This would be a double-edge sword tho, since they likely end up having even wilder conspiracy theories, even believing in untrue ones, since they would just think there is an even bigger government hiding more secrets one level deeper.
This would be a double-edge sword tho, since they likely end up having even wilder conspiracy theories, even believing in untrue ones, since they would just think there is an even bigger government hiding more secrets one level deeper.
But are they really conspiracy theories at that point? If the government really is doing something bad secretly, and you’re trying to uncover the truth, then you’re just doing investigative journalism.
On the other hand, you’re also the dissident rebel who is trying to overthrow the government… oh that means you’re actively participating in a conspiracy against the government. If people have theories about your activities, they are the conspiracy theorists in this case.
I mean, they still kinda are conspiracy theoroes until you have evidence.
For example: I’m a Chinese American born in PRC, but in a different timeline, I might not have had the chance to immigrate to the US, but due to me still have a vendetta against the CCP (long story short: I was the 2nd born child during the One Child Policy and they tried to terminate me before I was born), and because there wouldn’t be any news critical of the CCP, I would deduce that they have censorship going on. So because I wouldn’t trust the CCP, I might eventually come up theories about the government killing people, but unless I had access to outside news, I wouldn’t know it’s called Tianamen Square Massacre, it would just be a theory until I had the info to confirm it…
(I mean, my parents heard about an “incident” during 1989, but of course, they didn’t know what happened, so all I would have is just a very vague theory)