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Notes -
Debunking a conspiracy theory by positing a smaller, less powerful conspiracy? I guess Occam’s razor technically supports the strategy.
I don’t think SAPs work the way you suggest. They’re about hiding the contents from the outsiders, not the inside. (But of course that’s what I’d expect them to say!)
Aliens narratives are part of the normal Brownian motion of news. There’s some fraction of people who are convinced, or signaling their outsider status, or just trolling. They get picked up from the background noise and signal-boosted in proportion to their rhetorical utility. For obvious reasons, calling your enemies credulous or close-minded has perennial appeal. Likewise for painting them as shady, wasteful, paranoid, outdated, et cetera. But you can’t just make fun of the same people all the time and expect it to stick. Not on a national scale. So aliens, like any other gossip, come and go from the public eye.
I can think of a few reasons why the topic has peaked in the last few years. Misinformation is definitely a Current Thing. Dumb conspiracy theories, too. Some of the other credibility battlegrounds, like Christianity or climate change, have been quiet compared to the pre-recession years. Though the latter has flared up a bit lately. We’re also hitting a bit of an uptick in militarism.
Hell, maybe the same nostalgia-bait that gave us Stranger Things has made aliens great again.
I’m fond of a certain “sneer-state-debate” theory where different rhetorical attacks work a bit like “rock-paper-scissors.” If all your opponent can do is throw shade, state a constructive vision, and make him look small. If he’s making sweeping statements on such a vision, debate him to pick it apart. And if he’s nitpicking details, just sneer at the nerd and his obviously-insufficient values.
Aliens are usually in the news for sneering purposes. Look at those idiots, wasting time and money on an obvious hoax. But that sort of sneer has proven really ineffective against the Trump wing of the GOP, because it plays right into the grand narrative of coastal elites sneering at proles. The Chuck Schumer approach, here, pivots to a “debate” attack. If the theory is so truthy, fine, prove it. Make it pay rent. Debate me. In theory, this defuses belief in aliens as a tribal signal, making it boring. In practice, it might just open up the Democrats to counter-sneering. Trump is historically pretty good at that!
All in all, I expect it to be reasonably effective. Assuming no actual aliens, and thus no shocking reveals, I don’t predict aliens will have much salience after the ‘24 election. The cycle will continue.
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