A Conspiracy of Diners
People Already Headed in the Direction You Want Them to Go Are Very Handy
It’s Thursday and 100 people head into a local restaurant.
They’ve heard the food is good, it’s convenient, they’ve been before and enjoyed it, or they have a hankering for the house special - a porterhouse with an osso bucco reduction glaze (note – really really good.)
They may have disparate reasons for opening the door to Chez Bob’s that evening but – in general – they have the same intent, the same motive: a nice night out with good food and friends.
They may even have other similarities – they live relatively nearby, they (in case the place a bit pricey) may have a bit more money to spend than average, they may socialize together elsewhere – “Oh, hey Jane, fancy seeing you here!” – and, since they are all at the same restaurant, they probably have similar tastes and standards.
The 100 people are not, however, part of a conspiracy. It is more than likely – actually a certainty – that all came to the decision to go to the restaurant on their own, with no more coordination than maybe a call to the other couple they are eating with to double check the time of the reservation.
They are simply 100 people who share similarities – they like the place, they have compatible means – they’re not going to stick the Petersen’s with the bill – and they have the very specific need of eating dinner and this evening satisfying that basic requirement involves Chez Bob’s.
It is not a nefarious conspiracy – the chances that all 100 went to the restaurant because they got the special coded message to visit the Grand High Musafalut to get their marching orders for the coming week is exceedingly slim.
Those who happen to see folks going in and out of a busy restaurant notice a good number of people walk in and almost everyone who walks out later seems pretty well fed and pleased.
Just as it is not a conspiracy to eat at the restaurant – hmm, do if they have good fish? - it is not engaging in “conspiracy theorizing” to wonder why people like it; both are hyperbolic reactions to a rather typical situation.
In other words, on many occasions people will merely act in concert serendipitously to achieve the same result, just as others will legitimately wonder why they prefer that result.
Groups of like-minded people acting in the same way is not automatically a conspiracy even though it prima facie could appear as one; wondering why they act that way is a legitimate line of inquiry and not an alternate reality madness conspiracy theory.
But what if that human tendency – we are a social animal after all – is subverted and used for nefarious reasons? What if a desired outcome is made more likely through manipulative positive reinforcement?
If a group of people is heading in one direction – a direction you want to make sure they continue heading – why not intentionally make that journey easier, more comfortable, more rewarding? And a great benefit to reinforcement rather than blatant direction is that those being so nudged may not realize it and even if they do they will not see it as bad thing – after all, they were going there anyway, so why not enjoy the promotion, the raise, the access, the plaudits, the assurances that they are doing the right thing for the right reasons?
And that brings us to the Deep State.
DC is an oddly small town, at least for the movers, shakers, nabobs, and solons. This insularity enforces a sort of self-censorship when it comes to publicly discussing anything beyond politics (if you are woke you’re allowed to do that) or the weather (and, now with the climate change grift, even that.)
The residents work in the same business – elected or staff, contractor or vendor, lobbyist or reporter, it’s called the manipulation industry – and they tend to have similar backgrounds. They frequent the same clubs, read the same newspapers, dress in the same “17-year-old student council member off to the Model U.N. high school conference” way, they want to have the same powerful friends, they want to get invited to the best Sunday brunches, they like having a bit of cash on the bank, they like being privy to secrets that only a few people (they think) know, they live in fear of having to send their kids to public school, and they dread ostracization as – since DC is town of social influence and not physical productivity – it means the end of everything.
Subconsciously, they go along to get along, to protect their lifestyles, to make sure their rice bowls are not broken by some deranged interloper threatening to pry them loose from the gilded ship of state.
Unquestionably - when it comes to the current omni-pression slithering out of DC – calls are made, orders are given, critics are silenced, friends rewarded, strategies are mapped out, infiltrators are planted, and goals known well before the tactics are set.
There is an actual conspiracy to thwart and subjugate and thoughtshame opponents; just the Twitter Files show us that to be true.
But it is a conspiracy made much simpler by the fact that everyone was headed in the same direction anyway. This is the very deniable soft conspiracy of the nudge and it is being driven by the very devious hard people at the top.
That is also why observing the impacts, questioning the motives, noticing the parallels, investigating the reasons, pointing out the obvious, and believing you own eyes over what you are being told is not an exercise in conspiracy theory. In fact, it is doing what every good citizen should always be doing – holding those the nation has allowed transitory power accountable.
Or maybe we need to just shut the restaurant down.