The germ in conspiracy theories

 Dublin saw a nasty little protest against masks, lockdowns, Covid, whatever you’re having yourself at the weekend. Protesters aimed firework rockets directly at police, three gards were significantly hurt, 23 people arrested. Hardly Tiananmen Square, but disturbing in a largely peaceful and compliant society.

News reports quoted some of the demonstrators saying their protest was aimed at organisations such as RTÉ, the national broadcaster, partly because they were, er, killing babies to extract some substance that kept their presenters looking youthful.

 

Now, anyone who watches RTÉ will be rolling on the floor at this (whatever it is, it’s not working too well). Something called “adrenochrome” is alleged to be extracted from babies and used to juice up those RTÉ complexions. And yes, adrenochrome does exist, a type of oxidated adrenaline.

Another statement attributed to the protesters was that “9,000 people went missing in Ireland last year”, with an implication that these ended in mysterious and dreadful fates. 

 

I make no comment about these theories, except to quote a learned friend on Reddit: 'There is a very fine line between absolute nonsense and a conspiracy theory.' 

 

But: the thing is that 9,000 people were reported missing in Ireland last year. Note the extra word, though – “reported”. Of these, all but 52 were found, came back, were never missing, or whatever, according to official records.

So there is a germ of truth in the fearful fact being bandied about. And that is true of many conspiracy theories. Pizzagate did have an actual pizza restaurant involved, even if everything else about it was interplanetary mumbojumbo. Donald Trump, remember him, is also masterful at planting a seed, not enlarging upon it, but hinting and selecting one aspect of a situation to enlarge and distort.

 

It’s that evil little germ that can be so hard to root out, deny, discredit. Because those who throw that statistic into the mix are operating on emotion and expecting very quick or partial listening and reading. They’re not in the game for a long to-and-fro, on-the-one-hand, etcetera. It’s much more fun to think that Elvis is alive on the moon than to peruse his death certificates online. (And in fact the realest one is not public until 2027, so put that in your pipe and smoke it).

 

But as is evident at every level, that tiny little germ is used as the platform for an enormous amount of theory, allegation, substantiation (some think) of the vast conspiracy of Them against Us, or at least those of us who are awake to their evil.

 

Personally, I always preferred the cock-up theory of history and have rarely been disappointed.