conspiracy theories

Conspiracy Theory As Laziness

by

I am, as regular readers know, interested in Conspiracy Theories. I want to know how people work, how the world works, and honestly what to be aware of that may kill me. There’s some people out there who’ve not only gone down the rabbit hole, they turned it into a bunker, and we’re the ones on the outside.

Something that’s struck me over time – and something I want to organize my thoughts around, so you get to read them – is that Conspiracy Theorists are lazy.

This may seem strange to say as Conspiracy Theorists are pretty busy. They’re arguing online. They’re obsessed with “following the crumbs.” The joke of the Conspiracy Theorist with a corkboard of pins and strings and newspaper clippings at least credits them with some industry.

But it’s not industry.

For those who believe in the Conspiracy Theories to some extent, they’re entertainment and they’re a substitute. They’re not real effort, they’re essentially a game, a Live Action Role-Play, aka LARP. Nothing actually gets done, nothing happens, there’s no actual end game, and when one theory wears out the latest takes it’s place.

For the grifters, these efforts are easier than having an actual job. You just spew BS, and make sure to dress it up right and people believe you and spend money. Heck, most conspiracy theorist grifters are just dressing up old biases and theories in new digs and putting them out there. It’s no different – and very much the same – as the millionaire preacher who puts in a few hours of spewing quotes and then goes back to their mansion.

The grifters rely on the believers to do the work by staying occupied with trying to hunt up clues and whatever. The lying grifters put in less effort than the people who are bored or who would rather read internet posts than change the world.

And this is where Conspiracy Theories get really lazy.

Conspiracy Theories are easy. Most of them are well-worn biases with a few extra modernizations. You have someone else to blame, you’re blameless, and to fight them you don’t do anything that actually fixes things. Reaching out to your fellow humans, getting involved in politics, actually being informed is hard and requires you to confront uncomfortable truths. Just being biased and claiming you’re fighting the Deep State is a lot easier.

Of course this makes it easier on the grifters and easier on more malicious political actors. People trapped in their own made up Conspiracy LARP AND ready to blame people AND ask you to do all the work? Score for any would be dictator and money-hungry manipulator.

I thus have some sympathy for Conspiracy Theorists in this way. I get being lazy, wanting to play with ideas, and stuff is hard. It’s just in the end it’s better to deal with real issues and deal with the real world – and take on the people manipulating us. Also a lot of professional Conspiracy Theorists are utter a-holes, so screw them.

But I do get it sometimes.

However in the end, Conspiracy Theory is just lazy, but the wrong kind of lazy.

–Xenofact

Your Paranoia Is Your God

by

Many a Conspiracy Theorist claims to be religious, but I think they’re not honest about who their real God is.

As my regular readers know I have a fascination with Conspiracy Theories. This is both because I’m interested in how people work, and because as we’ve seen they’re incredibly goddamn dangerous. Honestly the way we treat Conspiracy Theorists as a point of humor misses how some of them turn very deadly individually or in groups.

As I watch these potentially dangerous people, I’ve seen how their ideas can become all-consuming. I’ve noted elsewhere that Conspiracy Theory is a kind of creative skill, an unhealthy form of writing and imagination. I suppose it has to be that way so it can encompass everything you need to an eternal yes-anding to reality.

After all, your Theory has to explain everything. Plus you can’t let someone one-up on you, especially if you want to get internet clicks and sell supplements. A Conspiracy Theory is a comittment.

These Conspiracy Theories almost inevitably include religion because you have to. You have to cover it all, so deities, Satan, angels, etc. all have to become part of it. Most Conspiracy theorists remind me of the ever one-upping that dooms movies and TV shows to raise the stakes ridiculously to keep going before their inevitable collapse. The theory must be fed.

Watching this constant adaption, this sacrifice to the Theory, reminds me of what I said early about Monotheism being so unstable it has to evangelize and spread to avoid questions. Thus I can safely say that Conspiracy Theories are just a form of monotheism.

Think about it. Conspiracists are beholden to the Great Conspiracy. The Conspiracy defines them. The Conspiracy must be supported. For many The Conspiracy is a form of profit or career, the very essence of what they do. The Conspiracy Theory is the most important thing in their life – in short, their god.

