In the most general of the still living senses of the word conspire, it means

The two dictionaries that I just cited also offer definitions that include aspects of secrecy or lack of acknowledgement and of wickedness,

which aspects indeed most people usually associate with conspiracy, but these dictionaries are silent about a third aspect that most people usually imagine, central coördination. Centralization is not part of the definition. A conspiracy could be highly centralized, largely decentralized, or have no center at all.[1]

Decentralized processes of people working in harmony for a shared and unacknowledged purpose — and even more specifically for a shared, unacknowledged, and nefarious purpose — are abundant. Nearly every adult American is familiar with my favorite examples of decentralized conspiracies. Most American journalists fall into two camps, one camp favoring one of America's two largest political parties, and the other camp favoring the other party. Very often in each camp, when some news story is about criminality or other widely despised action by an official or political figure from the favored party, the story will not mention that person's political affiliation until well into the article, if at all; but if a news story is about such action by a person associated with the disfavored party, then the affiliation is swiftly and prominently mentioned, perhaps even in the headline.[2] No one had to tell journalists to behave in this manner for them to have done so. They merely observed other journalists, and joined one conspiracy or the other upon recognizing how readers' impressions of the favored and disfavored parties would be affected.

When referring to a process of people working with little or no central coördination but in harmony for a shared, unacknowledged, and reprehensible purpose, I call it a termite conspiracy, by analogy with behavior of termites that has been widely mistaken as requiring a high degree of central administration. Termites are not the only beasts that furnish examples; flocks of birds come immediately to mind. At one time, a great many educated people accepted or arrived at theories of telepathic hive-minds. But, as it turns-out, under examination and careful consideration, these behaviors can be explained without such centralization. And part of what led me to apply termite conspiracy to human beings was my having read The Human Termites, a classic science-fiction story by neuropsychiatrist David H[enry] Keller in Science Wonder Stories volume 1 #4, #5, and #6, in which story Keller proposed that human behavior like that of termites were under direction of hive-minds.[3] In fact, human behavior like that of termites needs no such thing to effect a shared purpose. I could use the term termite conspiracy more generally to include benign cases of people working without central coördination but in harmony for a shared purpose, but I haven't had much occasion to do so.

As a social scientist, I find termite conspiracies more interesting in the abstract than I find centralized conspiracies. And, because the plausibility of a datum remaining more generally secret decreases with each added person coming into possession of that secret, I tend to be rather doubtful of claims of large-scale, centralized, unacknowledged conspiracies. But such conspiracies are more prevalent than I once believed. In the case of UAPs, the choice is now between belief in a previous large-scale, centralized conspiracy by agents of the state to hide the truth, or belief that the present admission to past deceit is a product of large-scale, centralized conspiracy. (I very much incline to the latter belief.) Meanwhile, the only plausible reason that documents are still being withheld concerning the assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy — more than sixty years ago — is that still-existing institutions would lose credibility if the truth were widely known.

Still, people with predisposition to believe in centralized and unacknowledged conspiracies need to give more thought and discussion to termite conspiracies. On the one hand, a termite conspiracy is even more readily mistaken for a centralized conspiracy than is an invisible-hand process. On the other hand, a conspiracy theorist can present a more persuasive case, by discussing the range of possibilities, running from conspiracies in the most general sense, through termite conspiracies (with which, again, nearly everyone is familiar), to increasingly centralized conspiracies. An audience compelled to see that explanation is in terms of something familiar, except perhaps in degree of centralization, is an audience more inclined to attend.

