(I am still elbow-deep in the guts of The Regicide Report, hence paucity of recent blog entries.)

I must admit that I used to be a big fan of conspiracy theories—or applied psychoceramics, as we called it back in the nineties—but the rise of social media has lifted the carpet to reveal a mass of wriggly creepy-crawlies under the rug, some of which are very not nice at all: as witness the rise of QAnon (which is basically the old anti-semitic Blood Libel in a new coat of paint), the enthusiastic adoption of a bunch of really nasty racist conspiracy theories by the far right (who use them to market Nazism via the internet), and so on.

I mean, vaccines against a pandemic virus with a mortality rate that trended towards 10% where public healthcare services were overwhelmed (in the darkest months of 2020) are actually a conspiracy by Bill Gates to inject 5G radio receivers into God-Fearing White People to mind control them? Really? Whoever came up with that one clearly didn't understand anything about radio propagation or the limits of miniaturization or mRNA; but they tapped into a deep wellspring of paranoia about government that intersected with ignorance of biology and a cult of individuality and formed a hellish brew that threatens to undermine two centuries of public healthcare. Worse: because our political ruling class are mostly managerialists and lawyers, they share the public ignorance and appear incapable of grasping the basics of epidemiology or responding effectively.

I probably don't need to describe how social media have allowed stories that appeal to our "common sense" beliefs but are actually misinformed to spread virally, never mind the ease of confusing satire and reality online, or the use of media channels by hostile state actors to spread propaganda designed to incite chaotic or self-destructive behaviour in rival powers' populations. Do I?

Anyway: in an attempt to cheer myself up I'm trying to come up with some new conspiracy theories that don't exist yet and provide plausible, appealing explanations for the way things are. Kind of like Birds Aren't Real, only new.

Theory the First: Projection, meet Lizard People!

The Reptilian conspiracy theory is one of those right-wing tropes that I alluded to earlier: David Icke, an anti-semitic conspiracy theorist, claims shapeshifting reptilian aliens control Earth by taking on human form and gaining political power to manipulate human societies. Icke has stated on multiple occasions that many world leaders are, or are possessed by, so-called reptilians. (Icke's main field of expertise before coming up with this batshittery was kicking a soccer ball around a muddy field.)

Now, we know for a fact that whenever we hear an accusation from a right-wing politician, it is almost always a confession. (Just ask yourself how many days it's been since a homophobic Republican politician was caught in a public toilet, or a Southern Baptist youth pastor was caught with child pornography on his phone (sorry about the link pointing to a DuckDuckGo search, it's just such a target-rich environment I couldn't pick just one example)).

So: when we consider the Reptilian conspiracy theory in the context of the "every accusation is a confession" axiom, we are forced to conclude that right wing politicians are Reptiloids in human-suits. (And so, probably, is David Icke.)

Theory the Second: Ayn Rand was a Communist Spy!

Want to know what's wrong with the brainworms infecting so many Silicon Valley entrepreneurs? Well, many of them were exposed at an impressionable age to the fiction and philosophical maunderings of Ayn Rand (Alisa Rosenbaum), a Russian emigre and novelist who made Robert Heinlein look like a Maoist. I feel this explanation is necessary because this is a UK-centric blog and Rand is almost unknown in the UK—she's rightfully obscure over here, for which I am very grateful, because I fear that if I'd been exposed in my teens I might have been suckered into a brief, highly embarrassing Objectivist phase.

Objectivism was her pet philosophical-political creed, and is unique in American discourse in that it's both non-religious and to the right of Libertarianism. It's based on ferocious materialism and almost undiluted selfishness: Gordon Gekko's "greed is good" in Wall Street is an almost perfect expression of Objectivism.

Anyway: I hypothesize that Ayn Rand was a GRU agent*, trained by followers of Trotsky (while he was running the show as Commissar for Military and Naval affairs—he got booted in January 1925, shortly after Stalin became General Secretary of the CPSU). She was sent to the USA in 1925/26 specifically to act as a chaos agent—ordered to accelerate the collapse of capitalism by inflaming all its worst internal tendencies towards self-destruction. As a highly articulate, not to say charismatic, writer she did this by writing implausible propaganda fiendishly designed to warp young minds (such as that of Peter Thiel, now CEO of Palantir Technologies).

Consider that Trotskyism emphasizes the global struggle against capitalism rather than "communism in one country" (Stalin's policy). Trotskyites are entryists, well known for infiltrating other political factions and sewing dissent and strife among their enemies (including other factions on the left as well as the right). Trotskyites are left-accelerationists, seeking to accelerate the demise of capitalism by speed-running it until it provokes a revolution or disintegrates under its own internal contradictions. And Russian Agent Rand would have been trained at Leningrad State University and then the State Technicum for Screen Arts to take up the role of a resident agitprop agent in America.

Theory the Third: Through synthesis of Theory One and Theory Two: Ayn Rand was a Reptiloid (and so are her glassy-eyed techbro billionaire followers, at the highest level of Silicon Valley management).

Can you refute this? (And by the way, Birds are Dinosaurs and we know Birds Aren't Real, they're robots created by the CIA, so Ayn Rand was probably a robot too ...)