Conspiracy theories and other theories

Leave a comment

How often in practice do you encounter discussions about conspiracy theories, and how often about theories of delusion or some other kind of theory? How often do you notice that by labeling something as a conspiracy theory, people’s attention is diverted away from solutions, creating confusion?

Most of the time, I hear individuals discussing conspiracy theories who seem motivated to avoid seeking better solutions than the existing ones and to avoid scrutinizing the quality of current solutions. When they encounter a real problem causing harm, they don’t want to engage in recognizing and measuring the damage but instead divert all attention to finding someone who has a conspiracy theory about it. I often encounter people who categorize simple facts, practical matters, under conspiracy theories. In other words, something that is not merely a theory but a reality. These are deniers of reality. For example, I come across cases where the government, a ministry, an institution, or extremely wealthy individuals have prepared and publicly announced a very clear and unambiguous plan to achieve something. Yet, when someone shares this news, the deniers of reality claim it’s a conspiracy theory. Or, for instance, I encounter companies offering various services, and when someone spreads the word about it, the deniers of reality immediately label them as a conspiracy theorist. It seems as though, for some, conspiracy theorists are anyone who might challenge their attachment to a particular belief with some information. They keep inventing theories about conspiracy theories. They don’t want to face certain truths or facts; instead, they prefer to dismiss this information as conspiracy theories. This can happen for several reasons:

  • Psychological defense: They avoid confronting information that is emotionally or cognitively uncomfortable for them.
  • Social conformity: They want to align with the norms and beliefs of their social group, even if these are incorrect.
  • Manipulation and interest groups: Sometimes, there are interests behind it that certain groups or individuals want to protect. Labeling information as a conspiracy theory can be an effective way to discredit opposing views and protect one’s own interests.
  • Information overload: In the modern world, there is an overload of information, making it difficult to distinguish between facts, opinions, and false news. This can lead people to quickly reject information that doesn’t align with their existing beliefs, as they find it challenging to judge what is true and what isn’t.
  • Denial as a tool of control: Denial or discrediting of real information by certain groups or individuals can be a way to maintain the status quo. If certain information were to spread and become widely accepted, it could undermine certain social, political, or economic structures.

At this point, I don’t want to be too specific because this talk of conspiracy theories can be found in all areas… in economics, regarding the weather, regarding religions, in healthcare, in politics and governance,…

How did it come about that everywhere and in all areas, people talk about various types of conspiracy theories that, according to the definitions in the general enlish dictionary, have nothing to do with the word “conspiracy”? From online Cambridge dictionary:

conspiracy

the activity of secretly planning with other people to do something bad or illegal:

– The three men are accused of conspiracy.
– [ + to infinitive ] She has been charged with conspiracy to murder.
– I think there was a conspiracy to keep me off the committee.

If a group of people is doing something devious and excessively harmful, believing they are doing something beneficial, then it’s not a conspiracy theory if someone identifies what they are doing as devious and harmful, but only if they are totally deluded. If sufficient evidence cannot be provided that they are totally deluded, one might have a theory about it. This could be called a theory of delusion, but it is not a conspiracy theory.

In the case of a conspiracy, someone is genuinely and intentionally acting deviously against someone. That is, they are deliberately trying to harm them in a specific way. When we are not sure whether someone is intentionally trying to harm someone in a specific way, or in any way at all, but we see that harm is being caused, we can propose a theory that someone is deliberately and deviously trying to harm someone and that the harm is the goal, not just collateral damage. This would then be a theory about a conspiracy. A conspiracy theory.

In cases where we see that someone is causing harm and we have sufficient evidence of this, but we do not make judgments about their intentions, this is NOT a conspiracy theory but an awareness that someone is causing harm.

Choose any field where you find widespread ideas among people about conspiracy theories and start listing, for each specific case, how many other kinds of theories you could connect with it. General examples:

1.) Theories of delusion
2.) Theories of arrogance, egoism, stubbornness
3.) Theories of efforts to gradually change the DNA of living beings
4.) Theories of bizarre forms of assistance
5.) Theories of motives for total control by the masses, who have no ambitions to harm anyone
6.) Theories of efforts where collateral damage occurs
7.) Mixed theories

Conspiracy theories are just one of the possible types of theories related to causing harm that can be developed about the actions of a group of people.

For example, a “plandemic” could, according to one theory, simply be a collection of idiocies, grown in the minds of a group of people disconnected from natural laws, living nature, and natural (non-artificial) immunity, whose minds are lost in a confusion of logical fallacies on the rocket fuel of the Dunning-Kruger effect. The ideas on which a “plandemic” is based can be very logical, yet nevertheless wrong. The axioms themselves can be wrong or based on dogma. This is a theory, but it is not a conspiracy theory.

Filozofija, Splošno

Path away from slavery

Leave a comment

The information in this article is intended to help us choose better ways to reduce human and animal slavery.

