While millions of people are spellbound by false conspiracy theories, the real conspiracies that are wrecking our world go about their business unheeded. Here are five genuine threats that everyone should know about—and take action on.
The world is awash in a deluge of dangerous conspiracy theories. Most notoriously, the bizarre QAnon fantasy postulates that a global child sex-trafficking ring is being run by liberal, Satan-worshiping pedophiles whose plot will be uncovered by President Donald Trump on a “day of reckoning” involving mass arrests. This surreal mass delusion is not the only one infecting millions of people around the world. Earlier this year, the Plandemic conspiracy video went viral on social media, instilling disinformation into millions of minds about Covid-19, falsely alleging that it was a hoax perpetrated by big business for the sake of profiteering by selling mass vaccinations.
One of the most harmful results of these bogus conspiracy theories is that they help deflect people’s attention from the real conspiracies that are systematically damaging billions of people around the world, destroying the living Earth, and—if left unchecked—may drive our entire civilization to collapse. These are the conspiracies everyone needs to know about. Unlike the QAnon and Plandemic nonsense, they are real. The facts about them are in the open, yet these lethal conspiracies hide in plain sight, flagrantly going about their destructive activities while millions of people have their attention diverted toward pernicious fictions.
Let’s take a look at five of the most damaging conspiracies out there. As you consider them, I invite you to ponder how it is that, while our mass media focuses attention on imaginary conspiracies, the real ones that threaten every one of us are barely even discussed.
1. Conspiracy to turn the world into a giant marketplace for the benefit of the wealthy elite
Back in 1947, as the world was rebuilding from the destruction of the Second World War, a few dozen free-market ideologues met in a luxury Swiss resort to form the Mont Pelerin Society—an organization devoted to spreading the ideology of neoliberalism throughout the world. Their ideas—that the free market should dominate virtually all aspects of society, that regulations should be dismantled, and that individual liberty should eclipse all other considerations of fairness, equity, or community welfare—were considered fanatical at the time. Over three decades, though, financed by wealthy donors, they assiduously expanded their plot for global domination, establishing networks of academics, businessmen, economists, journalists, and politicians, in global centers of power.
When the stagflation crisis of the 1970s threw classic Keynesian economics into disrepute, their moment of opportunity arrived. By 1985, with free market disciples Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher entrenched in power, they initiated a campaign to systematically transform virtually all aspects of life into an unrestrained marketplace, where everything could be bought and sold to the highest bidder, subject to no moral scruple. They crippled trade unions, tore up social safety nets, reduced tax rates for the wealthy, eliminated regulations, and instituted a massive transfer of wealth from society at large to the uber-elite. Every time a new crisis occurred of their own making, such as the Great Recession of 2008, they took advantage of the mayhem they caused to double down on their power, and extend their reach even further, bringing the ideology of the marketplace into domains, such as education, law enforcement, or wilderness preserves, that had previously been considered sacrosanct.
With the advent of the Covid-19 pandemic, this conspiracy has found yet another opportunity to squeeze wealth from the bulk of society into the hands of the few. In the United States, since the pandemic began, while 200,000 Americans have died from coronavirus and more than 50 million have lost their jobs, the collective wealth of this country’s billionaires has soared 29% to $3.8 trillion. Jeff Bezos alone could give every Amazon employee $105,000 and still be as wealthy as he was before coronavirus hit.
2. Conspiracy by transnational corporations to turn billions of people into addicts
In the 1920s, two ruthless men laid out a sinister scheme to gain control of the minds of Americans. Their plan? To identify people’s deeply buried needs and use subtle messaging to manipulate them into doing whatever they wanted without realizing it—even at the cost of their health and well-being. One of them, Edward Bernays, was Sigmund Freud’s nephew and used his uncle’s insights into the subconscious to develop his new methods. Their goal was to turn normal working Americans into manic consumers, training them to desire an ever-increasing amount of goods, and thereby converting their life’s energy into profit for American corporations. “We must shift America from a needs to a desires culture,” declared Bernays’ partner, Paul Mazur. “People must be trained to desire, to want new things, even before the old have been entirely consumed. We must shape a new mentality. Man’s desires must overshadow his needs.”
In 1928, Bernays proudly described how his techniques for mental manipulation had already permitted a small elite to control the minds of the American population:
The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government that is the true ruling power of this country.
