Conspiracy
I am intrigued by many conspiracy theories, but not necessary an adherent of most. There are a few broad categories I tend to use for any new idea I encounter, and I would like to see where these fall for you.
Utter nonsense
These are ideas which I cannot confirm, and find arguments lacking in substance. Of course, the right evidence can theoretically move any of them to a more probable category, but so far, I see no reason to take them any more seriously than fiction.
Aliens, ancient or otherwise. I know people who claim to have seen UFOs, but I have not seen them, much less have reason to believe they are extraterrestrial.
Planet X, a.k.a Nibiru. This idea often ties into ancient alien theories, but I have also heard other ideas about periodic disasters linked to the passage of some kind of planetary object with an extremely elliptical long-period orbit.
Flat earth. Just... why?
In each case, we have a conspiracy to cover up the truth, and a select group with secret knowledge. The absence of evidence is more proof that THEY are covering it up!
Alternate explanations
Sometimes people are disinclined to trust official stories. Someone must have planned it, for some nefarious undisclosed purpose. Plausibility can vary, but the key in this category is that something definitely happened, with only the cause and motive questioned.
The JFK assassination. How many gunmen, and from where? What was the real motivation for killing Kennedy? Were V.P. Johnson and the Bush family up to something? Why did Jack Ruby really kill Harvey Oswald? Were those darn Russkies behind it all? I dunno.
The 9/11/01 terror attacks on the Twin Towers (NYC) and the Pentagon (DC). I can't even begin to summarize that mess here in a sentence or two, and a lot of the alternate explanations make a lot less sense than the official story based on what I do know of architecture and engineering.
Confirmed Conspiracies
Fun & Irrelevant
- Mega-trees only identifiable by their "stumps": mesas, buttes, and plateaus like Devil's Tower. Neat idea, but geologically and biologically absurd. Fun, though!
The problem in sorting fact from fiction, at least as I see it, is exacerbated by propaganda campaigns and the growth of political control over society combined with a perverse blend of secrecy and incompetence creating lots of holes where anyone can try to shoehorn in their pet theories to fill the gaps.
If you are outside the US, what similar examples can you describe from your own country?
Propaganda
Prof CJ of the Dangerous History podcast recently covered his Top 10 War Propaganda Techniques. Short version from the episode notes, embellished by me:
- Demonize the enemy’s leader. Not only his he evil, he is literally Hitler. There is no room for nuance or trying to understand his perspective.
- Dehumanize the enemy’s people. After all, they are ruled by literally Hitler, and they approve. If there are even the slightest hints of Democracy, they must have unanimously supported everything.
- Turn the conflict into a super-simplistic morality play. Us am good, they is bad. Cowboys versus outlaws, hobbits versus orcs, you've seen it a million times.
- Fabricate or exaggerate heroic stories about your side. We are noble heroes fighting the good fight to the last man and performing superhuman feats.
- Fabricate and/or exaggerate enemy atrocity stories. Fact-checking? We don't have time for that!
- Exaggerate the enemy’s intentions and/or capabilities. We gotta fight them over there, so we don't have to fight them over here, because they are totally planning to take over the world. Ignore logistics, numbers, and budgets.
- Lie by omission and cherry-pick stories to paint a picture supporting the best narrative for your side.
- Crop the story/truncate the antecedents. As Ben Stone (@badquakerdotcom) calls it, Forrest Gump History. All of a sudden, for no good reason, the bad guys started doing bad stuff. No need to look at the past several decades of simmering conflict, especially if it might frame us poorly.
- Give your people empty symbolic gestures to signal their virtue. Wave your flags, salivate, stirring feelings of pride and hate...
- Smear/demonize any of your people who question or criticize The Narrative. If you're not with us, you're against us. Dissent is treason. Why do you love literally Hitler so much?
It doesn't help that so much media is heavily influenced by politics. The US military loves free Hollywood publicity, so they offer a lot of support, but directors who want to use real military equipment need military brass to approve the script. Blockbuster films are made more and more with international distribution in mind, and Chinese censors allegedly have a lot of control over scripts as well. Television is full of shows where cops are heroes, politicians are selfless noble leaders, and soldiers fight against literally Hitler.
The US education system is a government monopoly with a heavy nationalist bias woven into every subject. I don't think you need to be an anarchist to see the framing behind historical depictions lining up with Prof CJ's war propaganda points.
Is the propaganda a conspiracy, though? Sometimes, yes. Most of the time, I suspect it is a consequence of numerous competing interests creating pressure in a general direction rather than a secret cabal guiding everyone down a specific path. News reporters don't want to ruffle feathers because their jobs depend on maintaining friendly relations with the political class. It's easy to script narratives which fit an age-old set of tropes. Filmmakers aren't out to unveil The Truth, they just want to make a fun movie that will fill theater seats and sell merchandise. Social media companies want to avoid conflict which disrupts their ability to sell advertisement slots to megacorporations. It just trends toward maintaining the political status quo and its sense of stability.
Or at least that's what THEY want you to think!
