The Ontological Status of Conspiracy Theory by Hakim Bey

[Frank_Norris_Lives]

1. I would suggest....

.....dumping the term 'conspiracy theory' altogether. It's too pejorative and stifles most discussion of any merit. I would offer instead the term 'collusion analysis.' We all collude but when does it become criminal? When does it become causal of other events?
I think collusion analysis would allow for a more rational discussion of the actual intersection of individual and group interests and the resulting actions.

But I would also offer that different structures of collusion analysis are required dependent upon culture. Whereas Freakonomics does a brilliant job of analyzing the role of individual incentive in western cultures, it falls short for instance in examining middle eastern culture. Every time someone brings up Maslow's hierarchy of needs, I flip out. It does not pertain to the whole world and this point of view was behind some of our huge failures in Iraq. In middle eastern cultures, needs don't start with the physiological but with the family without with there is no security, sex, food, shelter, etc. Here we could start straight away with the collusion of groups and skip the economic incentives of the western individual.