How to understand conspiracies

[Sculptor]

There are two types of conspiracy

1) A cabal of people gathered together in secret to conspire and a plot specific things, or to surpress certain things.
2) A tacit conspiracy in which large numbers of people unconsciously conspire to promote certian ways of thinking, to advantage certain ways of life, and to ignore viewpoints that fly against their own interests and points of view.

Most conspiracy theorists recognise the consequences of (2), but thing that they are the result of (1).

I'll give you an example.

People who play the stock market pretend to beleive that they are doing the economy some good when the truth is that there is no more damaging effect that people take money out of the economy for doing no work. People who play the stock market, although they know they are gambling to screw money out of the system by doing no work, also castigate the poor for drawing social security. They also castigate the poor for gambling.

This is clearly a type 2 conspiracy where the conspirators fool themselves that their course of action is good. They conspire to vote for people who peddle the same falsehoods.

The conspiracy nut will tend to focus on groups such as the "Jews" or the "Illuminati" for conspiring to impoverish the people to their own advantage.
Such conspiracies are easy to refute, and criticise on the grounds of racism, classism or lack of evidence.

People conspiring in this type 2 conspiracy will deflect criticism of their actions by accusing its critics of a type 1 conspiracy, calling them antisemitic, or stupid.

The real danger in society is the huge range of type 2 conspiracies that we call contribute to.

[Skip]

Type 1 is a fairly routine kind of conspiracy that happens at all levels of society all the time. It ranges from three siblings under 12 deciding not to tell their parents how the vase got broken to the heads of three nations deciding which of them will rule what parts of a continent inhabited by people with inferior weapons.
Type 1 conspirators have learned to take very good advantage of the popular conspiracy nuttery to hide their own activities. Their stance is: Some conspiracy theories are bogus; therefore anyone who suggests there is a conspiracy must be nuts; therefore, no real conspiracies exist.

Type 2 is problematic. I'm not at all sure that anything done unconsciously can come under the definition of conspiring. Certainly, a whole lot of fools can be fooled into doing whatever their manipulator wants done. Any individual in that mob who is aware of what they are doing is colluding to the extent of his or her awareness. But, most of the time, the mob is told something quite other than the real purpose of their action, and believes that. They are certainly very dangerous, but i don't think they qualify as conspirators.

[Sculptor]

Type 1 is a fairly routine kind of conspiracy that happens at all levels of society all the time. It ranges from three siblings under 12 deciding not to tell their parents how the vase got broken to the heads of three nations deciding which of them will rule what parts of a continent inhabited by people with inferior weapons.
Type 1 conspirators have learned to take very good advantage of the popular conspiracy nuttery to hide their own activities. Their stance is: Some conspiracy theories are bogus; therefore anyone who suggests there is a conspiracy must be nuts; therefore, no real conspiracies exist.

Type 2 is problematic. I'm not at all sure that anything done unconsciously can come under the definition of conspiring. Certainly, a whole lot of fools can be fooled into doing whatever their manipulator wants done. Any individual in that mob who is aware of what they are doing is colluding to the extent of his or her awareness. But, most of the time, the mob is told something quite other than the real purpose of their action, and believes that. They are certainly very dangerous, but i don't think they qualify as conspirators.

So if we look at the standard definion of conspire:
verb
1) make secret plans jointly to commit an unlawful or harmful act.
2) (of events or circumstances) seem to be working together to bring about a particular negative result.
"everything conspires to exacerbate the situation"

The second definition fulfills a type 2), yet I do beleive that many people, do conspire more actively in large numbers by ignoring inconvenient facts. So as events conspire to..., each micro event of many people ignoring this or accepting that, "conspires" to bring about a negative result.
So, if you know that carbon contrubutes to global warming, and yet you chose to ignore that by continuing to drive your car to work when you could take the bus. People fill their minds with convenient exceptions to support their dissonant poition.

[Walker]

This conspiracy sounds like a 1.

Biden’s Cover Up: Deep State Wipes Online Records of U.S. Military Equipment Given to Afghan Forces; Public Links to Reports About Quantities and Billions in Costs Are GONE

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/0 ... osts-gone/

[Sculptor]

This conspiracy sounds like a 1.

Biden’s Cover Up: Deep State Wipes Online Records of U.S. Military Equipment Given to Afghan Forces; Public Links to Reports About Quantities and Billions in Costs Are GONE

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/0 ... osts-gone/

You seem to have sucked up this piece of News hook line and sinker.
Here's the problem.
Starting with Bush successive administrations have provided the puppet government of Afghanistan with arms for 20 years - the only one that has not done that is Biden's administration.
Far from "handing it over" to the Taliban, all that equipment was in the hands of the "legitimate" government of Afghanistan validated by Trump. The Taliban took that stuff from the US backed government.
So those arms were not in the hands of Biden to hand over.
You have sucked up the "SPIN", making your reception of the story fake news.
You are just making a fool of yourself

So, despite there being some truth in it, the whole article is just a fucking joke and so are you. This is the pernicious nature of fake conspiracies and similar approaches to news, they are articulated so badly that they are easy to refute.

I don't know who the fuck "thegatewaypundit" is but its not worthy of consideration, since this article is just a cheap way of attacking the President for mistakes made by his predecessors.

But thanks for your contribution. You are part of a type 2 conspiracy against the US government and against your own interests.

