Welcome to Tinfoil City
I stumbled across an Instagram account this morning that featured a post consisting of a series of photos from the L.A. fires. Each contained text that fed into a progressively more complicated conspiracy. It began with a sarcastic tone along the lines of, “Gee, isn’t it funny that these homes are burning all of the evidence in the Diddy trial.” There is, of course, not only no evidence that anything of the sort has happened, but it flies in the face of the acres of footage we have of law enforcement removing such evidence from Diddy’s home.
Cops don’t arrest people but leave the evidence in their homes and say, “Don’t touch that shit. We need it for your trial.”
The post quotes one of Diddy’s victims from back in October, warning authorities to “watch out for fires,” that might destroy incriminating evidence. Again, unless this fire took place in the evidence room of the LAPD, I’m not sure we’re on solid logical footing, but ok. Saying “watch out for fires” to someone in Los Angeles is like telling someone to “watch out for snow” in Norway. You’re not exactly picking winning lottery numbers with that kind of caution.
Also, looking due west from any point in LA — and in particular, right where the Palisades fire continues to rage — one sees the Pacific Ocean just a few blocks away. If there were any lingering evidence that had not yet been seized by the authorities, AND the defendants (or whichever international cabal is behind this particular conspiracy), wanted the evidence gone, burning down 25 square miles of high-profile homes ranks probably 5,243,863 on the list of efficient ways to do it. Like, throw it all in the ocean, maybe? Burn it in secret? You’d probably want to draw as little attention as possible to the illegal destruction of evidence, rather than inviting the entire world to come watch your weenie roast.
Anyway, the post then pivots to climate change, showing a picture of someone getting vaxxed with a caption like “Here’s someone about to tell us that the fires were started by climate change and not intentionally set.” They are unsubly suggesting that people who got the Covid vaccine, like people who believe in climate change, are fools. This, of course, ignores the reams of scientific research that establish the reality of climate change, which plays out in higher temperatures (2024 has now been verified as the warmest year on record), increased droughts (like the one we’re in now) and stronger Santa Ana winds (like the 100 mph ones recorded last week).
The person then indirectly asserts that there’s a piece of land in L.A. that was scheduled for development in 2028, but that now the government is going to take the land over via eminent domain. They don’t explain the connection between Diddy orchestrating mass evidence destruction to the government taking over a big piece of real estate in LA.
They further note that many major insurance companies pulled out of California right before the fires — as if someone knew they were going to happen! Considering that “fire season” is a real thing and that every year, right around this time, wildfires rage across California, it’s safe to agree that the insurance companies, along with pretty. much every resident of California, knew that fires were on their way.
The post also ignores the California Insurance Commission’s legislation barring insurance companies from raising premiums over a certain percentage, which would discourage any for-profit insurance company from doing business. A friend of mine who is an officer in a large national insurance company told me that in California, the average insurance company pays out $1.25 for every $1 it collects. And the companies specifically said that the costs of wildfire settlements is the driving reason behind them backing out.
Of course, the poster doesn’t care about inconvenient things like facts; they’re now just throwing shit against the wall. They don’t even attempt to offer a connection between Diddy, the federal government and the insurance companies. But it’s all connected, man! The MSM has you brainwashed if you don’t see it!
I won’t go on any further because we’ve all seen this shit in the past week. Not only is it spectacularly unhelpful, but it conveniently lacks any discussion about solutions. This is what drives me crazy about conspiracy theories — armed with a few grains of truth, they throw wild, extravagant accusations into the ether and then walk away without suggesting what the core problem is, let alone the solution. Because they don’t care!
What’s important to these people is feeling smarter than everyone else. It’s really that simple. For whatever reason, they are crumbling under the weight of information and progress and rather than take action and make their lives — and the world — a little bit better, they seek consolation in fringe ideas that make them feel smarter than everybody else because, by definition, very few people share those ideas. They revel in images of wealthy people, governments and unidentified bad actors orchestrating complex global disasters and call everybody else “sheep” for not seeing what they insist is clear as day.
Scores of people did, of course, call out the poster for both their inherent fallacies as well as their unhelpful tone. Which conspiracy theorists love. They need resistance like fish need water. They and their cheesecloth theories need opposition to reinforce the idea that they are the enlightened few and those dim-witted sheeple citing facts and science are the clueless ones. It’s a masterclass on ego.
It’s tiring being around people who only talk about problems and never the solution. Maybe there is some truth to these ideas. Nobody who understands science would ever suggest that climate change instigated the fires — a warm day doesn’t create bursts of spontaneous combustion — and so yes, they were probably either intentionally set or the result of some sort of human negligence.
Were any of Diddy’s phenomenally wealthy friends impacted by this? Probably, but you’ve got an astronomically long way to go before you reach anything approximating a credible connection between the fires and his case.
And are governments and other mega-wealthy interests working behind the scenes to stack the deck in their favor? One hundred percent. But to ascribe these conditions to something as devastating as the LA fires is just shitty.