What is Modern Conspiracy Theory?

My view of modern conspiracy theory is that is more of a orientation than a specific plot. "Conspiracy theorists" don't necessarily believe in specific conspiracies (although many believe in them all) as much as they believe there is an overarching conspiracy to some degree. A quick example: I don't believe in weather modification conspiracies. I don't think the technology exists. Cloud seeding exists. Weather experiments, even extreme attempts like HAARP might exist (although I don't believe that HAARP was a weather project), but they aren't successful. Natural history and cycles of climate explains everything weather related. 

Are a global elite plotting world government and takeover via claims about climate change? Absolutely. Are they faking the weather to do it? No, because it's not necessary. They have fooled the world with "science." Many "conspiracy theorists" believe in ludicrous conspiracies and ideas, sometimes to their own detriment. Yet this doesn't invalidate their general knowledge of a nefarious plot at work.  

Most of the "overarching narrative" of conspiracy theory is open fact. The Club of Rome, Agenda 21 and various other books and public discussions going back to the Fabians and writers such as Aldous Huxley and Isaac Asimov have existed for more than a century. Science fiction writers openly promoted global government, rule by the scientists in their books. Elites have discussed "problems" such as overpopulation for decades. I put problems quotes because one of the tricks of the trade is to take something that in extremis is obviously a problem, but isn't actually a major problem. As they do with CO2 emissions and the novel coronavirus.

In sum, I'm a believer in the weak form of conspiracy theory. It's an open, self-organizing conspiracy. It moves very slowly. Like one of those optical illusions that show a 3D image if you stare through it, it looks like a bunch of dots, a jumbled mess, if you don't know what you're looking at. At every step of the way, you're a "kook" for saying this is a conspiracy or part of a larger plot. Only by looking at the whole picture, the shift in policies over decades, can one see the sum total of it.

Vox Day is a strong form believer. In They Called Their Shot he writes:

It doesn’t really matter if the satanic elite of Clown World are divinely bound to announce their intentions or if they are simply narcissistic psychopaths who revel more in the knowledge that they are getting away with their wicked deeds than they do in the deeds themselves, the simple fact of the matter is that they do announce their future intentions, albeit always in a manner that provides them with plausible deniability both before and after the fact.

This X-Files episode is not an accident. This is not an astonishing coincidence. This is how, and why, it is relatively easy to interpret current events utilizing well-informed conspiracy analysis. Even when this episode was first broadcast, I immediately noticed the expositional clumsiness and contemplated the possibility that it was blown cover as cover, although I must admit that I forgot about it as time passed. But it was not the only such announcement. This habitual revelation under the cloak of fiction is another reason why anyone who submitted to the vaccine – which I will remind you was relentlessly pushed by international corporations and global depopulationists – was not only blitheringly stupid, but required almost wilful ignorance to do so.

We were warned. We were repeatedly warned. And I can assure you, it vastly amused the wicked of Clown World to see how many of us flat-out refused to believe their repeated warnings. The truth really is out there.

In the end, it doesn't matter if the writer of the X-Files was compiling the openly available information for the show or if it was more of an intentional announcement of future plans. The fact is that, as Vox says, the truth really is out there.

His post was based on the series finale of the X-Files, aired in 2002. Conspirators infect the public with a DNA-altering substance that disables their immune system, rendering them vulnerable to all manner of illnesses. In the show, it was done via the smallpox vaccine and assumed to be heritable. In 2020, govt/media nurtured mass hysteria. Inconvenience created by travel and work restrictions caused hundreds of millions of people to infect themselves with experimental mRNA shots.

Depopulation is a stated goal of a major faction of the ruling class. Feeding children hormone blockers eliminates reproduction. Feminism ("working mothers") reduces fertility. Making real estate more expensive, making life in general more expensive, depresses fertility. Abortion reduces the population. Contraception reduces fertility. Urbanization reduces fertility. Are all these policies part of a vast conspiracy? No, but the faction of the ruling class that wants depopulation greatly encourages all of these ideas. Drawing the line between what is intentional and happy (for them) coincidence is a mostly pointless exercise. A more useful question is, what wouldn't they do? Would they pump a deadly or fertility-reducing agent into the general public? Strong-form conspiracy theorists think yes and most if not all of them didn't get the mRNA shots. I didn't get the shots because I thought the risk/reward didn't make sense. I assumed the shots were riskier than advertised and the virus less dangerous.

Other conspiracy theories are ideas such as the "mark of the beast." No one will be able to travel or shop without the mark. I remember seeing that one in the late 1980s or early 1990s on some religious show while flipping through channels. A microchip would be needed to shop or travel. China and other nations have fully implemented this with vaccine passports via smartphones. Religious people and those who read the Bible are more likely to believe in conspiracies because they believe the Devil exists.

Maybe foresighted people saw the natural progression of technology. Through storytelling, they explained how easily this technology could be abused. Combine it with stated goals of groups like the Club for Rome, it isn't hard to theorize what someone who believes X might do with technology Y or power Z. Someone with evil intent will always be looking to use power and technology for their own ends. The 2nd Amendment exists in the United States because the Founders understood all governments tend towards tyranny. It was put there because they knew their Posterity will probably need it one day. 

I worry that the blockchain will eventually become a system for totalitarian economic control. One blockchain to rule them all, and in the chains, bind them. There are groups out there already deplatforming political dissidents from banks. Researchers at Stanford (marinate on that phrase for a moment) are already discussing how this deplatforming isn't thorough enough because the banned are building their own platforms and companies, from which they cannot be deplatformed again: Gabufacturing Dissent: An in-depth analysis of Gab

Our findings document several unintended real-world side effects of the deplatforming of both users and platforms, raising the possibility that other interventions on mainstream platforms such as downranking and limiting visibility might curb toxic content more effectively than shifting the problem elsewhere. If deplatforming is deemed the most desirable solution for a given scenario, it may be that this deplatforming would need to be more thorough and widespread to be effective. Hence, more study is needed in several areas...

...For example, payment processors have already cut ties with Gab—is there more that could be done to disrupt other financial flows? Answering these questions may prove crucial to developing more holistically effective Trust and Safety practices at the platform, infrastructure, and regulatory levels.

I can explain it to you, but I cannot understand it for you. It's all being done in plain sight. You can either accept it or not. You don't have to become a "conspiracy theorist." Maybe it's all a general decline in civilization, the historical cycle with democracy collapsing into tyranny. Once you see the trend though, you'll see all the evidence in the news, in the proposed policies, in the propaganda. Some highly-placed people and organizations are helping this all along. It doesn't matter how much you believe in the intentionality of it at that point, you are a "conspiracy theorist" because you can see that events are linked. That a larger force is at work.

via GIPHY