Certainly, people have been strong conditioned not to attend rationally to discussions of conspiracy. Dictionaries not-withstanding, within my lifetime, the terms conspiracy and especially conspiracy theory and conspiracy theorist have come to be associated with irrational theorizing. The mere act of labelling a proposition with conspiracy theory is treated as-if a perfect refutation; indeed, the mindlessness here has grown so terrible that I have seen journalists using the label conspiracy as if it is synonymous with conspiracy theory, and labelling propositions conspiracy, as if this labelling falsifies these propositions. Journalists and other shapers of opinion must now avoid using conspiracy theory to refer to their own assertions that this or that group has secretly coöperated in some centrally coördinated, unacknowledged, wicked scheme. Notice how, for example, the mainstream of the media and Wikipedia do not used conspiracy theory or conspiracy theorist in reference to the Russiagate Narrative and to those who participated in its narration, though the mainstream of the media and Wikipedia freely apply these labels to various claims and to various persons in conflict with the mainstream narrative. I have even encountered journalists offering theories of conspiracies and insisting that these theories were not a conspiracy theory.

[1] A conspiracy is characterized by shared purpose, whereäs the results of an invisible hand process are not sought by participants from that process, and may not be purposes at all, let alone shared purposes. When a conspiracy, with or without centralized coördination, is somehow also an invisible hand process, the purposes behind the former are different from the results that make it the latter.

[2] In the days before wide access to the Internet, this pair of journalistic practices was even more pronounced; but when news sites sought to foster a sense of engagement amongst their readers, by providing fora in which readers could comment, many readers began highlighting instances of the first practice, and continue to highlight it.

[3] The theory in Keller's story entailed apparent invisible-hand processes as actually having intended results.

In the case of what has been called long COVID, two opposing camps are lost in a confusion of name with description.

The idea that SarsCoV-2 would have peculiar long-term effects upon health was immediately popular in some circles for appalling reasons, and thus viewed in other circles with strong inclination to disbelief.

Eventually, a cluster of persistent symptoms came to be widely associated with SarsCoV-2. Some of these symptoms are clearly present in some people, and not psychosomatic. But a very reasonable question is that of whether these symptoms are actually caused by SarsCoV-2, or have some other cause or causes. For some months now, the evidence has strongly indicated that, no, these are, variously, not effects of SarsCoV-2, or are common to respiratory or viral illness more generally. As a description, long COVID has been falsified, but it has lingered as a name.

I continue to encounter recent articles in prestigious, allegedly scientific journals that simply treat as given that these symptoms are caused by SarsCoV-2. An established name is treated as if it were a description. Now some institutions are beginning to insist reasonably that the name long COVID be abandoned, as inapt. But I'm encountering journalists and pundits who thence infer and claim that long COVID does not exists.

That inference doesn't follow if by long COVID is meant a cluster of symptoms, which symptoms are exactly what have been investigated under the name. Only if long COVID is taken to be defined as these symptoms resulting from SarsCoV-2 could we say that nothing fits the concept corresponding to the name.

I doubt that any Briton defined the French disease as especially French. In any case, telling a typical Briton that what he called the French disease did not exist would be tantamount to telling him that syphilis did not exist. What he should instead have been told was that syphilis were not particularly French, and ought to be called something else.

Likewise, the declarations should not be that long COVID does not exist.

I've read that Anonymous has found the names of about a thousand members of the Ku Klux Klan, and is preparing to release them.

I'm hoping that none of the 10 other people in this nation with the same first and last name as I are members, because it could be Hell for the rest of us. I'm also hoping that Anonymous doesn't add names of people whom it dislikes, especially as I might be amongst them.

A few years ago, I challenged their attack on Stratfor. Stratfor was a journalistic enterprise, focussing on issues of global politics (including military action) and security, and publishing both free content and content that required a paid subscription. Some at Anonymous were sure that Stratfor were, effectively, a criminal undertaking because

• Stratfor communicated off-the-record with policy wonks and with state officials (as did and do almost every other major journalistic enterprise and many of the minor journalistic enterprises); and
• Stratfor expressed opinions with which Anonymous vehemently disagreed.

