I’m not the most fun of the conspiracy nuts. I think some of them are fun, but I struggle to care enough to follow them in detail. I know approximately two dozen Kennedy theories, but haven’t bothered to pick a favorite. Sometimes, I want the published explanation from the Warren commission to be true, just because it’s the most boring of all of them.
Anyway, it is worth defining the term “conspiracy” before diving into the main topic of the article. For my purposes, a conspiracy is two or more people consciously working together to achieve an end goal by subterfuge, deception, or manipulation, wherein the end goal is offensive or highly undesirable to an affected party.
That definition is overbroad, but nitpicking over corner cases is lame, and I’m typing on a phone. Besides, you’re not my manager, so you can’t tell me what to do.
Particularly, I want to focus on societal conspiracies, those where the unhappy impacted party is some large segment of the public. The X-Files type conspiracies.
It seems to me that one of the big differences between credulous people, normies, “awake” people, and “conspiracy nuts” is their deeper understanding of reality in relation to conspiracies. I’ve identified four-ish baselines people operate from.
TIER ZERO – Self-Interest
This tier is the one where conspiracies don’t really exist on the macro level. People are operating for their own self-interest, and they’ll lie and pretend to have altruistic goals to get what they want. The deepest conspiracies recognized by people in this tier are the scandal types. Suchandso is a grifter. Soandso made sure the money made it back to their donors. People conspire to achieve personal gain immediately, and the conspiracy is unprincipled. This is the level of conspiracy acceptably recognized in polite company.
TIER ONE – Hegemonies and Long Marches
Tier One opens one up to some broader and further reaching conspiracies. These are the conspiracies that align with the long term acquisition of power. These are the Alinski’s and the Gramsci’s and the Patriarchy and the False Consciousness conspiracies. People, finding identity in some broader group (whether it be racial, gender, ideological, geographic, or otherwise), work in furtherance of some quiet goals of their group, using short-term language to achieve long-term goals. Many of those goals will not be achieved in the individuals’ lifetimes, but they go beyond simple self-interest to advance the cause. The level of manipulation at this stage is on the order of simple lies to emphasize the benefits and hide the harms of your group’s goals. It’s mostly rhetorical manipulation, with a bit of cherry picking and denial of ulterior motives. This is where the “Democrat Party to MSNBC Pipeline” lives and the “Queers for Hamas” lives. Everybody who has two brain cells to rub together sees what’s going on and recognizes that there’s some deeper relationship and purpose that isn’t being publicly exposed.
TIER TWO – Puppets and Constellations and Propaganda, oh my!
This third tier is the “Big” tier. Big Pharma, Big NGO, Big Ag, Big Tech. How are these industries able to act in lockstep and get what they want from the government and from society? The big takeaway from this tier is that money buys results. If you see money changing hands, there’s a good chance that there were strings attached. If not strings, then at least the parties involved are fellow travelers. You can see these relationships most clearly in the non-profit space. Many non-profits tout their partnerships with other non-profits, and those partnerships come with influence. However, after poking around the internet, it’s clear that the word was sent out to keep the relationships quieter. It used to be trivial to find lists of related non-profits a few years ago, but it is harder to find them bragging about it now.
Here’s one example of the types of relationships that exist from Oxfam:
While leading Environment America Margie also served as a chair of the Green Group, a coalition of 30+ major national environmental organizations. She helped found the Climate Action Campaign in 2012 and co-chaired the coalition up through 2017. In addition to her issue advocacy and organizing experience Margie has worked on numerous electoral campaigns.
https://www.oxfamamerica.org/about-us/leadership/board-of-directors/
A charity ostensibly for helping people in poverty is now very much a climate activist organization with a heaping helping of leftist politics and connections to 30+ other NGOs.
The closer you get to government, the more corrupt it gets. NGO monitor is a group that looks for anti-semetic constellations of NGOs pushing a lot of the pro-Hamas stuff. Not the most unbiased source, but they bring receipts. Here’s, for example, UNRWA’s connections with sketchy pro-Pali groups.