We are governed, our minds molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. . . . In almost every act of our daily lives. . . we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons . . . who pull the wires which control the public mind.
Since then, this conspiracy has succeeded beyond its instigators’ wildest dreams. Corporations have perfected the technique of mind control by tweaking core human instincts that originally evolved to support our ancestors’ flourishing in hunter-gatherer bands—such as the desire for status or fear of exclusion—for their nefarious purposes.
Corporate predators have learned that the most valuable population to ensnare are children. In the sinister words of chief executive Wayne Chilicki, “When it comes to targeting kid consumers, we at General Mills . . . believe in getting them early and having them for life.” Children in the Global South are turned into junk food addicts with the same callous contempt that factory farms turn their animals into chicken nuggets. Half of the children in south Asia are now either undernourished or overweight, conditioned by pervasive advertising to spend what little money they have on the empty calories of junk food.
A new generation of mind controllers are now using sophisticated data mining technologies to inject their power even deeper into our minds. At the ominously named Stanford Persuasive Technology Lab, a modern-day Bernays named B. J. Fogg has taught budding entrepreneurs how to use “hot triggers” such as thumbs-up signs and “Like” statistics to activate short hits of dopamine in our brains that literally get us addicted to our screens. With social media now infiltrating every aspect of many teenagers’ lives, the power of predatory corporate advertising to control their minds for profit has become even more formidable. In 2017, a leaked document revealed Facebook boasting to advertisers how they can identify in real time when teenagers feel “insecure” and “worthless,” and would be most susceptible to a “confidence boost.”
3. Conspiracy to plunder the Global South for the benefit of the Global North
Ever since Portuguese and Spanish explorers set sail in the fifteenth century on a quest for wealth and power, a small population of white Europeans have conspired to use their technological advantage to despoil, plunder, and exploit the rest of the world’s wealth for their own benefit. With the Treaty of Saragossa in 1529, Spain and Portugal carved up the non-European continents between them for conquest and booty. After the Industrial Revolution, the countries of northern Europe took over the plot for global supremacy, devastating the lives of tens of millions of Africans mercilessly chained and shipped as slaves to the colonies.
After the abolition of the slave trade, the brutal exploitation continued through an international system of indentured labor. Having destroyed their livelihood in their native countries, European potentates transported more than 60 million desperate workers from India, China, and the Pacific islands to territories where they were needed, in what was frequently referred to as the “new form of slavery.” This vast global scheme of human trafficking was promoted by colonial magnates such as Cecil Rhodes who declared: “We must find new lands from which we can easily obtain raw materials and at the same time exploit the cheap slave labour that is available from the natives of the colonies. The colonies would also provide a dumping ground for the surplus goods produced in our factories.”
In more recent times, the plot continues in different guises. During the decades after the Second World War, Global South leaders who demanded a fair role in the economic system were systematically deposed in coups arranged by U.S., British, and French militaries. In a vast loan sharking scheme, countries impoverished by colonialism then racked up unsustainable debts forced on them by Global North banks. When they couldn’t pay them back without bankrupting their nations, they were coerced into so-called “structural adjustment programs” which opened their labor markets and natural resources to further plunder by the North’s transnational corporations. The World Bank, IMF, and World Trade Organization are all controlled by a few wealthy nations that set the terms for international trade, with the result that through a combination of illicit financial flows, debt interest payments, and profit repatriation, wealth continues to flow from the South to the North at the rate of about $3 trillion per year.
The income gap between Global North and South has quadrupled since 1960. Data from World Bank.
4. Conspiracy to hide the effects of climate breakdown for corporate profit
For over fifty years, fossil fuel executives have known about the reality of human-induced climate change, yet they spent most of that time deliberately concealing their knowledge and obfuscating public discussion on the topic so they could rake in trillions of dollars in profit. In 1968, the Stanford Research Institute alerted the American Petroleum Institute—the national trade association that represents America’s oil and natural gas industry—to the fact that CO2 emissions were accumulating in the atmosphere, and could reach 400 parts per million by 2000. Their report warned that rising CO2 levels would result in melting ice caps, rising seas, and serious environmental damage worldwide. Exxon scientists studied the issue further, reporting to management in 1977 that there was “overwhelming” consensus that fossil fuels were responsible for CO2 increases. In an internal Exxon memo in 1981, scientists raised the alarm that the company’s 50-year plan “will later produce effects which will indeed be catastrophic (at least for a substantial fraction of the Earth’s population).”
