I am amused by conspiracy theories.  Well, not the theories themselves which are unsubstantiated bollocks but by conspiracy theorists.

My son-in-law-to-be is one.  Nothing passes him by – the moon landings, JFK’s assassination, crop circles and, of course, Covid 19.  At first it was 5G signal masts, now it’s lab-produced in China for the purpose of bankrupting the West.

And I love it.  I like it on so many levels.  I like it that any of these (and  a hundred others) might be true.  The moon landings might have been filmed on Skeggie beach or Prince Phillip cut the brake pipes on Princess Di’s car or that David Icke is the Grand Lizard himself.  But the chances of one being true is, maybe 100-1.  The chances of two being true is 100-1 times 100-1, or 10,000-1. For three, 1,000,000-1.  And so on.  So the chances of all conspiracy theories being true is zillions-1, which in common parlance is usually described as “Nil”.

Another reason I love conspiracy theories is that they are impossible to disprove.  Every conspiracy theorist has the unbreachable back-stop argument of “They would say that, wouldn’t they?” or ”You’ll see” or “All will be revealed”.  You never do and it never is.  But that does not matter; proof is not for Now but in the future.  And the conspiracy theorist is prepared to wait.

Add to this the fact that the internet brings into the reach of all an infinite number of opinions on everything which can be cited by the conspiracy theorist as scholastic evidence that up is down and black is white.  And you can make them up and post them yourself.  No need to wait for the latest one to come along.  You just need a little imagination (well, actually you don’t).  My own contribution is that our 3-dimensional physical world co-habits with another non-physical one consisting of Time, Truth and Blancmange into which it is possible to pass from time to time through portals.  The Bermuda Triangle is the most famous one, of course, but locally we have the Dodworth Roundabout and Mablethorpe.  Time will prove me right.  You’ll see.

But best of all I enjoy the arrogance of the conspiracy theorist.  What they are saying to us is, “You suckers might fall for it but not me.  I have a higher understanding than the rest of you”.  Now I’m normally fairly tolerant of arrogance, provided it is backed up by some achievement of some sort; for example, Gordon Ramsay, who, I gather, can also cook as well as curse.  It just seems ludicrously misplaced when someone knows bugger all.

Generally speaking I work on the maxim that the most likely explanation is the most likely explanation.

Well, that’s my theory anyway.