@PhilosophyBear what's your reasoning for it being so low given that he's read the report and the report repeatedly mentions him taking over?

https://manifold.markets/JamesF/what-conspiracy-theories-will-be-pr#ff0d1ghdgk5

@BrunoParga They are descended from Vulgar Latin.

@Chumchulum magnum si verum.

@AmmonLam The scientific consensus is that humans didn't evolve from modern apes, rather humans and apes share a common ancestor. Of course, you could argue that that ancestor was itself an ape, albeit different from the apes of today. But creationists talk about how "scientists think we evolved from apes", they typically mean modern apes. Hence the creationist straw-man: "If humans evolved from monkeys, why are there still monkeys?"
So if option is an allusion to what creationists think evolutionists think, it should resolve YES. If it's pointing to a more scientifically literate conspiracy theory, that humans have no ape-like ancestors, it should resolve NO in 2100.

@Slackhammer does "wealthy elite" here mean billionaires or a lower bar? Must multiple of such elite be doing it together or does just one elite with a bunch of lower down people count? The Wikipedia plot summary doesn't seem to give much info about the people involved.

@BoltonBailey Why do you suppose this was resolved N/A

@Chumchulum this

@FecalAbhuman do you bet this will go up

@TheAllMemeingEye didn't this happen? Or was the south Korean cult not big enough?

@BlackCrusade Is this presently true? Which cult?

@TheAllMemeingEye it's not presently true, it was true at one point.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_South_Korean_political_scandal

@BlackCrusade ah cool, I somehow had never heard of this.

I only skimmed the article, but it looks like they proved that she used her influence to help her daughter cheat college entry and to edit the wording of some speeches, but they weren't able to prove the allegations that she was controlling wider policy, although it seems possible.

It also looks like it was mainly just one doing it (the father started the control before his daughter joined, but he died decades before Park became president), whereas a cabal is necessarily a group.

Shockingly close to counting though!

At least one UN recognised country is secretly controlled by a cabal following a religion shared by <5% of the country's population

Current most promising theory (trust me bro):

• Israel is controlled by a secret cabal of Zapotec polytheists

• Most other countries are controlled by a secret cabal of Nivkh animists

• Russia is controlled by a secret cabal from the Jewish Autonomous Oblast. I am of course referring to the local Ukrainian minority (probably part of a neo-pagan cult or something), who with 0.9% of the population are about 50% more numerous than the namesake Jewish community that merely serve as a smokescreen

• Zambia is just Zambia, by sheer force of will they have escaped control from any cabals, serving as the last shining beacon of hope for human freedom

@GG is this option an instance of MAGA's "every accusation is a confession" habit?

@BoltonBailey is this option different in criteria from the existing "Smart devices are almost always listening to your private conversations" option?

@TheAllMemeingEye Ah no, must have missed that one I only searched for "phone" feel free to N/A

@BoltonBailey cool thanks

@mods please either n/a or edit Bolton Bailey's option "Smartphones listen in on private conversations" since @JamesF is inactive

@BrunoParga Viagra is available generic now, so those fat profit margins are gone. If Big Pharma had a new boner pill, 2018 would have been the time to release it.

If that's true, socialists have fallen for it hook, line and sinker.

@GG hmmm, I mean arguably it would still be sane for them to have such rules if it wasn't happening, but I agree that such rules are perhaps getting disproportionate emphasis as a result

@TheAllMemeingEye The absurdity of calling yourself a 99% movement when you ban everyone who isn't a hardline anarchist.

@GG funnily enough I know an ancom who says that, after abolition of police, laws would be enforced by... community defense forces, which... errr... sound a tad like police

Context:

Trump, never one to shy away from wild conspiracy theories or those who embrace them, now finds himself arguing that there is no "credible" evidence implicating the rich and powerful in the Epstein case and that those believing otherwise are suckers or fools.

His shifting comments – that the Epstein files should be released, that there are no files, that any possible files are hoaxes – also make him seem less like a straight-shooter and more like a man with something to hide.

[…]

For the moment, calls for the government to share more information about Epstein is a rare source of consensus among the American public. A YouGov poll indicated that 79% of Americans want the government to release "all documents it has". That included 75% of Republican respondents and 85% of Democrats.

An internal Democratic poll obtained by Politico found 58% of respondents believed Trump "maybe was or definitely was" involved in a cover-up.

[…]

And while some have called for more transparency, conservatives in the House of Representatives have repeatedly squelched Democratic attempts to mandate the release of all remaining Epstein files.

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, who oversaw those efforts, walked back earlier comments calling for more Epstein files to be disclosed, saying that he was misquoted and that he only wanted the public to see "credible" information – the same language Trump has used.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cjrlg94wnq9o

@TheAllMemeingEye I'm 50-50 on whether Trump ever had sex with a 15-or-below girl at some point in his life, and 100% certain he was friends with Jeffrey Epstein for a while. But there's no evidence he visited Epstein Island. Trump's name appears on the Epstein flight logs seven known times, but those are all flights between Palm Beach and New York City.

@GG Fair enough, it sounds like you know more about the case than I do, my adding of this option was primarily triggered by there being a huge wave of popular Reddit posts stating it like it's a foregone conclusion, and I wanted the market to help me calibrate