Unpacking the Great Reset & 15 minute tin foil tropes

[Rob Ray]

Just because it (and many related phenomena) seems to be continuing to gain in scale and we've not had much of a dedicated thread here yet. It escalated for obvious reasons during the pandemic but seems to be still be growing at the moment, usually with a recognisable far-right tinge (New World Order, George Soros type dogwhistles).

Are there many good in-depth critiques of it from the left? QAnon and the US anti-dem ecosystem have had a fair chunk of work thrown at them by big centrist outlets (eg. the long-running BBC podcast), alongside occasional individual targeting (Monbiot) which mostly revolves around a rubbernecking "look at these weirdos" approach. But work actually addressing and tearing down the assumptions behind it I've not seen much of, other than swipes taken by rambly Breadtube types.

Like it should be obvious from the get-go that "15-minute cities as a method of creating permanent lockdown" makes no sense in economic terms and distracts from very real attacks on our rights to protest, form unions etc, but is it actually being taken down methodically anywhere? And if not, what would need to be addressed in such work? What's actually being said by the conspiracy brigade?

(Edit: Forgot that the World Forum has a "no conspiracy threads unless it's bringing something new" policy - in which case is this one alright FridgeMagnet ? If not then fair, I'm mostly looking for tools towards debunking and countering given the trend of this stuff to drag people into far-right mumbling about "neo-Marxist agendas" but recognise that might also degenerate.)

 

[8ball]

As well as NWO and Soros, the WEF feature as a big baddie in the new theories,

 

[Rob Ray]

As Marxists, no less. It's absolutely bizarre, the sheer incoherence of it is part of what puzzles me - some of this stuff shouldn't last past a moment's thought.

 

[gosub]

Good luck with that. Yes there is going to be a fair amount of apophenia, but you don't get that them types of people heading to Switzerland once a year purely coz they do a decent fondue. Your average urbanite would be retinal scanned and told to go home miles before they got to Davos so you are stuck with trawling through the stuff the put public domain

 

[hitmouse]

Jesus, it's depressing seeing the trajectory people like Winter Oak and Dialectical Delinquents have been on. The Stirrer as well.

 

[mojo pixy]

I saw good people go bad during the Occupy protests, the St Paul's camp was awash with conspiracism and few dared to challenge it because that just created hostility and too many people were more concerned with numbers. A lot of decent people left, and the conspiracist tendency gained ground that way IMO. It's been all downhill since then.

 

[LDC]

Both Dialectical Deliquents and Winter Oak are one (late) middle aged man projects though, largely/entirely internet based. And DD has always been quite cranky even before they went the way they've gone recently. Not that it's not depressing and politically suspect, but they not significant collective projects.

There's been some work done in the US by some POC political projects addressing conspiracy stuff in their peers, I'll try and find it later. And there was a decent piece written a few years ago by a NZ group iirc.

 

[hitmouse]

Feel like it's gone into overdrive since Covid though.

 

[LDC]

Feel like it's gone into overdrive since Covid though.

I struggle with the line between people with some of these wacked out views and then where it possibly tips into being a mental health issue. I mean does this change how we deal with it and talk to people?

 

[hitmouse]

Both Dialectical Deliquents and Winter Oak are one (late) middle aged man projects though, largely/entirely internet based. And DD has always been quite cranky even before they went the way they've gone recently. Not that it's not depressing and politically suspect, but they not significant collective projects.

Yeah, point taken, and if the Stirrer was ever more than one person it wasn't much more. Still sad though.

There's been some work done in the US by some POC political projects addressing conspiracy stuff in their peers, I'll try and find it later. And there was a decent piece written a few years ago by a NZ group iirc.

You thinking of How to Overthrow the Illuminati? That seemed worthwhile but it must be very dated now:

How to overthrow the Illuminati

This pamphlet gives an excellent account, analysis and debunking of conspiracy theories and proposes a practical alternative for poor, black and working class people for emancipation.

libcom.org

 

[Monkeygrinder's Organ]

It seems to me that there's a sort of jumping off point for this after which the precise direction taken is probably less important (although it could be the difference between moaning on the internet and getting tooled up I guess). There's probably not much point debating the specifics of the fifteen minute city conspiracy for example as they're gone by then. How you counter it from a left point if view though I don't really know - you probably need to move beyond a good Vs bad viewpoint though. Like it's not defending Boris Johnson to point out that his motivations aren't those of a film baddy iyswim.

 

[two sheds]

I hadn't realized until recently that the Great Reset started off as a non-conspiracy theory project.

The Great Reset

There is an urgent need for global stakeholders to cooperate in simultaneously managing the direct consequences of the COVID-19 crisis. To improve the state of the world, the World Economic Forum is starting The Great Reset initiative.

www.weforum.org

 

[gosub]

I hadn't realized until recently that the Great Reset started off as a non-conspiracy theory project.

