Conspiracy theories: 5 questions to tell the truth from fiction

No money, personal life is not going well, career is not going uphill? There is a way out: do not do anything, forget about working on yourself and blame everything on the Zionists, Freemasons, Illuminati, the CIA, the State Department, Monsanto, reptilians or laboratory mice About mice - at the end of the article. …

In the world, things are constantly going wrong. And our natural suspicion tries to see a secret meaning or even malicious intent in what happened. Whatever happens, someone is behind it. And everything is not what it seems.

The colleague didn't say hello - he hates you. The doctor prescribed expensive medicines - he wants to spend money on it. We tend to look for a catch and a secret background even in everyday trifles.

Therefore, it is not surprising that there are conspiracy theories in the world about almost all significant events or phenomena.

McCartney is dead and Lennon is alive. The Large Hadron Collider was created to wake Osiris, and the pyramids were built by the ancient Atlanteans. The Americans have not been to the Moon, and the Moon does not exist.

The Ice Bucket Challenge is a satanic ritual, and Hurricane Katrina is a climate weapon. Aliens are hiding in the 51st state of the United States, and the Titanic did not drown. HIV was invented by the CIA, and Viktor Tsoi was their secret agent. The world is ruled by reptilians, but not only: there are also Freemasons, Zionists, the Bilderberg Club, the Committee of 300, the Club of Rome. How they agree with each other is an interesting question.

Each significant event has its own special interpretation, including intrigue, tricks and secrets. Conspiracy theories claim that various events that are important for a country, people or the entire planet were the result of a secret agreement of a certain group of people: for example, a government or transnational corporations. Whoever these enemies of humanity are, they are always extremely intelligent, insidious and infinitely powerful.

There is nothing unusual or supernatural in the conspiracy as such, sometimes acting covertly is the only way to achieve what you want. In the 18th century, our country experienced a whole era of palace coups. And in 2013, the world learned that the NSA was watching Edward Snowden. The great fear of ordinary Americans turned out to be true. After such discoveries, it is not surprising that the people do not trust their government and see traces of its work in large-scale tragedies.

It is obvious that conspiracies do happen, even quite large-scale ones. The paranoia is justified. And how to understand what is before us: crazy conspiracy theories or still a real conspiracy?

The definition in Wikipedia is Conspiracy Theory, but it does not give an unambiguous answer where to draw the line and how to understand for sure. Often, all we can do is roughly estimate the likelihood of a particular conspiracy. And for this it is not necessary to immediately understand why the Lunar Conspiracy on the Moon did not fly a flag or what kind of debris was found in the Roswell incident near the city of Roswell. First, you need to think about how realistic and justified the organization of such an event is. And a few questions will help with this.

1. Who are all these people?

According to conspiracy theories, the Illuminati (substitute the name of any other secret organization) are a group of the richest and most influential people who determine the politics of almost all countries. For decades or even centuries of existence, there were no schisms or betrayals in it. All participants work for a great goal, forgetting about personal interests, preferences, ambitions. One for all and all for one!

Sounds too fantastic for our society.

Look at the UN or NATO meetings, even the debates on Twitter or Facebook between the rich and the famous - there is no unanimity, but there is a difference in moral, political and economic views, a conflict of interest, a desire to push through and a reluctance to back down.

And how is it that the powerful of this world, with different backgrounds and ideas about good and bad, suddenly decided to work together on a common cause of the destruction of the Russian people (or the American, or all non-Jews)?

In addition, it is not entirely clear who is on the list of the richest. What if the Forbes rating changes or the person goes bankrupt? How to determine that a neophyte is ready to serve a higher purpose and will not sow confusion?

2. How does it work?

For a palace coup, a few loyal associates are enough: its goal is to eliminate one person in a limited period of time. But if we are talking about some large-scale long-term conspiracies, then in addition to the upper elite, which decides the fate of mankind, we also need a huge staff of ordinary employees who will write letters, buy equipment, transfer orders, monitor their implementation and eliminate unwanted ones.

Someone had to bring tons of sand to the studio, build lunar sets, set up the lights, and then remove everything as if nothing had happened. And keep quiet, don't ask questions, don't tell your friends at the bar or Oprah Winfrey on the TV show.

3. How is secrecy maintained?

During the implementation of the Manhattan Project, the Manhattan Project, the American special services made tremendous efforts to maintain secrecy: ordinary employees did not know what was specifically developed on the territory of the enterprise, but at the same time they underwent strict verification, signed a non-disclosure agreement and were constantly monitored.

Despite all these measures, only the official report Book I - General - Vol 14 - Foreign Intelligence of the US Department of Energy mentions 1,500 investigated cases of inadvertent information leakage and 1,200 cases of violations of rules for working with classified documents.

The secrecy was prevented not only by human negligence, but also by Soviet intelligence Espionage and the Manhattan Project. Many became spies because of their sympathy for the Soviet regime and were able to transfer many secret documents in a short time. The Soviet Union took advantage of the developments and was able to create its own nuclear bomb by 1949.

