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Paranoia and the Internet

by Willy Chaplin

I often speak about what I think the Internet is doing to the world in terms of encouraging a new level of honesty. Even though I can not establish a direct connection between Internet pressure and the changes I see in other media, it is not difficult to find examples of those changes. For example, The Nation magazine, a liberal publication I criticize frequently in these columns, recently seemed to have changed its policy toward the use of vulgarity and profanity. About the same time I commented on how agonizing it seemed to be for print publications to find adequate synonyms for the term "blow job," there they were, those very words, in a couple of articles in recent issues of The Nation. I also believe they actually used, unelided, the "F" word, but I couldn't find an example to verify my admittedly aging memory. Of course, putting my money where my mouth is, my recent decision to let it all hang out in these very columns shows that the Net has affected at least one person in the way I suggest...me. Today, I speak of the other side of the coin.

What if, for some reason, it is imperative that you do NOT reveal all the relevant information concerning something you are promoting? You have probably noticed that the get-rich-quick schemes so heavily pushed by spammers are often lacking crucial details of the schemes, relying instead upon "Bob Smith earned $52,000 in ONE WEEK!" kind of hyperbole. None of the pyramid or multi-level marketing scams are accompanied by an analysis of exponential growth. Bulletins about "hot" stock issues, seldom reveal the author's holdings in the firm, what exactly it is that they do or any of the niceties that usually accompany Wall Street promotions. Even political hucksters, like yours truly, seldom reveal their hidden agendas or conflicting interests when describing their current passions. Present company is, of course, naturally excluded!

There is another group of people who, I am certain, are finding the Internet an uncomfortable place to reside. That group consists of the marginally paranoid. Those people, who while perhaps not satisfying a clinical definition of paranoid psychosis, tend to see the world as filled with conspirators and evil forces waiting to spring up and destroy all that is worthwhile. They gravitate toward accounts which validate their preconceived notions...the Kennedy assassination, UFO abductions, crop circles and cow mutilation, satanic cults...the list goes on and on. The larger and more powerful the conspirators are seen to be...secret governments, cabals of scientists, organized religious cults, intelligence organizations...the more credibility the theory receives. Furthermore, the "conspirators" themselves tend to reinforce the beliefs of the noids by vehemently denying any culpability and, at the same time, refusing to divulge evidence that would exculpate them. (Just TRY to prove a negative!)

In earlier times, and, to a certain extent, still today, the theories revolved around one or another ostracized group. Jews, who "everyone" knows killed Jesus the Christ, are the "classic" example. Although antisemitism is by no means new, Hitler and the Nazi party raised it to a new and ghastly level before and during World War II. What has nearly eradicated this particular form of conspiracy theory is that the central "documentation" supporting the claims has been thoroughly discredited, using every type of modern medium...print, radio, TV and cinema...to do so. The Protocols of Zion and The Jew Zeus, both bogus documents used heavily by the Nazis to portray Jews as evil, have been shown to be absurdly phony. The very methods used by the Nazis to advance their ignoble cause have been used to discredit them. Ironically, only Israel, with its secretive and not so secretive persecution of Palestinians keeps the anti-Jewish form of antisemitism alive. (Note that arabs are also semites!). Before I get a flood of mail telling me that "things haven't changed a bit," I urge the writers to contemplate the VERY different state of media coverage of these events today as compared to, say, the coverage in 1936, the year of my birth.

At any rate, the Internet has opened the floodgates still wider. Objective and detailed criticism of off-the-wall assertions may take only minutes to appear after the offending text. The experiences of Matt Drudge highlight THAT effect. Much attention has been paid to the presence of various "hate groups" on the Web. White supremacists, black supremacists, anti-Jews and anti-Arab groups...they're all there, in great numbers. However, what is failed to be noted is that the anti-antis are there in EVEN GREATER NUMBERS! Furthermore, anybody who doesn't like what ANY of these groups has to say (or what I say, for that matter), can almost instantly put together a "flame" and email it to the offender. Also not revealed is how it feels to be on receiving end of tons and tons of anti-hate mail...some of it as stupid and crude as the hate literature itself, others simply pounding the facts...over and over...day and night... 365 days a year. The paranoia that drives the supporters toward these nutzoid fringe groups is sorely tested by the open reaction of debunkers who, unlike earlier times, have open and free access to the drivel being peddled by the noids AND an easy way to rebuke it.

