Mind that RaTG13 isn't the closest known relative, BANAL-236 and BANAL-52 are much closer, and they are not known to have been present in China, nor is there evidence for these being studied at WIV. (Also mind that these are also just "cousins" and not directly related. We actually do not know of any direct lineage.) And where is any evidence (via social network analysis or whatever) to link the outbreak to any member of the WIV, be it socially or geographically? Or even a hint? All we have is evidence for the wet market as the center of origin of the outbreak and no link between this and the WIV, and no, these are not in the same vicinity, and (from genetic evidence) that the virus must have been around for some time.
If we happen to ignore all the counter-evidence and insist on, "but it could have happened", without providing any evidence for this, I've a hard time finding a crucial difference between this argument and "Ancient Aliens". And, to return to the subject of the thread, it seems to be all about the thrills of the "game".
What exactly do you mean by "ignoring the counter-evidence"? I don't think I am (if I did in the literal sense, I would be thinking that it was a lab leak with 100% certainty, not the 60% or so that I actually have!), and if anything, the actions of the US ruling class at the height of the COVID years were closer to something you could describe as that, as they were the ones who sought to banish discussion of the possibility of a lab leak from the public sphere and prevent further investigation after a small-scale one performed by people who were (in my eyes, quite convincingly) argued to have conflicts of interest.
As I said, I'm by no means certain that COVID originates from a lab leak, and I would actually like to get greater certainty as to whether it did. COVID was very costly to society at large (and to me personally), so we should be willing to expend a lot of resources on minimising the likelihood of something like it happening again as well, which includes determining what the best way of spending resources is as well. If it was due to a lab leak, the optimal way of spending resources looks very different from if it was due to a natural animal-human transmission; among others we may want to significantly tighten safety protocols and enforcement in infectious disease research and review if it may be optimal to suspend certain classes of research entirely (i.e. pay in foregone discoveries). If it was animal-human transmission, we may instead be interested in limiting interactions between humans and wild animals, which also has a high (cultural, organisational, enforcement) cost. If you frame this to be about the "thrills of the game", what can't be framed as that?
If we happen to ignore all the counter-evidence and insist on, "but it could have happened", without providing any evidence for this, I've a hard time finding a crucial difference between this argument and "Ancient Aliens". And, to return to the subject of the thread, it seems to be all about the thrills of the "game".