Readers of the Daily Sceptic will no doubt be familiar with the ongoing debate between ‘Team James’ and ‘Team Toby’ on the London Calling podcast. The former seeing conspiracies everywhere, the latter maintaining most problems are due to sheer incompetence, rather than elaborate malice.
I now believe I have found the resolution to this conflict (you’re welcome, guys).
In the last couple of years my Twitter feed, and what passes for my real life, has become radically divided between naive normies (Team Toby) and ‘awake’, ‘red-pilled’ types (Team James), the latter often spilling over into ‘black-pilled’ doomerism.
If you didn’t understand that sentence, then you are a normie. Congratulations — your life is probably quite pleasant (unlike, say, Andrew Bridgen’s, who is currently suffering the consequences of a hefty overdose of red pills).
For those who have taken the red pill, things do tend to get pretty bleak. These people see through the facade of the normal world, into the apocalyptic reality lurking beneath… well, almost everything.
Politics (all globalist shills), the sky (chemtrails), water (fluoride), Paul McCartney (died in ’66, replaced by a ringer), etc.
This leads to situation whereby one cannot even talk about normal normie things, like, say, party politics, without getting a flurry of comments explaining “they’re all WEF anyway”. But I believe we can still talk about these normie things within that limited framework, identifying the least bad option. Red-pillers may scoff at this stance, but let me explain.
Even though my sympathies lean towards the red-pilled side, I find myself at times equally frustrated by both positions, and thus I have come up with a way to exist that incorporates both, which for now I’m calling ‘conspiracy moderate’.
And, if one returns to the original Matrix movie, which is of course where the red pill metaphor originated, it looks like I am onto something.
In the movie, Neo takes the red pill, and is suddenly ejected from the ‘normal’ world he has always known, and thrust into the “desert of the real”. There, he gets to eat gruel, wear austere clothes, and learns that humans are now just batteries feeding AI bots that have taken over the world. It’s not a lot of fun, but at least he knows the truth.
The normies, meanwhile, stay in the Matrix, content in their appalling ignorance.
But what some of my angrier Twitter followers appear to be missing is that Neo still returns to the Matrix to fly around and shoot guns and generally f*** s*** up.
In other words, I believe it’s okay to engage in the normie world, as long as one does it from a point of awareness.
Of course, the worst thing would be to try to go back to being a blue-pilled normie. This is shown to us in the movie via the character of Cypher. He betrays his fellow red-pilled warriors to the evil agents (the embodiments of the malevolent AI bots). He does this in exchange for being plugged back into the Matrix with total ignorance, as long as he can become “someone important, like an actor”.
He is both Judas and Peter, giving up the saviour while choosing to deny all knowledge of our redemption because it is too hard, too painful to bear. He is simply too weak to sustain a moral conscience.
To deny what we know for an easy life is evil. But that is very different from exploring the Matrix, as Neo does, in order to fight back against the system, and just because it’s fun to do Kung Fu.
Because one problem with the red-pilled world is that it is very boring.
We see this in the recently ‘awake’, especially those who have ‘overdosed on red pills’. Every conversation ends with ‘it’s all planned’; all discussion and playfulness is curtailed; there is no point in anything.
It’s especially frustrating for those of us who have been on a steady diet of red pills for many years. We know about Bohemian Grove and the Bilderbeg Group. We know about the Georgia Guidestones (RIP) and, yes, we know about the gay frogs. (Sorry to the normies for all the Googling you just had to do.)
Meanwhile the red pill neophyte, high on reality, suddenly lectures us with their new-found knowledge, often veering into what is more like an apocalyptic ‘black pilled’ vision of the world, offering no hope.
One such example is my friend who, becoming convinced the Covid vaccine was simply intended to kill us all and reduce the population, decided there was no hope for the future. I asked why, in that case, she was still sending her children to an elite Hampstead prep school. She replied that she was just doing the best she could for them now, even though we would all surely perish in the coming vaccine genocide, either poisoned by taking the deadly vaxx, or offed by the state for refusing.
Dark. But of course, her theory wasn’t totally crazy. For a while there it looked like those who refused this experimental medical treatment of questionable efficacy would indeed be treated like second class citizens, segregated from society via a vaccine passport.
However, the civilised conspiracy moderate, though resolutely unjabbed (an ‘antivaxxer’ or ‘sceptic’ to different shades of normie, a ‘pure blood’ to the red pilled), allows that the jab itself, while it may give you heart trouble or that side-of-face thing Justin Bieber has, *may* not be designed to kill billions of people.
The conspiracy moderate also retains hope, believing it is inherently immoral to discourage one’s fellow soldiers. (Remember, Morpheus in The Matrix lived by his faith in ‘The One’, and his faith was eventually rewarded).
The moderate knows the elites have gathered for decades at Bohemian Grove for a bacchanalian festival in which they worship an owl. The Red Pill OD case says they are sacrificing children to said owl god. The normie says, “What?!?”