So Anonymous stole e.mail, e.mail addresses, and credit-card information from the Stratfor servers. If one had so much as subscribed to a free newsletter from Stratfor, then one's e.mail address was made public, and one was subjected to hoax e.mail from Anonymous. Many who had simply paid for something from Stratfor had their credit card information used to make contributions to charitable organizations (each of which then had to spend resources on returning the stolen money, at a net loss).

The e.mail itself was given to WikiLeaks, which processed it with the help of other journalistic institutions. Some of these institutions shamelessly used the stolen information to their own advantage, though it didn't provide evidence of wrong-doing by Stratfor. Indeed, after almost four years, no evidence of criminal wrong-doing has ever been presented. Stratfor's greatest sin was gross incompetence in the field of security.

None of the major media outlets has drawn attention to the point that the supposed end that was to justify Anonymous's means was not met. They have been virtually silent about this attack on journalistic freedom. That's because, as I suggested in my entry of some years ago, these outlets are themselves afraid of being attacked by Anonymous.

Journalists are fond of seeing their profession as brave. Well, there truly are some brave journalists in this world, but they're in a minority, and the rest don't deserve to see themselves as heroes for keeping company with that minority.

On 24 December, the Stratfor computer site was learned to be hacked; e.mail, e.mail addresses, and credit-card information were stolen. Initially, Anonymous couldn't agree within itself whether its members were responsible, but the deniers fell silent.

The credit-card information was used to make charitable donations, which subsequently had to be returned (at a net loss) by the charities. Those whose e.mail addresses were stolen had them publicly dumped (and thus made available to spammers), and were subjected to hoax mailings by Anonymous.

And we were told that the e.mail itself would be released, so that the world could see that Stratfor were really a malevolent force, which revelation would ostensibly justify the hacking.

After seven weeks, the e.mail that was supposed to expose the wickedness of Stratfor has not been released. There's more than one possible explanation. Perhaps the responsible members of Anonymous have obscure but compelling reasons to release the information all-at-once, and to organize it before doing so. Perhaps these members have been found and whisked-off to secret internment camps, along with anyone who might have reported their disappearances. Or perhaps the e.mail would reveal no more than that Stratfor communicates off-the-record with sources, some of whom could (reasonably or otherwise) be regarded as villains, and perhaps other members of Anonymous noted that almost any reporting and news-analysis service does the same thing, so that Anonymous would appear to subvert freedom of the press.

(I kinda favor that third explanation. Like many members of the Occupation Movement — who also like to claim the prerogatives but duck the responsibilities of association, and to wear Guy Fawkes masks and fantasize about being Vs — many members of Anonymous seem inclined to try to silence those whose views they find greatly disagreeable, but only so long as these members aren't made to recognize that they're engaged in censorship. [Up-Date (2012:02/27): It has now been announced that the e.mail is being released in coöperation with WikiLeaks.])

But, whatever may be the reason, the e.mail has not been released, and that failure or delay is itself a news story — which story you've not read in the Times (of London, of New York, or of Los Angeles) nor heard from the major broadcasters. Possibly that's because they're such lack-wits that it hasn't occurred to any of them that there's a story here. I rather suspect, however, that it's because they're scared. A group such as Anonymous could take-down pretty much any of these news services just as they did Stratfor.

[This post was delayed from yester-day, as my hosting service had a technical failure, and it took me rather a long time to persuade them of such.]

I read

This past week it was reported that the hacktivist collective known as Anonymous claimed credit for taking offline over 40 websites used for sharing pedophilia — and for exposing the names and identifying information of more than 1500 alleged pedophiles that had been using the sites.

But the actual list is of user aliases, not of personal names.

Not only are pædophiles not being exposed here, but non-pædophiles who've had the misfortune of pædophiles' using the same aliases (by chance or from malice) are going to come under suspicion by those who think that they recognize them on this list.

Further, if agents of law enforcement were themselves working to track-down the actual legal identities of the pædophiles, their investigation has now been severely compromised, possibly fatally so.

Once again, Anonymous has done less good than they have led the gullible to believe, and have caused more damage than they have acknowledged.