Oddbean new post about login | logout 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.