Ep 49. Are the conspiracy theories right?

The Mindcrime liberty show discusses conspiracy theories. What conspiracy theories are true? What motivates the “debunkers” or the “Vox explainers” or fact checkers. What motivates the conspiracy theorist themselves? Is it not the case that the conspiracy  theory is a kind of telos/purpose or even “human action” driven model of the world which explains that events happen for a particular reason not merely chance, accident, mistake or spontaneous order? People and large organizations leadership is making plans that are somewhat “secretive” and possibly not in everybody’s or particular groups interest? What is so hard to believe about that? Why are the "mainstream" so reluctant to believe in conspiracy theories yet so willing to accept the mainstream account? For all the criticism which gets thrown at the conspiracy theorists motives one could argue that the payoff for the mainstream to not believe or even ponder is much bigger. We at the show argue that both sides are probably compromised and not entirely honest either way.

One key motivating factor is that there is a kind of romanticism behind conspiracy theories in the sense that some organization or group is behind much of the “bad things” that occur. Certain intellectual ideologies are arguably borderline "conspiracy" theories depending on ones definition of a conspiracy theory or hold certain aspects of what Rothbard calls a conspiratorial worldview. Is libertarianism, anarchism or Marxism a kind of macro level conspiracy theory which suggests that certain actors or bad actors using imperfect systems to take advantage of the masses?

Are conspiracy theories due to worldview blind spots such as the case of Bigfoot or various anomalous events or "out of place artifacts." Big foot or Lake monsters could exist in theory in small numbers if the world isn’t millions of years old and rather a few thousand or 100,000 years old. If the world is much younger (as people like David Berlinski and Stephen Meyer have argued) then a few river monsters may still be alive floating around various lakes. In a related topic the age of the earth debate also shows up in historical geology and ancient architecture which gets popularized by the show ancient aliens. Plato does seem to suggest a mega historical city of some kind existed in the past. As Jacques Vallee argues anomalous sightings of "fairies" or "aliens" are common in almost every culture throughout history. These events don't fit the normal worldview framework even though as Jacques Vallee documents "high profile" and respectable people have seen things.

We at the mindcrime liberty show are well aware that many conspiracy theories are untrue (if of course truth exists and isn’t some dialectical or social construct) and that the “mainstream” may be right about many things; however, it is worth pointing out many historical conspiracy theories of high consequence are true or probably closer to the truth if it could be known then what the state was saying (or not saying) at the time. Some examples which people of the left or liberal persuasion might find of interest that are arguably true historical “conspiracy” theories are the gulf of tonkin, spying on cell phone users (Ed Snowden revelations), project MK Ultra as well as the WMDs in iraq. Is Noam Chomsky a conspiracy theorist? By the standards of plenty of current fact checkers and debunkers if applied at the time arguably yes. Many conspiracy theories are untrue but nonetheless plenty of them are worth further investigation and quite fun. The stigma surrounding even discussion should only further the inquiry.

NPR on MK ultra and Timothy Leary https://www.npr.org/transcripts/758989641

Errol Morris Fog of War

Transcript https://www.errolmorris.com/film/fow_transcript.html

Rothbard on conspiracy theories

https://mises.org/library/conspiracy-theory-history-revisited