Slavery began in the relationship with oneself and the relationship between man and animal. It escalated in several directions:

  • relationship man – despised man
  • male-female relationship
  • parent-child relationship
  • the relationship between humans and certain animal species
  • relationship man – certain nations
  • a slave to myself, to my addictions

The way out of slavery is to start fixing the fault at the very core. It is necessary to abandon the basic idea that anything from slavery is ethically unquestionable and necessary. This is the way to freedom.

A man who wants freedom, but does not give freedom to animals, needs persistent reprogramming to abandon animal slavery and supporting that. Otherwise, the subject cultivates energies that promote slavery in general, ideas to justify slavery and motives for its strengthening. This becomes a habit for him, and eventually the boundaries become so loose that a man, for example, no longer cares how he gets cheap food… Even if by buying cheap food from Africa he finances human slavery and child trafficking, he will not give it up and buy local food instead and ensure a fair payment to the grower.

Cocoa (chocolate) and slaves

Let me justify the last sentence with a concrete example. If we typed “is eating cacao ethical rainforest” into Google search in 2023, we got this as a result: “Exploitation of children, trafficking of children, slavery, destruction of the primeval forest (among other things monkeys also live there) for plantations.” Concretely:

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

According to data from the first hits provided by Google:

  • Cocoa farmers earn only 6% of the final price of the chocolate.
  • In only 2 African countries (Ghana and the Ivory Coast), where approximately 60% of all cocoa in the world is grown, one and a half million children work in dangerous conditions. According to data from page Modern slavery in Africa,  there are 193,000 slaves in Côte d’Ivoire, and approximately 91,000 in Ghana.
  • Children work up to 14 hours a day.
  • Many cocoa farmers are involved in child trafficking and child slavery.
  • Cocoa can be grown in a way that preserves fertile soil, but most farmers use methods that lead to soil erosion and deforestation. In West Africa, where most cocoa is grown, 70% of illegal deforestation is related to cocoa production.

When buying chocolate whose cocoa comes from such countries, many people do not know what they are financing. But even if someone finds out… what will he change when and only if he has the justification of slavery rooted in his mentality? He will probably find an excuse and continue to co-finance such a situation. Other options:

  • He could give up cocoa products if there is a strong likelihood that he is thereby supporting slavery.
  • He could buy more expensive cocoa from verified sources that ensure fair payment to workers (not just to cocoa estate owners) and forest conservation.

Make an experiment. Check what the situation is, pass this info on to your friends who eat cheap chocolates from stores, and watch for the next time you see them eating ordinary chocolate from the store, whose cacao  was collected and prepared by human slaves.

“Even animals eat meat, eating meat is natural”

Killing for food is also present in the animal world. Yes, but animals are not slaves to animals. No predator in form of an animal has its prey enslaved for the lifetime of the prey. Killing animals for food and slavery are two concepts that have nothing to do with each other. Animal slavery is a form of violence that usually lasts from its birth to its death. The execution of animals is very fast.

Industrial animal husbandry (and sometimes some other forms) is very often a severe form of enslavement and theft of:

  • the right to free movement;
  • the right to natural fertilization;
  • the right to care for one’s own cub until it reaches maturity;
  • the right to the genuine option of the evolution of the species;
  • the right to explore, play, experience the natural environment with all natural phenomena;
  • the right to choose a male / female.

Industrial animal husbandry looks like this:

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Benefits of slavery?

There are people who think about the benefits of slavery and think that slavery led to a higher level of human development. Slavery has no merit for progress in development. Hard work, organization, higher consciousness,… has it. Of course, hard work can also be motivated by slavery, but there are better methods. Motivation from inspiration / faith / trust / love… is better than motivation from fear and coercion.

Animals as pets

Animals are abused in slavery even at the expense of feeding pets, although they could be fed without the enslavement and lifelong abuse of other animals.

Many people give up meat in order to reduce animal abuse, but then they get e.g. cat and feeds it daily with more meat from abused animals than humans eat. To actually reduce slavery, it is necessary to ensure that other animals are not enslaved and abused from birth to death at the expense of feeding pets.

For example, in today’s Slovenian “culture”, a cat usually eats 100 g or more of the meat of abused animals per day. If cat ate only chickens, this would amount to approx. 24 abused chickens a year, or over 300 abused chickens per lifetime of 1 cat. If cat ate only veal, this would amount to approx. 7 lifelong abusing of calves for the lifetime of 1 cat. In principle, every purchased can of meat food for animals contains not only scraps, but also the meat of a lifelong abused animals. Any purchase of meat and meat scraps from such abused animals is a direct financial support for the continuation of animal slavery and such animal abuse.

Fairer solutions for feeding pets exist and have existed since time immemorial. Some of these are listed in the post Bad and Good (or Better) Animal Husbandry and Treatment Practices article (Slovenian version only).

Into the freedom.

 

Zavest