{"id":32871,"date":"2018-12-15T15:10:18","date_gmt":"2018-12-15T14:10:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.limbicnutrition.com\/blog\/some-conspiracies-are-real\/"},"modified":"2020-09-26T21:55:24","modified_gmt":"2020-09-26T19:55:24","slug":"some-conspiracies-are-real","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.limbicnutrition.com\/blog\/some-conspiracies-are-real\/","title":{"rendered":"Some conspiracies are real"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"user-select: auto;\">In the 90&#8217;s I used to believe any and all conspiracy theories were utter rubbish. Over the years my confidence in my hard skeptic position has diminished.<\/p>\n<p style=\"user-select: auto;\">The first knock came when <a style=\"user-select: auto;\" href=\"https:\/\/en.m.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/ECHELON\">Echelon<\/a> turned out to be true. I was told about it by a drunken colleague at British Telecom a few years before it was publicly revealed. The same person also told me about the Five Eyes intelligence agencies tapping the core internet trunks, something Snowden confirmed nearly 20 years later.<\/p>\n<p style=\"user-select: auto;\">Another knock came from the realization that the 40 year war on dietary fat turned out to be misguided at best, if not criminally negligent.<\/p>\n<p style=\"user-select: auto;\">The book and later film the <a style=\"user-select: auto;\" href=\"https:\/\/en.m.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Merchants_of_Doubt\">Merchants of Doubt<\/a> exposed the unbelievable scale and boldness of the industrial disinformation campaigns waged against us all.<\/p>\n<p style=\"user-select: auto;\">Recently I witnessed an anti-conspiracy staple take a fatal hit. &#8220;Conspiracies cannot be real because people cannot keep secrets&#8221;. I used to believe this until I was involved in the recent Specter and Meltdown response. For months, hundreds of not thousands of security professionals across the industry worked together &#8211; conspired &#8211; in total secrecy, to patch all major operating systems against the vulnerabilities.<\/p>\n<p style=\"user-select: auto;\">Now it seems like every week I am hearing about conspiracy theories that turn out to be true.<\/p>\n<p style=\"user-select: auto;\">Today the &#8220;baby powder causes cancer&#8221; conspiracy theorists appear to have been right. <a style=\"user-select: auto;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/business-46572536\">Reuters <\/a><a style=\"user-select: auto;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/business-46572536\">has <\/a><a style=\"user-select: auto;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/business-46572536\">revealed<\/a> that the company did indeed find asbestos in some of its talk products as far back as 1971. I can remember dismissing that one too.<\/p>\n<p style=\"user-select: auto;\">There are two good books that address this topic.<\/p>\n<ul style=\"user-select: auto;\">\n<li style=\"user-select: auto;\"><a style=\"user-select: auto;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/dp\/B07637TDJJ\">Conspiracy: Peter Thiel, Hulk Hogan, Gawker, and the Anatomy of Intrigue<\/a> by Ryan Holiday<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul style=\"user-select: auto;\">\n<li style=\"user-select: auto;\"><a style=\"user-select: auto;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Square-Tower-Networks-Freemasons-Facebook-ebook\/dp\/B073NPCBL5\/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1544882359&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=networks+niall+ferguson\">The Square and the Tower: Networks and Power, from the Freemasons to Facebook <\/a>by Niall Ferguson<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the 90&#8217;s I used to believe any and all conspiracy theories were utter rubbish. Over the years my confidence in my hard skeptic position has diminished. The first knock came when Echelon turned out to be true. I was told about it by a drunken colleague at British Telecom a few years before it &#8230; <a title=\"Some conspiracies are real\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.limbicnutrition.com\/blog\/some-conspiracies-are-real\/\" aria-label=\"Read more about Some conspiracies are real\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[11],"tags":[300,296],"class_list":["post-32871","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-miscellaneous","tag-processed","tag-published"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/prY0k-8yb","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":15734,"url":"https:\/\/www.limbicnutrition.com\/blog\/15734\/","url_meta":{"origin":32871,"position":0},"title":"Tim Ferriss&#8217; tonic for procrastinative loons","author":"Limbic","date":"November 9, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Great advice from Tim Ferriss: Personally, I suck at efficiency (doing things quickly). Here\u2019s my coping mechanism and 8-step process for maximizing efficacy (doing the right things): 1) Wake up at least 1 hour before you have to be at a computer screen. E-mail is the mind killer. 