The biggest obstacle in writing these articles is choosing a topic. In an ideal world, I would have a hard time searching for a topic. In the US, where every day is a skeptic’s hell, there are too many things happening. Remember Sydney Sweeney’s American Eagle ad? The manufactured controversy feels like it happened in the 1960s, but it was only a little over a month ago.
My preference to address the meta-issues in conspiracy theorising is one way to adapt to it. Conspiracy theories are my academic specialty and instead of playing whack-a-mole with emerging conspiracy theories about the endless onslaught of events; it’s more helpful to address the underlying issues that can be applied to a wide illum of conspiracy theories and their believers.
Although they like to brag that they are independent thinkers, conspiracy theorists fall into patterns. Inside the conspiracy theory community there are various phrases referencing tropes and clichés. One of these phrases is “predictive programming.”
Predictive programming is a concept allowing a conspiracy theorist to consume all kinds of media and claim it was for research purposes. It serves to pad out already-bloated ‘works cited’ pages as conspiracy theorists prefer quantity of sources over quality of sources.
Conspiracy theorists will, of course, not define the term in this manner. In their understanding, predictive programming is when “They” have their puppets in Hollywood work in plot points surrounding disasters, mass shootings, assassinations, and weird science, so that society becomes numb and we merely shrug when we see those same events in real life.
My inspiration for this article came following the murder of Charlie Kirk; not from the murder itself but from the conspiracy theories surrounding it. Such theories were expected; any event garnering sufficient attention attracts conspiracy theorising. For true believers this is because no event can happen without the conspirators ordering it so. In the case of the cynical opportunists it’s a cheap way to get attention.
After Kirk’s murder I searched the conspiracy internet looking to see what common threads appeared. In between the denials that the alleged murderer was playing for one team or another and the accusation that it was “The Jews” was predictive programming. In this case it centred around a 1998 Brian De Palma movie starring Nicolas Cage, titled “Snake Eyes.” In the movie, Cage plays Rick Santoro, an Atlantic City police detective who must investigate the murder of a government official during a boxing match at a casino.
The conspiracy alleges that the movie’s plot is a case of predictive programming 27 years in advance of Kirk’s murder. The first evidence for this is that the victim is named Charles Kirkland. The second is that Kirkland was shot in the neck. The third is… nothing. The theory quickly devolves into accusations of symbolism and tenuous links to occultism regarding red dresses, a ring, and that part of the movie was filmed at a casino that the US president once owned.
The problem for the theory is that the murder in the movie is part of a complex plot. A gunman is quickly shot by the head of Kirkland’s security and the motive is initially blamed on the man’s opposition to Kirkland’s approval of a shipment of arms to Israel. This turns out to be a ruse. The purpose of the murder was to prevent Kirkland from cancelling the development of a ballistic missile defense shield for US Naval ships. The actual plot is Dark Knight Joker levels of over-complicated. The plot of the movie also hinges on the murderers finding Carla Gugino’s character, who has evidence that the missile shield Kirkland died for didn’t work in the first place.
The predictive programming theory alleges that this 27-year-old movie was preparing us to accept the murder of Charlie Kirk, an individual who almost shares the name of the fictional murder victim. It would then mean that, 27 years ago, director Brian De Palma and screenwriter David Koepp were told that they needed to make a movie about the murder of someone who would have been four years old when the movie was released.
Other examples of predictive programming are the Matrix (1999), preparing us for the truth of the simulation; the pilot episode of the X-Files spin-off show “The Lone Gunmen”, which prepared us for the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center (first aired March 2001); and the numerous times the Simpsons have “predicted the future.”
Skeptics, when hearing these claims about predictive programming and hidden symbols in currency or on buildings, would likely ask: “Why would They leave these clues?”
When dealing with conspiracy theorists, one tactic I have employed is to assume the theory is correct rather than attempt to debunk it point by point. This is similar to the logical argument “reductio ad absurdum”, where we assume the opposite of the thing we are trying to prove and then find a contradiction from that assumption. My suggestion is similar to this: let’s assume that all of the symbols and programming are valid. Whether it’s the eye of providence, a singer being accused of making Illuminati gestures, or spirals in the pizza place logos – all of this we will assume is true. Like Batman’s Riddler, the conspirators are compelled to leave clues and telegraph their moves ahead of time.
If they must do this, then it means that there is a rule that they must follow. According to conspiracy theorist and subject of Ockham-award-winning podcast Knowledge Fight, Alex Jones, there are rules to being part of the globalist system that runs the world. One of those rules is that you must leave clues as to your future plans. They are bound by a metaphysical rule. According to Jones on 27 September 2024, “Now, what’s crazy is they metaphysically have to tell you in the fine print what they’re going to do.”
Generally, we should not take anything Alex Jones says as meaningful. His claim is illustrative of the conspiracy theorists’ mindset in that they must leave clues that only people like the conspiracy theorist can see. They must do this because of “metaphysics”. The term means the foundation of reality necessitates that these clues are laid. This is the same compulsion that Kant felt was the result of metaphysically defining ethics necessitated that people must follow those rules. Austrian Philosopher Karl Popper argued that, because the concept of secrecy is an essential part of the definition of the word “conspiracy”, it is a contradiction for there to be some metaphysical rule that the conspiracy must be revealed.
The claim is just word salad that employs the use of “metaphysics” because it’s a word that sounds important. All conspiracy theorists who make predictive programming or symbology claims are attempting to say that a defining feature of engaging in a conspiracy is that the perpetrators must reveal their own secret. The problem is that this is never predictive. No conspiracy theorist claimed that they knew Kirk was going to be assassinated because they saw a Nicolas Cage in Snake Eyes.
These claims exist not to say that these events are ordained by “Them”. Rather the point is to claim that Hollywood is in on it which is further an attempt to justify a worldview not to communicate a serious truth.
