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The Consensus Conspiracy
All news and all science is propaganda whose bulk ore eventually leaches out a little gold over many years. But it’s not organic stupidity, quite the contrary: it’s driven by powerful forces shaping the narratives who know exactly what they are doing.
Even the weather: the raging “hunker down” storm that hit us the past 4 days was just a normal rain with sun thing. The media cannot even tell the truth about the weather any more.
The Consensus Conspiracy
2024-02-29
What is a consensus? At its heart it is a group of people thinking that something is most likely correct or good or the best way to do or think about something.
What is a conspiracy? At its heart it is a group of people thinking that something is most likely correct or good or the best way to do or think about something.
The difference between the two is the impression of the intent of the group by those on the outside. Conspiracies are manifestly suspect and created out of nefarious motives to achieve a specific, most likely at least unethical, goal. Consensuses are seen as positive constructs, having been arrived at after open discussion, healthy debate, and a consideration of all relevant factors.
But over the past decade or so, at least as to some of the most important moments of supposed consensus – Covid, climate change, and the idea that democracy is being in being imperiled – they have actually turned out to be nefarious conspiracies while supposed conspiracy theories – elite global restructuring, the threat of climate change being used to gain political power, and, of course, Covid – have turned out to be correct.
In other words, the conspiracies were in fact the consensuses and the consensus are in fact the conspiracies.
The psychological implications of consensus are powerful. People immediately think of experts gathering around tables or lab benches, unreservedly hashing things out, and coming up with a well-considered, fair, and objective “this is really pretty much how it is” decision. This remains true in popular conception even though most current consensuses are made by only asking people who the originators already know (97% of climate scientists say global warming is real and caused by humans, for example) will agree with whatever is being posited.
The psychological implications of conspiracy are just as powerful. People immediately think of backrooms, secrets, code words, winks all being exchanged in order to scheme out how to best reach a false goal.
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WIND: and... nothing happened to change it.
