I love conspiracy theories but I’m not an idiot. Skepticism and common sense matter; fake moon landings and flat earths are dumb.
The only fun conspiracy theories are the ones that turn out to be true.
Recently, I made an error. I underestimated conspiracy.
History is awash in conspiracy. Weird shit happens and, faced with change, the populace (or establishment) denies it. The new situation remains a conspiracy theory until it becomes “common knowledge”.
To avoid getting in the weeds of modern politics, I use hindsight to mock fifth century Romans. They thought (or acted like) a buildup of barbarians (Vandals and such) was no big deal.
I’m from the future so I know that happened. Undocumented migrants on the far side of the Rhine river were fleeing Huns. These “refugees” demanded entry into Rome; politely and with armed incursion. Rome didn’t have resources to handle all of them. “Please go somewhere else.” The situation deteriorated.
On December 31, 406 the Rhine froze. A flowing river was a barrier but frozen ice wasn’t. Lacking a barrier, the military was spread too thin. The Vandals (and others) simply walked into Roman territory.
Once there, the refugee/undocumented migrants settled and contributed to the peaceful and wealthy Roman society which they’d entered. Ha ha ha… no way! People be crazy! They rampaged across Gaul. Rome, arguably the most successful empire in human history, collapsed.
That’s history for ya’. I know shit that Romans didn’t. You know it too. We’d have been, at the time, conspiracy theorists.
December 30, 406:
Maximus the Conspiracy Theorist: “The border situation is in crisis! Stock up on MREs and fortify your domus. The government can’t save us!”
Sheeple: “Poor gullible Maximus, you’ve had too much vinum.”
January 1, 407:
Everyone: “That sucked!”
Maximus: “They stole my MREs and set my domus on fire. I told you guys…”
Sheeple: “Shut up Maximus. You’re still a weirdo.”
Fast forward 1600 years. Rome’s gone, how’s America? One month ago, I wrote that America is in a “cycle of greater corruption than some unremarkable baseline”.
I hypothesized about “the madness of now” was not a conspiracy so much as events that were hard to see in proper scale. One cause is corruption supplanting the rule of law. Another is the effect of social media.
Social and manipulative media is the main destabilizer. Let’s avoid today’s myopia by another trip through history: in 1454 the Gutenberg press changed things. Plentiful German language pamphlets and Bibles(!) let everyone see the world’s secrets. Rare Latin illuminated manuscripts had formerly kept a lid on things.
New information! The gatekeepers have been lying! Freak out time!
The firmament shifted and Medieval social coherence a thousand years old imploded. Other influences played a role too (like plague ebola). There’s no putting the toothpaste back in the tube, so Medieval gave way to Renaissance.
We’re another Gutenberg generation. Media corporations intend to change our thinking. They’re succeeding. They “nudge” us to act in certain ways. We do it. Here are things that would be unbelievable to a person in 1990: People interrupt conversations in real time for a text. They’ll post on Facebook while taking a dump. They’ll binge six seasons of a TV show. At historic monuments they’ll take a photo of themselves. They have political discussions about sneakers. They vote their degree of approval (“like”) for other people’s activities.
Ominously, raw information is censored. It doesn’t carry the desired signal so containment is implemented. Deplorables in flyover country should shut the hell up while our betters read to us from the illuminated manuscript. Should we speak certain ideas it’s hate speech. Disagree with certain ideas and you’re racist or Hitler. Push your luck and you’ll be deplatformed or doxed. That’s what censorship looks like. It’s nothing fifteenth century Gutenberg pamphleteers wouldn’t recognize. 2019 is only a few pitchforks and bonfires from 1450.
The cell phone in your pocket is doing to you what Gutenberg’s press did to peasants of the 15th century.
That said, I’m more interested in corruption than media. So here’s the corruption part:
The opposite of corruption is rule of law. America was once big on it. Jeffrey Epstein was a chance to redeem some of it. I imagined it might.
Epstein was a rich influential pimp. Rich or not, he was arrested. Rule of law!
Nobody considered it a simple criminal matter. (Not even me.) The press tried to tie him to Trump. Others pointed to Clinton. Arresting a pimp was all about election cycles? That’s what widespread corruption looks like.
Nobody thought Epstein was arrested just because he was committing crimes. It was about connections and names. I’d have been happier if he was arrested because he was a criminal but you can’t always get what you want.
I had an optimistic thought; regardless of why he was arrested, I hoped Epstein would get a fair trial. I wanted something that followed rules. I wanted a sober judge and hard working lawyers and proper evidence and juries that seriously deliberate. It could have been an antidote for the last few years of flaky performances like the Mueller Report or Kavanaugh Hearings.
I wanted rule of law.
When everyone joked about Arkancide I held back. This was an opportunity. I believed our system of rules could handle it. We have (had?) a decent legal system. Among the best on earth. Our evidentiary rules, when they’re followed, are good. If everyone behaved and there were no “lost files” or “secret agreements”, we’d have a clean example of laws that apply to everyone.
Each challenge is an opportunity! Everyone was watching. Time to shine! Do it by the book; like competent adults in a modern democracy!
Ugh… you’re probably laughing at me as you read this. I’m such a schmuck.
THEY. FUCKED. UP.
The system, and everyone in it, failed. My freezer has toaster waffles that lasted longer than Epstein in jail. What a mess! Failure this huge is for fiction; not real life.
The only facts we know are the timeline:
July 6th: Epstein was arrested. Jokes about his impending suicide circulated immediately.
July 24th. Epstein was found injured in his cell. 18 days?!? WTF! A kid can keep a goldfish alive longer than prison protected the highest profile defendant of the decade? Whether suicide attempt or prison beating is immaterial. The whole point was to keep Epstein alive. Nobody trusted any information; which makes sense, since they’d already done an untrustworthy job.
But maybe they could still do the right thing? Stumble out of the gates but do it right in the long run…
Nope!
August 10th. Epstein died. He lasted a measly five weeks. THEY HAD JUST ONE JOB: KEEP THIS BASTARD ALIVE. There is no worse or more obvious failure. Whether it’s suicide or murder is immaterial; he died when they were in charge of not letting him die.
I was the last Boy Scout. I believed in rule of law. I saw a glorious chance to do it properly. The bar was set low and they dove into the dirt beneath it. Fuckers!
Was it Arkancide? I don’t know. I don’t care. It was their job to keep him alive. He’s not. They blew it. It’s a disaster. I had hope and I’ve been wrong from day one.
They blew it; just as everyone (but me) expected.
Clintonite mob hit on the rich and connected? Jailers that shouldn’t be trusted to keep a hamster? Some combination of the two. Which is worse? Which is better? Why?
Argentina used to toss dissidents out of helicopters. They knew it was wrong and carefully hid their shame. Epstein died right out in the open.
This matters to you and me both. A system that killed a lawyered up billionaire can do the same to anyone on earth. He was the most famous defendant on earth, everyone assumed he was at risk, there are thousands of jokes and memes about it… he’s dead and we’re fucked. Nobody is safe.
The whole thing is tainted. We can’t trust information that oozes out of this mess. Is it the truth or what they (whoever they are) wants us to hear? Chalk it up to another thing we may never know.
The dude was picked off the street and dead in a month. Nobody is safe without the rule of law.
This galactic cock-up worries me. I underestimated the systemic failure at play. Suicide, Arkancide, or some clever secret escape to a tropical beach… choose your conspiracy theory; to me they’re all the same. No proper criminal trial = no rules.
Jokes about Epstein’s impending suicide went for silly to true. It sucks.