The humble conspiracy moderate does not believe the sacrifice part, but politely points out we now have concrete evidence that this event happens, and that while the elites may just be having a high old time together and the owl thing is largely theatre, it is at the very least ‘a bit weird’.
Similarly with the Bilderberg Group. For years they denied that world leaders met in a secret location to discuss their globalist plans. Eventually the deception became impossible to sustain, and we now know that not only is it real, but that even David Lammy gets invited (it seems even the global elite is suffering a decline in the quality of applicants).
Of course, attention has now shifted to the World Economic Forum.
Normies either haven’t heard of it or will claim it’s an overhyped think tank. The extreme red pilled and black pilled will say Klaus Schwab rules the entire world and resistance is futile. The conspiracy moderate will concede Schwab certainly seems to be attempting that, with his boast that his organisation “penetrates the cabinets” of leaders the world over, but that we also need to allow for the possibility he’s just a deluded idiot, as are most of these global leaders, and that their ideas may be more stupid than sinister.
Though I admit on this one I am more red pilled than normie, and I even wonder if Schwab is there to troll us, with his absurd dystopian ruler outfits, and if he is in fact a front for other, less comically Bond villain-esque, but even more sinister forces. However, we don’t have time for that particularly rabbit hole just now.
Anyway, hopefully all this has explained my position so that I won’t have to keep replying to disgruntled doomers on my twitter feed.
Normies undoubtedly live in a cosy but unreal world. Although it must be said even our current illusory Matrix is pretty grim compared to the world of 1999, when the first movie came out (I watched it twice in the cinema). Post-Covid, culture war torn 2023 is itself a bleak “desert of the real” compared to those simpler times.
The red pilled, on the other hand, sometimes fail to apply the same scepticism to their new red-pill findings as they do to the normie world. Thus they essentially enter a new Matrix where everything can be explained only by the most extreme conspiracy. They also tend to tip over into a disempowering, black-pilled nihilism.
The only truly honourable position, therefore, is that of the conspiracy moderate, living uncomfortably between the two worlds, sceptical of both, moving forward with courage and eyes wide open.
And guns. Lots of guns.
And for the normies out there, that was a Matrix metaphor, not a call to arms. You guys really need to wake up.
Nick Dixon is Deputy Editor of the Daily Sceptic. You can follow him on Twitter and Substack.
To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.
Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.
Wow, I feel like I’m back in high school. The class is being split down the lines of the “trendies” and the “greebos” (God I haven’t thought of that word in years) again.
The World Economic Forum is just the very latest iteration of a globalist agenda that’s been going on for a very long time and really kicked off after World War 2. The banking cartels operating through national “independent” central banks and answerable to the IMF and the World Bank are the problem and this has been out of control since we all came off the gold standard. The WEF are simply trying to ride the wave when it all inevitably collapses.
Without talking about Bohemian Grove and child sacrifice, I’d like you to take a dispassionate look at the unfunded liabilities of Western democracies and tell me how they’re going to remain solvent without drastically reducing their elderly populations. You also have to be willfully blind not to see the policies of deindustrialisation and destruction of energy infrastructure and supply chains. Just take a look at the numbers and tell me how we’re going to support our current population with what we’ll have left.
Then take a look at the birth rates among the native populations and the rate of immigration. Within a couple of decades we’ll be in a minority in our own lands. Then what? I don’t think we’ll be able to live in peace, enjoying the freedoms we’ve grown up with.
If I wanted to take over the world, this is how I would do it. Weaken the Western democracies with policies like these and no one would be able to stand in my way in a few decades. We don’t have to imagine what this will be like, it’s all been agreed by our national governments in the UN’s Agenda 2030.
I don’t think this moderate position of yours is an honorable position. While you don’t like to tell yourself it’s a full-blown “Cypher” stance, you still want to be a Matrix tourist. People like you and Toby have built up a very comfortable lifestyle in the existing system and you don’t want to see that position eroded. I think it’s a misuse of the platform you’ve been given and I think you need to think very carefully about it, because being seen as a “doomer” or some other conspiracy nut is going to be the least of your worries if we don’t come together and work out a positive way forward.
It’s all very serious, but don’t forget to see the humour too !
Yes, you are right, it’s hilarious. Maybe won’t be when we get there, but certainly very funny for the moment.
The big clue is that Nick is a comedian. Nick’s writing supplements the Team-James, Team Toby sketch and the generated discussion can only be a positive thing. The important result is collective momentum – which I only see as strengthening.
Good piece but while reading it, I thought April Fools Day had come early.
“…going on for a very long time…”
Indeed. There are fascinating parallels to today’s elite ideology in Alexander Korda’s 1936 film Things to Come, based on H. G. Wells’s 1933 novel. At that time in the US Technocracy Inc. was looking much like, and just as “comical,” as the WEF. But the scientism, racism, eugenics, transhumanism and elitist utopianism were very real, as World War 2 proved.
