Life, Liberty, and Leaked Documents Part 2: What’s a Conspiracy Nighttime Walk and Talk

Important Ideas and Notes

Conspiracy: A reasonable definition – The act of two or more people cooperating to deceive others to achieve their goals, which can be harmful or unlawful.

Conspiracy Theory: A proposition that a given conspiracy is occurring.

Conspiracies, particularly the small ones, are common. We are challenged to logically evaluate claims regarding conspiracies, i.e., the willingness and reality of people choosing to cooperate to lie.

In this context, pragmatism and reason lie somewhere between paranoia and naivety.

Sometimes falsehoods become part of the dominant narrative.

It is not uncommon for large groups to believe, sometimes to want strongly to believe, the dominant narrative, and they will punish you if you don’t go along.

As a result, many people just go along with the lie (knowing it’s a lie) out of fear of embarrassment, fear of humiliation, fear of loss of social status, fear of loss of occupation, fear of incarceration, and the general fear of punishment of some kind.

Also, many people become afraid to ask questions in the first place, so they are frozen in the lie like a picture painted with the brush of deception.

We see, then, that the pressure to conform can take many forms from the mild to the brutal to the insidious.

That pressure can prompt you to surrender your desire and right to think for yourself in favor of the delusion of the group.

We want to be aware. At the same time, it is your decision as to whether or how to engage with group delusion and how to protect yourself and the ones that you love.