How to Hide a Big Conspiracy

…rpetrators involved, the wider geographical distance covered, etc. — the more traces it will leave. A conspiracy theory that is widely hypothesized and yet unproven, in other words, requires a level of human infallibility that we have never heretofore seen.

In case you’re asking for a friend

Great article with some really good points, but I have one concern. If you look at conspiracies that were uncovered and what they have in common, it doesn't necessarily tell you what attributes the conspiracies that were not uncovered might have.

It may be reasonable in general to simply flip the quantifiable attributes - smaller, less impactful conspiracies should be harder to uncover, but a successful conspiracy doesn't necessarily have to be small or especially unimpactful if it differs in some major qualitative respects.

One example of what that could mean is believability. The people who try to keep a conspiracy secret don't have to be infallible if leaks won't be believed. In this way, the more shocking, bizarre, or "impossible" the conspiracy is, the more secure it is. It’s like on Community, when a secret meeting involved an astronaut making Panini and a black Hitler. Good luck being believed on that.

Another example could be obliqueness, meaning that leaks would happen, but wouldn't be noticed or understood. That could happen if they involve classified technology or new tactics, and doing things with them that the members of the general public wouldn’t know can be done. Just recently, Armoured Skeptic conjured up one such scenario for Moth Man — what if it was a soldier with a jet pack doing a psyop during cold war? Who knows.

Even so, there would most likely still be a timer on these conspiracies, as long as they’re reasonably large and effective, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they remained hidden for many decades. Specifically, for as long as the original perpetrators are alive, as long as a regime holds, or until the new stuff gets declassified. Until there’s no one left to be tried, or keeping it up, or until the public catches up on what’s actually possible. It took Watergate and the collapse of the Soviet Union to get at least some stuff released.

In the case of various QAnon-related theories, the believability issue preventing people from accepting even evidence of a conspiracy could be a factor in more egregious cases of organized pedophilia, or the not unrelated accusations of satanic rituals, whatever those would entail specifically.

As for how that would come about when no sane and decent human being would come up with any of that, the more shady cells in some intelligence agencies may want to rope powerful people into such activities to compromise them, to gain leverage on them. It doesn’t have to make sense on its own.

This would also explain how a fairly depraved conspiracy could be kept secret competently. If someone operates irrationally, out of base desires, it implies they lack self-awareness and self-control. Those are not great personality traits for someone who tries to remain undiscovered for a long period of time. What you need is a sociopath in charge, or a genuinely excellent good person.

Both of these types are most likely to be employed by intelligence agencies. For both of them, the depraved activities that require secrecy would not be an end in itself, only a means to an end. For the sociopath in charge, the end would likely be nefarious, like gaining more and more power, but even a good guy intelligence officer would consider participating in criminal and unethical acts, to accomplish a greater good, or to prevent a greater evil.

These would be both the most motivated and infallible people you can imagine, willing to sacrifice their life, and soul, to accomplish the mission. They would be absolutely fine lying to the public. They wouldn’t think twice about violating anyone’s privacy or rights. They would torture people and sacrifice lives. They would exploit anyone’s weaknesses. They would take over criminal enterprises to get their profits. All for the cause, and it is being done.

It would therefore be insufficient to reject a conspiracy theory only because the people caught up in it don’t appear to be geniuses capable of sophisticated deception. Typically, this argument would be used to dismiss a theory that some government did something evil, like a false flag attack, only because the figurehead of that government, a president for example, was a moron.

In any empire with a self-respecting intelligence community, the figurehead, A.K.A. the visible target, is much more likely to be a puppet or a fall guy, rather than the actual mastermind. I think the term for this concept is cryptocracy. That’s just smart strategy, and a fairly basic one. Exceptions do exist, and these things always are a matter of degree, but I believe that intellectuals could use being a little bit more suspicious.

With all that said, any investigation of a conspiracy does require the utmost rigor, as it is very easy to get confused and lost. Which is why there’s a good chance that the flooding of the internet with conspiracy noise like QAnon hasn’t happened entirely, how to put it, organically. That’s technically also an unproven conspiracy theory, but it would make sense as intelligence strategy.

Intelligence agencies have substantial resources and can pick the best and the brightest, so I’m always surprised just how much their capabilities are being underestimated by mainstream scientists and journalists. I guess part of it is that whenever they’re successful, you wouldn’t know it. For the best of them, you wouldn’t know they’ve ever done anything at all. I bet they do a lot.

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