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Another scholarly volume that is nonetheless very readable and utterly compelling, this outing from Robertson introduces the term “epistemic capital” to help make sense of conspiracy theorists: there are the “elites,” with all the power and the money, and then there are the “sheeple,” the duped suckers.
Many of the same conspiracy theories that have surrounded the CoVid pandemic arose during other pandemics centuries ago, for example the elite were accused of introducing cholera to cull the lower classes, foreigners were blamed for spreading the Black Death by poisoning wells, and some suggested the ‘Spanish flu’ was created by the Russians as a weapon transmitted through electric lights. As such, I’ve found them to be crucial tools in our arsenal to push back against the paranoia and disinformation that’s gripping our country. In 2007, a short blogpost on Valleywag, the Silicon Valley-vertical of Gawker Media, outed PayPal founder and billionaire investor Peter Thiel as gay. If for some reason you have not yet discovered the utterly compelling and unique writing of Holiday, I kinda envy you. Navigating the dark corridors of hidden history and extreme religion, Langdon and Vidal must evade a tormented enemy whose all-knowing power seems to emanate from Spain’s Royal Palace itself .Along the way, he delves deeper into a range of other interesting questions, examining what the evidence says about a Kennedy or 9/11 conspiracy, how to detect if conspiracy theories are likely true or false, how to talk to conspiracy theorists, and the details of the real conspiracy that ultimately gave rise to World War I. This is a risky choice because the author is my old university colleague and later television writing partner, to whom I’ve been married for 41 years. I think it's quite clear in the end where his sympathies lay but nevertheless this is an intriguing story of how a billionaire can shape the world according to his own desires.
It is our collective hopes, our weaknesses, and our fears – multiplied in their billions – that create the super-structure that billionaires enjoy. Here's the highest recommendation I have ever voiced: Somewhere around half way through the book, during the middle of my workday, I had this thought.He is the editor of Conspiracy Nation and Conspiracy Theories in American History, and the co-editor of The Routledge Handbook of Conspiracy Theories. There was a unique freeness to what Gawker wrote, a kind of raw unfiltered honesty, an exaggerated way of telling the truth.
But Shermer reveals that other factors are also in play: anxiety and a sense of loss of control play a role in conspiratorial cognition patterns, as do certain personality traits.
With the Oval Office in the balance, the President dispatches White House Intelligence analyst Rachel Sexton to the Milne Ice Shelf to verify the authenticity of the find. In Holiday's masterful telling of this nearly unbelievable conspiracy, informed by interviews with all the key players, this case transcends the narrative of how one billionaire took down a media empire or the current state of the free press. Along the way, the concept of the super-hero is dissected as the heroes are stalked by an unknown assassin.
Some of these volumes are hard to get, but there are some remaining copies at the Lewis Carroll Society if interested. In the comments section at the bottom of Owen Thomas's story, Nick Denton, Valleywag's editor and the founder of its parent company, Gawker Media, had posted a few sentences in the form of an accusation that seemed to respond to itself: "The only thing that's strange about Thiel's sexuality: why on earth was he so paranoid about its discovery for so long? Caught in a pincer movement between the sudden death of Evelyn (her favourite aunt) and the Corona virus, Ascher Lieb finds herself unexpectedly locked down in her aunt’s retirement community with only Evelyn’s grief-stricken dog Freddie for company. What the last few years have taught us, unfortunately, is that conspiratorial thinking runs much deeper and wider through our culture, and it takes more than just wishful thinking to defeat.And so Peter Thiel's sexuality stood as a kept but open secret in the close-knit community of the Silicon Valley elite. This isn't something I'd ever thought about but generally in writing you'll see three examples or fewer. The sheer scope of what the author has accomplished in both telling this outrageously intriguing tale, and in maintaining his relationships with those involved, is monumental.
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