consequences do you think there should be?
Pay for the damage to the US economy? To the world? Apologise and it’s fine?
What do think “holding them to account for what happened” actually means?
This isn’t some scientific journal where you lose magical reputation points.
There's already literally a response two comments down saying you would need to force change to the CCP. How do you imagine that's going to happen? Ask nicely? Sanctions? Well, that's worked just great so far.
Let's see, oh I can think of another way of forcing change... what could it be?
I'm not pretending this isn't a political clusterfuck. But I'd rather deal with a political clusterfuck than a bioweapon clusterfuck. And if they aren't developing bioweapons then great! If they are developing bioweapons then that feels like something that's better to know sooner rather than later. And if there wasn't a lab leak then even better! Now the world knows that it really was just a bizarre phenomenon. If there was a lab leak then they simply made a mistake, they can rectify that mistake moving forward, and the world moves on. If the world doesn't move on - what are they going to do? You think the US (or any country) will go to war (as in send in troops in huge numbers with the understanding most of them will likely die) with China because of an accidental lab leak? I don't.
It seems to me the dumbest possible thing to do is not investigate. I don't believe advocating for ignorance is ever a viable strategy.
We still haven’t gone to war with them, and we’re in a better position to do that as well.
Declaring war on China even if this was a lab leak, hell even if it was on purpose (Difficult to believe, but let’s go there) isn’t a workable or appropriate solution. Certainly not going to happen in the short term, blame it on globalism, but the global implications are bigger than ever and don’t make it practical.