Metadata embedded in the video and analyzed by WIRED and independent video forensics experts shows that rather than being a direct export from the prison’s surveillance system, the footage was modified, likely using the professional editing tool Adobe Premiere Pro.
I believe in conspiracies as a general concept, like the two guards, and I believe governments have classified programs. When it gets to a certain point where vast numbers of people are involved in covering up something huge perfectly, you run into the problem of everything being possible and nothing being falsifiable, though.
In practice, people don’t believe in conspiracy theories because they honestly assess it’s the neatest way to explain the world, it’s because they get emotional satisfaction out of the community and the feeling that they know something which other people don’t. There’s psychology literature about it and everything.
What I said is my goto answer when I suspect I’m about to be arguing about melting steel beams or whatever, because that’s just a waste of time.
There is an additional psychological mechanism at play here to be aware of, which is that some criminal actions taken by the government in order to protect ruling class interests would destroy the legitimacy of their claim to power if admitted to. The importance of controlling the narrative around so-called State Crimes Against Democracy therefore becomes existential.
Marxists are more aware of this dynamic because they understand the nature of power structures. It’s also to be the same reason their theories are viciously attacked by the ruling class.
But they’re not covering it up perfectly, as this post shows. They’re trying to, make they’ve made mistakes.