No, the Internet is a very hostile environment for noids. Recently, I had a personal experience that brought this home to me in spades. A local "homeopathic medical provider", named Michael Kelly...I hope I have the obfuscating terminology correct, since "traditional medical providers"...doctors...have managed to get our government to pass strict laws against "practicing medicine without a license"...i.e. saying medically sounding things without being a licensed doctor...this local whatever-he-wants-to-call himself approached me with a plan to provide a "new and revolutionary" treatment for various illnesses and to do it directly from a Web site. He had already formed a company, called ThoughtForms Corporation, to promote a slightly different version of this curative and, unless his paranoia has compelled him to remove the site, you can see a somewhat obscure promotion of his older technique by clicking on the link above (I swear it was there when this column was written!). It is deliberately obscure because Kelly says that it is illegal to directly and honestly say what his product does. Kelly wanted me to provide the technical skills necessary to accomplish what he had in mind for his new version of the methodology. Let me tell you a little about the product itself.

Based upon "ancient Chinese" medicine as well as homeopathic methods, Kelly's records the "vibrations" given off by various homeopathic remedies, mixes them with New Age music (the vibrations are themselves inaudible) and plays them back via audio tape through earphones. I turns out that Kelly has a U.S. patent for a version of this treatment that works using audio tape, based upon a double blind study of a tape designed to ameliorate the effects of herpes simplex (an incurable viral disease). This study is on Kelly's web site on a page entitled:

What Kelly wants to do on a different Web site (than the one he already owns), is to allow Web surfers to download various prerecorded treatments directly to earphones off the Web. During a trial period, the downloads would be free. After a given interval, if the user wanted to continue access to these treatments, he or she would have to pay a small monthly subscription fee. So far, so good.

However, that paranoid thing has raised its ugly head. Fearful that someone will steal his idea or perhaps worse, Kelly tries to hold his cards very close to his chest. He wants to put the site on an offshore server. He insists that he must conceal the names of satisfied customers. Unwilling to specify, on the Web, many details of his process, he faces the primal contradiction between revealing and concealing. I tried to point out that the Web was a very difficult nut to crack. That you can't just "build it and they will come." I patiently laid out the facts, as I know them, of how any kind of commerce works on the Web. No dice, it had to be done exactly as he said. He knew "facts" that I was unaware of that, if I fully understood, I would surely agree with him. "What facts?" I inquired. Well, I would have to read these books on the "medical conspiracy" first. Then he could and would explain it all.

I assume you are beginning to get the picture. But it got more complicated. As month followed month and the investors...who were "very interested" and about to commit "any day now"...did not materialize, I simply let the matter slide. Every once and a while, Kelly would call or email me and tell me that such-and-such a delay had occurred but he was meeting with "Bob" or "Tom" or somebody "next Tuesday" when a firm decision would be made. He adamantly resisted any attempts on my part to advise or assist him, preferring to maintain the secrecy he felt was necessary to protect him and his discovery.

Well as my regular readers know, I had some of my own medical problems in the interim. By the time I was ready to consider a full-time computer project again, Kelly was back on the horn. He had decided that perhaps he did need some help from me to get the money. Could I improve his site somewhat? He had put it there merely to attract investors, not expecting the returns to be all that large from audio tape sales over the Web (he got THAT right!). Perhaps, if it was a little slicker, it would be more helpful. Again, I suggested that he put a mini-version of the whole damned project there and see if anybody was interested. "No, no, no. That can't be done. Somebody will steal the idea."

When I suggested that "somebody" could steal the idea at ANY time he actually put it on the Web...now or later making little difference. Wouldn't it be better to do it now, and find out if the theft was imminent, rather than after you've invested a lot more money and time? Especially, somebody ELSE's time and money!

To make a long story short, as I probed deeper and deeper into Kelly's plans, his paranoia stiffened considerably. Each attempt I made...and some of them were really drastic verbal assaults on his plans...the more frantic he got. I tried to make it clear how ill received any deception or hedging would be. In addition, he often compared the "medical conspiracy," he felt he was battling, with other more well known conspiracies. When he started talking about the suppression of cancer cures, the realities of UFO abductions and that someone had shot Kennedy from INSIDE the PRESIDENTIAL CAR, I had had enough. I was outathere!

The same forces that make it difficult to sell conspiracy theories on the Web...that is, the necessity of showing your "evidence" in its entirety and exposing it completely to public scrutiny...was going to scuttle Kelly's idea. Too bad! If it was a scam, it was a GOOD scam.

The long and short of it is that I confidently predict that the Internet will scuttle the plans of paranoid purveyors like never before. The very things that make it so easy to initiate a devious scheme, also make it easy to debunk. Whether you are peddling racial supremacy, pornography or snake-oil, you got a real hard row to hoe.

See you tomorrow...

Willy Chaplin is a man who calls himself a libertarian and thinks he has something to say to us all. This rant was previously published on How Can You Laugh at a Time Like This?