The Great Reset

There is an urgent need for global stakeholders to cooperate in simultaneously managing the direct consequences of the COVID-19 crisis. To improve the state of the world, the World Economic Forum is starting The Great Reset initiative.

www.weforum.org

Wayback machine is your friend when it comes to what it says on the tin and what it supposed to do. WEF ain't alone in suit you siring an agenda to fit with latest fashion. And of course apophenia from thems outside the tent.

China's bank run victims planned to protest. Then their Covid health codes turned red | CNN

Authorities in the Chinese city of Zhengzhou have been accused of tampering with the Covid health code system to stop people from protesting.

www.cnn.com

 

[two sheds]

Wayback machine is your friend when it comes to what it says on the tin and what it supposed to do. WEF ain't alone in suit you siring an agenda to fit with latest fashion. And of course apophenia from thems outside the tent.

China's bank run victims planned to protest. Then their Covid health codes turned red | CNN

Authorities in the Chinese city of Zhengzhou have been accused of tampering with the Covid health code system to stop people from protesting.

www.cnn.com

WEF didn't start off the Great Reset?

 

[gosub]

WEF didn't start off the Great Reset?

Great Reset might as well have a WEF trade mark, but if Klaus Schuab is going to blow smoke up China s arse (see other posts) worth pointing out they'll be some down sides to including social credit scores into money (some big ones in not having them tbf) [educated guess at an agenda]

 

[gosub]

It's a tricky one cos only the Dutch provide a bigger headache (Dutch Antillies) so UK is always going to be seen as a bit Mandy Rice Davis but seems all seems a bit like locking in a steam punk dystopia imo. Better path available

 

[RD2003]

I saw good people go bad during the Occupy protests, the St Paul's camp was awash with conspiracism and few dared to challenge it because that just created hostility and too many people were more concerned with numbers. A lot of decent people left, and the conspiracist tendency gained ground that way IMO. It's been all downhill since then.

Good people going bad... I posted in another thread quite a while ago about a long-time friend and colleague of Mrs RD who has been in a same-sex relationship for over 30 years. Once on the Labour left and active in gay rights, she and her partner used to reminisce enthusiastically about being out at every opportunity collecting for the miners, visiting picket lines etc. About 7-8 years ago this all began to change, and I can't quite put my finger on why, and neither can Mrs RD, who knows them a lot better. They think Tommy Robinson is right, sympathised with Trump in a 'true believer' kind of way, and opposed the lockdowns (while safely working from home throughout) and the vaccines, although, clearly with their ageing and increasing vulnerability in mind, they hedged their bets and had the first 2 vaccines. They voted Brexit, as did I, but unlike me, who just wanted to kick out at the smug so-called centrist consensus, they fully believed that they were helping destroy the New World Order (or summat). They fully understand the Jewish conspiracy stuff, but reject all suggestions those they listen to now have anything to do with pushing it through the back door, and are blind to some of their 'allies' attitude to gay rights and so on. They are on YouTube constantly, and full of recommendations for stuff which even a cursory look tells you is laughable. They remain nice, decent people, but appear lost to this stuff at the wrong time of life...

It goes back a lot further than Occupy imo. In about 1994 I had a six-month relationship with a woman ten years younger who, along with her brother and sisters, had been moved around various self-styled communes by her hippy mother up until her mid-teens. She was an intelligent person, but a lack of formal education (not that my inner-city comprehensive had given me much of an education), and being exposed to a constant stream of pseudo-mystical nonsense during her formative years had clearly damaged her. She was the first person I met who didn't treat David Icke as a joke-she actually tried to push his first book on me. You couldn't tell her about the regurgitated Jewish conspiracy stuff because she'd never heard about it, and had little inkling that there had been a devastating world war and the Holocaust only a few decades previously. I'd not long been back from my last visit to Moscow, and she had to ask me what country it was in. I dismissed all this as her being still only 20, and an accident of her upbringing, never expecting it to go mainstream. We have sporadic online contact now (we parted as friends and she settled on the other side of the world), and she still talks along these lines and, if anything, feels emboldened and vindicated.

Just a couple of examples from different eras, but to address the OP, I'm not confident that this stuff can be reasoned with.

 

[RD2003]

It seems to me that there's a sort of jumping off point for this after which the precise direction taken is probably less important (although it could be the difference between moaning on the internet and getting tooled up I guess). There's probably not much point debating the specifics of the fifteen minute city conspiracy for example as they're gone by then. How you counter it from a left point if view though I don't really know - you probably need to move beyond a good Vs bad viewpoint though. Like it's not defending Boris Johnson to point out that his motivations aren't those of a film baddy iyswim.

I always say to these types that rather than a conspiracy being conducted against us, the world isn't as bad as it seems. On the contrary, it's far, far worse, in part because it's random, and people who, by and large, know little more than the rest of us are in charge and are winging it.

The radical left also isn't innocent of having a goodies v baddies framework. I used to talk in such terms myself when younger, albeit with some doubts intruding into the corner of my vision.

 

[8ball]

As Marxists, no less. It's absolutely bizarre, the sheer incoherence of it is part of what puzzles me - some of this stuff shouldn't last past a moment's thought.

