Austin-based radio host Alex Jones is decried as a conspiracy theorist and lauded as an American patriot. His primary website, InfoWars.com, is dedicated to, and I say this out of purely objective observation, reporting to illustrate how things aren't simply what they seem to be, no matter how the mainstream media shapes for it to be.
Increasingly, its been noted that both "Aurora" and "Sandy Hook" has been referenced in the 2012 blockbuster The Dark Knight Rises. Unsurprisingly, InfoWars.com has been all over it, and many corners of the Internet have as well. Even the most skeptical have to wonder about the coincidence between two terrible tragedies coincidentally having their names being referenced in a blockbuster film.
I'm remaining neutral on it, but not for the reason people would think.
I don't dismiss or really bank on conspiracy theories. I don't go on "truth quests". However, considering that there are many out there, including some of my friends, that believe in the existence of a shadow government, might as well write about it in the only way that fits me and my neutrality:
In short, we're going to play a Nash equilibrium game.
So, let's say a shadow government actually does, without any chance for refutation, exist. We'll assign the title of Player A in this sequence. Player B, consequently, would be the governed and the effective rest of the population. The decision payoff in this game? Both Player A and Player B are making the best decisions they can, influenced by the other player's decision -- the decision in this case is the successful manipulation of a given system to achieve a particular objective.
A system is, more or less, any form of a set of components interacting interdependently to form a relationship. In this case, it is the socioecopolitical system of the United States (yes, it's a brand new portmanteau that I will not take credit for).
You can take this Nash equilibrium game in one of two directions: the Braess Paradox or the Prisoner's Dilemma.
The Braess Paradox, which is mainly a focus on road traffic networks but can be put into good use here, is not a paradox per-se, but as the Virtual Cell Program at the Harvard Medical School writes, a "counter-intuitive observation". In short, the Braess Paradox occurs when the payoff of an additional transportation link does not yield any additional benefits and actually creates the opposite outcome. An example of this, in a non transportation sense, is the 2011 Egyptian revolt. For this case, the variables will be on two sides taking their own path, as a natural antithesis to each other. While this is not exactly the purest form of the Braess Paradox (in the purest form, the player has three directions to go in, while in this case, there's two -- but an individual deciding which "side" to be on does have three directions, so in a way it reconciles itself), it will still serve as a useful model.
In this case: Player A and Player B both START at the current state, and will take separate means to reach the END, which will be the preferred state. The desire of the shadow government would be a greater disbursement control, dominated by a privileged few; the desire of the governed will be a greater disbursement of control, dominated by altruism. The separate roads, or paths, really, would be the means in which they plan to achieve their separate objectives. The paradox would arrive in a potential short cut that connects both courses at their midpoint. Of course, this is the grand bargain with the hope of a payoff: the shadow government's grand bargain would be greater popular involvement; the grand bargain for the governed would be creating awareness by any means necessary. As such, it creates a massive complication: the shadow government can either be threatened by increased awareness, voluntarily or involuntarily, or it could choose to take advantage of that increased awareness by framing the awareness into something more palatable to their objective; the governed could be threatened by increased popular involvement, making it harder to reach out to others, or it could choose to take advantage of increased popular involvement by infiltrating or altering that involvement to a more desirable outcome.
The Prisoner's Dilemma occurs when the best decision for each player in the game is to defect so that they individually achieve their most optimal outcome. The example given by the Dilemma is when two criminals are interrogated separately by authorities, and in a divide and conquer strategy, put both of them against each other: give up the other, one sided punishment; don't give up the other, the punishment is further disbursed. An example would be France and Britain's political maneuvering in Europe at the height of their international rivalry.
Defection in this case, on both parts, would be to disrupt and distort a given system. The shadow government would cause disruption through suspect operation and execution of control; the governed would disrupt and distort a given system through rejection by any means necessary. However, what is at stake? The shadow government would use more suspect operation and execution of control to stymie rejection, while on the other hand, the governed could continue to cause further disruption and distortion to even more rejection, fueled by the increase in the actions of the shadow government. As such, there's no real triumph. Given that systems are made in anticipation for future exploitation, its more or less a cycle that keeps repeating itself, especially with the advent of more and more technology. Remember, the most successful in any system are the ones that are best able to take advantage of it. Nearly all of the time, the parameters played by one are the same ones played by the other.
So what's the reason for my neutrality? Because it's a game. And it's more or less a case of who plays it better. And this game will keep being played.
We'll take for example the Constitution of the United States. While Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton bickered and bitched about what should have been the proper interpretation, a debate that still exists to this day, both Jefferson and Hamilton laid foundations for supporters of either side of the argument to be able to take advantage of the system that the Constitution created. Want limited government? Advocate for a by-the-letter interpretation of the Constitution. Want bigger government? Advocate for a loose interpretation of the Constitution. Hell bent on achieving the means? Do what you have to, by any means felt to be necessary -- and nobody is above it considering we're all human.
I'll close this with one of my favorite scenes from the 1978-91 series Dallas. (You can view here as embedding was disabled). In this scene Pamela Barnes (played by Victoria Principal) confronts J.R Ewing (Larry Hagman) and Jock Ewing (Jim Davis) about how the Ewings went to the papers and basically ruined her brother Cliff's (Ken Kercheval, not in this scene) candidacy for the House of Representatives seat. Pay attention to the last two things that Pamela and J.R. said to each other.
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