Has anybody spun up the whole "part of the population knew for decades (centuries) but made sure the information flow didn't make it through convincingly becaus

Has anybody spun up the whole "part of the population knew for decades (centuries) but made sure the information flow didn't make it through convincingly because they knew they wouldn't "survive" the natural competition" or are we still celebrating sabotage and manipulation of emotions, fallacies, bias and stress as legit ways to acquire and keep the pole positions? Asking for a friend in some horny chat room ...