Don’t forget that Rockefeller was promoting and funding German eugenic theory back then, and that the Rockefeller Foundation still appears behind many of today’s philanthropathic initiatives, nor that Julian Huxley, President of the British Eugenics Society from 1959-62, preceded that with a stint as the first DG of UNESCO.
Who is funding the rabbit holes, that’s what I want to know…
Good post on Wells and Technocracy Inc and parallels with the Davos-WEF crowd which is a global Technocracy Inc v2.0.
Rockefeller, Rothschilds (who held Rona related patents dating back years…)
I think there’s more reason for hope today.
That disgusting and corrupt sociopaths run Western life is without doubt, and the extent of callous indifference and scheming are repulsive, but name a historical ruling regime that wasn’t? Absolute power corrupts absolutely, irrelevant of political system, economic system, religion, technology etc because human nature never changes. Reflecting on the crimes of our power elites should be a relative comparison, for all humans are and always have been essentially the same.
For anyone “black pilled”, if I understand that means overly worried, pessimistic or depressed, I would suggest reading history, especially of the dominant powers around the globe through time, to put any current despair into historical perspective. I say this having been on that personal journey, and after spending 30 years living as a minority in the developing world. Some of the West’s recent past might appall you but its still the best we have, like democracy and capitalism. It may tip too far in a negative direction and at that time we have to reassess, but where else would the anti-Western Westerners prefer to live, and have you moved there?
All life in our known universe is cyclical, and the cycle of our Western empires dominance is transitioning, as seen in the Wests combined share of global GDP; whatever Western people or our greedy and abusive leaders do the dye is cast. And it may be a bumpy ride, they’re likely to get more and more desperate so who knows what farcical boogieman our overlords will dangle in front of us next. It requires some self-awareness but if that concept scares you then for your own well-being give up on reading, watching or listening to the news, internet forums and certainly anxiety-inducing social media. And kown when something truly important comes along, like a deadly viral pandemic, you won’t need to be told about it, you’ll know, and if its yet another psyop ignore it, explain its flaws to others if you like but definitely rise above it, and mock them. That’s not to sound a nihilist or pessimist either, but there is no life without death. Creative destruction. The Roman empire died off almost two millennia ago but your average Italian still enjoys a far higher quality of life than the Romans, and their economy is batting well above average, kinda. (the analogy might not seem as strong with Ottomans, Persians and Mongols but did they have Bake Off?). Whatever worst outcomes you may conceive could occur you’ll probably still be historically and relatively blessed, and should embrace gods greatest gift while you can.
So the good news to grip is that more and more people are becoming Awake (not Woke); despite the regimes clamour for censorship our technological tools can be used for good aswell as bad, as Mr Rees-Mogg wrote in Sovereign Individual. The bad news for us in the West is that as our share of the global pie shrinks, more of our empires historical dirty laundry is aired and anger rises accordingly it would typically manifest in a revolution, because no regime will convict and sentence themselves and there’s far more people than there are power elites. And I wouldn’t worry about AI or drones etc, they all require human programming and oversight, and like all revolutions its people powered. People can only be pushed so far before insiders flip or hubris implodes.
Of course, I could be wrong.
Thanks. A thoughtful commentary even if I am not in favour of your position.
Brilliant comment to a brilliant article.
Nice one.
That great writers as Nick, Tobes and yourself are engaging in this threat how can we not prevail?
Thank you.
R
I thought I was red pilled. But evidently taking too much pleasure in the twitter file exposé. Things have to be worse don’t they ?
https://off-guardian.org/2023/01/12/the-mother-of-all-limited-hangouts/
Sorry, not that elaborate, we’re all f…ed
I was certainly happier in ignorance when I was till a normie, but unfortunately what has been seen cannot be unseen. I still ascribe a great deal to mundane human failings – stupidity, arrogance, greed, cowardice etc. – rather than always assuming malevolence, and although some of the rabbit holes I’ve fallen down have been dark – very dark indeed – I still draw the line at the wackier conspiracies, which I tend to think are disseminated to discredit all conspiracies.
Having said that, as a sceptic I find myself almost incapable of dismissing anything 100% – there’s always the possibility that I’m totally wrong on any subject; really I think that anyone who doesn’t hold out that possibility is incapable of being a scientist, or a reasonably decent human being, since it is the essence of humility.
Strangely though I have also moved from hardcore atheist to… well, something else. I find myself considering things in more ‘biblical’ terms – whether expressed as good and evil, yin and yang, order and chaos. Particularly with regard to events unfolding on multi-generational timescales.