Exxon—and the other fossil fuel companies—knew their actions would lead to climate breakdown, and instead of trying to solve the problem, they lied to the public to hide their misdeeds. Following the example of the tobacco industry, which had already condemned millions to early deaths through cynical deception, they embarked on a concerted strategy to dupe the public by paying fake experts to publish papers; cherry picking selective data to support false conclusions; and sow their own wild conspiracy theories to deflect attention from their crimes.
As a result of their immoral plot, the world is now facing a dire climate emergency. If the fossil fuel companies had confronted the issue honestly from the outset, there could have been a managed transition to renewable energy over decades, causing little disruption and saving millions of lives through reduced pollution. Instead, it will now take an immediate global mobilization to avoid a 2° C rise in temperature over preindustrial levels. The world is currently on track for more than a 3° C rise this century, with the high likelihood of stumbling into a tipping point cascade that quickly leads to a three- and four-degree world—one that becomes rapidly unrecognizable, with the Amazon rainforest turning into searing desert; coastal cities inundated by flooding; super-hurricanes tearing the windows out of skyscrapers; persistent massive droughts and famine across the world; and hundreds of millions of desperate climate refugees.
Meanwhile, by putting billions of human lives in jeopardy, the four biggest fossil fuel companies—ExxonMobil, Royal Dutch Shell, Chevron, and BP—have made $2 trillion in profits since they began their campaign of lies in 1990.
5. Conspiracy to grow the global economy indefinitely, while killing most of life on Earth and risking the collapse of civilization.
In a barely noticed footnote to the daily news, the World Wildlife Fund recently released a shocking report revealing a devastating 68% worldwide decline in animal populations in the past fifty years. Even this dismal news hides more gut-wrenching statistics, such as the 84% decline in amphibians, reptiles, and fishes, or the 94% decline in animal populations in South America.
This is just the latest bulletin marking the demise of nature as it succumbs to the relentless growth of human economic activity across the world. Three-quarters of all land has been appropriated for human purposes, either turned into farmland, covered by concrete, or flooded by reservoirs. Three-quarters of rivers and lakes are used for crop or livestock cultivation, with many of the world’s greatest rivers, such as the Ganges, Yangtze, or Nile, no longer reaching the sea. Half of the world’s forests and wetlands have disappeared—the Amazon rainforest alone is vanishing at the rate of an acre every second.
Meanwhile, the world’s Gross Domestic Product is forecast to nearly triple by the middle of this century, by which time it’s estimated that 5 billion people will be facing water shortages, 95% of the Earth’s arable land will be degraded—and there will be more plastic than fish in the ocean. It’s been estimated by leading experts that, by the end of this century, half of the world’s estimated 8 million species will be extinct or at the brink of extinction unless humanity changes its ways. These depredations, combined with climate breakdown, are believed by an increasing number of analysts to spell the likely collapse of modern civilization.
The underlying cause of this headlong rush to catastrophe is our society’s obsession with economic growth as the sole criterion for measuring success. A dangerous myth of “green growth” propagated by techno-optimists argues that through technological innovation, GDP can become “decoupled” from resource use and carbon emissions, permitting limitless growth on a finite planet. This has been shown to be nothing but a fantasy: it hasn’t happened so far, and even the most wildly aggressive assumptions for greater efficiency lead to unsustainable consumption of global resources.
So who, in this case, are the conspirators? If you’re living a normal life in an affluent country, you don’t need to look further than the mirror. The wealthy OECD nations, with only 18% of the global population, account for 74% of global GDP, and the richest 10% of people are responsible for more than half the world’s carbon emissions.
Those of us who continue to benefit from the inequities dealt us by the global system, and aren’t actively engaged in curbing it, are like a few shipwrecked survivors on a gilded lifeboat kicking others desperately scrambling for life into the ocean to protect their own safety and comfort. We may not be actively kicking their knuckles, but by allowing this reckless system of unsustainable growth to continue, we’re implicitly making the same choice.
