This was a huge story that generated weeks of breathless coverage and millions in donations for Lincoln Project types, but the only people who will see or comment on this correction are the people who never believed it to begin with.
As a friend points out, it’s a nice touch that they are walking back the bounty story, which remember was used to prevent Trump from withdrawing from Afghanistan, the day after Biden announces his own withdrawal plan.
It’s not that they are counting on you not noticing, they are counting on it not mattering. The people behind it will pay zero costs, and in fact have already been rewarded
There is a rich academic literature on why conspiracy theories are unlikely to be true that claims because we live in a free and open society any conspiracy will ultimately be exposed and therefore would-be conspiracists are unlikely follow through with their plans
But even granting the premise that our society is "free and open,” the Russian bounty conspiracy—and it was very obviously a conspiracy—is a perfect example of why this view is false...
Conspiracies don’t need to be kept secret forever, they just need to be kept secret long enough for the aims of the conspiracists to be achieved.
Once achieved, if they produce the right results, the conspiracy is memory-holed and we all carry on as before.
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Civil Rights Law produces ambiguous, difficult to enact requirements for firms. This leads to the rapid rise in HR departments, compliance offices, etc. Much of this traced out by Caldwell...
These offices, in concert with managerial consultants, legal pros, and regulatory bodies, continually inflate the threat of liability to justify their positions and continued services...
Under appreciated how much wokeness stems from a certain End of History ethos that instructed Millenials it was their birthright to “change the world,” but who are now stuck in soulless corporate Bullshit Job hellworld and see wokeness as a way to finally fulfill their destiny
Can’t understate how pervasive this mentality was, that in the bright new morning of uncontested Pax Americana you could “be anything you want” and also it would matter in some grand historical sense, but then the crushing realization for millions of world changer aspirants...
of history’s reassertion of itself and that even if you went off to Teach for America or whatever, the takeaway lesson was that the world mostly resents your ambitions and despises the presumption it requires or wants your guidance (see also: Iraq)...