conspiracy

Éric’s Conspiracy Theory Theory

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Hello Imaginary Friends,

The world is a scary place right now. Other than the virus that has killed over 350,000 people worldwide and left countless others with life-long side effects; there are other things going on.

Some countries have taken this worldwide emergency as a great time to trample over civil-rights. I’m talking about China, the Saudi state, and Russia. The lockdown is hurting people. Joblessness is hurting people.

And the world will be different when this whole thing is over. Whether it’s for better or worse is yet to be seen.

It’s completely understandable that people are scared. It’s that fear that has driven people to believe in the most ridiculous things.

Image of Benjamin Franklin and the quote, “Three can keep a secret, if two of them are dead. “

I’ve stated before that human intellect is based on pattern recognition and that leads to a biasing effect. We want to see the patterns and we want to see that the world is organized and controlled, therefore controllable.

It’s hard for those most fearful to accept that the universe is random and sometimes bad things happen for no reason. It’s easier to believe that Bill Gates wants to GPS tag everyone so he created the virus than believe that poor conditions in animal markets might be to blame.

In these trying times, it’s important that we keep vigilant and listen to the experts. Read and watch with critical thought. Here’s some more advice from me four years ago.

Be Kind, Be Aware, and WASH YOUR HANDS!

Éric

Let’s get Cynical

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Hello My Imaginary Friends,

By reading this blog, I’m sure you noticed I’m a rather optimistic kind of person. I tend to assume the best of people and believe hope is important.

That being said I have my cynical moments. Last night as we were getting the little Dragon to sleep, I came to the realization that there are two kinds of cynical. When things don’t go your way or go badly, you can fall on two extremes of cynicism; Conspiracy or Stupidity.

Borrowed from https://www.instagram.com/_12drawings_/
Borrowed from Kenzie AKA _12drawings_ on Instagram

Conspiracy

Let’s say, for examples sake only, that your baby doesn’t seem to be going to sleep (just an example, I swear…). If your cynicism leans towards conspiracy, you’ll assume that the baby is trying to stop you from sleeping. Possibly for some sort of nefarious plan where she steals all your energy.

This is the extreme that you see a lot of with big businesses or with government. They’re all out to get us/me/you! It makes us feel special, because someone wants to get us, and makes us feel like there is purpose in the world.

Stupidity

This is absolute opposite side of cynicism. Instead of assuming the baby is trying to stop you from sleeping, you assume the baby has no idea what it’s doing and has no sinister motives. It’s just a baby that hasn’t developed enough to realize that it’s time to sleep and that you haven’t abandoned her in a crib for ever.

This is the harder form of cynicism. It assumes chaos and it assumes you have nothing to do with what happened. Humans tend to assume everything that happens around us is about us; we are a self-absorbed race. It is freeing to realize that everyone is just blundering about trying to get to their goals.

 

I’m trying my best to be hopeful and grotesquely optimistic, but the times I am cynical I lean towards the second option. I’ve worked in government, retail, big business, tourism, etc (seriously, I’ve done a lot) and one thing I’ve noticed is how, as a society, we are extremely hard to organize. It’s always more likely to be incompetence or stupidity rather then maliciousness. (That’s Hanlon’s Razor)

Where do you fall on the cynicism spectrum?

Éric