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Small-Scale Question Sunday for April 16, 2023

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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"Conspiracy" is a complicated concept involving several different attributes. Consider for example CIA did 9/11 the Iran-Contra affair:

  1. It's coordinated and centralized.

  2. When/if exposed most people agree that it was immoral and bad.

  3. People perpetuating it know that it will be considered immoral and bad.

  4. It's executed in secret, so people assume that its effects (such as the crack epidemic) are exaggerated or caused by natural processes or whatever.

There are also secondary attributes, for example there's a solid argument that (1) + (2) + (3) together mean that it's hard to run a large conspiracy because every person involved increases the chance that someone snitches.

But there are also semi-conspiracies that lack some of the attributes. The Great Replacement doesn't require coordination or centralization (though people like Soros act as coordinators within their significant spheres of influence). People perpetuating it think that they are doing a good thing, they just stop at the very last step: diversity is good, we are increasing diversity of western countries, but we don't admit that more diverse = less white (which is trivially true, not a snark even) at least not when those racist white people might hear us.

The only conspiracy trait that is really fully present here is that ordinary people are not aware that there are forces working towards a particular end purposefully and industriously, and so will be surprised when that end is achieved. Oh well, most of the conspirators delude themselves about that too.

There's a lot of progressive semi-conspiracies that work like that. One can't help noticing the pattern:

  1. this will not happen

  2. this is not happening

  3. this is happening rarely and for random uncorrelated reasons

  4. this is happening and it's a good thing! (or if it's obviously bad then nobody could've predicted it, also it's a part and parcel of the hustle and bustle).