For Marxists you mean?

 

[Fozzie Bear]

Good idea for a thread. This from Reuters is just a fact check on one rumour with links to several others they have done:

Fact Check-The World Economic Forum did not issue 'urgent memo' detailing 18-month review of 'Great Reset Phase I solutions'

There is no evidence a screenshot shared on social media that purportedly shows a World Economic Forum (WEF) “urgent memo”, describing an 18-month review of “Great Reset Phase I solutions” is real. The note refers to several debunked conspiracy theories, and the WEF told...

www.reuters.com

So not in depth, quite the opposite. But one angle to this is latching on to a grab bag of obscure “facts” that you can bedazzle or confuse people with. I think this is a key part of conspiracy theories - the dubious cultural capital.

 

[hitmouse]

For Marxists you mean?

No, I think "as Marxists" - i.e., the drive to portray various unlikely figures as part of a Marxist/cultural Marxist agenda.

 

[Fozzie Bear]

This is interesting on the initial spreading of the theory in American media.

How the 'great reset' of capitalism became an anti-lockdown conspiracy | Quinn Slobodian

Though a poor diagnosis of global events, this implausible theory offers a grim insight into the public mood, says history professor Quinn Slobodian

www.theguardian.com

 

[Brainaddict]

There's no doubt in my mind that the deterioration in people's mental health during the pandemic has increased conspiracy theories quite significantly. I think they've always relied on poor mental health to spread but there's a spectrum of how unwell people are exactly, with many quite functional people involved who still have mental health struggles - some significant percentage of the Western world does, and most of them aren't certifiable or anything. But I would push this further - I've never met anyone who's really into this stuff who came across as sorted and in good mental health, with a good social support network etc. Perhaps the closest was a friend of mine who got obsessed with 4G phone masts for a while, but then he quietly dropped it when nothing bad happened - i.e. he was open to the evidence.

E2a: I guess what I'm saying is that arguing against this stuff in a rational way rarely does any good. That's not how it embeds itself. Its root is isolation, loneliness, fear, depression, feelings of insignificance, trauma and so on.

 

[two sheds]

and coming under increasing financial pressures with stagnant wages but rising rents along with more pressures at work to just keep their jobs

 

[Brainaddict]

and coming under increasing financial pressures with stagnant wages but rising rents along with more pressures at work to just keep their jobs

Oh yes, absolutely - stress, particularly in the form of financial stress which causes you to be fearful, robs you of your ability to think well. By itself it wouldn't necessarily tip someone over the edge, but if they're also isolated, didn't have great mental health anyway....

I guess class can come into it - it would be really interesting to see a study on this. E.g. I know people who work in pharmaceutical companies and understand that, while in many ways it is a racket, you wouldn't be able to keep secret (on a global scale) something like a vaccine that does more harm than good. If you're someone who has never even met someone who works for a pharma company it's easier to develop unrealistic ideas about what they might be able to achieve. And many people think that the professional classes in general are suspicious, probably out to get them in some way (and they aren't entirely wrong).

 

[Monkeygrinder's Organ]

No, I think "as Marxists" - i.e., the drive to portray various unlikely figures as part of a Marxist/cultural Marxist agenda.

That side comes pretty directly from relatively mainstream Republican/rightwing media sources I think. The line there is pretty blurred but you can see there how they do intersect.

 

[mojo pixy]

Just a couple of examples from different eras, but to address the OP, I'm not confident that this stuff can be reasoned with.

I agree, to the extent that conspiracism (of whatever flavour from the hippy-dippy-anti-authoritarian kind to the explicitly fascistic 'hitler had the right idea' kind, and everything between .. the Great Reset idea fits both) is 100% emotional in form and function. Obviously a view not built on reason can't be challenged via reason, and that's the biggest problem with all this.

 

[8ball]

No, I think "as Marxists" - i.e., the drive to portray various unlikely figures as part of a Marxist/cultural Marxist agenda.

Ah, cheers. I misread totally there.

 

[hitmouse]

I agree, to the extent that conspiracism (of whatever flavour from the hippy-dippy-anti-authoritarian kind to the explicitly fascistic 'hitler had the right idea' kind, and everything between .. the Great Reset idea fits both) is 100% emotional in form and function. Obviously a view not built on reason can't be challenged via reason, and that's the biggest problem with all this.

There was an ACFM interview with Wu Ming/Luther Blissett recently that was quite interesting about this, talked about a project I'd never heard of before that challenged some kind of 90s Italian satanic panic by creating a better, more appealing counter-myth, but can't remember the exact details, and I think there's maybe a book about it but it's only in Italian:

Microdose: Fantasy and Conspiracy With Wu Ming 1 | Novara Media

Did a '90s literary prank inspire the Capitol riots? The author of Q explores the universal appeal of conspiracies.

novaramedia.com

 

[Rob Ray]

For Marxists you mean?

As in people are denouncing the WEF for being Marxists. Sometimes including major outlets like Sky News Australia (which despite the name is possibly even more unhinged than Fox).