Oddbean new post about login | logout That is what the WEF appears to be at a surface level. Politicians like Starmer have unequivocally stated they serve the interests of the WEF over that of their country. These are people who have aligned with globalists against their own citizens. https://video.nostr.build/42e0e8c68434aa494b5134816f9815af5139cf7e8957275af2f47bc4b5b4e76e.mp4 I think whenever I have these discussions, it is exactly to what you are saying - the balance between ignorant participation and knowingly acting in a certain manner for other reasons. And I agree with you on that mostly - they are largely just people doing things they genuinely believe in. However, bad actors do exist in these positions, too. Well, technically, I would say those people are above governments are not usually in the public light, but some hide out in plain sight. I think both these things are true. It is the tactic of compartmentalisation. It is how the policies can be distributed in a way that seems very organic, but hardly ever is.
"Politicians like Starmer have unequivocally stated they serve the interests of the WEF over that of their country" Well what he said was he'd rather be at Davos - not that he serves the WEF. I'd expect his reasoning would be exactly as I said - that its a place to network and plan with global partners in govts and business etc blah, we have global problems that need global solutions blah. "they are largely just people doing things they genuinely believe in" For what its worth I don't think these people (the sheep / normies / useful idiots) believe in anything at all. They simply follow the herd with varying degrees of awareness. I find the following classification useful: *Sheep* are those who follow the herd because they want an easy life - though they may well know its nonsense and say so. *Normies* are those who follow the herd because they've convinced themselves they "believe" in the issue at hand. Of course they don't really believe it, it could be anything at all, but they are committed to professing that belief extravagantly. What they really believe is in the importance of following the herd - and in their deserving of high status in it. But yeah nothing is real for them I think, except the herd. They will literally sacrifice their children in order to follow it.
I could accept that idea if everything Starmer does wasn't in complete lockstep with what the WEF preaches. To the letter. At some point you have to stop giving some of these people the benefit of the doubt. We even have enough evidence to raise reasonable suspicion on how organic the UK riots were, I posted a 2 minute video earlier. Same with Sunak before Starmer. Same with people like Khan, the mayor of London. That is why voting is pointless, when these people are obviously putting the interests of these orgs above those of their people. To me, it doesn't so much matter if they know or not - if they are complicit, they are guilty.
Another reason I'm skeptical of the "top-down" thesis is the fact that covid has made things much, much harder for the elites. Things were going along nicely with climate change. No big jumps to put people on the alert. All roads leading inexorably towards communism and no obvious obstacles, hardly any dissent. But with covid they woke maybe 10% of the western world up to the fact they were being lied to systematically. Those people will never believe anything they're told now. Things are much, much harder for the elites as a result. So literally I think that the most plausible "top-down" thesis, for covid anyway, is one where the elites are benevolent, and actively trying to wake people up in order to free humanity. Not saying I believe that - the bottom-up thesis seems far more likely - but I cannot see covid being part of any rational strategy for global enslavement. Unless the elites are retarded, in which case I think you end up with bottom up anyway.
Things definitely didn't go as they expected, and I agree that is has become that much harder for their narratives now. I never said covid was a strategy for enslavement. I said it was a scam. They saw an opportunity as they themselves told us, and they went with it. Many people had various reasons to support lockdowns and such, for example corporations stayed open while small business were forced to close. That wasn't part of some greater conspiracy, but just from that siloed perspective, the corporations would have had to engage within some sort of 'conspiracy' in order for legislators to allow them to keep operating. We can speculate about all the reasons, but that is how the world works - everyone thinking of their own interests. Especially people in higher positions. So in that sense, most people went along with it because it served them, and others got drunk on the extra power and showed how unfit they were for their positions. What I questioned was where all those guidelines and the policies that everyone adopted came from. I questioned the validity of their claims about vaccines, the illogical measures they proposed, and based on how absolutely every single thing they said and did was either a lie or the opposite of common sense, I decided the whole thing was a scam with a lot of stupid and complicit people. The planning starts at the top so that it can be distributed down to the lower channels, most things below that are organic "bottom up", as you say. Just pay attention to how the media operate, in lockstep, parroting and setting the narratives for people to fight over. That is just one arm of the entire propaganda network.