So, the next time someone tells you to “do your research” on their new conspiracy theory, please point them to the real conspiracies that are threatening life on this beautiful but troubled planet. The good news is that, since they’re real conspiracies, there is something we can do about them. We can vote in politicians that promise to peel back the neoliberal nightmare; advocate for curbs on predatory corporate activities; support the Global South in changing the terms of international trade; declare a Climate Emergency in our community to turn around carbon emissions; and become active in the movement to transform our global society to an Ecological Civilization—one that is based on life-affirming principles rather than accumulating wealth.
Jeremy Lent is author of The Patterning Instinct: A Cultural History of Humanity’s Search for Meaning, which investigates how different cultures have made sense of the universe and how their underlying values have changed the course of history. His upcoming book, The Web of Meaning: Integrating Science and Traditional Wisdom to Find Our Place in the Universe, will be published in Spring 2021 (New Society Publishers: US/Canada | Profile Books: UK/Commonwealth). For more information visit jeremylent.com.
Patterns of Meaning 
The real question remains, ever more pertinent each day as the worlds forests burn, waterways choke on human effluent—including the vast array of plastics that continue to choke the rest of our biome: where is the off switch?!?
Being aligned to all of the observations in the article, having made similar investigations and verifications (some through lived experience) it is clear that the rallying cries to “awakening” also require additional insights into where best to apply pressure to dismantle the multiple apparatuses in place sustaining the global system of un-sustainability. While it is easy to defer our “salvation” to the political elites, this tactic has resulted in very little to no effective change since the 1970’s.
It seems the problems with our world run far deeper than the systems of governance the human animals have put into place failing. It is WE HUMANS ourselves that are failing, with the failure of our institutions and made-up systems only serving to undermine ALL LIFE on this planet. Further, it seems the collective “WE” are all too willing to defer decision-making and actions to others in the wan hope that we can continue to carry on as we always have. As the old anonymous saying goes: “if everyone is responsible, no one takes responsibility.”
So how does one effectively decouple from an entirely debilitating belief system (capitalism/fiat currency) while remaining in the same social “reality” as the vast majority of humans eagerly participating in this delusional thinking?
In most intervention strategies, the first step—recognizing that there is a problem—needs to be followed closely by the second; believing in something greater than ourselves will aid our efforts. We then need to acknowledge our own particular errors while under the influence. From there, a commitment to change our ways is required to help make concrete the change that needs to occur in order for any significant shift in behaviour.
Until a clear path for the vast majority enslaved by the new variant of feudalism is broadly communicated, I fear we will continue this seeming plateau of hand-wringing at our past errors, with no clear course of action for the overwhelming majority of modern “slaves/peasants.”
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I too have been a student of these trends during the last20 years. And looking for the off switch. One holy grail has been evolution of consciousness of our species… nope not enough momentum for lift-off. Another has been the 3.5% argument (Chenoweth et al) that so few can change regimes. Nope, not enough sustained commitment. (See Full Spectrum Resistance by Aric McBay and http://www.nonviolence.org)
Insight: all civilizations collapse and most rebuild some version of themselves (Tainter) but we are at the endgame of energy scarcity (no green renewables will not suffice or in time), and so the best we can do is minimize the hardest and cruelest consequences. See Sid Smith essay and vids http://www.bsidneysmith.com for layman’s discussion of energy, adaptive cycle, human agency.
See David Fleming’s Lean Logic for a thorough examination of what could be the necessary conditions for building a sequel to an energy-rich market economy (rigged by the five complicities listed above).
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Latest version of the five conspiracies aka worldviews can be attributed to Catherine Fitts at Soleri.com. Here’s a good interview with graphics: footage to be be used in upcoming documentary “Planet Lockdown” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1-0XKYAZII&feature=emb_logo
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Dearest Jeremy,
Your writing is cogent and timely. I do not have knowledge to add to the climate change discussions.
I strongly disagree with the comments that over population is the problem. The desperately poor suffer enormously and will suffer more unless we collectively learn to live with our imperfections, vulnerability, our fear of complexity and our inability to face uncertainty. It is not the one – two billion living very difficult lives , who are putting life on our planet in danger. Underlying all the realities you cogently argue is the fact that we humans are adapted to living in unstable hierarchical societies .
Over commercialization, over consumption and deregulation are all promoted by a tiny oligarchy not by the masses who are very poor and tend to chose large families.
