There is a common plot of naivete and incompetent planning with poor foresight, followed by an event, followed by fear, followed by incompetent responses by incompetent leaders. Beyond that, I don't know.
I was just talking with my father about this earlier today and explaining how some believe things like 9/11 and covid-19 are sort of just incompetence as opposed to a more nefarious intentional possibility and I admit I can't prove it 100%, but I've more and more moved towards the "they did these things with intention" camp as opposed to they were just ignorant and incompetent.
I am open minded to the idea that these events weren't just spontaneous events that were capitalized on by the power structure and that they were planned, perhaps even planned a LONG time ago.
I agree fear sells and is one of the most powerful tools used against us. If we weren't so afraid of dying or pain or whatever then we wouldn't be controlled nearly as much by the people who know how to manipulate such for their own aims and goals.
Very interesting point about people being more invested in a fantasy show like The Walking Dead as opposed to trying to meaningfully help society. Sometimes I feel like there's something more to that whole "zombie" archetype and that perhaps shows like that have become very popular for a reason and there's something deeper going on there in regard to the state of unconsciousness, or... Low functioning consciousness.
It really almost feels like there's a lot of walking dead out there because they just go with whatever the flow is as opposed to going deeper into themselves and the nature of existence.
I sort of agree with your last comment. The conspiracy theorists who tend to believe in everything without critical thinking and deep effort tend to give the rest of us a bad name and make the general public even less willing to look at such kinds of things, however... I'm not sure that's worse than the general public being so apathetic in the first place, and I'm not sure if that's worse than the predatory actions of the "elite" so to speak though the intentions vary quite a bit! And there's a lot of blame to go around, but... I am reminded of a quote that goes something like... "It's good to be open minded, but no so open minded your brain falls out"... So, yeah... I agree with that. Like so many things in life there appears to be a balance and if you go too far in either direction you can have problems.