The term conspiracy theory is wielded as a pejorative, alluding to on-its-face absurdity. But the vocabulary we use has a serious ambiguity problem because conspiracies are not figments of the imagination. There is a tangible and qualitative distinction between plain-vanilla conspiracies (COINTELPRO, Operation Snow White, or the Gunpowder Plot) and their more theatrical cousins (flat earth theory, the moon landing hoax, or the farcical notion that coffee tastes good), yet a clear delineation has been elusive and it's unsatisfying to just assert "this one is crazy, and this one isn't." Both camps involve subterfuge, malevolent intent, covert operations, misinformation, orchestrated deceit, hidden agendas, clandestine networks, and yes, conspiracy, and yet the attempts to differentiate between the two have veered into unsatisfactory or plainly misleading territories.
What I'll argue is the solution boils down to a simple reconfiguration of the definition that captures the essence of the absurdity: conspiracy theories are theories that assume circumstances that render the titular "conspiracy" unnecessary. This is what I'll refer to as the Overkill Conspiracy Hypothesis (OCH). Before we dive into this refinement, it's helpful to explore why traditional distinctions have fallen short.
The section on differences in The People's Pedia showcases some of these misguided attempts. For example, conspiracy theories tend to be in opposition to mainstream consensus but that's a naked appeal to authority — logic that would have tarred the early challengers to the supposed health benignity of smoking as loons. Or that theories portray conspirators acting with extreme malice, but humans can indeed harbor evil intentions (see generally, human history). Another relies on the implausibility of maintaining near-perfect operational security. This is getting better, but while maintaining secrecy is hard, it's definitely not impossible. We have actual, real-life examples of covert military operations, or drug cartels that manage to operate clandestine billion-dollar logistical enterprises.
There's still some useful guidance to draw from the pile of chaff, and that's conspiracy theories' lack of, and resistance to, falsifiability. Despite its unfortunate name, falsifiability is one of my nearest and dearest concepts for navigating the world. Put simply, falsifiability is the ability for a theory to be proven wrong at least hypothetically. The classic example is "I believe all swans are white, but I would change my mind if I saw a black swan". The classic counterexample could be General John DeWitt citing the absence of sabotage by Japanese-Americans during WWII as evidence of future sabotage plans. There is indeed a trend of conspiracy theorists digging into their belief in belief, and dismissing contrary evidence as either fabricated, or (worse) evidence of the conspiracy itself.
I won't talk shit about the falsifiability test; it's really good stuff. But it has limitations. For one, the lack of falsifiability is only a good indication a theory is deficient, not a conclusive determination. There are also practical considerations, like how historical events can be difficult to apply falsifiability because the evidence is incomplete or hopelessly lost, or how insufficient technology in an emerging scientific field can place some falsifiable claims (temporarily, hopefully) beyond scrutiny. So the inability to falsify a theory does not necessarily mean that the theory is bunk.
Beyond those practical limitations, there's also the unfortunate bad actor factor. Theorists with sufficient dishonesty or self-awareness can respond to the existential threat of falsifiability by resorting to vague innuendo to avoid tripping over shoelaces of their own making. Since you can't falsify what isn't firmly posited, they dance around direct assertions, keeping their claims shrouded in a mist of maybe. The only recourse then is going one level higher, and deducing vagueness as a telltale sign of a falsifiability fugitive wherever concrete answers to the who / how / why remain elusive. Applying the vagueness test to the flat earth theory showcases the evasion. It's near-impossible to get any clear answers from proponents: who exactly is behind Big Globe, how did they manage to hoodwink everyone, and why why why why why would anyone devote any effort to this scheme? In contrast, True Conspiracies™ like the atomic spies lack the nebulousness: Soviet Union / covert transmission of nuclear secrets / geopolitical advantage.