This tier emphasizes the quietly whispered connections between groups with complementary aims. In the industrial space, maybe it’s a lawsuit where they’re all defendants and they have to sit in a room together to craft strategy, which turns into broader industrial strategy discussions. Or perhaps the execs sit in on the same lecture at Davos. In the NGO space, it’s an intentional networking and a revolving door of directors. It creates a situation where the public face of an issue is not acting solely in its own self interest or solely to its stated purpose. Oxfam is a climate activist organization. UNRWA is a Hamas funding mechanism. Facebook is an election fortifying operation. From a tier three understanding, these aren’t just wayward orgs straying off the path randomly. Their strings are being pulled, whether it be directly through the influence of backing orgs or indirectly through the propagandizing of their leadership.
Another big takeaway from this tier is that there is no need for a top down organization to enable this behavior. You can establish several loci of power and operate mostly independently so long as they’re all down with the revolution. The talking points distribute themselves where the corner of one web touches the next one.
TIER THREE – Three is for three-letter agencies
This is the tier where it is important to recognize that the tiers build on one another, but it’s only one way. Self-interest does not require ideological collusion, but the ideological collusion requires self-interested people to operate. Ideological collusion doesn’t require loose conglomerations of ideologically aligned groups of entities, but the loose conglomerations require an ideological collusion to rally around. The loose conglomerations don’t require intel agencies pulling the strings of society, but the intel agencies require the loose conglomerations to propagate their desired outcomes.
This tier explains the goings on of society through a lens of a behind the scenes war for the hearts and minds of the people. The issues and divisions that are front and center are real, but there are unseen actors marshaling the troops to cause changes in ways that benefit their unstated goals. Perhaps that’s the CIA assassinating Kennedy for [insert speculative reason here]. Maybe that’s the KGB infiltrating American universities to poison the next generation’s mind with Marxism. Perhaps that’s a reporter’s text messages being hacked and leaked to prevent him from covering a particular story. Tier three steps beyond the idea of ideologues forming networks to push their ideologies and moves to the dark smoky room model of conspiracy.
TIER FOUR – Everything is a lie
You live in the Matrix. The Illuminati work with the freemasons and the knights of Columbus to use Soros money to support the Grey’s genetic manipulation of Sasquatch DNA to turn humans into intergalactic footsoldiers for use in the war against interdimensional demons. UFOs cropdust silver into the atmosphere to transform the climate into something more habitable for the lizard people, who can interbreed with humans after the Chinese used some technology captured at Roswell to unlock the genome and create chimera.
Where I stand
Tier zero is not the upper limit. I’ve had too much first-hand experience in situations where tier one and tier two conspiracies were taking place to say that it doesn’t happen. I’ve individually talked with the people who make tier one happen on the GOP side. I’ve been in the tier two conversations at my company. I have the firsthand emails and the screenshots showing how the NGOs were working with government entities to manipulate public sentiment during Covid. I’ve had lunch with executives of 5+ telecom companies at once as they talked business and industry strategy.
I generally land in tier two, with some waffling on the tier three conspiracies. Not every conspiracy out there is a tier two conspiracy, but my belief is that most of what passes for current events and “the public conversation” is orchestrated by groups with quiet long-term goals. While I think this is true for “both sides”, there is a huge imbalance toward the communist/leftist persuasion, especially in governmental orbit, NGO, and Big industry.
Publicly exposed conspiracies like Journolist, the incontrovertible parts of the Covid insanity, the less contested parts of the election “fortifications”, and the Hollywood groomers and pedos making sexualized content for kids point to tier two conspiracies being ubiquitous.
In many areas, I believe there is smoke behind the tier three conspiracy, but I haven’t seen the fire. The question I ask myself is whether Snowden leaked the crown jewels or the tip of the iceberg. If he leaked the crown jewels, then tier three conspiracies are few and far between. The man behind the curtain is flipping a bunch of switches to put on a light show, but he’s ultimately only effective in a limited arena. If it’s the tip of the iceberg, then it really calls into question the efficacy of any public engagement and involvement. We’re playing checkers blindfolded while our opponent plays chess.
I generally write off tier four as silliness. My mind is open enough to be changed, but I’m very hesitant, once I accept tier three, to believe just any conspiracy. Why wouldn’t they spin up a thousand conspiracy theories so that the real ones get lost in the mix?
