7 ms·

I think there is a fairly popular conspiracy theory that Musk is a "plant" by "the elite" or something to become Emperor of Earth. Or something. With the idea

by ilaksh 5y ago

I think there is a fairly popular conspiracy theory that Musk is a "plant" by "the elite" or something to become Emperor of Earth. Or something. With the idea that his life is somehow scripted and/or he gets special breaks in order to fulfill some secret plan.

bspammer 5y ago
I’ve realised recently how much of conspiracy theories are wishful thinking - theorists actually desperately want them to be true. It’s comforting to imagine there’s a reason things happen in the world.
- okareaman 5y ago
  “The main thing that I learned about conspiracy theory, is that conspiracy theorists believe in a conspiracy because that is more comforting. The truth of the world is that it is actually chaotic. The truth is that it is not The Iluminati, or The Jewish Banking Conspiracy, or the Gray Alien Theory. The truth is far more frightening - Nobody is in control. The world is rudderless.” ~~ Alan Moore
  - AndrewBissell 5y ago
    As someone who has delved into parapolitics and conspiratorial topics for the past year, I can assure you that precisely the opposite is the case, and it is a profoundly disorienting and discomfiting experience. It is actually the conspiracy denialists who are embracing a perspective for the sake of the comfort it provides. "This can't be happening, not to me and my loved ones!"
    - okareaman 5y ago
      You mean people have plans and agendas that sometimes work and sometimes don't, like Coke's plan to switch to Classic Coke that didn't work out because they added more salt and sugar to make it more addictive but it ruined the taste? Or do you mean secret groups that run the world behind the scenes?
      - pbak 5y ago
        No, nothing as pedestrian as Coke, nothing as exciting as a single secret group running the world. Maybe one or more worldwide conspiracies with a very banal kind of evil at their core :greed. Here's a scenario. Something like a bunch of suits in a pharmaceutical company's boardroom deciding that a pandemic (or cigarettes), are too good an occasion not do bonkers profits, despite millions of deaths, ethics and morals be damned. It's a criminal enterprise, so nobody's taking notes during that meeting to bunk, debunk, rebunk, or factcheck anything about it later on. Then said boardroom mofo's hire a "dark" PR firm masquerading as a law firm. Said legal firm notices there's a legal provision which could block the profit making, for example a 100% efficient treatment using a 2$, 70 year old drug, ivermetcin, so there wouldn't be need for pharma's yearly booster totally experimental mRNA shot which hasn't yet even started Stage 1 trials, except on rats. So said law firm orchestrates a worldwide political, bureaucratic and media campaign to completely stifle diffusion of the cheap medicine's protocol. Sadly, making and mass producing a new experimental vaccine ain't easy, and it takes 6 months to start deliveries. A million or two die. Thankfully, western audiences don't five a flying f.. about what happens in on the other poorer continents and countries (Argentina, India, Mexico, Vietnam, Eastern Europe, Switzerland (!), where the drug works wonders in stopping the pandemic dead in its tracks. Also sadly, it just happens the main guy in charge of pandemic response is in daily contact with the boardroom mofo's. So the campaign works and the pharma sells hundreds of millions of doses, which only work for a year, the need a "booster". Now multiply this scenario by "N" industry majors in "M" industries, and you have a whole bunch'a money corrupting a whole bunch'a people illegaly and covertly, in addition to their upfront public political lobbying. That begins to look like one or more secret cartels controlling the world, and some people start to feel something is wrong, without knowing what, and they get paranoid and irrational. They are called conspiracy nuts. You are called the normal person. You are called this because you don't believe anything like this happens daily, as the TV box says that to you everything is OK. You believe that despite a two hundred years of news archives, and history books replete with thousands of examples of criminal, intelligence, political, military, revolutionary, corporate, religious conspiracies. Funny how easily we judge others, isn't it ?
        AndrewBissell 5y ago
AndrewBissell 5y ago
He's definitely way too loose of a cannon to be slated for "Emperor of Earth," but Musk is definitely being propped up as the friendly face of authoritarian efforts like blanketing the whole earth with satellite internet (needed to get autonomous weapons working), or converting the vehicle fleet to far more grid dependent and more highly surveillled EVs.