Everything the great Rudolf Virchow the founder of cellular pathology said almost two centuries ago applies today. His report on the horrific conditions in Silesia during an epidemic , which are easily accessed on line are completely relevant today !
As Virchow says we mans often adapt and despair in response extreme hierarchical societies. These societies are based on domination and thrive as the rules are simple and we all hate complexity. Domination thrives on fear ,perfectionism,” invulnerability “, ” Survival of the most vicious and violence. This leads to war, grief, pain and a desire for retribution and endless traumatic stress and illness, The industrialization of warfare and food production underlies our incredibly unstable, imbalanced and destructive global economy. The massive suffering unleashed since the industrialization of warfare cannot be underestimated and certainly triggered the population explosion in south east Asia since 1975.
The formation of the Quincy Institute to tackle America’s tragic addiction to endless war is a small step in the right direction. Please support this courageous and wise concerted effort to switch from endless war and unlimited suffering, trauma and illness to endless diplomacy and hope that we can find solutions. Ending ” endless war” is one of the needed off switches.
Peace-making, peace- building and reconciliation are of course a hundred times harder than war-mongering and hence only those with real grit tackle this critically important and challenging work.
Clearly The US desperately needs a chance to heal from constant war .
Most critically the US needs a movement to support all mothers and fathers and their babies. Neuroscience has caught up with Indigenous and other Wisdom leaders and we now know that 50 % of brain development occurs in the first nine months of life . The first five years are critical. Investing in a peaceful, safe, nurturing, creative and stimulating environment for all babies born in the US and supporting all their care-givers is essential for the country to heal and recover from constant intergenerational trauma .
Between brutal colonization, brutal slavery and the agony of industrialized and nuclear warfare, every American is in desperate need of emotional healing. A majority need help to grow their telomeres.
Agony, grief, pain, mutilation, death suffering and misery come from the barrels of guns. America and Americans desperately need peace. Halting violence is an off -switch.
To create a great future for all, why not use your collective formidable talents to persuade Jeff Bezos to create a wonderful legacy by funding a National all inclusive ,nurturing environment for every baby born in the USA. As you note, Jeff has the funds to provide prenatal, labour and delivery and post natal care with access to the best of Western Medicine with well trained Doulas ,paid parental leave and early childhood enrichment for at least the first five years of life .
As you point out Jeff has the money. He certainly has powerful organizational skills. Use your collective skills to reach out to him and to persuade him to pay for free maternity , paternity and child care to help rebuild his suffering country. As Frederick Douglass so very wisely said ” It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men .”
Another vital off switch is ensuring that every baby is welcomed , loved and protected. We know that Hitler , like every other brutal autocrat was severely abused as a child. His mother suffered depression and was grieving the loss of his siblings to Diphtheria, a horrible illness and cause of death. His father beat him under the misapprehension that somehow beating makes children better. Child abuse was rampant in Germany between the First and Second World Wars. The populace was doubly traumatized by the nightmare of the First World War , the humiliation of Versailles and the economic hardship of the economic collapse of the 1930s. All are major risk factor for domestic and political violence . Many wonderful people find the resources to change and to avoid abusing their own children. Ending the cycles of pain and suffering triggered by domestic violence and war is an essential off switch .
For more information on the health effects of domestic violence , review the Kaiser Permanente -CDC Adverse Childhood experiences studies. Dr. Rianne Eisler’s Centre for Partnership Studies is another rich resource, as is the Quincy Institute
In Gratitude
Frances
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Thank you for your words.I am a survivor of family violence, and am trying to get the message through that the change needs to start with paying attention to your children. Forget about working hard for the big mortgage, at the expense of your children not having your time
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The destruction of the natural world at the hands of corporatists, and their employees, conservative politicians, should be now, and will be soon, story number one in every newspaper on the planet.
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Your arguments are sound. As a retired science journalist I concur that unlimited free market economies breed the kind of super-ego that even manages to become a president. We need to curb rampant capitalism, not expand it, and we need to do so quickly while embracing the science of global warming in order to bring every facility to combat and the other, as yet, pandemics hiding around the corner. Oh and the idiot called G. Panich, who thinks Covid-19 is a hoax and there is such a thing as satanic ritual abuse ought to be (well you can guess what ought to be done to him)….
