Reply To: Project Fear

[Siderite]

A reason why conspiracy theories appeal is because they reduce what are complex topics into a distilled and simple worldview which is easy to understand and reduces uncertainty. The problem with trying to deal with complexity is that the solutions are not easy, nor are they without issues. Making it all because of a insidious group’s bidding makes it easier to pin down, reducing the anxiety.

As Deerey says, a lot of the issues over our lives and how free we are come down to technology. However, this isn’t complex. There have been many wonders of technology, which has led to breakthroughs in science and medicine, helping us to live longer lives. However, the ability of our phones to store information has made us easy to track and monitor, which can be abused by authoritarian regimes. The improvement of AI has allowed countries like China to monitor dissidents far easier and restrict freedom. Growing access to social media has connected us to the world and has enabled us to easily talk to friends or family who live far away, and make friends we never would have normally made pre-internet. However, people have siphoned off into their echo chambers, where they surround themselves with people who agree with them on most things, so don’t expose themselves to challenging thought. Information is readily available from the search of Google. However, various groups of all stripes send disinformation across social media and the internet, allowing people to comfort their own opinion than truly challenge it with evidence based dissent.

There are many problems here which affect people to be free. However, the idea that it’s all some neo-Marxist plot takes some believing. I am aware you say that it’s not traditional Marxism, BPG, but what you are referring to is still stemming from Marxism (according to the proponents of this) and of the left. Yet, many countries and societies are losing freedom from the right. Facebook aren’t harvesting data from you for some neo-Marxist conspiracy; they do it, because it makes them a profit from who they sell it to. Hungary, Russia and India* are losing their freedoms to dissent because of a right wing ideology. Of course leftist dictatorial states still exist (e.g. Venezuela, Cuba), but to portray all of modern problems as a simplistic, good v bad narrative, where only a leftist faction is to blame is rather fanciful.

*And they justify their turn to tyranny as opposition to cultural Marxism.