Are Conspiracy-Theory Rabbit Holes a Form of Mind Control?

Don't let them take your mind.

In my area, there is a popular place called Abbott’s Frozen Custard. After dinner I realized I wanted some, and honestly, I was feeling too tired to do anything else but get some ice cream and then drive around listening to my audiobook. So that’s what I did. (I am partway into the first book in the LaNague series by F. Paul Wilson—which is really good ancap sci-fi!)

While waiting for my white chocolate macadamia (kiddie size, in a cone), I wondered to myself what I would be posting for #FreedomMusicFriday. Then I noticed Pink Floyd’s “Another Brick in the Wall” playing on their stereo. The first words that reached my consciousness were the classic “We don’t need no thought control”—sung, of course, in the voice of the beleaguered schoolchildren of postwar Britain.

Normally, I decide what I am going to write right before I write it, and then I write it and post it right away. But hearing that lyric seemed like kismet, so I decided to at least start writing tomorrow’s post today, on the subject of thought control.

This subject has come up a lot recently, in many forms:

On Monday, I wrote about how participation in the mainstream culture leaves one vulnerable to the outrage it causes when it inevitably says, does, or portrays something that runs counter to natural law, decency, common sense, or the very fabric of reality.

The previous Tuesday, we discussed the mind control inherent in the democracy myth, and how it keeps people in a state of constant war with one another.

The “solution” I offered in both cases is to opt out. To back away, as much as possible, from participating in mainstream culture. To leave behind the belief that the problems of democracy can be solved by democracying harder.

Opting out of social media—a subject we talked about the previous Thursday—is another way to free one’s mind from one of the many vectors of control.

The month before, we had a far-reaching, emotional exploration of a #FreedomShorts film about a dystopian future in which the government pushes mood control devices on everyone. In that story, no one was allowed to opt out. Is that where we’re headed?

We also recently discussed moving to the country to get away from…well, to get away from as much as possible! And, of course, we have spoken many times about using homeschooling to opt out of the mind control of public schools indoctrination centers.

And today (yesterday, by the time you see this), I wrote about my own little five-day opt-out, in which nothing and no one controlled my mind but me, as I tried to work out how to construct a 7x7 shed from nothing but salvaged materials.

If we were to keep scanning back in my archives, we would find plenty more. This subject comes up a lot.

The problem: governments, corporations, media, academia, big tech, and entertainment are all attempting to manage, massage, and manipulate your thoughts.

The solution (as far as I see it): opt out of as much as you can.

Other people know far more about the subject of mind control than I.

The Starfire Codes

has written about it here on Substack, as have many others. So many rabbit holes to go down.

Sometimes, though, the rabbit holes themselves seem like a kind of mind control.

The holes seem bottomless. No matter how deep you go, it’s hard to know if what you found is really true or not. It’s easy to get lost down there.

Of course, you don’t have to go down any rabbit holes at all to know that it is very hard to trust anything we are told these days. The result is a complete cratering of trust in any mainstream sources of information. But then, the alternative sources cannot always be trusted either. It’s an informational mess out there.

And it gets worse. Because mainstream information is so difficult to trust, it has caused some people to mistrust just about everything they’ve ever known—even pretty basic stuff. I do not personally believe that the world is flat, or that space isn’t real, but I understand why some people have gotten to the place where they do.

And then there’s the double and triple reverse. For example…

All sports is fake—a psyop to keep us distracted.

The idea that sports is a psyop is itself a psyop—to sow confusion.

Or maybe the idea that it’s a psyop that sports is a psyop is actually a psyop. Y’know—just to keep everyone off balance, so no one knows what to trust.

And so on.

The solution for me is to keep it simple…

• To focus on things that are really real, like the love of my family, the buzz of a bee, and all the other things that were within 100 feet of me.

• To remember my heuristic: that if a mainstream source says something is true—especially anything that is even remotely political—it’s probably false. (And if someone deep in the thrall of the ideological left says something is good, it’s probably bad.)

• To use logic to reach unassailable philosophical truths and then to use the pharos of those truths to guide me.

The best way, it seems to me, to avoid thought control is to focus on the knowable and the true, and to use one’s intuition about the rest. And to opt out as much as possible.

For me, this also means avoiding the rabbit holes.

I already know that the holes are bottomless and the rabbits within are psychopaths. I don’t need the details—especially since I will never be able to be fully sure that I can trust what I think I may have uncovered.

I know there is important information in them. I respect those intrepid enough to brave the psycho-bunnies. And I am certainly not critiquing anyone who chooses to travel these recursive warrens of endless questions. But are they another form of bread and circuses—a distraction from finding solutions and building new things?

I think they may be. Instead of spending my time down holes, I simply assume the worst: Things really are as weird as they seem. Our would-be overlords really are as wicked as we fear.

With that default assumption in place, I feel a little bit freer. To be a little happier, and to focus on building the new world. Our world.

Each must decide for him or herself, of course. That’s just how I roll.

And now, the music. I already had Conspiracy Music Guru’s “Don't Let Them Take Your Mind” on my radar as a #FreedomMusicFriday possibility. So here is that, and “Another Brick in the Wall” for your mind-freeing (or mind-confusing!) pleasure.