Yet the vagueness accusation doesn't apply to all conspiracy theories. The moon landing hoax is surprisingly lucid on this point: NASA / soundstage / geopolitical advantage. And this unveils another defense mechanism against falsification, which is the setting of ridiculously high standards of evidence. Speaking of veils, there's a precedent for this in Islamic law of all places, where convictions for fornication require four eyewitnesses to the same act of intercourse, and only adult male Muslims are deemed competent witnesses. The impossibly stringent standards appear to be in response to the fact that the offense carries the death penalty, and shows it's possible to raise the bar so high that falsifiability is intentionally rendered out of reach.
The moon landing hoax might be subjected to these impossible standards, given that the Apollo 11 landing was meticulously documented over 143 minutes of uninterrupted video footage — a duration too lengthy to fit on a film reel with the technology available at the time. Although only slightly higher than the Lizardman Constant, a surprising 6% of Americans still hold the view that the moon landing was staged. At some point you have to ask how much evidence is enough, but ultimately there's no universally accepted threshold for answering this question.
So falsifiability remains a fantastic tool, but it has legitimate practical limitations, and isn't a conclusive inquiry anyways. Someone's refusal to engage in falsifiability remains excellent evidence they're aware and concerned of subjecting their theory to scrutiny, but their efforts (vagueness or impossible standards) will nevertheless still frustrate a straightforward application of falsifiability. So what's left?
We're finally back again to the Overkill Conspiracy Hypothesis, where the circumstances conspiracy theories must assume also, ironically, render the conspiracy moot. The best way to explain this is by example. Deconstructing a conspiracy theory replicates the thrill of planning a bank heist, so put yourself in the shoes of the unfortunate anonymous bureaucrat tasked with overseeing the moon landing hoax. Remember that the why of the moon landing hoax was to establish geopolitical prestige by having the United States beat the Soviet Union to the lunar chase. So whatever scheme you concoct has to withstand scrutiny from what was, at the time, the most advanced space program employing the greatest space engineers from that half of the world.
The most straightforward countermeasure would be to task already existing NASA engineers to draft up totally fake but absolutely plausible equipment designs. Every single aspect of the entire launch — each rocket, lunar module, ladder, panel, bolt, glove, wrench — would need to be painstakingly fabricated to deceive not just the global audience, but the eagle-eyed experts watching with bated breath from the other side of the Cold War divide. Extend that to all communications, video transmissions, photographs, astronaut testimonies, and 'returned' moon rocks. Each and all of it has to be exhaustively and meticulously examined by dedicated and highly specialized consultants.
But it doesn't stop there, because you also need absolute and perpetual secrecy, as any singular leak would threaten the entire endeavor. The U.S. was well aware Soviet Union spies had successfully snagged closely-guarded nuclear secrets, so whatever countermeasures needed here had to surpass fucking nukes. Like I said before, secrecy is not impossible, just very difficult. I suppose NASA could take a page from the cartels and just institute brutally violent reprisals against any snitches (plus their whole families), but this genre of deterrence can only work if...people know about it. More likely, though, NASA would use the traditional intelligence agency methods of extensive vetting, selective recruitment, and lavish compensation, but now all measures would need to be further amplified to surpass the protective measures around nuclear secrets.
We're talking screening hundreds or thousands of individuals more rigorously than for nuclear secrets, alongside an expanding surveillance apparatus to keep everyone in line. How much do you need to increase NASA's budget (10x? 100x?) to devote toward a risky gambit that, if exposed, would be history's forever laughingstock? If such vast treasuries are already at disposal, it starts to seem easier to just...go to the moon for real.
OCH® has several benefits. It starts by not challenging any conspiracy theorist's premises. It accepts it as given that there is indeed a sufficiently motivated shadowy cabal, and just runs with it. This sidesteps any of the aforementioned concerns about falsifiability fugitives, and still provides a useful rubric for distinguishing plain-vanilla conspiracies from their black sheep brethren.
