A few days ago I wrote here that the trend is logically moving towards the authorities controlling, restricting and taxing household work. Is there any difference between such a claim and the conspiracy theory that there is a secret plan to control and tax household work?
On the face of it, the difference is only cosmetic, but if we look more closely, it is a different type of thinking.
A gradual fine-tuning, perhaps. The theory that development is going in a certain direction can be fine-tuned gradually. But if I believe I know the intent of someone omnipotent, then new facts can’t change that. The omnipotent one wants it, and he’s going to enforce it. And if that someone were not omnipotent, then it would be just one of many interest groups and would be essentially uninteresting.
The other difference is consistency with other trends. For example, the theory that pharmaceutical corporations are in cahoots with governments and doctors to pump more and more pills into people, thus causing even more disease, more pills on top of that… and on and on. This would sound logical if the West were still rich and health budgets were ballooning. But in impoverished countries where budgets are constantly being cut, any increase in spending is somehow out of the question.
So a more logical prediction would be that for the majority of society, care will be cut back and drugs will be cut back for them too (and that they will be told that drugs are unnecessary and harmful), and that this increase in unnecessary drugs and procedures will only affect the top few percent. On the one hand, they will get better and better care, on the other hand, sometimes the salesmen will push something unnecessary (or even harmful) on them.
Even the theory that someone has a specific intent differs from a conspiracy theory in that you can consider factors affecting their psyche, their options, etc.