Ultimately, this stuff matters and it doesn’t matter. It matters in the sense that your personal choices change when you move from tier zero to tier two, for example. You aren’t going to fall for “vote harder, paytryut!” when you recognize the institutions arrayed against your interests. However, it doesn’t matter in the sense that you’re pretty helpless to do anything once you get past tier one. There’s no Mr Smith who can go to Washington and fix things.
One other component that is related but not 100% germane to the topic is my belief in a deeper spiritual reality and how it interacts with these conspiratorial groups. There is a level of moral decay required to lie and manipulate others to get your preferred outcome, and I believe in the spiritual forces that feed off of that moral decay for the purpose of harming humanity as a whole. Tucker Carlson said that “demonic” is overused, but where you see an anti-human impulse, there’s a good chance that a malevolent spirit is involved. I tend to agree. My struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.
Good stuff, Trashy!
You touch on an important point with Tier Two – it needn’t be (and isn’t) top-down. Groups of people who all think alike (e.g., most of the media) acting on their own nonetheless result in what appears to be coordinated behavior. But it’s not coordinated, just emergent behavior, like a flock of birds seemingly turning all together at once.
The NRx kiddies call that a ‘prospiracy,’ which is both a clever play on words and a rare useful contribution to the discussion.
I had to google that.
I understand the meaning they are trying to convey. But in reality the “good” they are trying to do is just another brick in the road to hell.
It’s self-delusion. Is all still conspiracy in effect.
That is how at least half the 2020 voter fraud took place. People just did their own stuffing of ballot boxes, etc.
Of course these were all ignored, dismissed, or “debunked” later on. Maybe level 3.
I fucking knew it!
That’s silly.
particulate silver would precipitate out and not cause a lasting impact on the climate.
–Halloway, Cube
👍🏻 Such a great movie
What you don’t know is that it is all controlled from an underground bunker complex under the Quakertown Farmers Market. Lots of strange folks and doings in Bucks County.
Especially at the Circle K.
Excellent article.
I recently got a job wherein I was to help the AI learn. What I learned was that Facebook was this company’s main client (meaning, I would be working solely on FB AI), and there was VERY active effort to suppress any hint of “disinformation.” Flat earthers might be nuts, but denying them neutral information is evil. Same with COVID and OMB. There were other things that didn’t meet the approved narrative that were actively suppressed. I found that morally repugnant and I quit that job.
So, Tier Three for me.
trshmnstr,
In a lovely bit of synchronicity (or Tier 4), this hit my inbox this morning. The second part is a piece on how a Tier 0 – 2 conspiracy can get started and be the rational behavior on the part of everyone (opposed and for) involved.
There’s a reason that “Why” was included in those big important questions that reporters were supposed to answer in their stories. Motives and motivations are important.
You live in the Matrix. The Illuminati work with the freemasons and the knights of Columbus to use Soros money to support the Grey’s genetic manipulation of Sasquatch DNA to turn humans into intergalactic footsoldiers for use in the war against interdimensional demons. UFOs cropdust silver into the atmosphere to transform the climate into something more habitable for the lizard people, who can interbreed with humans after the Chinese used some technology captured at Roswell to unlock the genome and create chimera.
Ooh, this one. It feeds the desperate human need to be important.
the desperate human need to be important
And to know what others do not! Secret insights!!! The kind of mind perfect for the IC but not otherwise qualified.
Someday, I want to make it to Tier 5.
I just can’t unlock that level of sideways thinking.
My conspiracies go to 11.
My Thetans are keeping me away from it.
The events of 2020 took me from level 2 to 3.
Had a gym buddy we called “Conspiracy Bob” who lived at the high-end of level 4 and would say some crazy shit.
But Bob had also worked at pharmas on vaccine development. When the covid thing was just picking up steam, he accurately predicted governments at all levels using it as a power and money grab.
He also predicted the side-effects of the types of vaccines being developed and warned us against them. Three guys who ignored him (2 to keep their jobs) had significant adverse reactions to the shot.
