People love a good conspiracy

These theories blend fact-twisting, grievance and sometimes plain intellectual laziness.

- By Ismail Lagardien

Conspiracy theorists and conspiracies are thriving on social media.

Sometimes these conspiracy theories are clearly bunk and stem from intellectual laziness. Sometimes they are reproduced by people who feel aggrieved and believe that the world is against them.

At other times, they stem from rich, fertile and quite creative minds, but most of the time, when it's not dangerous, conspiracy theorising is laughable.

Among the things about conspiracy theories that are especially noxious is the misrepresentation and manipulation, the torturing or wilful ignoring of facts.

We probably should not dismiss out of hand the likelihood that conspiracy theories can be titillating. We should also not ignore the pleasure and self-satisfaction gained from reproducing conspiracies.

Very many statements by our politicians evidence the appeal (among their followers) of conspiracy theories, often couched in polite terms or language that helps shore up their self-senses of importance, legitimacy and, of course, eternal innocence. But let's move on from the public politics and discuss the fun stuff.

I should state two things at the outset. The first is that there is no capitalist conspiracy in the sense that a group of people sit down every day and work out how to intentionally destroy the lives of people.

Capitalism is, itself, a beast that destroys people, families, communities and society through alienation, excessive individualism and the belief that individual utility maximisation and "market forces" or "the invisible hand" necessarily are the ultimate arbiter of human life and agency.

Soviet innovation (those darn communists) was at the forefront of the technology that gave us the first human space flight and early satellite technologies.

From personal inquiry a generation ago (and things have improved significantly), the infant mortality rate in Cuba (those pesky communists) was/is lower than in the US.