WEF - Conspiracy Theory?

[Lazyusername]

Every so often, someone in comments will mention the WEF and a torrent of responses follows; memes of tinfoil hat-wearers, insults etc.

I'm very interested in politics; I read around all of the papers, news sites etc.
From what I understand there are valid reasons for people to be concerned about the WEF. I want to post some FACTS, along with sources, about the WEF and then I would love to hear what other people think. If I am a "conspiracy nut" for having concerns and thinking the public should know much more about this then please enlighten me.

The WEF exists. Here is its website.
The World Economic Forum (weforum.org)
It holds meetings at Davos each year. Members consist of politicians, owners of corporations & social media and others.
The WEF was created by Klaus Schwab. He is the Chairman of the WEF.
Klaus Schwab - Wikipedia
He wrote a book called Covid 19, the Great Reset. It is currently available on Amazon. I have read it. It calls for the opportunity which has arisen through the pandemic to be used to change the way the world is run, bringing in a system of "stakeholder capitalism". In this system, democracy becomes of lesser importance and decisions are taken by corporations in conjunction with the UN.
You can read a more complex explanation here:
Conspiracy theories aside, there is something fishy about the Great Reset - resilience
The WEF have a programme of "Young Global Leaders". You can read about them here on the WEF's own site:
What are Young Global Leaders and what impact can they have? | World Economic Forum (weforum.org)
Young global leaders have included Angela Merkel, Tony Blair, Emanuel Macron, Jacinda Ardern, Justin Trudeau and many more.
In 2017 Klaus Schwab stated on video that the WEF had "penetrated the Cabinets" of governments around the world and that over half of Canada's Government, including Trudeau were Young Global Leaders.

(1:08:30) You can see MP's profiles on the WEF website by searching their name followed by WEF. Some are there. Some are not. Sunak and Starmer are both listed. Starmer is on video saying he prefers Davos to Westminster. The WEF Wikepedia page states: In May 2020, the WEF and the Prince of Wales's Sustainable Markets Initiative launched "The Great Reset" project, a five-point plan to enhance sustainable economic growth following the global recession caused by the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns.[128] "The Great Reset" was to be the theme of WEF's annual meeting in August 2021. The forum defines the system that it wants to create as "Stakeholder Capitalism". The Transnational Institute describes the World Economic Forum's main purpose as being "to function as a socializing institution for the emerging global elite, globalization's "Mafiocracy" of bankers, industrialists, oligarchs, technocrats and politicians. They promote common ideas, and serve common interests: their own." According to the European Parliament's think tank, critics see the WEF as an instrument for political and business leaders to "take decisions without having to account to their electorate or shareholders".[163] Since 2009, the WEF has been working on a project called the Global Redesign Initiative (GRI), which proposes a transition away from intergovernmental decision-making towards a system of multi-stakeholder governance. According to the Transnational Institute (TNI), the Forum is hence planning to replace a recognised democratic model with a model where a self-selected group of "stakeholders" make decisions on behalf of the people.

I could go on (I realise I already have 🙂) but I'm saying I don't remember any of us being consulted about having democracy taken away so we could be ruled by corporations. This is not about anti-vaxx, lizard people or anything else. As far as I can see this is a very serious affront to our freedom and democracy. AIBU?

“Flattening the curve” was never about protecting you, me or great aunt Doris from Covid, it was about protecting the government in case NHS collapsed under their watch, thereby making them forever unelectable.

Yes it was hugely expensive and we should question whether it was the right approach, a few did at the time but were mostly berated and got loads of abuse.

Easy to question things with hindsight.

And don't forget that the scientists and medical experts were every bit as conflicted and doubting of whatever approach was being taken.

The naysayers and armchair experts were in no position to question how it was tackled; it's hardly surprising they were berated.

So do you think we ought not have flattened the curve and run the risk of the nhs imploding? Do you think we ought to have discussed the pros and cons of taking action for a few weeks while the nhs imploded?

personally I think some aspects of covid were handled appallingly (VIP lanes), some were handled well (getting cash to the vaccine developers etc) and some things in hindsight were wrong (schools should not have shut, scientists now think it would have been better to let the virus run through the general population while locking the elderly and vulnerable away) but I think most decisions were made with the idea that they were doing the best they could for the uk with the information they had at the time.

Saying it at the time wasn’t ‘hindsight’

How does that fit the definition

Of course there shouldn’t have been the abuse. Questioning if the approach was right is entirely reasonable and it’s incredible people would prefer not to have that. It was due to fear that people reacted as they did.

Did you participate in online or rl abuse?

Did you participate in online or rl abuse?

Of course not. Where did I say I did?

And with regard to "hindsight", I'm talking about how it's now easy to say lockdowns could have been avoided/reduced, but it's only easy to say because of what we now know that we didn't at the time.

The old adage "a stopped clock is right twice a day" applies here.

but it's only easy to say because of what we now know that we didn't at the time.

We knew a lot very early on, eg risk by age and how it spread etc.

I didn’t feel particularly updated from first point of questioning to end of restrictions, most was established in first part of pandemic

What didn’t we know at the time?

Stakeholder capitalism isn’t anti democracy, it’s about corporations having a responsibility beyond making money for their shareholders. It’s saying that businesses have to take into account the impacts of their business on the environment and society (ie other stakeholders) NOT just on making money. It’s a positive concept for the world, not anti democratic. You are getting sucked into conspiracies.

The idea that corporations will be forced into more accountability has been proved laughable though because the capitalist model relies on profit and growth regardless of principle. It’s easy to push out sound bites to consumers to convince them that they are consuming “ethically” but in practise it’s virtually unenforceable and impossible to quantify.