Now everyone listens to Bob with less skepticism.
it needn’t be (and isn’t) top-down. Groups of people who all think alike (e.g., most of the media) acting on their own nonetheless result in what appears to be coordinated behavior. But it’s not coordinated, just emergent behavior, like a flock of birds seemingly turning all together at once.
This is pretty much where I am. Like-minded people, drawn to the mechanisms of change, create spontaneous order from the bottom up. They just want to make the world a better place. And if you don’t agree, you’re stupid and dangerous.
I talked to a few people convinced of level 4 conspiracies. The flat earthers and moon landing folks are usually quite ignorant or just plain stupid.
My BIL and his brother are usually ignorant. My BIL’s brother is “educated “ but stupid, my BIL is usually ignorant but willing to be educated.
The 911 truthers are really a mix of highly educated and normally rational and just flat out delusional. This conspiracy has the most traction of any in recent memory.
Has anyone articulated a 9/11 truther theory which is not infested with counterfactuals regarding materials science or such?
I suppose they could fall under a few categories.
Type A: American officials knew of the plot but let them in to catch them later, but misjudged and – crash
Type B: American officials knew of the plot and wanted a cassus belli.
Type C: American officials instigated the plot leading to either a Type A or Type B situation.
Type D: I donno, I just figure there should be four.
But the deliberate demolition scenarios fail under scrutiny of the purported evidence.
I have. Generally that it was planned by the government (or for the more out there… (((them))) ), and/or that it was known about but ignored (you know, just like Pearl Harbor).
And the rule is the rule of three (or the Law of Fives, but that’s something completely different).
Look, FDR knew about the plans for Pearl Harbor and let it happen because reasons. When I was a child, it was just a conspiracy that “everybody knew.” But lo and behold! The truth came out.
It’s not hard to believe Bush didn’t know about it and let it happen because reasons.
Back on the 9/11 side of things, I’m starting to lean towards the idea that the whole “jet fuel can’t melt steel beams” was promulgated to distract from a Type A, B, or C scenario by discrediting all the theoriests with plain idiocy.
Type D: the US did most of the killing on 9/11, and used some compromised middle easterners as a cover for their self-made causus belli.
I’ve encountered that one more than a few times.
Building 7 just kinda collapsing on its own was weird. The guy who owned it all (and had great insurance) not showing up for his usual breakfast meeting was weird.
That’s about as far as I get with their theories.
I don’t recall the exact sequence, but a lot of normally unaccounted for forces got applied in short order that day, so I can see a design/construction flaw leading to catastrophic failure.
We used to watch that show Dharma and Greg. About a year ago we watched a few episodes again. I found I now relate a lot to Dharma’s dad (the CIA is spying on us through our TV’s).
Seeing the Twitter files, and following hearings in the House, I’m certain Level 2 has been proven (at least to me). I’m pretty sure of Level 3 as well. The theory that got to me was that the three-letter agencies have been manipulating elections and other governments for a long time and they’ve gotten really good at it. And it sure looks like they’ve turned their attention to our elections.
BTW thanks for writing, this was a really good one.
Dharma’s (Jenna Elfman) real life husband was in the morning links for supposedly giving a woman a glass full of semen.
Is it coincidence or is it just the Matrix glitching due to the Mandalla effect leading to the frogs croaking oingo and turning gay?!!?!?
I’m out of breath.
Wrong Elfman – she’s married to Bodhi Elfman, Danny’s nephew.
Danny is married to Bridget Fonda, who blew up. Not that he looks great lately either.
I understand that people age (and she got injured/sick, maybe?) but today-Bridget vs. in-her-prime Bridget is just shocking.
Dam, Slum thanks for the correction. That makes more sense, as Jenna was a looker at the time.
Wow. Looks like she’s got a couple of motors in the back of her Honda.
Trashy – I agree with your last paragraph. There are some dark things going on and people sense it.
Our government lies so constantly about everything that people can’t bear to watch it.
Degenerate things that would have been unthinkably evil a couple of decades ago are now openly advocated – such child grooming and rape, and illegal immigrants voting.
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2024/07/lgbt-activists-speak-against-ca-bill-that-would/
I’m not an “LGBT++ activist” but I think I have an issue with the highlighted section.