For the sake of sanity, however, it is also important to remember that we live on an astonishing, beautiful planet, in an awesome, unfathomable universe, and for all humanity’s self-importance and arrogance, we’re here one moment and gone the next, so try to enjoy it while you can.
“But I say that wisdom is better than might, though the poor man’s wisdom is despised and his words are not heard. The words of the wise heard in quiet are better than the shouting of a ruler among fools.” (Ecclesiastes 9:16-17).
Indeed SC & JG.
We’re all on personal journeys. Luckily one doesn’t need to have a literal belief in the bibles stories to appreciate its immense levels of wisdom.
“There’s nothing new under the sun”
Better for whom and in what way?
I still think believing that there was a bit of cock-up in some areas to start with is plausible, but to believe that the main players are still all acting in good faith seems deluded to me. Lying or worse to cover up a mistake is a conspiracy.
“It’s a good day to bury bad news.” (Jo Moore, 2001).
Isn’t it a characteristic of cunning villains to capitalise on accidents and panic? Villains don’t cause hurricanes or tsunamis, but they’re quick to organise looting or child trafficking when they happen. If you’re already executing a conspiracy, you’re in a good position to capitalise on unforeseen events.
Like all conspiracies there’ll probably be far more unknowing participants than the inner core of scheming architects. There’s always a hierarchy and there’ll be far more people already in apposite positions who can be relied upon to promote regime agendas without detailed orders or secret handshakes. As Noam Chomsky famously informed Andrew Marr.
It is the battle of doom. One way we die at the hands of malevolent authoritarianism. The other, we die from runaway climate change and end in starvation and fire. Its quite a choice.! These are the two new sects of doomerism. Why..? I’m nowhere near smart enough to dissect it, but I think it might have something to do with how easy life has become for the majority. I recall a French philosopher talking about how our lives will become so simple that we crave complexity, and invent it to give ourselves the necessary challenges that humans need. What are the challenges that we can unite against as a people.? Well the whole social justice thing seems to have filled that hole nicely, a product, I think of the relentless feminisation of society at the expense of males. Apart from the minorities who want to slap labels on themselves in the hope of getting some form of hand-out, monetary or other, it is all shouty middle class white women, who want everything to be nice and fair and everyone get a prize at sports day.
Whichever end of the doomerists you are, whatever you believe has to be done, there is an assumed urgency about it. No-one takes the time to think. There is nothing measured about any response. Whatever we believe must be done, it must be done now. This is almost certainly, in my mind, down to the fragmentation of truth. There is a smaller and smaller body of knowledge that we can all agree on as being ‘the truth’. We spend our time, not arguing about what the truth means, its relevance and our opinions about it, but what is actually true or not, and it doesn’t seem to matter much either way. If you can agree on the truth, then you can’t have discussion, put different opinions and reason it all out. We can’t, because we can’t agree on what truth is.
One thing that really is noticeable is how brazen and obvious corruption is. Its always been there of course, but at least they made an effort to cover it over. But instead of the citizens seeing sloth and wrong-doing, and calling it out, they will stick with it, even support it if it goes with their world view. I can still sit open mouthed that the US Democrats can pull in 48% support of the voters, after showing utter incompetence and corruption. Of course they can do that because they aren’t ‘the other guy’. God save us if the other guy gets in.
This is the backdrop of the greater authoritarianism. When you know half the people will go along with anything you say, and the other half won’t, then you have to impose it. ‘Its for the best. We’re the experts and we have to do the thinking for those that wont agree with us’. The left in particular has always had a power centric view, that planning comes from the top down, and that any system or project can be made perfect if you throw enough money at it. The right and the entrepreneurs aren’t bothered in that. The market decides, and the world is about compromises. However the left thinking has the upper hand currently and you cant compromise anyway if the world has an existential threat of ‘climate apocalypse’.
Then somewhere in the middle are the people just fanning flames of opportunism and making a fortune off it. I put the WEF in here. I think they are dangerous because of the greed and control they want to exert through governments who seem to be so devoid of talent and purpose that they are looking to the WEF for a form of guidance. We should also remember that most countries are paying lip-service at best to the WEF. China and India especially, and that half the world is doing absolutely nothing about climate or anything else.
In conclusion, I’ve posed the question before if we are in a time awaiting a new Martin Luther and a new Reformation. I think we probably are, and I am hopeful it will happen. One day, we will come to our senses from this madness. However the self-inflicted damage on our societies, economies and way of life will take generations to rectify.
Good post. Scientism and the Experts who have the One Ring to rule Middle Earth.
As you said, money and power and always ‘act now’ since it is ‘2 minutes to midnight’, or ‘save Granny and look her in the eye….’
Not a fan of Luther. Don’t see much reform in the Protest movements, but it was useful for Power hungry princes as a point to unify or establish realms.