But why did the USSR, having such a developed spy network, recognize the flight of the Americans, its main competitors in the space race, to the moon? Let's imagine a dialogue with a supporter of the lunar conspiracy:

- Why did the Soviet Union recognize the flight of the Americans to the moon?

- They were also deceived, they could not recognize the fake.

“The Union had a well-developed spy network in the United States and, for sure, NASA had communist sympathizers who could be recruited to get first-hand information.

- So the USSR was also in cahoots.

- That is, the Union agreed to support the fake triumph of its main competitors in the space race?

- He got some benefit from the silence.

- Good. Suppose the leadership of the USSR under Brezhnev had reasons to hide the truth, but why were there no global exposures under Andropov? Still, the attempt to establish peaceful relations after the change of the secretary general was replaced by an exacerbation of the situation.

- Andropov knew nothing about the conspiracy.

- Firstly, Andropov was the chairman of the KGB for 15 years, who could know better about all the secrets of the enemy? Secondly, even if he was not in the know, why not a single traitor was found among the initiates after Brezhnev's death?

The further the dialogue goes, the more dubious assumptions there will be. But the supporters of the lunar conspiracy do not give up, and in 2015 they allegedly received irrefutable evidence of their position: Stanley Kubrick himself in one of the video interviews tells Stanley Kubrick Confesses To Faking The Moon Landings that he really filmed the moon landing in the studio. For some, this is still an argument, although the video turned out to be a fake: there was an actor who looked a bit like the famous director. For some reason, all real "witnesses" of the lunar conspiracy are still silent.

In 1965, NASA employed 411,000 people: it's hard to believe that there wasn't a single chatterbox among them who did not brag at a party about how they fooled the whole world with a flight to the moon. Of course, you can not tell all employees about the details of the project, but in this case you need to convince them not to ask questions, not to look around, not to look for information on the Internet.

4. What is the purpose of the conspirators?

For some alleged conspiracies, even if they are not substantiated, the motivation may be understandable. For example, the US government wanted to justify the invasion of Iraq with the 9/11 attacks. The goal is clear, but it is worth remembering that no matter how significant the consequences, this does not prove the truth of the hypothesis in any way.

Keeping secrets is difficult, especially if such knowledge affects the fate of humanity and takes up a significant part of your life. Constant self-control should pay off well - if not with a very good salary or threats, then with the promise of a bright future.

But far from all conspiracies, the benefits for each participant are obvious. If we return to the lunar conspiracy: Neil Armstrong will be silent, since his reputation is at stake. But why keep the secret to ordinary workers who cleaned the sand after filming and took away the scenery? Other people have been in power in the country for a long time, so it is not dangerous to tell the truth, and interest in this topic has not faded away. Why not write a revealing book or share it on YouTube? You can get fame and money, restore justice and punish crooks, but silence has reigned for almost 50 years.

5. Are the conspirators' methods rational?

People who can fool all of humanity must be extraordinarily smart and calculating. Their decisions must be, if not the best, then very well thought out and well-founded.

But the conspirators do not always turn out to be evil geniuses. Judge for yourself: if, as some theories say, buildings cannot fall from planes crashing into them, and even straight down, then why did the American special services decide to play out just such an unrealistic story? Didn't they have better ideas for their cunning plan?

Another example of the "insidiousness" of the American authorities is the chemtrail of the Chemtrail. Conspiracy theorists argue that this is not just condensation, but dangerous chemicals used to poison civilians. But spraying poisons using passenger planes that fly at altitudes of 9–11 kilometers is expensive and ineffective.

You can think of a lot of questions, and if most of them remain without a clear answer, then most likely we are faced with just fantasies, and not a description of a realistic conspiracy.

If you look closely, the evil geniuses from conspiracy theories turn out to be not so geniuses, and their cunning plans are not very well thought out. One can only wonder how, with such stupid decisions, they manage to control the situation or the whole world.

To implement their ideas usually requires an organization without accidents, oversights and oversights. So that everything goes according to plan and is always carried out accurately and on time. But this does not happen, and therefore, as Pelevin correctly noted, "the world is ruled not by a secret lodge, but by an obvious mess."

And about the mice mentioned in the beginning, Douglas Adams told in the book “The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Restaurant “At the End of the Universe”.

“The creatures you call mice are not at all what they seem to you. All you notice is, so to speak, the imprint in our dimension of huge superintelligent pan-dimensional beings.

The elder fell silent and added sympathetically:

“I'm afraid they experimented on you.

Arthur thought deeply. Then his face cleared up.

- There is an obvious misunderstanding. You see, we put experiments on them. Behaviorism, Pavlov and so on … Mice passed all sorts of tests, learned to ring a bell, ran in mazes. We studied the behavior of mice …

Arthur's voice trailed off.

- Such sophistication … - said Slartibartfast. - One can involuntarily come to admiration. What's the best way to disguise the true goals? Suddenly go through the labyrinth in the wrong direction, eat the wrong piece of cheese, suddenly die of myxomatosis … Inimitable ingenuity!