If we apply OCH to the atomic spies, we can see the theory behind that conspiracy requires no overkill assumptions. The Soviet Union did not have nukes, they wanted nukes, and stealing someone else's blueprints is definitely much easier than developing your own in-house. The necessary assumption (the Soviet Union has an effective espionage program) does not negate the need for the conspiracy.
Contrast that with something like the Sandy Hook hoax, which posits the school shooting as a false flag operation orchestrated by the government to pass restrictive gun laws (or something; see the vagueness section above). Setting aside the fact that no significant firearm legislation actually resulted, the hoax and the hundreds of crisis actors it would have required would have necessitated thousands of auditions, along with all the secrecy hurdles previously discussed. And again, if the government already has access to this mountain of resources, it seems like there are far more efficient methods of spending it (like maybe giving every congressman some gold bars) rather than orchestrating an attack and then hoping the right laws get passed afterward.
It's also beguiling to wonder exactly why the shadowy cabal would even need to orchestrate a fake mass shooting, given the fact that they already regularly happen! Even if the cabal wanted to instigate a slaughter (for whatever reason), the far, far, far simpler method is to just identify the loner incel kid and prod them into committing an actual mass shooting. We've already stipulated the cabal does not care about dead kids. Similarly, if the U.S. wanted to orchestrate the 9/11 attacks as a prelude to global war, it seems far easier to load up an actual plane full of actual explosives and just actually launch it at the actual buildings, rather than to spend the weeks or months to surreptitiously sneak in however many tons of thermite into the World Trade Center (while also coordinating the schedule with the plane impact, for some reason).
Examining other examples of Verified Conspiracies demonstrate how none of them harbor overkill assumptions that render the conspiratorial endeavors moot. In the Watergate scandal, the motive was to gain political advantage by spying on adversaries, and the conspirators did so through simple breaking and entering. No assumptions are required about the capabilities of President Nixon's security entourage that would have rendered the trespass unnecessary. Even something with the scope of Operation Snow White — which remains one of the largest infiltrations of the U.S. government, involving up to 5,000 agents — fits. The fact that they had access to thousands of covert agents isn't overkill, because the agents still needed to infiltrate government agencies to gain access to the documents they wanted destroyed. The assumptions do not belie the need for the conspiracy.
I hold no delusions that I can convince people wedded to their conspiracy theory of their missteps. I don't claim to have any idea how people fall prey to this kind of unfalsifiable absurdist thinking. But at least for the rest of us, it will remain useful to be able to draw a stark distinction between the real and the kooky. Maybe after that we can unearth some answers.
—sent from my lunar module
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Notes -
I was referring to "Cultural Marxism", I thought I made it pretty obvious but maybe I didn't. It is commonly referred to, especially by the left, as "conspiracy theory", and sometimes even as a sign of racism and/or antisemitism (though I personally fail to see the connection).
The fakery (according to the theory) has happened when Obama became the Democratic presidential candidate. Prior to that he was (that's a fact not a theory) sometimes referred to as born in Kenya, because that made him more "diverse" (it is debatable whether or not he personally made it happen, though he certainly didn't object too loudly), but in general nobody gave a rat's behind where he was born, until the requirements for Presidency came into play. Presumably, according to the theory, there should exist his "original" birth certificate - unless, of course, it was destroyed by the conspirators.
Presumably, there were some serious tensions between CIA and the President, and the disaster at Bay of Pigs was one of the outcomes of it (conspiracies within conspiracies!). So, the tensions boiled over to the point where the CIA decided the President is out of control and needs to be gone. The how is a bit more murky here indeed, but the most coherent version I've heard is that they psychologically manipulated LHO into the assassination attempt, but not being sure he can actually succeed, performed certain actions to ensure that by the end of it, JFK was really and truly dead.