He did liberate us from the dead hand of the Catholic Church, which was needful at the time
I see Luther as the disrupter of the status quo. The Catholic Church had strayed from its mission to save souls, to charging for the privilege of being saved. (You could argue that it had always really been little more than that…). Luthers time was one when the exhilaration and terrifying nature of printed word had emerged. Remember that Luther was excommunicated and could have been killed at the stake for his ‘heresy’ after the Diet of Worms in 1521.But he survived. The Protestant Reformation while not sweeping away the Catholic Church, it dealt with the selling of indulgences and the like, and left room for John Calvin and the like to progress it a generation later. As I suggested, we didn’t get here in one generation and it will take more than one to get out.
Matt’s point, which seems to have been missed entirely by some on here, while paradoxically proving his point at the same time, is that to think critically is to be sceptical about being sceptical. An eminently sound position.
Good point.
Excellent. Couldn’t have put it better myself.
I got bored and stopped reading halfway through. He’s a piss-poor writer and Toby made a serious cock-up when he decided to employ him.
Did he come up with any actual examples of policies that could be best explained as the result of cock-ups?
“Did he come up with any actual examples of policies that could be best explained as the result of cock-ups?”
Not that I could see.
I am not sure I would use the phrase “piss-poor” or feel that it was a serious cock-up employing him. Perhaps some find this kind of piece interesting. Disappointing you’ve got so many downvotes without anyone bothering to say why.
Calling Toby a “normie” is a bit odd. I seriously doubt he now thinks that everything done during covid has been well-intentioned – at least I hope that’s the case.
My downvote is because Nearhorburian appears to have completely missed Nick’s tongue-in-cheek humour, and only read half the article before commenting, and because I totally disagree that Nick is “a piss-poor writer and Toby made a serious cock-up when he decided to employ him.”
Fair enough. I guess there are attempts at humour, which I didn’t find funny.
I am not too bothered if I don’t like every writer on here or every article. I think overall the quality is reasonable and DS is a tremendous force for good.
I still think this is a good point from Nearhorburian
“Did he come up with any actual examples of policies that could be best explained as the result of cock-ups?”
Downvoted because the comment was unnecessarily unpleasant and I strongly disagree with it.These guys are putting themselves out there and being far braver than the majority of us. A little respect is due.
I disagree with parts of the comment and I suppose “piss-poor” is not that constructive or concrete, but I think the articles and DS is here to be shot at if people feel it necessary – isn’t that in the nature of writing publicly? I think it’s arguably disrespectful to question their motives, at least without giving reasons, but I don’t think we should be treading on eggshells either.
There are ways to go about criticism, and that post is not it. It’s nothing to do with treading on eggshells, it’s about communicating in a way that is reasonable. One of the reasons I dislike social media – and comment sections are one part of that circus – is that people interact with others in a way that they never would in person; that irritates me because I think it’s cowardly. Anyway, last post on this, I’ve got nothing more to add.
There are just two questions which when answered provide the explanations for where we are and where we are headed:
1. Why are all Western governments operating in Lockstep?
2. Why are all Western governments following and working to Agenda 2030?
The answers will confirm the positions of not just the red pilled but largely of the black pilled also.
Totally agree.
Cheers john.
Stunning & brave Nick
I know what you mean, but obviously no one has to make a binary choice. Its not us or them, good or bad, light or dark, red-pilled or normie; we’re all a mix, in very varying degrees of course.
Doesn’t presenting this binary suggestion promote the same childish and divisive rhetorical tool of identity politics?
Conversation between Greek politician Yanis Varoufakis and US Economist Larry Summers, as reported in YV’s book “Adults in the room”
“ ‘There are two kinds of politicians,’ he said: ‘insiders and outsiders. The outsiders prioritize their freedom to speak their version of the truth. The price of their freedom is that they are ignored by the insiders, who make the important decisions. The insiders, for their part, follow a sacrosanct rule: never turn against other insiders and never talk to outsiders about what insiders say or do. Their reward? Access to inside information and a chance, though no guarantee, of influencing powerful people and outcomes.’ With that Summers arrived at his question. ‘So, Yanis,’ he said, ‘which of the two are you?’ ”
It’s a good book and that is one of the most important excerpts from it.
Ckearly that was Yanis Vs Back Door moment. He probably failed it.
But the quote tells you everything you need to know about how corrupt systems operate. With enough money, you can get a buy in and the most corrupt filters up to the top.
Add the use of pedo/violent comprimat into the mix over generations and hey presto a highly powerful, highly secretive, highly evil cabal outdoing espachother over schemes to increase their wealth and domination at the expense of all those outside.
Theres that, or there’s loads of incompetent cock ups by people we elect….
Yeah not buying it.
9-11 is the great touchstone on this. If you still have doubts about red pilled world being the deepest blood red maroon variety, spend a little time looking into that “conspiracy theory.” Once you realize everything we are told about this is so blatantly false the implications are obvious. There are very evil conspiracies, they can be kept secret through control of media and if they could pull that off, why not do it on a global scale…EVENT 201.