And it has to be monotheism. The Conspiracy Theorist by definition worships an all-encompassing idea. Any different idea is incorporated or is declared falsehood and the enemy. To not do so is to risk breaking your god – you may dress it up in cosplay as some other god, but it’s yours and it’s just as broken as you are.

Even if the Conspiracy Theorist is a pure grifter, they still have to keep putting time in on the Theory as it’s always under challenge. It’s still their god even if they don’t believe it. Plus there’s always the risk they start believing or have to start believing.

Whatever deity they say they worship, The Conspiracy Theorist’s real god is The Theory.

This “monotheism model” is a tool I find useful to understand Conspiracy Theorists. They’re on a religious crusade no matter what. They have to be. They have to maintain this god, the god is all they have. No wonder they seem so anxious to kill people for their god.

It doesn’t make me feel any safer. If anything I feel kind of worse. But I feel I have a better grasp of what to worry about.

-Xenofact

We Can Be Heroes and Probably Shouldn’t

by

We’re awash in heroes today. Funny, it doesn’t seem like we’re any better off.

I’ve had an interest in conspiracy theories and their impact since the late 80s, at first in extremist groups, then the further out beliefs. I came to realize over time that many figures in the Conspiracy Sphere were so-called heroes. The radio personalities, the pamphleteers, the shaky-handed writers of only-vaguely concealed bigotries declared themselves Heroes. They were always being attacked by The Conspiracy, they were anointed by God, or whatever. Every Big Name was also The Big Good Guy.

That’s not surprising. When you make it to the top, people want a story. When you manage to publish a book, you better have a story of why you have to read it. A lot of Conspiracy Stuff is grift, and grifters gotta market, and no one is going to trust Divorced Guy WIth A Medium Sized Library of Bullshit to explain the world.

As I contemplated this and was jotting down thoughts of heroism, I realized how the idea of the Heroic Conspiracist had evolved in the Internet Age. It had become democratized – everyone was a hero.

People regularly posted to message boards, supposedly giving insider information – which is indeed how we got the “Q” debacle. They could be heroes, even if they made it up – and maybe in time they believed it. You’re only a few posts from being declared a Crusader for Truth.

The social disaster of “Q” created many personalities decoding “Q drops” and lending their own theories to a burgeoning katamari of dangerous nonsense. If you worked at it, social media would let you build a following and yes-and your way to fame, if not fortune. Also sometimes there was fortune.

I detected an uptick in the UFO community of heroic stories, often around the Secret Space Programs where people were mindjacked into other lives by aliens. There were plenty of stories of space heroism, echoing tales of past lives from previous New Age communities. You no longer had to be yet another reincarnation of a famous occultist, you could be your own Spiritial Cosmic Fighter!

Anyone could invent themselves as a hero and ride the conspiracy theories to fame and recognition and feeling special. I’ve seen it called Main Character Syndrome, Protagonist Syndrome, etc. We certainly need a name for it.

Now this isn’t exactly new. Our media is awash in “heroes” you can pretend to be like. American Christianity tells people they’re in a great Crusade – and is also media fueled – but other religious trends have declared people part of some Great Heroic Effort as well. It’s just I think this got amped up in the Internet age to the point where we’re all supposedly heroes.

Social media would be glad to reinforce it for you if you had a good pitch and persistence. Believers didn’t just believe, they backed each other up, creating a web of confirming the heroism of each other. You could always find an audience to confirm your stories of heroism against aliens or the Illuminati or whatever. You can even make money at it.


It’s heroes all the way down. Sure some people jockey to be the Big Names, but you can get a little reinforcement here and there.

Of course it’s not heroism. It’s grifting. It’s loneliness. It’s people who need therapy not social media. But everyone gets to be a hero, even though none of them are heroic. Heroism has been hollowed out, lined with mirrors, and turned into a self-reflective room for personal aggrandizement.

Now I wonder how a world deals with so many false heroes – and how the would be heroes themselves cope. How do you step back from a lie and accept humanity? How do you deal with the problems of the world that need more of us just getting their hands dirty?

I don’t have an answer to that, except maybe some kind of psychological or spiritual or media trend at self-reflecting. A simpler, more involved, life. I don’t have any answers beyond vague speculation

I’m not hero I’m just a guy and I’m not sure yet what a world of fallen heroes will mean.

(Special thanks to the podcast Knowledge Fight, who’s further examination of Bill Cooper’s insanely plagiarized work helped me solidify this idea).

-Xenofact