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You bring up a good point that I hadn't considered before. It's potentially inappropriate to over index on norms and plots from half a century ago, and that we should instead use more recent cover-ups as the template. That's reasonable, though I'm reluctant to draw too definitive of a conclusion because I don't want to assume that something doesn't exist just because we haven't heard about it.
It’s more about tweaking one’s priors a bit than making any definitive conclusions.
Things we haven’t heard of that at least someone would find controversial certainly exist in the shadows. But the really sensational stuff like QAnon had going is just incredibly unlikely in today’s more politically correct, partisan, and digital US environment.
Though I will say this method won me a good chunk of change with a smart guy willing to put money on the line that Trump was going to expose a number of plots along QAnon and RussiaGate lines.
Or look at this modern plot from Taibbi about some supposed binder of CIA misdeeds about Trump. Why the hell is this binder allowed to exist by the Deep State, or, why wasn’t this dealt with when Trump was in office? In the opening paras of the actual Substack article he says his sources say Trump ordered it declassified at the end of his term. So why didn’t that happen? Why is this breaking news three years later?
The most likely story is Taibbi is listening to dumb people describe things they don’t understand.
Not to completely dismiss your talents but I think the biggest factor that made you money was being lucky enough to find someone willing to put up cash on something so bonkers.
Taibbi has no credibility with me. His reporting on the Twitter Files appears accurate enough but he gets indignant when you point out the obvious conflicts of interest of him tailoring his criticism of Twitter to avoid saying anything bad about its new owner. My conclusion from back then was "Taibbi feels constrained from criticizing Musk because Musk is too valuable a source" and the dude just voluntarily tweets out his text message to Musk admitting this. He exhibits very selective curiosity about the stories he covers, stopping short of what becomes inconvenient to his narrative. If his sources are accurate about the declassification of this surveillance report, why doesn't he just get the report itself instead of bizarrely reporting on the number of inches of the binder it's contained in.
He was a very early member of the rationality community and liked the practice of making bets.
Plus a tendency for conspiratorial thinking.
The election stealing and RussiaGate theories are likely going to be popular for decades, annoyingly. At least classic conspiracy theories weren’t so partisan.
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