WELL WHO BUILT THE PYRAMIDS IF YOUR SOOOOO SMART MR CIA MAN
Which pyramids? The Pyramid is such a simple shape that it’s been built on most continents by different societies.
oh you know which ones.
That was the Aztecs, they built them to get the sacrifices closer to the gods.
And all they got for it from the gods was a lame Pumaman.
Dude, it’s in wikipedia.
The Perini building Company, and Veldon Simpson was the architect.
Duh…
https://www.reddit.com/r/dalle2/comments/19azhxs/dinosaurs_helping_to_build_the_pyramids/
Oh, please – dinosaurs aren’t real.
lol those pics are great
Bender “Bending” Rodriguez?
My struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. – mmmmm blood
Way to lean into it 👍
These are the Alinski’s and the Gramsci’s and the Patriarchy and the False Consciousness conspiracies.
I like that you lump these all together, since the natural split runs along one person’s conspiracy is the other’s plain reality!
Well, and two of them were extant human beings, and the other two are abstract concepts.
Kinda of an interesting point – Gramsci wrote what became influential in the Frankfurt School. Alinski wrote a book that made no secret of what the tactics are. Isn’t a conspiracy supposed to be at least a little surreptitious? Like, don’t let the dupes in on what we’re doing?
Isn’t a conspiracy supposed to be at least a little surreptitious? Like, don’t let the dupes in on what we’re doing?
Hiding in plain sight is a thing. You just have to keep the above board portion of the machine disconnected from the below board (??) portion.
@JI.
They say it openly and you still don’t believe it, so do they really need to keep it a secret?
I too think a lot of stuff is more confluence of interests than top down planning. Just like “I Pencil”, ” I Bureacrat-Politician-NGO creature”
In a way this makes them harder to stop than a small secretive cabal.
But I do believe there are some top down plans of groups and that these flood the media with fake conspiracy theories so that people no longer can tell truth from bullshit.
I also believe there is something in the human brain for some people at least who is attracted to “it is all one big conspiracy”
This was written up by James Burnham in the late 30s – The Managerial Revolution. The professional management class – credentialed via the elite educational institutions. The people that move from corporate to government to NGO with absolute fluidity.
It’s not co-ordinated propaganda, it’s just a helping hand
Philanthropists Eric and Wendy Schmidt have given NPR a $5.5 million grant to invest in regional newsrooms – an infusion of cash at a time when local journalism is struggling financially.
The grant, announced Wednesday, will be used to establish the Appalachia regional newsroom, uniting six public media outlets in Kentucky and Tennessee. The money will fund four new positions and help support existing reporters and editors at those stations.
The fight against disinformation must not falter.
There is a level of moral decay required to lie and manipulate others to get your preferred outcome, and I believe in the spiritual forces that feed off of that moral decay for the purpose of harming humanity as a whole. – a moral decay has been a fact of to many humans for the duration of history. ain’t nothin gonna fix that.
i don’t know about global warming being a conspiracy or not but FUCK THIS FUCKING HEAT GAAAAAAHHHHHHH.
8 fucking days of 40+ fucking temperatures. Why the fuck did I not have the foresight to plan my holiday in this period???/ whyyyy
Triple digits here over the next few days. Gross.
Storms came through yesterday cooling us down. AC is off, windows and doors are open, clear skies and upper 70’s with under 60% humidity. By next week, we’re back up in the upper 80’s and storms through most of the week.
i planned a city break to dublin end of the month thinking that would be the heat period . Now dublin is 17C laughing at me.
I could have done a short city break to Hamburg but I had some medical appointments this week. Hamburg is 21 C.
Maybe next summer I plan in advance and take advantage of company policy to work 20 days remote from abroad. Go to Estonia or some shit.
If you go to Dublin try The Cobblestone pub, it is off the beaten path, but only a quick train ride form the Temple Bar area.
Very fun times were had there. Live music inside and out, most of it is spontaneous.
http://cobblestonepub.ie/
thanks
Thanks, Trashy. I like how you demarcated the tiers. I am probably a more aggressive Tier 3 bleever, though. I have acquaintances in a couple of the three letter agencies and they really do seem cult-like.