[simplicity]

In a world where lying, cheating, and stealing are ubiquitous, everything [and therefore nothing] becomes a conspiracy theory.

[Skepdick]

1) A cabal of people gathered together in secret to conspire and a plot specific things, or to surpress certain things.
2) A tacit conspiracy in which large numbers of people unconsciously conspire to promote certian ways of thinking, to advantage certain ways of life, and to ignore viewpoints that fly against their own interests and points of view.

Since everything that humans ever do falls into one of these two categories, then everything humans do is a always a "conspiracy". What you've presented is a tautology.

It's not even wrong.

[Sculptor]

1) A cabal of people gathered together in secret to conspire and a plot specific things, or to surpress certain things.
2) A tacit conspiracy in which large numbers of people unconsciously conspire to promote certian ways of thinking, to advantage certain ways of life, and to ignore viewpoints that fly against their own interests and points of view.

Since everything that humans ever do falls into one of these two categories, then everything humans do is a always a "conspiracy". What you've presented is a tautology.

It's not even wrong.

You are taliing bollocks as per usual.

[Walker]

But thanks for your contribution.

You're most welcome. The distillation of your answer to a specific question sounds like a No, with an extra ration of shit heaped on this time.

Heaping shit to deflect Biden's incompetence is a common conspiracy of some type other than a conspiracy of one cuckoo.

[Sculptor]

But thanks for your contribution.

You're most welcome. The distillation of your answer to a specific question sounds like a No, with an extra ration of shit heaped on this time.

Heaping shit to deflect Biden's incompetence is a common conspiracy of some type other than a conspiracy of one cuckoo.

You swallowed Biden's incompetance. But who was it negotiating with the Taliabn last year prominsing them Afghanistan by March?
This gave Biden an impossibly small time-frame to complete the retreat - a retreat, I maight add, that is now acccomplished.

So where is the incompetance?

[Walker]

Impossibly short time my ass.

Where's the incompetence? Come on. Don't be an ass. It's in the results. Read the damn news.

Before I said that Biden owns this debacle, I wasn’t aware that anyone else had said it, and I doubt if anyone did. Too many were holding a moistened finger in the air to see which way the wind was blowing.

One wonders about the deals Biden is making with The Party’s new ally, The Taliban Terrorists, and wondering based on rationality and known causation is about all one can do, seeing as how these are secret agreements. Hush hush.

That Biden is such a liar. Everything out of his mouth, he has a long history. No wonder the Left loves him enough to make him the most popular presidential candidate in the history of the country, by far. That big fibber went on TV and told the world how powerful, strong and numerous is the Afghan army, yet as the words were garbling from his lips he knew it was a lie, as revealed by his prior conversation with the Afghan president. Because of his total incompentence the withdrawal will be studied by military historians for decades as a cautionary tale, that is, if the truth be told and such studies are not banned to distract from the Critical Race Theory indoctrination and Gender Studies indoctrination currently being grafted into the military.

btw: retreat is the correct term, because it ain't over by a long shot. The terrorists are now one of the best equipped forces in the world, thanks to Biden.

[Sculptor]

Impossibly short time my ass.

Where's the incompetence? Come on. Don't be an ass. It's in the results. Read the damn news.

Before I said that Biden owns this debacle, I wasn’t aware that anyone else had said it, and I doubt if anyone did. Too many were holding a moistened finger in the air to see which way the wind was blowing.

One wonders about the deals Biden is making with The Party’s new ally, The Taliban Terrorists, and wondering based on rationality and known causation is about all one can do, seeing as how these are secret agreements. Hush hush.

The Taliban are not terrorists.

That Biden is such a liar. Everything out of his mouth, he has a long history.

This is just moronic

No wonder the Left loves him enough to make him the most popular presidential candidate in the history of the country, by far. That big fibber went on TV and told the world how powerful, strong and numerous is the Afghan army, yet as the words were garbling from his lips he knew it was a lie, as revealed by his prior conversation with the Afghan president. Because of his total incompentence the withdrawal will be studied by military historians for decades as a cautionary tale, that is, if the truth be told and such studies are not banned to distract from the Critical Race Theory indoctrination and Gender Studies indoctrination currently being grafted into the military.

btw: retreat is the correct term, because it ain't over by a long shot. The terrorists are now one of the best equipped forces in the world, thanks to Biden.

You have nothing to offer here.
Your words are empty and nothing to you have said could justify your claims.
What makes you think you are worthy of contributing to a philosophy forum?

[Walker]

I am made unworthy of the standards you apply to a topic of your personal, serious interest, by my lack of concern for providing your approved responses, and by my own intellectual deficiencies that fail to grasp an appropriate relationship with the importance of your words. Never-the-less, I shall endeavour to divine the undisclosed core meanings and impacts of future ponderations and perhaps participate as a minor player in your true purpose for being here.

[Sculptor]

I am made unworthy of the standards you apply to a topic of your personal, serious interest, by my lack of concern for providing your approved responses, and by my own intellectual deficiencies that fail to grasp an appropriate relationship with the importance of your words. Never-the-less, I shall endeavour to divine the undisclosed core meanings and impacts of future ponderations and perhaps participate as a minor player in your true purpose for being here.

Did you swallow a Thesausus?
Well allow me to invite you to consider that embellishing your text with a partially understood lexicon does not endear you to my graces.