illuminati do you believe in them?

[CChaos]

ArnoldRimmer said:

CChaos said:
The very idea of the Illuminati is basically laughable, when you get to thinking about it. Illuminati, Freemasons, the Bilderburg Group, The Trilateral Commission, Skull and Bones...the list goes on and on...

Are they secretive? Sure. Do they involve powerful people? Absolutely.

Naturally, this leads people to believe that they are involved in some sort of anti-social, attempted world changing activities that will, eventually, lead to them ruling the world, a new world order or some such thing.

I think this explanation is a bit off. Especially in case of the illuminati, the (still strong) fascination stems from the fact that in their case, it is proven that they indeed tried to secretly take over power by undercutting government, trying to place their people in key positions etc., deceiving new members about their true aims etc., and being at least partly successful at it, in just a couple of years. And it was exactly after this became public that a widespread hysteria towards secret societies came upon the population.
In fact, if you look at what's nowadays considered verified knowledge about the illuminati, it seems that it was their proven aims and methods what later became the blueprint of every conspiracy theory about secret societies.

And it's no wonder that there are so many conspiracy theories about intelligence services, secret societies etc. Because they are indeed all conspiracies by their very nature, according to the true meaning of the word "conspiracy" - which goes far beyond what the common understanding of that word nowadays is.

CChaos said:

Let's take Freemasonry. That's a big one and has been hugely assumed to be a cult that controls everything. But, as with all secret clubs, there's always someone who's willing to come out and tell all for their fifteen minutes of fame. From the lowest to the highest members, people have come out and spoken on terms of anonymity to basically say that this thing is a ritualized society that has all of the intrigue of a box of corn flakes.

What it amounts to is this:
1) If these guys are controlling the world, they're doing a piss poor job.
2) If one group was controlling the world, do all of these other groups want to control the world as well? Last I checked, there are like 25 of these organizations that people claim are controlling or manipulating everything. Which one is right?
3) Apple can't even keep their security up for a friggin' iPhone, which seems to keep ending up left in bars. What chance, exactly, is there of keeping a worldwide, multi-generational conspiracy that absolutely no one has mentioned anything about except conspiracy theorists? The more people you add to the conspiracy, the less chance it has of actually staying secret.

I think Benjamin Franklin actually said it best:
"Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead."

Well, there's a lot of truth to this, but it's only one side of the truth.
The other side is that secrets and conspiracies have always been considered necessary (think intelligence services for example), and over the course of history, useful strategies have evolved for keeping secrets secret and managing complex operations that require lots of potential traitors. There's never a 100% guarantee of course, but the risks can be minimized.
Just to name a few strategies: Extensive tests for loyalty, pyramid-like hierarchies, the "need-to-know"-principle, deception, false information, threatening secret-keepers and their relatives, making them prone to blackmailing and and and. And even when secrets become public, there are counter-strategies like diverting from the truth, attacking the credibility of the traitor, trying to ridicule people who believe him, spreading several contradictory claims etc., which ultimatively leads to people being completely confused what they should believe.

That's not to say that the illuminati are indeed trying to take over the world etc. of course. I'm only trying to point out that these often-heard "conspiracies don't work"-arguments are not as evident as they may seem on first sight. Conspiracies are extremely common, and the vast majority of them never becomes public knowledge.

1) I would very much like to see this supposed proof that the Illuminati 'tried to take over'. You don't need conspiracy theories and what not to try and displace a government. They happen all the time, clear as day. Coup d'etats are constant. But, please, offer this proof. I'd really like to see it.

2) For keeping secrecy, yet again, you don't need conspiracies for that. Discrediting and threats are perfectly well used out in the open as well amongst politicians, dictatorships and the like. Sure, cults manipulate and what not, but people always escape the cults eventually and even the intelligence agencies end up losing people to defection (KGB for instance). What I mean is, there's no way to keep a lid on everything forever. Even better, if these societies WERE so secret, then why do people know their names? Why do they know they exist at all? Obviously SOMEONE slipped up if anyone knows anything at all, no? Thus, my point stands. You can have the most secretive secret group in the world, but the moment someone actually knows you exist, they've already managed to fail at secrecy.

3) If a world wide secret society that was trying to take over the world or was holding some horrible secret in check, then even these crazy people with loose tongues would be an operational threat to the very existence of that group and/or secret. Do they not just have enough cash to hire some dude on the street to smoke the crazy that nobody would notice the death of anyways before it ever became a thing?

In conclusion, hell, why be secretive at all? These days, you can BE the horrible, greedy, sociopathic villain type and you know what that gets you? Tax breaks in modern countries, special treatment from 3rd world countries that you're lining the pockets of and a hell of a lot of power. I'd take that over having to keep up some tired secret for hundreds of years.