What Would You Do ?

Are there people who want to rule the world? That is the fault line that divides, the conspiracy, conspiracy realist, conspirituality, and all other conspiracy-amended groups.

Let me back up a bit and Christopher Nolan this essay.

Somewhere in the last decade, it has been made acceptable to hate conspiracy theorists. Not in a fun way where people send us foil hats, but in the way the people used to hate terrorists or serial killers. Yes, we can be a bit kooky and get carried away in ideas, but we generally don't cause people problems.

We are not a protected class. It would cause us alarm if for some reason we were made a protective class, as it is our nature to be suspicious of such things. To the media, which sees fake news as the most pressing crisis of the day, we are becoming a scapegoat for all that is wrong with the world. Never mind all the stories that they get conveniently wrong. I would not be all that surprised if in ten years it's socially encouraged to hunt down and kill us, as a way of proving people "trust the science", or whatever the latest catchphrase will be at that time. Of course, I am a conspiracy theorist so this may be an exaggerated threat. But it's only an exaggeration in terms of the timeline, not in the threat itself. It will probably just take more time. History is full of some people blaming and then killing other people for whatever problems they have.

I used to live in Portland, OR. It was common to see stickers saying stuff like “What would you have done in Nazi Germany because whatever that is you are doing it right now". Now obviously this ain't completely true. If it was, we would be systematically killing people. For all our problems we don't have death camps. No one is looking forward to the weekend because they are tired of filling mass graves. Perhaps even more importantly no one is weighing ethical decisions like whether are they complicit in mass -murder by merely doing their small part to maintain the infrastructure that allows it to happen.

Does this mean we are better than people from this era of history? In some ways yes. I don’t think the average person in Nazi Germany picked at random would be as ethical or moral as someone from our modern culture. There are exceptions of course. But the proof is in the pudding. We are not in a wide-scale genocide, at least domestically. But to be fair, it's easier to be ethical now. I'm not going to be killed for publically or even privately calling bullshit at the powers that be. I could get fired, but I can live with that if it helps prevent a world where I do get killed for speaking my mind.

Either way, the sticker asks an important question. Whether our morality changed in this time or not our nature hasn’t Our weak cognitive links are where they always were. They are ready to be exploited by the smart and cynical. Because human nature doesn't change our history is an endless repetition. For that reason, how you treat conspiracy theorists now probably reflects how you would treat a Jew in late 1920s Germany.

Now before anyone gets too much sand in their crevices, and says you can’t compare anything that happens now for any reason to something suffered under what is considered the gold standard of evil, the Nazi regime, realize I am not nor would I ever dream of committing such a diabolical offense. I said late 1920 Germany. We are under the Weimar Republic during this time. There are no rules about making comparisons of things to that era. If you allow me some cultural appreciation it's a kosher comparison.

But other than being a bit snarky there are other reasons why I chose to compare what's happening now to the Weimar and not the Nazi era. We are not rounding up conspiracy theorists, for conscripted labor or extermination. We are not yet even at the point of making them identify themselves by making them wear a yellow Illuminati eye. But we are tracking people's search histories. We are making it socially acceptable to shun anyone who holds counter-narratives.

Nazis didn't come to power by promising mass graves. They made promises that would appeal to both the political right and the political left of today. Jews and other groups were just used as scapegoats when the flawed policy of national socialism failed. Why these groups then? Before any of this madness fully blossom it had to be culturally sanctioned to treat Jews differently, than other groups. That double standard was the seed that just so happen to find fertile soil in the economically and culturally depressed era of post-WWI Germany.

Of course, these double standards had to be intellectually justified in some way that didn't offend the morality of the time. Of course, these once academic-sounding pontifications seem gobbledygook today. Ultimately bad ideas, such as it's all this group's fault, can only be defended by bad logic. A logic that can't fully encapsulate the truth and therefore has to swallow it piece by piece at self-contradictory angles. Out of this culture of lies, politicians were free to promise the impossible. All they asked for in return is full control of what is possible.

So this brings us to our opening question. Are there people who want to rule the world to the extent that they will take advantage of such moments in history? Of course. There will always be people who want to rule the world. I don't know why anyone would find this surprising. Every three-year-olds want to rule the world. They will gladly boss anyone around in inconceivable petty ways if they are not stopped. Fortunately, 3-year-olds are not that smart and therefore pose little threat to society. Also fortunately most of them grow out of this desire by the time they would be smart enough to be a threat. They realize that it would suck to rule the world. But for whatever reason not everyone grows out of such desires. This ensures the world is full of toddler-like tyrants who occupy all positions from managers at entry-level jobs, to presidents and prime ministers.

So yes there are people who want to rule the world. Anyone going into politics is at some level trying to rule the world. Thankfully most of these people are happy to illegitimately reign over their low-level fiefdom. But of course, some are more ambitious. Some are so ambitious they seized political power from outside the political arena. There the Bill Gates, the Larry Fink, and the Klaus Schwab of the world who are not content to be merely high-up politicians but desire to be puppet masters of politicians.

But then a follow-up question. Are any of these people in any kind of actual control? Are they like skilled surfers who merely position themselves to the wave of popular sentiment and skilfully ride what's current until everything crashes around them? Or are they nefarious magicians? Either through satanic contracts, alien genetics, or cold-blooded reptilian intellect can they design a world in a way that they are not then affected by their design? In other words, does the hand move the puppets of the world, or does the puppets control the hand?

And that is the real question. Are there malicious forces in the world or are we merely acting out our ignorance? In some ways, it's an irrelevant question. To misquote Aurthor C. Clarke "any sufficiently advanced stupidity is indistinguishable from malice". But this is the fault line in the conspiracy movement. Of all the things we will never come to a consensus on this is the one that will divide us.