by ilaksh 5y ago

bspammer 5y ago

I’ve realised recently how much of conspiracy theories are wishful thinking - theorists actually desperately want them to be true. It’s comforting to imagine there’s a reason things happen in the world.

okareaman 5y ago
“The main thing that I learned about conspiracy theory, is that conspiracy theorists believe in a conspiracy because that is more comforting. The truth of the world is that it is actually chaotic. The truth is that it is not The Iluminati, or The Jewish Banking Conspiracy, or the Gray Alien Theory. The truth is far more frightening - Nobody is in control. The world is rudderless.” ~~ Alan Moore
- AndrewBissell 5y ago
  As someone who has delved into parapolitics and conspiratorial topics for the past year, I can assure you that precisely the opposite is the case, and it is a profoundly disorienting and discomfiting experience. It is actually the conspiracy denialists who are embracing a perspective for the sake of the comfort it provides. "This can't be happening, not to me and my loved ones!"
  - okareaman 5y ago
    You mean people have plans and agendas that sometimes work and sometimes don't, like Coke's plan to switch to Classic Coke that didn't work out because they added more salt and sugar to make it more addictive but it ruined the taste? Or do you mean secret groups that run the world behind the scenes?
    - pbak 5y ago
      No, nothing as pedestrian as Coke, nothing as exciting as a single secret group running the world. Maybe one or more worldwide conspiracies with a very banal kind of evil at their core :greed. Here's a scenario. Something like a bunch of suits in a pharmaceutical company's boardroom deciding that a pandemic (or cigarettes), are too good an occasion not do bonkers profits, despite millions of deaths, ethics and morals be damned. It's a criminal enterprise, so nobody's taking notes during that meeting to bunk, debunk, rebunk, or factcheck anything about it later on. Then said boardroom mofo's hire a "dark" PR firm masquerading as a law firm. Said legal firm notices there's a legal provision which could block the profit making, for example a 100% efficient treatment using a 2$, 70 year old drug, ivermetcin, so there wouldn't be need for pharma's yearly booster totally experimental mRNA shot which hasn't yet even started Stage 1 trials, except on rats. So said law firm orchestrates a worldwide political, bureaucratic and media campaign to completely stifle diffusion of the cheap medicine's protocol. Sadly, making and mass producing a new experimental vaccine ain't easy, and it takes 6 months to start deliveries. A million or two die. Thankfully, western audiences don't five a flying f.. about what happens in on the other poorer continents and countries (Argentina, India, Mexico, Vietnam, Eastern Europe, Switzerland (!), where the drug works wonders in stopping the pandemic dead in its tracks. Also sadly, it just happens the main guy in charge of pandemic response is in daily contact with the boardroom mofo's. So the campaign works and the pharma sells hundreds of millions of doses, which only work for a year, the need a "booster". Now multiply this scenario by "N" industry majors in "M" industries, and you have a whole bunch'a money corrupting a whole bunch'a people illegaly and covertly, in addition to their upfront public political lobbying. That begins to look like one or more secret cartels controlling the world, and some people start to feel something is wrong, without knowing what, and they get paranoid and irrational. They are called conspiracy nuts. You are called the normal person. You are called this because you don't believe anything like this happens daily, as the TV box says that to you everything is OK. You believe that despite a two hundred years of news archives, and history books replete with thousands of examples of criminal, intelligence, political, military, revolutionary, corporate, religious conspiracies. Funny how easily we judge others, isn't it ?
      - AndrewBissell 5y ago

AndrewBissell 5y ago

He's definitely way too loose of a cannon to be slated for "Emperor of Earth," but Musk is definitely being propped up as the friendly face of authoritarian efforts like blanketing the whole earth with satellite internet (needed to get autonomous weapons working), or converting the vehicle fleet to far more grid dependent and more highly surveillled EVs.