Tucker Carlson said that “demonic” is overused, but where you see an anti-human impulse, there’s a good chance that a malevolent spirit is involved. I tend to agree.
Me too. Also, this brings to mind the essay JI linked the other day about moral alignment. Lack of it will certainly facilitate a seemingly organic conspiracy.
I remain very disappointed that Bigfoot isn’t real, however.
STEVE SMITH DISAPPOINTED YOU DON’T BELIEVE, AND BY DISAPPOINTED, MEAN…
That is unfortunate.
Thank goodness ZARDOZ is real.
The term “false flag” has become common enough that it rarely needs defining.
Maybe 911 wasn’t one. The Gulf of Tonkin Incident certainly was. Also that bs chemical attack staged in Syria as an excuse for us to move in and occupy a big swath of the country (that produces oil).
Remember the Maine, dude.
That was “We don’t know what happened, but we can get a war out of it”
Recent dives have identified that the damage to the ship was a boiler explosion.
The Maine wasn’t a false-flag, though. A pretext, perhaps, but AFAIK nobody is suggesting the US blew it up on purpose.
Or what Unciv wrote
That’s what they want you to think.
But regardless, what’s the difference if it’s a false flag or failure to act on intelligence. How many wars started with bullshit? All of them?
This! False or not, it’s used to an advantage.
W leveraged 911 into 2 wars worth $trillions.
Netanyahu seems headed that way after the attack last October in Israel.
Everyone is looking for an excuse to escalate in the Ukraine.
Dang! I should have got working on my piece on conspiracy theory sooner!
Nice job Trashy – I like your Tier definitions.
Independent newsrooms, especially those covering smaller communities like those in Appalachia, have struggled with limited public funding.
Nothing good happens in the absence of public spending.
…the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.
That is perhaps the greatest conspiracy theory of all. It certainly has the most credible key players.
This was written up by James Burnham in the late 30s – The Managerial Revolution. The professional management class – credentialed via the elite educational institutions. The people that move from corporate to government to NGO with absolute fluidity.
I can’t remember the who/what/where, but not long ago there were references to some person here. Her resume read like like nothing less than somebody engineered and grown in a lab to be head of a giant important nonprofit.
Speaking of conspiratorial overlords, I guess Billionaire Summer Camp is happening in Sun Valley.
I hope they enjoy the triple digit heat.
TIER THREE – Three is for three-letter agencies
I think the Trump years proved that the bureaucracy runs itself for its own purposes.
There is pervasive and ongoing collusion between government agencies and non-profits to achieve joint objectives. They are even in the open about it on a regular basis.
Our Director of Homeland Security was on the board of an open borders NGO.
https://hias.org/statements/hias-congratulates-board-member-alejandro-mayorkas-dhs-nomination/
But everyone was surprised when the border was opened.
the bureaucracy runs itself for its own purposes
Non-political experts, devoted to the common good!
Paving eight lanes to hell.
Were Roman conspiracy theorists debating over how many emperors the Praetorian Guard killed?
Hell, we still argue about why the empire fell – you think any of them at the time had a clue?
“Why wouldn’t they spin up a thousand conspiracy theories so that the real ones get lost in the mix?”
So your theory is that conspiracy theories are a conspiracy.
Honestly I do think this… So. Yeah.
I’m quite certain that intel agencies push fake conspiracies to hide real ones. Doing so is in the CIA’s manual for how to delegitimize & destabilize “other” governments. Of course they have too much integrity to ever turn those plans on their own people. 🙄
I think that’s why the media covers flat-earthers and Q-anon. The actual real-world support for these theories seems pretty minimal. Q-anon in particular seems to be pushed as a way to conflate some really crazy and over the top theories with the very real crimes of Epstein and other sex trafficking rings connected to elites. Thus in the minds of normies, Q-anon and Epstein are the same delusional ravings of lunatics.
There are a LOT of legitimate questions around 9/11 like why building 7 fell and why there seems to be almost no camera footage and suspiciously little wreckage of the pentagon plane. Maybe there are good, reasonable explanations, but by intentionally conflating anyone who asks those questions to the people that believe it was masterminded by lizard people (I have a relative who is one of those) it becomes difficult to approach any legitimate questions with kooks in the eyes of the public at large.
