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Sep. 13th, 2007
Tinfoil Hats
Sep. 13th, 2007 04:20 pmI enjoy reading conspiracy theories. When you get right down to it, they are nothing more or less than a form of speculative fiction that is written in the present tense. And before anyone thinks that I am denigrating conspiricists here, let me point you to Jules Verne's 2,000 leagues under the sea and the Nautilus. I mean, how much real difference is there between these three scenarios:
What If the government has been in contact with aliens for years and is covering up their presence?
What If the Third Reich developed anti-gravity and the worlds super powers have been conspiring to keep it out of civilian hands?
What If the government has a plan to kill thousands of civilians, blame it on terrorists, and institute a police state?
All in the same ballpark right? And yet, one is regarded as paranoid delusion, another as pure science fiction, and the third a plausible occurrence. I'll leave it as an exercise for the reader as to which description goes with which What If. (Also, I have alternate thoughts for all three links which swap around which description goes with which question :)
Anyway, I had an interesting meta-thought on the subject today. Several of the people I count on for paranoid ramblings either have their real name or some of their friends real names (and thus easy access to theirs) on their livejournal/blog, or a link to a website that does. This does not strike me as an effective method of survival if you think "the man" is out to get you. I, on the other hand, who am not looking over my should for fear of "them," don't have anything really linking me to this journal. Sure I haven't bothered with encryption or anonymisers or anything like that, and I can think of at least three ways to fairly easily track me down form it, but all three require either some additional knowledge or some non-civilian resources or both. Maybe I am really the one who is paranoid, but I've known since I first got on the internet that data there isn't private, so I took steps to make sure it would take more than just a google search to find me. For some reason, I would have expected those that think "they" are out to get them would do the same, if not more.
What If the government has been in contact with aliens for years and is covering up their presence?
What If the Third Reich developed anti-gravity and the worlds super powers have been conspiring to keep it out of civilian hands?
What If the government has a plan to kill thousands of civilians, blame it on terrorists, and institute a police state?
All in the same ballpark right? And yet, one is regarded as paranoid delusion, another as pure science fiction, and the third a plausible occurrence. I'll leave it as an exercise for the reader as to which description goes with which What If. (Also, I have alternate thoughts for all three links which swap around which description goes with which question :)
Anyway, I had an interesting meta-thought on the subject today. Several of the people I count on for paranoid ramblings either have their real name or some of their friends real names (and thus easy access to theirs) on their livejournal/blog, or a link to a website that does. This does not strike me as an effective method of survival if you think "the man" is out to get you. I, on the other hand, who am not looking over my should for fear of "them," don't have anything really linking me to this journal. Sure I haven't bothered with encryption or anonymisers or anything like that, and I can think of at least three ways to fairly easily track me down form it, but all three require either some additional knowledge or some non-civilian resources or both. Maybe I am really the one who is paranoid, but I've known since I first got on the internet that data there isn't private, so I took steps to make sure it would take more than just a google search to find me. For some reason, I would have expected those that think "they" are out to get them would do the same, if not more.