Indeed. Do we know if Summers was ever questioned about saying this? Curious to know what his response would be. The book is still on sale so presumably no-one has sued for libel.
I guess that’s why the “insiders” were so panicked about Trump – they didn’t think they could predict what he’d do.
They successfully rigged a presidential election right under our noses. I wonder how nervous they actually were. Trump did an awful lot to help their agenda. He eased in operation warp speed, touted these shots as his brilliant act, divided the country with his unnecessarily vitriolic speech, maintained the state of emergency every 90 days (so three times) which still exists snd is the basis for the framework to shield Pharma and the government from any legislative attack on mandates or anything Covid policy related.
Trump was a big win for them. Biden was a wonderful crony puppet snd they look to be lining up Gavin Newsome to finally kill the country.
IMHO of course.
Maybe. Trump was a big disappointment to me, but I still think the alternatives were worse, probably much worse. Interested to what happens in 2024.
“I even wonder if Schwab is there to troll us, with his absurd dystopian ruler outfits, and if he is in fact a front for other, less comically Bond villain-esque;”
I’ve thought that too. He’s there like bread & circuses for the ‘conspiracy theorists’ while the real malignant forces like Mark Carney work quietly in the background forcing their ESGs on to companies and laying the pipe for total control CBDCs.
“real malignant forces like Mark Carney”
Absolutely second that view, he’s rotten to the core. Carnage Carney.
I would very much like to know the real reason he was given the B of E job because it wasn’t anything to do with banking .
”this experimental medical treatment of questionable efficacy”. And more importantly safety. It doesn’t matter if it doesn’t work, in spite of the damage caused by the coercion, gaslighting, manipulation, nudging, vilification and far reaching curtailment of personal liberty. It does matter if it kills and injures people, which it clearly does, especially the children vaccine shamed into having the jab but who have a very low risk from Covid and who probably have natural immunity anyway. Then there is the movement in lockstep of multiple governments of European heritage (UK, USA, EU, Australia, NZ, Canada) who were/are clearly reading from the same script, build back better, net zero, lockdowns, masks, toxic jabs, health terror propaganda, and suddenly, from out of nowhere, 100% complete and unshakable solidarity with Ukraine. I know government is prone to cockups, but I’m leaning heavily towards conspiracy.
I’d like to put in a plea for brevity in the comments section.
Request denied.
Great article. I agree, I put this idea out there many times on Reddit. It’s not your theory (“conspiracy” or not) of the world that’s important: it’s what you do with it.
If your theory displaces all power away from you – and from everbody else – to secret smoke-filled rooms, then what can you do? Nothing. Except storm the smoke-filled room: but good luck finding it. In Gravity’s Rainbow, Roger Mexico does just that, and pisses all over the participants. But that’s just (deeply satisfying!) fiction.
I never had a word for my position before, but “conspiracy moderate” is a good one. Yes, people are gathering in smoke-filled rooms, and trying to seize power (or more power) for themselves – e.g. in Davos shortly. But whether they succeed isn’t already decided there in the room, with no resistance possible: it’ll be decided out in the real world. And not every event has to be traced back to the shenanigans of the conspirators. Sometimes people – Dr Malhotra for example, or Andrew Bridgen – just do stuff, and it is exactly what it seems to be.
I never quite understand why normies struggle with the idea of big, malevolent conspiracies.
The history of the world is largely the story of people trying conquer and dominate lands and people and acquire as much power as possible, very often in devious, deceitful ways.
Why would it be any different now to every other moment in human history?
One of the reasons I don’t believe in big, malevolent conspiracies is because all it would take to expose a big, malevolent conspiracy to the world would be just one whistleblower with a recording device (e.g. an iPhone) and therefore the big, malevolent conspirators couldn’t take the risk of communicating their big, malevolent conspiracy to potential fellow conspirators either verbally, in person or by phone, or in writing.
So how else would they communicate with their fellow conspirators about their big, malevolent conspiracy, which would clearly require a lot of planning and discussion?
How could the big, malevolent conspirators possibly 100 per cent trust all of their fellow conspirators (could you trust any of them?) not to blow the whistle? How could they take such a huge risk of being exposed to the world as big, malevolent conspirators and have to suffer all the consequences when they can enjoy a comfortable life instead?
And how on earth does a big, malevolent conspirator transform from an ordinary teenager to a big malevolent conspirator? Is there some sort of initiation ceremony by which all is revealed to them and they promise not to tell? It’s absurd.
Of course we all believe in little conspiracies which are and always have been part of everyday life throughout history and in all our lives, but part of the problem in the cock-up or conspiracy argument is a lack of precise definition of what is meant by “conspiracy”.
There are strong incentives against whistleblowing.
I expect conspirators are pretty careful about who they say what to, and where and when.
