kumar

Well-known member
while the examples given are ridiculous and draining,

its difficult to determine where the line in the sand would be that separates the mode of “conspiracy theory” from acceptable analysis aside from their aesthetical differences. i can’t see how this pandemic is not the result of groups conspiring, although that might be too trite to point out?

I’m not accusing anybody here of doing this, but

this situation probably isn’t best understood as a random biblical plague either, its self evident that its occurring in this way to a large extent as a result of specific decisions made by specific groups of people. that doesn’t necessarily entail magical thinking, or a literal belief in transdimensional shadow cabals. surely conspiratorial practices are at play to some degree.

there are specific agricultural production rates, supply chains, financial incentives, that produce the conditions in which something like this can develop. surely the profit margins that would explain why industrial volumes of animals are kept in close quarters, with a lifespan that provides the conditions in which a virus can successfully adapt and mutate and test itself on a number of different organisms in quick succession, are pursued at some expense of the risks involved, by conspiring?

and the general thrust of our government in recent years, as far as you can say there is one, has not been to shore up the nhs in case of an unprecedented overload on its resources. again, it stands to reason that successive groups in government have conspired to some degree to produce the current conditions of the health service.

i mean that all sounds quite thick but certain groups are more responsible than others for this situation. and to a good degree they’ve conspired to pursue certain interests. maybe that sounds too boring, but its also mass industrial conspiracy to the detriment of humanity.
 

droid

Well-known member
i mean that all sounds quite thick but certain groups are more responsible than others for this situation. and to a good degree they’ve conspired to pursue certain interests. maybe that sounds too boring, but its also mass industrial conspiracy to the detriment of humanity.
Thats not a conspiracy, it's the unintended consequences of systemic dysfunction.
 

catalog

Well-known member
Now you're sounding like luka!

Yeah I was aware of that actually, but I do think there is something to it. Like Kumar has also said, the outbreak element is much more complex than bad hygiene. I keep thinking about how quick it got to Europe. Like our air travel, it's too much. I follow Herzog on this one, air travel is the wrong way to discover the world
 

catalog

Well-known member
Thats not a conspiracy, it's the unintended consequences of systemic dysfunction.

Not to put words in Kumar's mouth, but I think he is saying that you could call what you are calling a systemic dysfunction a conspiracy, cos there are enough interests involved, pushing things specific ways.

Or, for this discussion, there's enough to make certain people jump to certain conclusions about it?
 

kumar

Well-known member
Thats not a conspiracy, it's the unintended consequences of systemic dysfunction.

its not a singluar conspiracy no, of course not. and it's the consequences of systemic dysfunction, of course. but the risks of something like this happening have been pointed out before, and some people are better placed than others to prevent it happening to this extent. but that is stating the obvious fair enough
 

kumar

Well-known member
Not to put words in Kumar's mouth, but I think he is saying that you could call what you are calling a systemic dysfunction a conspiracy, cos there are enough interests involved, pushing things specific ways.

Or, for this discussion, there's enough to make certain people jump to certain conclusions about it?

wouldnt want to put words in droids mouth either but perhaps they are saying something along the lines that by and large peoples actions are the result of infinite historical variables and they act out roles in a production process in a way over which they don't often have any control, and in that sense talking about this kind of complex event as conspiracy is something that should be avoided all together. and i am maybe saying in a literal minded way, the fact any of this has happened is the partly result of people conspiring at certain points.
 

catalog

Well-known member
I mean the language being used here is definitely an issue. Words being stretched I mean, till they lose meaning.

conspiracy, to me, means organised intention. And I think you could argue certainly that particularly, organised economic (primarily) interests, have had a role in this pandemic.

However, to say it's been deliberately engineered, that's too far definitely.

But I think I can see why people have got this idea in their heads
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
its difficult to determine where the line in the sand would be that separates the mode of “conspiracy theory” from acceptable analysis aside from their aesthetical differences. i can’t see how this pandemic is not the result of groups conspiring, although that might be too trite to point out?

Well this is certainly true, in the sense that the Chinese government attempted to hush up all news about the initial outbreak until the scale of it made that impossible. And in this country you've got Johnson "recommending" that people don't frequent pubs, restaurants and so on but stopping short of ordering a quarantine, which would allow such businesses to claim on insurance. Is this an active conspiracy involving leaders of the insurance industry? Maybe, who knows? The fact is explained just as well by his trademark cavalier callousness.

It's for this reason that all the made-in-a-lab nonsense is so damaging, because it can lead people not to think critically about what is really going, and why, and for whose benefit.

(Of course, eventually this line of thinking becomes an ouroboros, and you end up entertaining the notion that the crazy conspiracy theories are being put out there by the powers that be, in order to discredit anyone investigating the real, "boring" conspiracies by association. Certainly, if I were head of a top-secret experiment weapons research programme, I'd prefer it if the local hicks thought the funny lights they sometimes saw at night were alien spacecraft, and not top-secret experimental weapons. I suspect this approach features heavily in Surkov's endless game of intelligence and counter-intelligence in Russia. And look at the popularity of Trump, the arch-conspirator himself, in conspiracy theory circles - Alex Jones, QAnon, all that stuff.)
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
I mean the language being used here is definitely an issue. Words being stretched I mean, till they lose meaning.

conspiracy, to me, means organised intention. And I think you could argue certainly that particularly, organised economic (primarily) interests, have had a role in this pandemic.

Surely it goes a bit further than that, and necessarily involves organised intention that is clandestine?

I mean a company set up to do a certain kind of business, and which is transparent about its setup, finances, investors, suppliers and customers, is not engaged in conspiracy.

But if that same company is involved in attempting to influence government policy, then that is arguably a conspiracy. And if it's doing so by means that are secretive and illegal, it is unarguably a conspiracy.
 

droid

Well-known member
Its secret, organised intention, designed to bring about a specific outcome.

Yes, certain powerful groups in China had in interest in keeping the market in wild animals open because they like eating them, and they no doubt prevented changes to the legislation that kickstarted the trade in the first place, and once the market was there, it grew and the inexorable momentum of money became a factor. Thats the conspiracy - or 'lobbying' as we call it in the West.

But it wasn't done deliberately to create new diseases. That was the unintended consequence.

We see the same thing with multiple crises and black swan scenarios. Short term interests and profit are the boring and prosaic explanations for the vast majority of them.
 
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