h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

meant t say: you can use their online version, too.

http://oxforddictionaries.com/?attempted=true

Thank you for that link. They must be less aggressive than Merriam Webster, who pop up on my Barney Google search like a bully pushing to the front of the chow line.

I don't want to meet any conspiracy theorists, I really don't. Now I am paranoid that I might. I think this essay will protect me though.

Heh-heh.

Hi there Dmitri! I enjoyed reading this piece. I'm a believer in conspiracies but I don't have any specific theories! I only know a number of things, firstly of all, that elites *do* brainwash people. I know of a number of different kinds of brainwashing that was really done to large groups of people, and I understand some of the ways in which it works. I know there are systems of brainwashing still going on that *trap* people thinking things that are actually harmful to themselves, their children, and other people, but to the benefit of particular elite groups. I know that there are some of these elites that do this without even fully knowing what they are doing or how it is benefiting them ... the system has become a thing in itself that propagates itself almost independently of the wills of the people involved in it, whether at the top or at the bottom.

Manipulation, exploitation ... this is going on on a massive scale. Who are the 'elites' anyways? There are many different elites. There's a political elite, but my view is that generally these elites are not the worst. Political leaders get changed relatively often; being 'in power' does not come with perks alone - some of those 'in power' live very stressful and unsatisfying lives. Many of those 'in power' do in fact have good intentions and many might truly believe that they're doing good. Many don't.

There ARE those leaders who are in it for the power, and who abuse that power on a breathtaking scale. We don't hear the full story of what they all DO with their power but we sometimes get little glimpses. The recognised dictators of the world have done some pretty messed up things to pretty large numbers of human beings. And it goes on. Take good old Ghadaffi ... until very recently he was a very popular personage here in South Africa, and has schmoozed with many of 'our' leaders. Now he's waging a war against his own people and suddenly is a lot less popular. We hear now that he's giving his troops VIAGRA to aid them in raping ... part of a campaign of intimidation. Is this true? Is this a conspiracy theory? It MIGHT be true and if so it gives an indication how perverse some leaders could be.

And also think how easily 'leaders' could hide their crimes. They could give orders that never get recorded officially ... there could be a long series of intermediates between their original orders and their final carrying out. Inferiors at many levels could be scapegoated.

Sometimes a conspiracy happens loud and clear in broad daylight and nobody notices - or cares, or does anything. In Rwanda, before the genocide, plans for it was openly broadcast on public radio, using very thinly disguised phrases such as 'cockroaches' for the Tutsis, and 'cut down the tall trees' (Tutsis are generally taller than Hutus). There were huge orders for machetes and these were distributed to people on a large, organised scale before the massacre. Anybody ought to have been able to figure out what was going on, but nobody paid attention or did a thing, and almost a million people were slaughtered by their own compatriots and neighbours.

There's this. People today are very apathetic. I mean even about stuff like the Rwanda massacre ... people in other countries could say, 'so what? Who cares?' This apathy is something I think is being engineered by those who would take advantage of us ... those who want to get rid of many or most of us ... or those who just don't want us to interfere in their plans (their plans which involve us, in some way, but not in a way we ought to have any say in). Take how apathetic the average American or Brit is today. Take how shockingly ignorant about important things the average American or Brit is today. Is that coincidence or is it part of a plan?

Whose plan? I don't personally believe in a single Evil Elite that rules the world. I think there are many Elites, some working together, some opposing each other. I think we must fear more the business elite than the political elite. They are many times richer and money is power and where there's power, there's abuse of power.

But it's in the interest of the business elite that the 'consumers' be gullible, not particularly bright, small-minded and self-centred, and not very concerned about the 'bigger picture' ... not concerned about other people, not concerned about the world their children will have to live in; ultimately, so confused and befuddled as to not even recognise their *own* best interests. Now if the majority of the 'consumers' of the world are like this ... would that be a very good world to be in?

The 'conspiracy' is simply that there are forces that are keeping the world cr*p for their own short-sighted aims, when actually it needn't be that way. Along the way there could be wars, genocides, brainwashing, pollution, environmental destruction, poverty, social degradation, all sorts of things that are unnecessary, as a result.

The problem of 'conspiracy theories' is that these can also be fabricated by the elite to hide what is really going on ... AND they can be fabricated by misguided souls who sense that there's something wrong but can't get anything concrete until they start discerning patterns ... which patterns might be just in their own minds

I agree with everything you said, Willem. Very well put.

Often, the 'conspiracy' is just a concatenation of unfortunate events due to the factor you mentioned - shortsightedness.

The main problem is the mental laziness of everybody else. People get angry when somebody points out that there's a hole in their logic.

Why? Because it's too much trouble to think about it all. And it might be inconvenient.

Or such thinking might lead to the sort of burnout you mention - inventing patterns for their own sakes. You and I and Professor John Forbes Nash know all about this, I suspect...

Last week, I discovered three - count 'em, THREE - new conspiracy theories. (New to me, anyway.) Two would make fantastic scifi plots - and have, I suspect.

One looked promising to me, and was interesting to think about, so I worte a guide entry about it: A84012040. If you have time, you might read it, as I will remove it if people demand too many extra sections to explain it all.

I have read that Dmitri! And I already knew about it, ha ha! I'll comment about it over there. What are the other two new conspiracy theories you stumbled upon?

I think what helps me immensely is that I understand paranoia from my own example, I can undestand it as a phenomenon and how it works ... I can these days function fairly normally because I can correct my own paranoid tendencies. Well, most of them! There are parts I cannot correct for because I don't *really* know exactly what is going on!

That, my friend, is the human condition. And what about all the other billions of poor souls out there who only THINK they know what is going on?

The other two nutty theories involve our moon.

One was that the moon is an alien spaceship that is responsible for our 'reality', like a giant thought projector. I thought that one was poetic and kinda cool. (I hasten to add, all you fellow nuts out there: THIS ISN'T TRUE. The moon is innocent! Besides, your tinfoil hats will block the thought waves. Seriously.)

The other emantes from Africa - at least, the guy who claimed to have been part of it lived in Africa, Rwanda, I think. Anyway, he said he was part of Apollo 20 - I know, I know, there was no Apollo 20 - and they landed on the dark side of the moon and saw ancient aliens, miraculously preserved. Not as cool, although the videos on Youtube are mildly entertaining.