That’s where my mind recoils… it’s obviously true, but how?? Are so many people really just power-hungry assholes at heart?
You misspelled “CCP”.
See the problem with attributing that to the KGB means they had to have adopted the Frankfurt School perspective – which was a repudiation of all things Bolshevik. That’s a might long bridge built out of mighty fragile shit.
I have no problem believing that the KGB weren’t interested in being doctrinal bolsheviks, but I think any interference in the US education system was more in the “don’t let a good crisis go to waste” model than some broad conspiracy to turn American culture 180 degrees from its current heading.
You wouldn’t get into the KGB without being an exceptionally devoted Bolshevik. You think they ran the place as a meritocracy? bwahahahahaha
You think they ran the place as a meritocracy?
LOL, no. I think they were incredibly pragmatic and not ones for elevating devotion to the cause over acquiring power.
The KGB was absolutely a meritocracy, and a thoroughly ruthless one.
And their work on disinformation and demoralization operations in the United States in the 60’s and 70’s is thoroughly documented in the Verona papers.
Not to mention the CCP had zero influence until fairly recently, i.e. Confucius Institutes.
Yeah, I don’t know anything about what the KGB might have done but I’m convinced that the CCP is actively doing exactly what is described there. And by all appearances it’s been spectacularly effective.
Great write-up. Get yourself a substack (but don’t abandon us!).
“Another big takeaway from this tier is that there is no need for a top down organization to enable this behavior. You can establish several loci of power and operate mostly independently so long as they’re all down with the revolution. The talking points distribute themselves where the corner of one web touches the next one.”
And sometimes the revolution just co-opts everything around it. I was watching a news story about widespread protests in Spain against tourists in their country (Yes, apparently it’s a thing). There were, of course, lots of Palestinian flags, and multiple instances of graffiti that said “Tourists not welcome, refugees welcome”.
Get yourself a substack
I thought about it a few years back (and it may still technically be live), but I’d really struggle to keep up the momentum after a couple weeks. I’m good for an article or two a month, at very most.
As I was starting this (which I really liked), I thought “This place is basically, I dunno, a trailer park Substack? A Substack incubator? Something like that.”
Please elaborate on what you mean by that descriptor. 🤨
It’s the finest trailer park. The best. Everyone says so.
It was a pretty random thought. Kind of a Substack where everybody knows each other, and periodically stands around drinking and maybe grilling.
I’m hoping “trailer park” doesn’t have the same connotations in AZ as it does in OH.
GT:
Does Arizona even get tornadoes?
Most claims of Tier 3 conspiracy loose me when it moves from: XYZ events occurred then the lettered agencies ABC did 1,2,&3 -> ABC did XYZ so that they could do 1,2,&3.
I do not think that COVID was intentionally released, the twin towers were brought down by “them”, or that global warming is caused by gay frogs.
I can see evidence of various agencies and entities never letting a crisis or happy accident go to waste, by using these events and incidents to do and try various schemes and power grabs.
I can see evidence of various agencies and entities never letting a crisis or happy accident go to waste, by using these events and incidents to do and try various schemes and power grabs.
This is mostly where I sit.
However, I do believe they actively work on smaller scales to bring about their objectives.
Agreed. We have seen it done in other counties by these very same agencies.
I struggle with the idea that there are thousands upon thousands of people sitting in these Intel agencies “twiddling their thumbs” waiting for something juicy to come along to capitalize on. I have no problem believing that they’re proactive, but I don’t think they’re omnipotent.
They are all busy collecting incriminating evidence; compromising people in key positions; and directing continuous changes to private and public policies.
But, when shit happens, that can all be set aside for a few days to jump on the juicy new opportunity.
Yeah, that’s a big problem for me with any governmental conspiracy – the incompetent boobs that I know populate the place suddenly turn into super-competent evil geniuses?
How exactly does that work?
That is my problem with any big cabal. How would you be able to keep everyone quiet and there would have to be incredible competence present at all levels involved.
