Book Review: Conspiracy: A History of Boll*cks Theories, and How Not to Fall for Them - Tom Phillips & Jonn Elledge

Much like Tom Phillips' last book this is a fun and well-written look at a peculiar facet of humanity. How conspiracy theories work, and why so many people are attracted to them.

The book is very now - and I do wonder how it will date. But there's something invigorating about reading a book which tracks the route of a two-hundred year old hoax to the present day. It accurately describes just how fun it is to "research" a conspiracy theory. There's a ready made community of people who will leave you easily followed "clues" and shower you with praise for any discoveries you make. You get to feel like a proper investigator with deep insider knowledge. And where's the harm in that?

Ah.

It is depressing just how much history rhymes and repeats. Take this section about a former US President:

Moreover, he claimed Lincoln himself had told him as much prior to his death – revealing that the true battle the president was fighting was not against the Confederacy, but against the Pope, and claiming that every one of the murderous plots against him was the work of the Jesuits.

Remind you of anyone?⁰

Written under the shadow of COVID-19¹, it spends a good deal of time talking about the various conspiracy theories relating to medicine and pandemics.

One correspondent in the Lancet wrote in 1831 that cholera was merely a ‘government hoax, got up for the purpose of … distracting the attention of the people away from the reform bill’ – adding that they feared this trick had been pulled by the government before, with the assistance of ‘the faculty’ and the ‘Liespapers’.

Fuck. We haven't leaned anything, have we?

The problem is, we live in an age of complexity. It would be lovely if everything was controlled by a small group of elites - but the reality, that no one is in control, is utterly terrifying².

The book is peppered with footnotes containing silly asides - fair warning, it's pretty easy to miss a few of them³⁴.

In the end, I was left wondering what nonsense-thinking I'm susceptible to? I've met people from Palantir and, while I don't like their tech, they didn't seem to be evil geniuses. Perhaps the alcohol industry really is stopping recreational drug reform, or maybe some overlords don't want us achieving chemical enlightenment? But these things don't require secret societies and cabals with mysterious initiation rites⁵. It just requires misaligned incentives and complex ecosystems.

It is a gleefully fun and funny book - but it left me a little depressed about the state of the human condition.