Conspiracy invokes the glow of religion in the faces of its disciples.

Maybe this is not surprising in a world in which ‘God is dead’. Obviously religions have existed primarily to serve our psychological needs, not our biological ones. Of course if there’s a ‘God’ gene, then it’s got to be fed, one way or another, whether religion, drugs, or meditation, the need for abstraction. Just like you have to go through the motions of reproduction whether you intend to produce children or not. Biologically all we have to do as a species is survive individually, on average, long enough to reproduce. That’s it. Do that and the tree keeps growing. Conspiracy theory serves another need, psychologically, for its practitioners, but also serves as a weathervane for society and culture. Once the battles have all been won and the struggle is gone from daily existence, then what? Once your wealthiest citizens can purchase a round-trip ticket to the space station and return with an armful of souvenirs, then what? Does consciousness eventually turn against itself, rejecting the very things it fought so hard to accomplish? Consciousness is something that has to be fed. If it has nothing to eat, then it will bite the hand that feeds it.

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