the timboucher experience

Looking at the world through the lens of technocratic conspiracy theory has really opened my eyes. When the conspiracy you’re hunting is simply science itself, instead of evil or reptilians, it becomes very easy to quickly decode cultural problems.

Take ufology for instance. Now, you really can’t travel too far within conspiracy theory without stumbling inevitably over the thorny issue of UFO’s. Either they exist as nuts and bolts vehicles with passengers from other planets, or they are some kind of interdimensional travellers. Plus they are either in league with the government, or against it, or who knows what else. But if I had to apply my technocracy-filter which I am building to the subject of conspiracy theorists and how they approach UFO’s, I would disentangle it like this:

UFO’s, first of all, are the scientized mythological equivalent of angelic messengers from Heaven. Since science is itself designed to be morally ambiguous though, it only makes sense that in a scientized mythological system, that the inhabitants of the heavens would be ambigious as well. Some would seem to offer us liberation. Some want to invade us and take over. Some want to warn us of catastrophes. All of these are feelings that people have towards science itself, which are grafted onto the transcendent symbol of UFO’s.

Further, if science represents the sum total of human knowledge, extraterrestrial life forms are important because their existence would demand that there is something which exists beyond the sum total of human knowledge. That would be alien knowledge - things that we could never imagine. Technologies which to us seem like magic. Motivations and behavior which seem wholly other.

The belief then that aliens have landed and made official contact with the US government, or a similar body, but that they are intentionally withholding that information from us also reveals a hidden assumption about science. It says: we know science has advanced far beyond the point of our understanding and that you are hiding it from us. Demands that contact with aliens be made public is people saying, “Yes, we are ready for the startling truth of the inhuman extent of scientific inquiry.” But it may also be that it reflects some people’s hopes that we might finally move past all the bullshit parts of science that get us into trouble: ie, move past the realm of human knowledge, into “alien” knowledge.

But hard evidence has been produced in enough cases, supposedly, that UFO’s are not just transcendent symbols. What they are is of course open to much debate. This point of there being solid evidence but it not being recognized by mainstream science is also a defense mechanism in the self-regulating machine of modern scientific thought. It is people who operate outside of the dominant paradigms and explanations of mainstream science demanding that their voices be heard and theories considered in the name of true science. Though “real” scientists refer to these people as “pseudo-scientific” they are actually part of the correcting mechanism of science.

See how fun that is to look at conspiracy theory through that lens? I have some other translations of popular conspiracy theories I want to do like this as well. More later!

• A Definition of Conspiracy Theory
• Conspiracy Theory, Parapolitics, Whining
• The Cowardice of Conspiracy
• Conspiracy Eats Itself
• Is “Lost” Preparing Us for the Collapse?