2) Make\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Miscellaneous&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Miscellaneous","link":"https:\/\/www.limbicnutrition.com\/blog\/category\/miscellaneous\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":32815,"url":"https:\/\/www.limbicnutrition.com\/blog\/politics-is-unbecoming\/","url_meta":{"origin":32871,"position":1},"title":"Politics is unbecoming","author":"Limbic","date":"August 11, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Social media has turned us all into politicians. Everyone now has to behave and talk as though we are public figures, like politicians. Previously only public figures were ensnared in scandals or generated outrage by being hypocrites or committing peccadillos. They spoke in carefully rehearsed, focus group tested sound bites:\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Miscellaneous&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Miscellaneous","link":"https:\/\/www.limbicnutrition.com\/blog\/category\/miscellaneous\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":21079,"url":"https:\/\/www.limbicnutrition.com\/blog\/life-advice-to-an-18-year-old-relative\/","url_meta":{"origin":32871,"position":2},"title":"Life advice to an 18 year old relative","author":"Limbic","date":"October 14, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"A nephew recently turned 18 and I had an opportunity to say a few words at the reception. What follows below is based on my hastily written notes, composed at the table just prior to speaking. I will leave out the honorifics and introductions and stick to what I advised.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Miscellaneous&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Miscellaneous","link":"https:\/\/www.limbicnutrition.com\/blog\/category\/miscellaneous\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.limbicnutrition.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/baddies.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":4177,"url":"https:\/\/www.limbicnutrition.com\/blog\/the-kalmyk-of-belgrade\/","url_meta":{"origin":32871,"position":3},"title":"The Kalmyk of Belgrade","author":"Limbic","date":"November 3, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Whilst looking for a Buddhist centre in Belgrade, I came across the sad story of the Kalymks and their gift to Belgrade - a Buddhist temple. Apparently there is a little country in the Russian Federation called Republic of Kalmykia. It is Europe's only Buddhist country.\u00a0The Kalmyks are decendend from\u00a0the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Belgrade &amp; Serbia&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Belgrade &amp; Serbia","link":"https:\/\/www.limbicnutrition.com\/blog\/category\/miscellaneous\/belgrade\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":36886,"url":"https:\/\/www.limbicnutrition.com\/blog\/the-turbulent-twenties\/","url_meta":{"origin":32871,"position":4},"title":"The Turbulent Twenties","author":"Limbic","date":"September 26, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"30 years ago Jack Goldstone published a\u00a0model\u00a0to determine a country\u2019s vulnerability to political crisis based on how population changes shifted state, elite and popular behavior. It is called Demographic-Structural Theory and predicted a turbulent 21st century, for America, with \"a populist, America-first leader who would sow a whirlwind of conflict.\"\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;History&quot;","block_context":{"text":"History","link":"https:\/\/www.limbicnutrition.com\/blog\/category\/humanities\/history\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2595,"url":"https:\/\/www.limbicnutrition.com\/blog\/the-inner-ring-by-cs-lewis\/","url_meta":{"origin":32871,"position":5},"title":"The Inner Ring by CS Lewis","author":"Limbic","date":"December 3, 2003","format":false,"excerpt":"\"The Inner Ring\" was the Memorial Lecture at King's College, University of London, in 1944. It is a superb piece of work and an apt demonstration of why C.S. Lewis is one of my favourite writers even though he is mostly concerened with religious matters but I am a non\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;News&quot;","block_context":{"text":"News","link":"https:\/\/www.limbicnutrition.com\/blog\/category\/news\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.limbicnutrition.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32871","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.limbicnutrition.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.limbicnutrition.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.limbicnutrition.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.limbicnutrition.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32871"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.limbicnutrition.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32871\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.limbicnutrition.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32871"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.limbicnutrition.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32871"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.limbicnutrition.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32871"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}