I had a conversation with a conspiracy theorist last week.

He sat down at my table in the cafe where I was working, with a young friend, and proceeded to tell her lots of stuff that was complete nonsense. 5G, Covid vaccinations, world government… the usual stuff, rejigged and rejiggled to fit his own particular paranoia aesthetic.

I tried to stick to my book, as he explained that climate change is a scam, and resource scarcity is a scam.

Eventually the young friend apologised.

“We’ve taken over your table when you were just trying to read!”

I said don’t worry about it (do worry about it), and the guy noticed that the book I was reading was about the dangers of AI.

And he asked me what it was about, and I explained, to the best of my ability, how Generative “Artificial Intelligence” is being used in the workplace despite it being, how do they say in France, le bolloques.

“It’s all part of the same thing,” he said, sensing that I was a fellow traveller.

“I try to tell my friends about this sort of stuff, and they tell me I’m a conspiracy theorist.”

“I mean, you do sound like a conspiracy theorist.”

He took this in good humour, and went on to say some people had cut him off for his beliefs.

And it just felt impossibly sad.

A few days earlier, me and Martha had come across a truly scary “political” cartoon, stuck up in the kitchen of a house in The Lanes that backed onto the alleyway we were traversing.

I stopped to take some photos [1], marvelling how the very real and legitimate issues highlighted (corporate media, the military / industrial complex, outsourcing etc etc) were folded into this all-encompassing theory, which seemed to be very heavily based around getting lots of injections in the butt.

This is what always stresses me out about conspiratorial thinking. It’s quite individualist in a way: if you’re lonely, and you’re angry, why look for solutions? Just claim it’s all a big scam and you can disappear down your rabbit hole of hate without having to do anything about it.

Just as we turned to leave, a man came down the alley and said, “you can have your photo taken with it if you like”. He was the guy who lived in the house. He had a beard, an interesting hat, and a kind face.

We said no, and walked away.

[1] Photos republished below. TW: crazy transphobia, homophobia, and all sorts of other horrible crap.