It might be a flippant and trite observation on a subject that brilliant thinkers have dedicated entire books to understanding, but it’s a funny old thing, conspiratorial thinking. For example, during the early rollout of the various vaccines for COVID-19, there were persistent rumours about Bill Gates’ involvement in funding vaccine research. There were claims that Gates briefed the CIA about a “mind-altering vaccine”, and most memorably, that the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation was spending billions to put tracking microchips into COVID-19 vaccines. These were all repeatedly debunked.
We only thought of it because this week, Elon Musk openly announced that he had successfully implanted a chip into a human brain, and no-one among his followers appeared to have any follow-up questions.
It is a strange quirk that Musk, who would seem to fulfil many of the criteria for a conspiracy theory figure — as, say, a billionaire who works in wildly experimental tech, who is able to buy up a huge tract of what remains of a “public square” on a whim and distort it in his own image — has managed to not only stay out of the conspiracy theorists’ wilder ideas but has seemingly come to be subject of a slightly heroic cult of personality. This could be because he gives the distinct impression that he agrees with them.
To take just last year:
- In early 2023 he breezily chatted with a QAnon influencer on and off for weeks.
- In May 2023 over the course of less than five days, Musk suggested a mass shooting in Texas was a “psyop” and tweeted that billionaire philanthropist and favourite of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories George Soros wants to “erode the very fabric of civilization” and “hates humanity.”
- In November 2023 he tweeted support for the long-debunked Pizzagate theory and replied “you have said the actual truth” to a post sharing an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory.
- In December 2023 he reinstated the account of high-profile far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, last seen laughing and insisting he won’t pay the US$1.5 billion he owes the families of victims of the Sandy Hook mass shooting.
All of which might explain how Musk has stayed out of conspiracy theories while openly doing exactly the kind of things they would allege.
Of course they had no follow-up questions. Musk has already secretly planted his chips in their brains while developing the chip he has now announced. Join the dots! Wake up, sheeple!
So the very thing all the cookers are complaining about, in particular 5G, they are already under someone’s control i.e Musk.
Absolutely hilarious!
Article missed his recent anti anti-semitic cosplayed reverse ferret with far right influencer Ben Shapiro, visiting Auschwitz……
If Ben Shapiro is far right, (1), what does that make Candace Owens, and (2) that makes conservatism a seriously dangerous ideology.
I think its frightening that one man has so much power because of his wealth. He wastes billions on fanciful and often dangerous whims. If governments dont start regulating for example who can own and control social media platforms and AI, the outlook for democracy is grim.
As Dorothy Parker said long ago, “If you want to know what God thinks of money, just look at the people he gave it to.”
I do agree that it is frightening and I also believe Elon is a total nutter, and he does waste billions but it is his money. !!
AND, He also does very real things that benefit mankind in general. Not like the parasites that are Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos.
Just quietly I am very pleased that he is destroying twitter Hahaha!
The outlook for democracy is already grim due to the predictable rise of RWA. As far as where cannon what SM, the market decides or the state decides? Democracy loses either way.
Remember it was governments that gave Murdoch the green light to cross media ownership. The horse has bolted. And we see what happens when untrained and unqualified politicians get given the steering wheel.
Corollary:
Even with the bar set very high for entry to the special forces and at least a year of training before deployment, the hierarchy can still fk it up.
So enough of this open slather for who can be a Pollie. Qualifications and training are the first bar that needs to be set.
‘literally’ has joined ‘exponential’ in the list of words losing their mind because of mindless misuse. There would only be some point in saying Musk was ‘literally’ putting chips in brains if you needed to indicate that the statement is not metaphorical or figurative. This headline would have been improved by leaving the word out. Everybody’s doing it, but as a professional writer, please stop.
Textbook case of semantic broadening, my friend. If you’re not upset at “decimate” evolving to mean kill more than one in every ten then you should probably make some room for a couple more definitions of ‘literally’.
I do not speak for Macrae, but I am pissed off that ‘decimate’ has been ruined as a useful metaphorical description of something that does severe damage or destruction to a limited part or fraction while leaving most untouched. Likewise, ‘unique’, a word whose unique meaning has been lost because any number of barbarians insist on using it with an inappropriate qualifying adverb when they only mean unusual or something like that.
And then there are incredible, incredibly, unbelievable and unbelievably, used in place of any more appropriate and familiar words, and with a frequency that approaches a plague of malapropism. All no longer capable of being applied with any confidence of being understood when belief or credence is literally impossible, for instance, when one detects a flagrant lie.
A moment’s silence for prescriptivists passed, forever turning in their graves.
If a prescriptivist is somebody who would prefer language to do its job of facilitating communication rather than confusion, I am guilty. Perhaps my long experience of preparing formal documents that must be readily understood in order to avoid bad consequences has given me this regrettable bias towards words having and keeping clear definitions.
I hear you and somewhat inconsistently, in light of the above, also relish an occasion to pull someone up on their arguable misuse of a given word.
But your definition of prescriptivism is a tad self-serving, given its job of “facilitating communication” is only secondary to and, in my opinion, at times a fair bit removed from, its defined aim of prescribing and insisting on “the correct” use of language. A descriptivist also recognises language’s job of “facilitating communication” but is less pressed (as my generation might say) how such a goal is achieved.
Can appreciate however where you’re coming/have come from!
So if I decide the colour red describes yellow, that’s my inalienable right?
Whether it’s your right I would not know, but it would make you a Humpty-Dumptyist:
“When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’
’The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’
’The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master — that’s all.”
Inconceivable !
Unbe-lieeeve-able, said Victor Meldrew.
I had a discussion with a journalist about the misuse of exponential. They weren’t interested in meaning, but claimed its use as an impressive way of saying lots was in common usage, so that was that. Doesn’t detract from the mathematical meaning, but shows wilful ignorance trumps reality. And muddies the waters.
And another peeve, Quantum Leap for something big, <1^-31m isn’t big even on a quantum scale. Dunno how that arose.
Oh yes. And you hardly ever hear of a ‘centre’ any more. They’ve all been replaced by ‘epicentres’.
Remember Howard Hughes? The wealthier he became, the nuttier he grew. Musk is the Hughes for the 21st Century. Every doorknob in his place of dwelling is polished to the point where you need sunglasses to look at them.
Because the art of knob polishing is taken very seriously by Musk.
OK. Conspiracy theories are explanations for patterns of events or phenomena that cannot be otherwise explained. The events or phenomena may or may not exist.
They typically, but not necessarily, envisage a being with above-normal powers or influence having some responsibility for the events or phenomena, or at least some vague interest in how they turn out.
These theories are wildly popular, and generally depend on faith and this precludes any need for tiresome “proof”. Observation suggests that the absence of proof, or the presence of compelling contradictory evidence and unbelievers. only strengthen the underlying faith.
Under this definition, all religions are essentially conspiracy theories. Not all conspiracy theories produce lovely places of worship, or songs, but these things are not fundamental to the relevant theory.
Having said all that, the rise of Musk, Kardashian, Trump, etc., is an essentially psychological / “religious” phenomenon. Humans have been creating gods since the days of Anu, Enlil and that lot and will not stop doing so any time soon. Many followers are otherwise rational people who tell themselves they’ve worked out which way the wind is blowing, and needs must … but most are not.
Musk memorably described his father in 2017 as “…such a terrible human being … you have no idea.” Both Elon and Errol are keen on fathering as many children as possible, which means at least one if not both believes traits can be inherited by offspring.
Must finish now, it’s time for prayers.
Look what happens when you believe you are God’s Chosen People.