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I do not agree with you Jeremy…. CV19 is a HOAX & I personally know of victims subjected to freemason satanic abuse !!!
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Dummy.
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Plandemic is not a conspiracy theory film. Only those who have not watched it would think so. That Big Pharma will do anything for profit is entirely consistent with the supposed conspiracy facts
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I watched the doc and I do think it is confabulated theory, tho with plausible elements. What theory wouldn’t? But overall, I read and listen critically and those guys doing the Plandemic are up to no good, at the very least, lining their own pockets. fwiw.
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Sure, all of the mentioned have been occurring but, the real question is why and what can be done to change this.
This then becomes a question of what the most common denominator for the causes of all of the above is and, since we are all human, it should be searched for and hopefully found in the human nature and our ability to act as what we see is our best interest.
This best interest however, is something which, from a purely evolutionary perspective can be misleading as, for example, we would opt for eating high calories foods over a more balanced diet since we would not know when our meal would be coming. This in turn, leads to obesity unless we use or higher cognitive powers and our will to restrain having a bigger picture in mind.
We all know this, however, some of us are still too selfish (this could be an evolutionary trait as well) to restrain their urges for short term gain (getting rich from exploiting fossil fuels) casing the long term demise of the whole ecosystem.
Therefore, this can be looked at as a next evolutionary step which requires the dominant species to act in less selfish (short term) way and more in a long term (more balanced and sustainable way) in order to get to the next evolutionary stage.
So here we are at the precipice of yet another evolutionary stage which so far it is looking like we as a species are not going to cross successfully.
Book by Clive Hamilton called Requiem for a Species
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Requiem_for_a_Species
attempts to answer some of the questions as to why we continue with our climate denial behaviours.
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While I agree with your premisse, I believe we’re beyond looking a guilty party to blame. If we don’t sew a parachute quickly… In a ‘Thelma and Louise’ analogy, we’re already in the air over the canyon. If we don’t sew a parachute quickly…
The demise of humanity will be a result of a lack of Ego-Resilience, or, our intelligence having been defied by our ego. We are reasonable enough to understand that we’re doomed if we don’t change our ways, yet we refuse to change.
Looking at humanity’s position (societal, and ecological) and trajectory, we’re doomed.
So what, the next species will emerge, and maybe do it better, or not.
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All these things are bad and real. BUT THEY ARE NOT CONSPIRACIES, a word which implies secret nefarious planning. Like most bad actions, there has never been secrecy about any of this! The elites have been quite open about their aims and reprehensible actions.
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BigC have been focused on conspiracy to deceive, obfuscate and to delay any control over their impact on anthropogenic climate change. This is not just conspiracy but genocide by any other name.
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Would it help if we called them conspiracies of un- or sub- conscious forces like, say, those at work in a global consciousness structure in which “awareness has been diffused so completely that it is lost in the impersonal anonymity of the corporate economic system” or something equally pithy? (The Suffering System) Surely, these patterns of Self-destructive insanity weren’t manifested at the direction of a fully aware and conscious entity.
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would subliminal messaging be more like it?
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Back in the 70’s a very popular book by Marilyn Ferguson, science writer, was The Aquarian Conspiracy. It was thrilling to read, with the basic understanding that conspiracy doesn’t have to be nefarious or premeditated and has the root meaning of ‘to breathe together’. How quaint eh!
I like your point about openly pursued policies and metapolicies: but the consequences have been hidden in plain sight for decades, since Bernays and co and even before with any colonial aggression. Now we some of us can see the consequences more clearly and are still not willing to sacrifice what it will take to extend the glidepath of industrial civilization a few decades longer.
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It sets in my consciousness an impetus to re-organize my daily choices about how I can resist this madness. Do I really want a new car or new clothes? Do I really need that bag of cheezies? Are famous people happy? Once I recalibrate my own habits I can live as though my actions can bring some minor healing.
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Infinite growth on a finite planet, what could possibly go wrong?
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Brilliant way to reframe the current problems. Good job Jeremy.