As for how people “transform”, well, how does an “ordinary teenager” (whatever that is) “transform” into anything? Some “Ordinary teenagers” become rich, famous, powerful. Others don’t.
I agree about definitions. My definition would be where there is more than one person knowingly involved in lying, or some criminal or unethical activity, in collusion. Conspiracies are a part of natural human behaviour, aren’t they? In fact, it would be surprising if powerful people didn’t do this at least some of the time. Of course if you take the word to mean some operation planned to the last detail where everyone is taking orders from some central committee or leader, it’s easier to dismiss the idea – but that seems like a straw man to me. At any given point in time, there are multiple conspiracies underway, many of which probably move things in a similar direction for various reasons – fashion, or convenience.
Well the Nazi takeover of Germany was a big malevolent conspiracy.
So was the Bolshevik takeover of Russia.
So was the killing of millions of educated, wealthy and middle class people by the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia.
So was the Spanish coup that led to civil war and take over by Franco.
So was American Revolution.
So was the Iranian Revolution.
So was the assassination of Kennedy.
So was the failed assassination of Hitler.
So was 9/11. You either think it was an Al Qaeda conspiracy or an inside job. Either way, a conspiracy.
So was Enron’s scamming.
So was BCCI.
So was Madoff’s shenanigans.
Etc, etc, etc. etc.
People are conspiring all the time. At all levels.
And really, it doesn’t take too much thought to understand why conspiracies big and small often prosper.
An important one is that they are often in the open or partly in the open.
Another is that whistleblowers can be silenced.
Another is that people don’t believe the whistleblowers.
Another is that even if the whistleblowers are believed, nothing can be done about it. (e.g. Snowden).
I could go on but to be honest, the DS is the last place I would expect to encounter the “all it needs is one whistleblower” argument.
“And how on earth does a big, malevolent conspirator transform from an ordinary teenager to a big malevolent conspirator? Is there some sort of initiation ceremony by which all is revealed to them and they promise not to tell? It’s absurd.”
This exactly how it’s done. All major secret organisations work this way from your run of the mill Frat House to your Masonic orginizations.
It is absurd but it works and this has been practiced for centuries.
“couldn’t take the risk of communicating their big, malevolent conspiracy to potential fellow conspirators either verbally, in person or by phone, or in writing.
So how else would they communicate with their fellow conspirators about their big, malevolent conspiracy, which would clearly require a lot of planning and discussion?”
First of all you have the conspiracy of future actions shielded by being out in the open, then most of the actions that result in undemocratic and authoritarian practice occurs right in front of our faces. When the powerful push for zero anything policies it’s for our benefit snd none of these policies which continually destroy our freedoms and our financial independence are ever on the voting block.
Next when anyone tries to point this out, you control the media through your power connections snd ensure anyone speaking out is either silenced, ignored or outright defamed as a conspiracy nut who is dangerous. So what do they have to fear about exposure?
Two words : Jimmy Saville
I’d love to believe it’s all a cock up, but unfortunately with the endless brushing under the carpet of facts they don’t like, and silencing of, or threatening to silence, people who go against the narrative (including I suspect this very website as there is one pertinent topic, arising early last year, which pretty much is no longer discussed) it becomes clearer every day this is not the case.
Guns aren’t enough. We need to fake more moon landings. Celebrity moon landings.
Of course there is a conspiracy. A two party first past the post system guarantees that each party will conspire against each other and, at any given moment, one of those two parties will be in power.
Collateral damage then occurs as conspiring against the other party necessarily elides seamlessly into conspiracy against the electorate in order to cling on to power: democratic socialist fascism.
That is where devolution came from, a hilariously incompetent attempt by Blair/Brown to cling on to power via non stop majorities in Scotland. How we laughed.
Labour won’t reform the NHS, BBC, because the NHS, BBC, vote labour.
The Conservatives won’t reform the NHS, BBC, because they are the natural party of power so can control the population through the NHS and BBC as we have just seen: ‘democratic’ socialist fascism.
So….proportional representation? PR is another conspiracy system resulting in ‘democratic’ socialist fascism; Scotland refers.
What to do? This country needs higher calibre, more independent, MPs. The party system and government payroll vote have subverted democracy.
Double MPs pay and make them a great deal more accountable to their constituents.
The Catch 22? They are not of a sufficiently high calibre or independent enough to vote for that.
‘ The former seeing conspiracies everywhere…’
Well it is a target rich environment isn’t it? Yesterday’s conspiracies are today’s facts.
‘If you didn’t understand that sentence, then you are a normie.’
Well I didn’t and I am a supporter of Team James. I have no idea what ‘red-pilled’ or ‘black:pilled’ mean but then I don’t frequent that insane asylum called Twitter and I speak English not some ersatz, Americanised, babbled version.
’These people see through the facade of the normal world, into the apocalyptic reality lurking beneath… well, almost everything.’
