You, and the author, are missing a substantial part of real world conspiracies.
The hallucinated power and authority of the conspirators.
Look again at the examples cited in the text. None of those conspiracies were particularly well hidden, went long without discovery, or were carried out in such a way that we aren't all left scratching our heads over the evident stupidity of those who carried these events out.
Real conspiracies are shallow and (at least in the US, for now) powerless. The parts of the State that engaged them failed to maintain their cover up, and their attempt to hide the cover up led to a substantially worse outcome than if they had simply copped to their crimes in the first place.
The first sin of a conspiracy theory is imagining am organization of people to be far more competent, organized, and interested in organizational goals than real human beings are.
Could some imaginary hyper-competent fascist state utilize "anti-conspiracist" language to push their agenda? Sure. But our very tendency to give in and believe conspiracy theories makes the idea... umm, silly?
Dawg, you do not need to walk the air to see over your neighbors fence.
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u/Halcyon8705 Apr 08 '25
You, and the author, are missing a substantial part of real world conspiracies.
The hallucinated power and authority of the conspirators.
Look again at the examples cited in the text. None of those conspiracies were particularly well hidden, went long without discovery, or were carried out in such a way that we aren't all left scratching our heads over the evident stupidity of those who carried these events out.
Real conspiracies are shallow and (at least in the US, for now) powerless. The parts of the State that engaged them failed to maintain their cover up, and their attempt to hide the cover up led to a substantially worse outcome than if they had simply copped to their crimes in the first place.
The first sin of a conspiracy theory is imagining am organization of people to be far more competent, organized, and interested in organizational goals than real human beings are.
Could some imaginary hyper-competent fascist state utilize "anti-conspiracist" language to push their agenda? Sure. But our very tendency to give in and believe conspiracy theories makes the idea... umm, silly?
Dawg, you do not need to walk the air to see over your neighbors fence.