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ffs, you haven’t a clue what you are talking about! Nothing about the economic reality of the mortgage crisis in 2007!?? In fact nothing about economic reality in general… Only read a paragraphed here a sentence there…but will simple focus on one point…carbon dioxide doesn’t cause global warming. It isn’t even a primary contributor to the greenhouse effect without which we wouldn’t be breathing… but will summarise. Atomic mass is to high for it to remain suspended in the atmosphere after sun set. And fill a bucket with co2 (fire extinguisher or gas bottle) fill a bucket with hydrogen gas (get a floating balloon), get a lit taper. What happens to the flame in each bucket (if you didn’t realise the bucket of hydrogen needs to be suspended upside down), to complete the taper experiment.
The conspiracy we need to be concerned about is illiteracy and ignorance. Doubt you have even read a legislative document or the constitution in its entirety!?
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This is our present economic reality. It is neither “natural” nor inevitable, however, that we be stuck with it for all eternity.
“There is no alternative,” sayeth Margaret Thatcher? Well, you could’ve fooled me because plenty of alternative ideas and movements long have been quietly percolating in the wings, e.g.
Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st-Century Economist; a burgeoning revolution in Economics education; the New Economy Coalition; and the list goes on and on.
I suppose such alternatives are pretty easy to ignore in the present political climate. Those that take into account the unique requirements and talents of diverse geographical regions and communities in relation to interconnected planetary ecosystems and boundaries, I find intriguing. Those that insist a singular “solution” must be implemented and centrally managed by a “global authority,” not so much.
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why be so belligerent Craig? What’s under that anger temper tantrum?
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You’ve made some great observations Mr. Lent but I do take issue with #4.
We’ve come a long way scientifically from the overwhelming consensus you mention in ’77 and ’81. Now it seems that the green movement has been hijacked by the establishment very decisively through a persistent propaganda campaign to convince us that humans/CO2 are the main drivers of climate change but the latest science is showing a much more complicated story.
Volcanism, cosmic rays affecting cloud cover (subject of a recent experiment at CERN), and the cycles of the sun are turning out to be much bigger drivers. These fall into the natural variability side of the equation which has been deliberately underreported as the groupthink went along with the seemingly “settled” science.
A huge percentage of the warming at the poles is due to the ozone hole. “Gases that deplete the ozone layer could be responsible for up to half of the effects of climate change observed in the Arctic from 1955 to 2005….Ozone-depleting substances, including chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), are known to warm the atmosphere thousands of times more efficiently than carbon dioxide. ”
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00108-2
The FF industries (currently getting slaughtered by demand destruction with the current shutdown) have diversified their holdings into “solutions” for the climate crisis and are making a killing off of governments & individuals worldwide. The reality seems that we are still utterly dependent on fossil fuels despite our best efforts. There is no viable alternative (within this paradigm of civilization) unless we embrace degrowth, simplify our lifestyles, or release some topsecret amazing free energy device of some sort.
Concerningly a recent paper suggested that the North Atlantic current is slowing (due to Arctic freshwater melt) and may trigger a mini ice age as a compensatory mechanism which has happened in the past.
Also we are likely heading into a Grand Solar Minimum after the current solar cycle peaks in 2025.
Cold seems to be a more dire threat rather that the endless warming we are told is inevitable.
An excellent resource to explore the more comprehensive view of climate/cosmic science can be found at suspiciousobservers.org. Also Adapt2030 goes into the GSM more in depth.
Collapse seems baked into the cake but perhaps we can turn the ship of fools around (maybe through a collective epiphany) to mitigate the worst of it and create a better world.
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Arguing about CO2, and its effect or not, only addresses a small part of what we are doing to our life support system. Everywhere huge swathes of the natural world are being systematically destroyed, including a lot of the earth we use for agriculture. Our whole world is (or should be) a balanced system of interrelationships, each dependent upon another. We are rapidly removing so many of the “blocks” in our “tumble tower” that it is in imminent danger of collapse. Many are trying to do what they can to restore and regenerate, so that life can continue as it should – while big money continues to trash our world, showing no concern whatever – THAT is what we need to address.
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“Half of the children in south Asia are now either undernourished or overweight…”
Or both, as explained in detail by Gary Taubes in his seminal book “Good Calories, Bad Calories” (published in the UK under the hopeless title “The Diet Dilemma”).
Poor people increasingly can afford to buy little more than refined carbohydrates. These contain few, if any, essential nutrients – just nutrient-free energy. As they pass from youth to middle age, they tend to become obese due to the excess calories and deficincy of real nutrients.
