My Tao - Reality and Theater

Whenever two or more people get together to arrange things to the benefit of themselves and others, we have a conspiracy. Self interest will always skew things in such a way that those at the helm of a decision making body benefit. Any apparent sacrifice is always with some future gain in mind. Just like the chess master will entice his opponent with a gambit, so will the skilled orator make apparent sacrifices for the common good.

This is simply human nature and therefore nothing to be lamented. Many conspiracies to make money are in fact benefiting way more people than they hurt. Most capitalist ventures do this in the production of goods and services demanded by the general public. Many politicians act in ways that benefit a lot of people. However, this does not mean that no dirty tricks are employed. Marketing can be deceptive, especially when used for political gains.

The constant struggle for political and economic dominance result in a huge array of half-truths and lies, cleverly devised to mask reality. In times of crisis, this becomes especially apparent. Cause and effect are deliberately confused to deflect attention from one group of people to another. Bankers will blame inflation on shop owners and gold hoarders, and politicians will blame failed policies on bankers, foreign agents and speculators. The finger pointing can be bewildering, even to the trained critical thinker.

In the end, some things will never be fully known. We will never know exactly where the Wuhan flu originated, nor how deadly it actually was. The same can be said about the assassination of JFK, and the murky events surrounding the reunification of Germany. The list of unresolved conspiracy theories are endless. However, this is much less of a problem than many think, because we do not need absolute knowledge in order to successfully navigate the world. All we need to know is the likely outcome of actions taken.

We don't need to know much about the Wuhan flu in order to know for a near certainty that prices will go up for just about everything. With production severely crippled and central banks in hyper-inflation mode, there will be scarcities of everything. Money will be plentiful but unevenly distributed. The gap between rich and poor will increase.

Yet, people will fail to act rationally to protect themselves, partially because they are unaware of the connection between unlimited money printing and economic ruin, and partially because they are too busy trying to figure out the full truth about the current situation. Instead of converting parts of their savings into gold, they argue endlessly about the effectiveness of surgical masks, vaccines and social distancing.

By Studio Incendo - DSCF2199, CC BY 2.0, Link