However I do know that is a generalised ad hominem attack. Tsk, tsk
I think all we are seeing is the shadow side of human nature getting in the way of good policy making (in fact causing terrible policy making!).
As humans, whose primitive survival apparatus is still very much intact, we consciously or subconsciously seek to accomplish three things:
-Self-preservation, when it informs the decisions made by our power elites includes the upkeep of one’s reputation and career, and explains many of the key decisions made by governments over the past three years (especially). The “politician’s logic”, where a politician or their advisors must be seen do be doing something about a situation regardless of whether or not the action will accomplish net good or net harm, falls under this category.
-Control of our environment: The uniquely human obsession with control led to our inability to accept that the spread of a respiratory virus across the globe was beyond our control. Therefore the decision was made, and garnered a good deal of public support, to craft an illusion of control with theatrical, largely symbolic, gestures such as wearing masks, distancing and silly one-way systems. The most ominous manifestation of this has been vaccine passports.
-Acquisition of resources: FOLLOW THE MONEY! Can’t be bothered to explain this one, as it is palpably obvious.
I’m not saying conspiracy theorizing is the stuff of maniacal red-pill-guzzlers. Far from it – history, and the past three years in particular, has been littered with conspiracies, cover-ups and hidden agendas that almost make them the norm rather than exception. But I believe I have taken the correct dose of “red-pill”, and I think the above three ingrained human tendencies explains most of what has recently unfolded. I do not believe, however, that there is a centrally-orchestrated plot by a shadowy cabal to enslave humanity. But if there were an essential medication for everybody, it would not be vaccines, it would be the red pill!
You may have hit on a good alternate categorisation there: it’s not simply ‘red-pilled’ – it’s the dosage of red pills swallowed
Spot on
I was red pilled at the start of the pandemic. Since then my life has been anything but boring. It has been such a roller coaster. Black pilling doesn’t come into it for me. The cabal are now being exposed and seen for the evil **** they are. The Daily Sceptic should be applauded for providing a forum to help others find information and wake up also. I look forward to a brighter future for all of humanity and the living creatures we share this wonderful world with. I like Toby and what he does but James Delingpole is bang on
The two are not mutually exclusive. If 95% of government failure is well intentioned incompetence it is still possible that there are darker forces profiting from the chaos. It is historical fact that there were communist cells in England during the Cold War working for the Soviets, even if the average British communist was just a well intentioned fool.
In the words of Winston Smith “the only hope is in the proles”
And luckily for us they’re waking up. People are connecting the dots – the health impact of 2 years of lockdown and the NHS backlog.
The next biggie will be the gas boiler / ICE ban. Just wait till granny can’t stay warm in winter and Dave the plumber cannot afford a car that gets him to his jobs reliably. It will be mass revolt. What we’re seeing now are just early tremors
There are clearly some unscrupulous people who have taken advantage of the situation but there is another simpler explanation; https://www.hughwillbourn.com/post/23-cock-up-conspiracy-or-murmuration
An excellent paper in your link. Many thanks 👍
Thank you for that link.
What of the slide from blue- to black-pilled?
They’re not without their own apocalyptic sermons!
Brexit was going to destroy the UK, Covid-19 was going to kill 309,000,000 UK citizens (Imperial College London, 2020), every male is toxic, every Caucasian is irredeemably racist, and climate change is going to end all life on earth within a few years!
Is it any wonder that our (social-media savvy) kids are so literally stressed out these days – whose to blame for that?
I can understand Nick’s point of view. He has to tread a careful line. But, to correct his seeming misapprehension, life being red (or even possibly black) pilled isn’t without humour (we still spend time with our families enjoying loving and fun relationships while it’s still possible!!), nor is it without hope – hope that the times we live in are fulfilling the prophecies of the Book or Revelation, the culmination of which will be Jesus’s coming again – and that is what, as a Christian, I hope for and look forward to!
I think Nick’s article is great, but I am particularly struck by the quality of the Comments it has prompted. Aside from the aberration of the Twitter-level “piss poor” contribution, the discussion is overhwlemingly thoughtful and well-reasoned. Really informative and thought-provoking. Thanks everyone!
The ancient inhabitants of Canaan were sacrificing their children to Molech. Because they were so wicked God decided to destroy them completely and give their land to the decendants of Abraham’s son Isaac. Why assume that today humanity is any less wicked, and that literal child sacrifice to Molech and other demons is not still going on? 1,755,600 and counting abortions have already taken place this year (worldometers.info/abortions) which is child sacrifice to the gods of self.
That’s a brilliant piece Nick, I totally identify with it, I’m with you in the conspiracy moderate zone, is it a zone or space? I prefer zone.
Didn’t James Alexander explain the ‘cockup or conspiracy?’ fallacy in ‘Cockupspiracy’ on December 9th?