With these topics and dilemmas on the Internet and social networks, the “theory of the golden billion” resurfaced again, i.e. the alleged project of the world’s elites to reduce the world’s population in order to preserve the resources for the privileged billion inhabitants on Earth. The term “Golden Billion” (золотой миллиард, in Russian) is by Anatoly Kuzmich Tsikonov from his book “The Conspiracy of the World Government” (Заговор мирового правительства, 1994).
One of the speculations about the new virus that spread quickly is that it is a conspiracy for a strategic depopulation on a global scale. Without going into too much details on this theory, I will only mention some of its key “arguments”:
The virus is artificially produced in a laboratory to serve as a biological weapon.
It has its own strategic and specific effects that are the result of laboratory engineering.
One of those effects is to target the older population and be life-threatening for them.
With the reduction of the older population, the pension funds that are in crisis will be saved, which should have positive economic effects worldwide.
World elites will protect themselves with various measures such as timely isolation, privileged testing, premium health care, etc.
Although the world in which we live every day convinces us that everything is possible, still that is not a reason not to critically reconsider all these claims. Therefore, reality and facts are telling us something a bit different about these theories and their alleged arguments:
There is no clear evidence that the virus is artificially produced, and in particular there is no evidence that someone is using it as a biological weapon. Recent expert findings refute all previous theories that COVID-19 is caused by some kind of a laboratory coronavirus. That is the factual situation at the moment.
Both theories that (a) the United States or G. Britain has brought the virus to China, and (b) that China is using the virus to attack the United States and Europe, cancel each other because they cannot be both true at the same time. The United States, China and the European countries are on the list of countries with the highest number of infected and deceased people. Attacking another world power and inflicting such losses of lives on one’s country and people and an economic crisis is really an “argument” beyond any sense.
There are more and more reports about the coronavirus affecting all population groups and wide demographics. Although the risk of the virus increases with age, statistics show that every 5th person is at a younger age.
The theory that the world’s elites are behind the pandemic is refuted by every new case of a well-known public figure suffering from the virus. The claim that the world’s elites will protect themselves in time is not supported by facts, and the reality confirms the views of experts that the disease does not choose age, sex, status, race or other characteristics (see also the article “Conspiracy theories that corona virus is the work of world billionaires”).
Finally, the thesis of “saving pension funds” loses all meaning in the light of the upcoming significant economic recession worldwide, so to claim that to save pension funds entire economies are sacrificed in many countries is really pointless.
With these topics and dilemmas on the Internet and social networks, the “theory of the golden billion” resurfaced again, i.e. the alleged project of the world’s elites to reduce the world’s population in order to preserve the resources for the privileged billion inhabitants on Earth. The term “Golden Billion” (золотой миллиард, in Russian) is by Anatoly Kuzmich Tsikonov from his book “The Conspiracy of the World Government” (Заговор мирового правительства, 1994).
This theory is based on the idea known as “Malthusianism“, that “the growth of the world’s population is exponential, and the growth of world food is linear.” It warns of an imminent threat in the near future from a lack of resources, so this is the reason why the Golden Billion project was created to address this alleged problem. Although neo-Malthusianism has had an impact on modern politics, such as China’s One-Child population policy, there is no solid evidence that the world is running out of resources, especially food, on the contrary. It can be said that this theory is one of those that similar to conspiracies about the new world order, the world government, the chipping of all the inhabitants world wide, etc.. The all originate from the “Mystical East” where the spirituality has only been preserved in this cruel materialistic inferno we live in.
Each of them has a tad of truth or is signaling about some potential threat, but the extent to which these stories and theories are developed really distorts reality and spreads paranoia. The problem today is that through the social networks and the Internet, these theories are not only reviving, but are also intensifying and are developing into new sequels adapted for different countries and cultures. The latest reality TV like sequel of the Golden Billion theory is ongoing in with theCOVID-19. We are witnessing a sort of a hyper-reproduction of manipulative mysticism and conspiracy theories aimed as projects to undermine order in entire societies.
When such theories are at the margins of societies they are usually ignored and tolerated as “crazy ideas” or exciting stories. However, history teaches us that they must not be underestimated. Anti-Semitism came to life in the twentieth century right after the expansion of the conspiracy theories presented in an another book known as The Protocols of the Elders of Zion (1903), which described the alleged plan for Jewish domination of the world. When this conspiracy theory was accepted by the Nazi regime in Germany, in supported in all capacity of an organized state, state apparatus, army and many other resources, it was no longer a theory, but unfortunately became a state policy and an organized project for physical annihilation of an entire population. It is enough to recall only this dark episode from the history to realize the dangers that lurk from the uncontrolled spread of conspiracy theories and from their tolerance in a form of some micro-narratives that give us a false sense that we have understood the meaning of the world politics and history. They have the ability to adapt, almost like viruses, to enter the organism of societies and to eat and crash them from within.
Mankind must beware of harmful phenomena even when they are in a seemingly benign form, because that is the best time to stop them.
Sead Dzigal,
April 2020.
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This project was funded in part through a U.S. Embassy grant. The opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed herein are those of the implementers/authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the U.S. Government.
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