Why is obvious - to not let them talk about his clients. Who is also both obvious and immaterial - I mean, if that were true, it'd be some kind of black ops murder team, but their specific identities are not interesting, the interesting part is who hired/ordered them to do it. That would be the same people from the client list, I presume. The how is the hard part - probably bribing the guards, sabotaging the records and then drugging/strangling/etc. him?
Again, who is easy - the political establishment needing to support the narrative. Why is easy too, see above, there is a lot of political careers heavily invested in the notion of "structural racism" and the need to combat it. How - by pressuring the judicial system into supporting the required decision I presume?
Who - the Chinese scientists. Why - well, why countries manufacture bioweapons? It obviously happened, so they had some reasons. I personally don't think bioweapons make much sense, except as terror weapon, but many governments seem to think otherwise.
Who is the US federal government. Why is the immigrants tend to vote Democratic, and tend to be more dependent on government services, which again makes them lean Democratic.
It is listed on Wikipedia as "conspiracy theory" so I included it with the rest.
Selling more vaccines? Also not being sued and bankrupted by the claims of those to whom they already have sold the vaccines. E.g. like tobacco companies.
The claim is they benefit from more vaccines sold, and the side effect is not intended, but since it happened to be there, they decided it's better to suppress the knowledge of it than to lose all that nice business and expose themselves to billions is claims.
The claim is that Trump sought out or at least knowingly accepted Russia's help, and that the following investigation was based on the attempt to genuinely discover whether or not it is the case. The counter-claim is that there was never any evidence to support that claim, and that the whole story was fabricated for political reasons, contrary to claims of the involved parties that they are interested in investigating the matter, they were actually interested on finding any dirt they can on Trump, or, failing that, keep him under the cloud of suspicion as long as it is possible. That's the conspiracy part.
Overcounting would be counting somebody as dying because of COVID infection while they died for causes that are not attributable to that infection. Reasons would be political power gained under the premise of the necessity of emergency measures.
This is kinda hard to unpack, because in general political finance in the US works in ways that are extremely hard to unpack. I'd say the claim is that some money, coming from Soros or alike rich people, are intentionally, through certain network of financing institutions, arrive into the pockets of violent leftist groups, and this is done on purpose, to effect certain changes in US politics that Soros, etc. want to achieve (such as make the society move more to the left). This was called "conspiracy theory" in Wikipedia - at least I think this is what they meant.
I'm not sure it's possible to figure out why somebody is a pedophile? I think the theory is more like if you are both a member of the elite and a pedophile, then there's a club for you that will cater for your illegal needs and ensure that indulging your passion would not lead to undesirable consequences. The latter part is the conspiracy, and also the fact that presumably the pedophilia is more common for the elites than widely recognized, but this fact is suppressed, since it'd make the respect for the elites to diminish (the optimistic part of this theory is that there's still really some respect that can be further diminished).
I feel like this makes an unwarranted assumption that every crowd has a fixed quality that can be called "proclivity for violence" and this quality can not be meaningfully changed. I think the experience suggests that it can - moreover, one of the charges against Trump has been that this is exactly what he did! I think if it is plausible to assume Trump could do it, it is also plausible somebody else could do the same. As a side note, I myself a very non-violent man, but I can imagine a situation where there could be enough provocation that I would be tempted to resort to violence, and maybe even succumb to that temptation (thankfully, I haven't found myself in such situations for many years, but it could happen, in theory). I don't see why that couldn't happen with members of the crowd (crowds always make people dumber) manipulated by very skilled operatives (I assume somebody in the FBI could be skilled?)
Presumably, the ETs they have in evidence are dead, or possibly they have just technological evidence, not actual ET organisms, and the other ETs for some reasons (maybe in collusion with the government?) are reluctant to communicate with the members of the public. Maybe they have the Prime Directive? The reasons to hide it is a) to gain the exclusive use of alien technologies and b) to prevent the massive uncontrollable panic which will be caused by this knowledge.
Hopefully I matched this correctly. Overall a lot of these remain very vague and nebulous.
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