When I interned at the CIA, back in the 90s, I worked with some *extremely* smart people. It kind of gave lie to the whole bumbling bureaucrat thing.
What level is this?
I’m laughing, but every person here has known that Sundown hasn’t been right for four plus years. It’s amazing to me to watch the machine in action.
I don’t know if UnCiv is planning any more AI image posts, but I just found this:
https://www.npr.org/2024/06/09/nx-s1-4993998/the-miss-ai-beauty-pageant-ushers-in-a-new-type-of-influencer
Spoiler, the winner of the Miss AI contest was a “Muslim” from Morocco.
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/07/11/style/miss-ai-pageant-winner-kenza-layli/index.html
At the moment, I don’t have any planned.
Here’s a random piece generated from a stewardess related prompt.
https://www.glibertarians.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/ComfyUI_temp_quqdj_00013_.png
Definite anime vibe.
OFFS.
Clancy, Peterson, Mariani et al keep their ears to the ground and find beaucoup novel ideas in these conspiracy theories.
Clancy has been dead for years. Appropriately his more recent releases have been Ghostwritten.
Same with Vince Flynn. Ghostwriters generally suck.
Although Clancy started to suck before he died, when he got so popular he decided he didn’t need an editor.
Paging Stephen King . . . .
The best at conspiracy theory flavored fiction, IMO, is Tim Powers.
Here is a Music link inspired by this morning.
35 years ago today The The released the album Mind Bomb.
Here is a track off that album with a duet with Sinead O’Conner.
https://youtu.be/UIklk1gHbuQ?si=VHDtbs6ZgCgjZ5SD
Very nice.
I think Johnny Marr played on that record, too.
He did. I think they got back together recently (with Marr). They are playing in Philly in October, I might have to go see them.
Why not? The nostalgia shows can be really fun.
Has anybody else noticed a bunch of ads featuring what appear to be AI generated realdolls, lately?
Just you boss. 😉
I bet the AI realdolls can thread properly.
The number of AI real doll ads is directly proportional to the number of times you have “fleshlight” in your search history.
TV ads? Yeah, I’m seeing a lot of obviously AI junk lately.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/biden-reelection-insiders-no-path-debate-rcna161296
The set of Democrats who think he should reconsider his decision to stay in the race has grown to include aides, operatives and officials tasked with guiding his campaign to victory. Those who spoke to NBC News said the sentiment that he should exit and leave the Democratic nomination to someone else — most likely Vice President Kamala Harris — is widespread even within the ranks of the campaign and the outside Democratic entities supporting it.
NBC dumps on the Prez
I’m confused
The mother of an American woman who went missing in the Bahamas last month while on a monthlong yoga retreat revealed that her daughter is transgender, a detail she said she had withheld out of fear it might negatively affect the search.
——-
Seymore said she didn’t initially feel it was necessary to share Casey’s gender identity.
Casey’s friends and family believe she would have been found by now if she were white and cisgender.
“Without a doubt. Without a doubt,” said Seymore, 69. “There would have been way more efforts. The investigation would have been done properly, the way it should have been done.”
but I still don’t care.
Of the 321 murders of trans and gender-nonconforming people reported worldwide from Oct. 1, 2022, to Sept. 30, 2023, 74% were committed in Latin America and the Caribbean, according to a study by the LGBTQ advocacy group Transgender Europe. The study also found that 91% of the worldwide trans murder victims were trans women or female-presenting and that the majority were people of color.
In the Bahamas, consensual same-sex sexual activity is still partially banned, according to Human Dignity Trust, a global advocacy group for LGBTQ rights.
Some people just don’t like surprises?
321 out of how many murders total worldwide over that 12 months? I’m not getting getting OMG-it’s-a-crisis from that.
google says 150,000 people die each day across the globe.
321 murders of trans and gender-nonconforming people reported worldwide
Fuck off with the “epidemic of murders” bullshit. 321 worldwide?
…and it just so happens that Latin America and the Caribbean are two of the most killey places on earth anyway…
Fuck off with the “epidemic of murders” bullshit. 321 worldwide?
There were millions. MILLIONS, I tell you, but they are being kept secret by misreporting them as garden variety cisgender murders. Who the hell cares about that?