When a person who is lacking certain essential nutrients is supplied with food that lacks those nutrients, he goes on and on eating, as his body keeps him hungry in the vain hope that some time he will eat the nutrients he needs. Thus someone starved of protein, healthy animal fats, or certain vitamins or minerals, will go on eating bread, cereals, potatoes, and sugar because he remains hungry for what he lacks.
It’s quite diabolical.
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I feel your inclusion of climate change spoils the overall impression. Certainly the most lurid pictures painted of future scenarios are frightening. But the evidence isn’t there. It is just as likely that global temperatures will fall during this century.
What is a truly serious issue is overpopulation, which lies at the root of almost every other problem: pollution, resource exhaustion, species extinction, etc. If human beings prove incapable of managing their own population, they don’t deserve to survive – and won’t.
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I beg to differ, Tom, there is overwhelming evidence for human caused climate heating. See Pottsdam Institute for Climate Impacts Research and especially their seminal Hothouse Earth paper.
And yes, population is the elephant in t he room which perforce is a driver of resource depletion, species extinction, waste accumulation.
See Jack Alpert’s http://www.skil.org site for a systems engineer’s analysis and scenario for resolution (albeit not imaginable for humanity as we exist today).
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An excellent analysis – but with one caveat. I wonder whether “conspiracy” is quite the right word. Conspiracy implies, after all, that the various participants in the various horrors sit around like Guy Fawkes and his chums plotting to bring about their ends. It strikes me, though, that the reality is less formal – and more effective. That is, the various proponents of neoliberalism (and the rest) do not need to convene and conspire in order to work together and take over the world. It is necessary only that a fair number of people in positions of influence are convinced by neoliberal theory, and see that it provides moral justification for the single-minded pursuit of wealth (summarized by Gordon Gekko in Wall Street as “Greed is good”). Then they all start behaving as neoliberals (ie, stop being held back by social conscience) and so, between them, even though working independently, they become a movement. Natural selection is enough to account for how this happens: those who do not pick up the neoliberal baton lose out to those who do. It’s not so much conspiracy as old school tie. They all belong to the same club.
Strength to your arm
Colin Tudge
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Those 5 conspirancies have been desighned and worked over for quite a some lengthy time.
The 90% can’t change that. And the TOP is not prepared to change it. The World is just sliding slowly into a No Return situation.
Don’t forget, that we need to arm ourselves with all the Nuclear Weapons, to protect ourselves, from a devilish government.
Who says we need those Weapons in the first place. What Mindset was at work there? The way I see it, the whole World, Our Planet, is doomed, one way or another. So, in the end, it does ‘nt matter, what will cause our demise. Corporations, with raking in trillions of Dollars every year or our anniliation by nuclear warfare.
This is the way things are run now.
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The article is good, but in the third ‘conspiracy proposal’ you mention Spain and Portugal and compare them with the rest of the European people, which in this case are the anglo-saxon-protestan-anglican culture, saying this:
“a small population of white Europeans have conspired to use their technological advantage to despoil, plunder”
But in the case of the iberian people, they were went through a diferent path. The starting was the same, tha’t’s true, because in that moment of History, the humanity didn’t know another way to act, but after that, Spain was the first empire in to stop their conquest and thinking about what their were doing. However, the anglosaxon empire, quite the contrary, kept ther “despoil and plunder” in America, India, Caribbe, etc.
I think it’s importan to mention this.
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Jeremy, for the most part, I agree with your points and your perspectives, however, I think you made a critical flaw in your introduction in this article. You open an article on Conspiracies with a slander of Conspiracy theories. A conspiracy is “a surreptitious plan formulated in secret by two or more persons; plot.” A theory is “a proposed explanation whose status is still conjectural and subject to experimentation, in contrast to well-established propositions that are regarded as reporting matters of actual fact.” So a “conspiracy theory” is an effort to connect the dots of evidence to seek out the truth.
You slander the idea that big business(big pharma) would conduct a devious plot to take advantage of the masses for profiting by selling vaccines, but then you go on to point out 5 situations that all rest on the concept of big business taking advantage of the masses or the planet. If that is not contradicting yourself, I don’t know what is! Big business and especially big pharma has a long tainted history of deceiving the public for profits. Terribly BAD example to use.
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