That's because this divide isn't about differing facts but of differing worldviews. This is the type of schisma that catholic and protestant have killed each other over; that Democrats and Republicans will soon probably kill each other over. The facts don't matter in these conflicts because our worldviews are not contingent on facts. Worldviews are rooted in our experience. There are deep-seated reasons that most people probably are not psychologically resourced to fully explore as to why someone sees the world one way while someone else sees it another. Therefore we are doomed to always have this limbo between us. We are also doomed to always fight over this limbo until we realize the futility of being anything but playful in such spaces. and learn to travel in both cognitive directions.

So on one hand, there are almost certain groups of powerful people (and I'm being gender-neutral intentionally here) that wish to rule the world. Many would say these groups are mostly men and point to reasons such as it's far more common for men to occupy positions of power. There is no reason to believe that power-hungry women don't exist in similar numbers. Most people, or at least the smart ones who seek out this level of control will do it covertly whether they are male or female.

Out of all these would not be some, as there are in any profession who will be wildly successful. Perhaps some of these all-stars might take a special interest in passing down their benefits to their children, multiplying this their power every generation. What would that look like after 5 generations or maybe 2000 generations? Is there a reason why this progression of intergeneration rule would come to an end?

On the other hand, we are like a giant swarm of bees all syncing up to everyone else as everyone else pulls slightly towards us. There is a circle but there is not a center. The most mighty among us are still among us. They merely play a different part, perhaps one with more lines, and a flashier costume but still nothing more than a body on this stage.

In one reality we are blessed to have an external enemy to fight. On the other, we are denied satan We have to conjure our demons if we wish to fight. Our division is not one of Gods but of devils.

Both those views are valid, but I choose to see the devil as something inside myself. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I'm so idealistic I can’t see the obvious evils of today's Hitlers and Stalins. That, whatever personal demons I subdue are no more than an exercise in naval gazing when people are ginning up war. Maybe the correct answer is to just accept whatever flaws we have in ourselves as character traits.

But I don’t see much success in that strategy. I suppose we need some people to keep the masses from doing something stupid like suspending the bill or right or something. And while I don't think a magical piece of paper written almost 250 years ago has any influence on what rights I have or don’t have, That magical piece of paper does in a practical sense keep the police from harassing me.

But when zoomed out it seems to set up like a decoy game where even if you win that win doesn't amount to anything. The only real way to have a better world is to have better people in the world. And the only way we can guarantee an improvement in the quality of people is to at least improve ourselves. And that is not done by attacking external demons.

But Ultimately it's not the devil that defines a faith. Faiths of any kind are defined by the highest of beliefs. What's the one thing that we must all agree to, to be a part of all this? That is our God.

And in the conspiracy faith that God is skepticsm. It's recognizing everything outside of our own direct experience is suspect. Just as to be a Buddhist one must learn not emotionally attach themselves to the external world, to be a conspiracist one must learn to question all accepted "knowledge" about the world. Every human needs a certain amount of skepticism, and all cultures need skilled shadowy storytellers who make us willing to look at reality in a way we don’t feel comfortable with.

And it's precisely this needs that legacy media, who are nothing more than well-paid mediums for powerful people who wish not to be known, constantly excoriate us. They know we wake people up to their spell. To keep their power, and more importantly for their masters to keep their power, they must discredit our talking stick. They say we spread misinformation which sometimes is true. They say we must be silenced because of this. Eventually, the only solution to any of this is the final solution.

Now whether those working towards such ends or conscious or not is another question. Regardless of motive, this has always been the fundamental battle. It has always been between freedom and slavery, though it may look different from generation to generation. It's our nature playing out its drama in various circumstances.

In the 40s people, those in the slightly free world fought those in the, as enslaved as much as the then technology would allow, world. While it was won with technology it was fought with bodies. A generation later a culture war emerged out of a proxy war to stop communism, the then-current form of enslavement. There were lines of division in the battlefield but there were also propaganda campaigns that divided families and communities, which still linger today.

Now this same war is being fought on the internet with memes instead of landmines. The battles are so sophisticated most don't even realize we are at war. This is why the world doesn't make sense to so many people. They think we are living in a time of peace despite all the evidence to the contrary. But it is the same old conflict between freedom and slavery, that seeped into our genes.

In addition to fighting over special rights of protected people for being the chosen race or class, as did the communist and nazis, we fight over who are the correct victims. We fight over whether someone should be able to dictate how we behave online to protect these victims or whether we are we free to speak as we like. Much like the now ugly language of “master race" or "ubermench” whatever words we use to morally justify censorship will be seen as evidence of our monstrous nature to future generations.

In this battle, there will be winners and losers as there have always been. Those that win will be rewarded as they always have with whatever they perceive as riches. Those that lose will suffer prison, famine, and death This may seem cruel but this is just how the cycles play out.

And just as there are always these cycles there are always who can see the patterns happen before it fully materializes. There are always who try to give a warning before it's too late. And we have always been met with the jeers of the time. Right now they call us conspiracy theorists.

Because we possess the ability to see the inevitability of this playing out in some way we are in danger. The highly successful people who want to rule the world, and have developed intergenerational strategies that capitalize on human misery to meet those ends, would prefer we stay silent.

Can they silence some of us without resorting to direct violence? Yes. Are some of them willing to release the ring of power rather than bloody their hands? Again yes. But there will be people on both sides of this battle who say no to these questions. Some of us will not be silenced. Many of them will not be restrained from ambition. They not only have the means and incentive to single us out in some way that makes us a bit more vulnerable? This is the true line of battle. Unfortunately, many of us are busy fighting amoung ourselves over whether our enemies are minions or generals