A mad world order cracker#

When we dig for the truth, we flirt with madness. Rather, we should see the Hellyers of this world as the price we pay for being willing to question the manifest order and to expose the secretive interest groups who seek to manipulate the world for their own benefit. The wrong moral to draw from this would be that anyone who sees hidden power being influenced is crazy. The difference between vested interests that exercise influence all over the place and those that exercise control literally everywhere is in some ways small, in other ways critical. Because these lesser conspiracy theories are grounded in evident truths, people easily fail to notice when they slide from seeing real, limited power to imagined, total power. Indeed, itвЂ™s the differences that blind us to the similarities. IвЂ™m not saying that these ideas are on the same level of nuttiness as the Illuminati. As long, that is, as the cabal is the global financial elite, the militaryвЂ“industrial complex, big pharma or agribusiness. In many circles, it is a sign of intelligence, not eccentricity, to attribute ultimate power to вЂњa secret cabal thatвЂ™s actually running the worldвЂќ, as Hellyer put it. Rather than just dismissing Hellyer and his ilk, we would do better to see how much of our thinking displays the same weaknesses. When we dig for the truth, we flirt with madness Little wonder that we often resort to quicker, dirtier ways of making the world comprehensible. All require the time, intelligence or education that most of us lack. Almost all of us try to tidy it up, which is why there are disciplines such as social science, economics and international relations. Similarly, hyperactive agency detection is the human condition, not a medical one.ДЇurthermore, the causes of our overuse of these basic cognitive mechanisms are often completely understandable desires rather than pathological defects. The difference between a вЂњnormalвЂќ person and one with pareidolia is simply whether the over-sensitivity to pattern causes problems functioning. However, from a strictly rational point of view, these mechanisms are always defective.

A mad world order cracker#

Pareidolia, for instance, is seeing patterns in random data, such as the face of Jesus in a cream cracker or the date of the apocalypse in Donald TrumpвЂ™s social security number. When these basic human cognitive mechanisms create problems we label them as pathologies. Thinking of plants as вЂњwantingвЂќ sunlight or вЂњtryingвЂќ to flower, for example, is an easy way of understanding their behaviour. But adopting what the US philosopher Daniel Dennett calls the вЂњintentional stanceвЂќ can be helpful even when we know that there is no conscious intention at all. We cannot begin to understand the actions of others unless we attribute motives to their actions. The assumption of agency is also extremely helpful. But if they thought they had noticed that sacrificing a goat increased the likelihood of rain, then at worst they wasted the odd bit of meat. If our ancestors had failed to notice that crops left to dry tended to die, they too would have expired through starvation. Pattern-seeking is essential for our survival, and the penalties for seeing patterns where none exist are lighter than those for missing patterns that really are there. We are constantly on the lookout for both patterns and agency. The reasons why people believe in secret, controlling elites are rooted in basic human nature. The problem is that they differ from the rest of us only in degree, not kind. ItвЂ™s good to know that weвЂ™re much more sensible and rational than these clearly deluded conspiracy theorists. Mockery is easy, but itвЂ™s also reassuring.

Perhaps the Illuminati is like that other great mystery, quantum theory: if you think you understand it, you donвЂ™t.

But since the whole point about secret all-powerful elites is that they are mysterious, maybe thatвЂ™s to be expected. Why the possessors of such fantastic kit should prefer to cash in on the extraction of still abundant oil rather than on their incredible, exclusive alternative is mysterious.