For every “ethical” change to industry there is another problem to solve - again, part of the capitalist model. Most basic needs and a good few “wants” have been covered by progress in the last century. Now we have to be convinced to consume ever more advanced things that we didn’t know we needed / wanted. Marketing is a sophisticated science based on psychology, hence its close relationship with propaganda- see how Goebbels utilised the work of Edward Bernays(who to be fair was discomfited by the use of his research in such a heinous way.)

At it’s most simplistic marketing works a lot on our FOMO. It encourages elitism and “keeping up with the Jones’s” The subtle implication if you are sceptical or resistant is that you’re stupid, or worse, somehow dangerous to progress.

Problem is, after a while you can be coerced subtly into “playing the game”. For example, “everyone” wants digital banking - it’s quicker and eliminates some fraud / crime. It gives you more control of your day to day finances. The elimination of cash can’t be that bad - after all it’s all online anyway. We have been coerced into this. Primarily by the closure of branches and lack of face to face customer service. But it leaves us vulnerable in many ways.

The knee jerk reaction to anyone wanting cash to remain part of the system is that it must be for nefarious reasons. Nothing to hide, nothing to fear, right? But the application of AI and algorithms and the tracking of every transaction leads to loss of control, if for example your bank and / or the state imposes rules around your money - how you get it, what you spend it on, who you send it to. Obviously I’m thinking of the Social Crwdit scheme here. We are conditioned to accept all of this as benevolent, and who knows, it might be. But human nature being what it is, statistically those with a self serving bent will take advantage.

I am cynical, not paranoid. I’ve fought the state before with high stakes and “won” by the skin of my teeth. So I am wary of both state and any organisations with the power to almost gas-light a population into compliance with things that may have negative consequences which I will hope are unintended…..

I don’t like nasty surprises that destabilise things, so I keep half an eye on the big world out there, while focusing mainly on my own life. And I think discussions are important about everything, even batshit things. Because in 2020 lots of unthinkable things happened and the attempt to curtail discourse of a controversial nature was one of the scariest.

But this isn’t about hindsight. This was about putting two and two together.

I was petrified when covid first kicked off. We were getting these appalling images from China of people collapsing and dropping dead in the streets. The footage from Italy of stacked up coffins, overflowing hospitals and doctors saying treatment would be based on age. Then we had Boris telling us this was a national emergency and to stay home. I was convinced for the first three weeks that ever single person I met on my walk was a potential vector and that this was something akin to bubonic plague.

Then, common sense starts to take over. The fact that shop workers, who at that time were truly on the front line, weren’t dropping like flies. Ministers were still meeting in person when they could have conducted business over Zoom. The fact that those taking part in the daily updates made great show of standing at their lectures metres apart, yet walked into the room following in each others slip stream. Friends in the NHS saying not to believe everything you see in the media and the final debacle of MPs and advisors ignoring their own advice and even visiting elderly relatives. And it was never a lockdown in the true sense of the word, there were so many exceptions, it was a completely leaky sieve, therefore absolutely pointless anyway.

I wasn’t in the least bit shocked about the Downing Street parties and Starmer’s ‘curry’ meeting. It was obvious that the pee was being taken out of our compliance from the very outset. It was just a question of how long it took for this information to end up in the public domain. The only reason we ended up wearing masks was because MPs realised they’d scared the public so shitless, the only way they could get them back out and spending again was to give them some form of safety blanket. It didn’t matter whether they served any real purpose, it just made people feel better. Note the number of times MPs were caught not wearing them themselves, or putting them on for the camera.

I’m sure big business and profit making had a lot to do with it, but I also suspect egos were equally as important. Boris and Hancock certainly wanted their Churchill moment. “We were the decisive ones who saved the country” Hancock certainly let his self importance run away with his declaration that everyone will be vaccinated regardless of medical benefit and he’s openly emitted he wanted to be remembered as the one who drove the campaign so hard.

Ive always been very biddable and not a natural rebel. I like a quiet life and have always avoided confrontations with authority and abided by rules. Never again. If we ever are faced with the same scenario, I will refuse to comply and make my and my direct family’s choices independently. I was forbidden to see my mother or MIL who were terminally ill during covid until the day they actually died, as if it would have made any difference to the outcome. How dare our government put those sort of restrictions on families! Were these elderly people ever actually asked what their choices were?

How do people get through life with this level of naivety.

@JohnPrescottsPyjamas excellent post and completely on point.

I was a sceptic from the beginning, I was working retail and we had no ppe, screens or arrows for months and we didn't catch it.

I've never ever been a crazy conspiracy theorist but there was always something off about the first images coming out of China, no other country had people dropping dead in the streets and it was supposedly from the same virus.

I felt exactly the same about the war in Ukraine. There's a huge amount of wars and conflicts going on around the world right now and some have a higher death toll, the only difference I can see is that this one has more interest to the West because of who's involved. Also the switch from covid to Ukraine was amazing, it was as if we never had a deadly virus circulating.

The events over the past 3 years should be making people start to sit up and take note, especially the breakneck speed that the media switch from one event to the other, we've done climate change and now it seems they are ramping up covid take two again.

I'm interested in Epstein's client list but everyone has been so distracted over the past 3 years it's as if the elite child trafficking ring has been forgotten.

Back to the WEF .
Definition of conspiracy is that it is secret. the work of the WEF isn't secret.Big Corporate /Big Banks are keen to work together to get the results they want through influencing/lobbying/advocacy - creating dependency through finance and other resources etc. it does form a counter-balance to what elected governments can do - so limits the power of the vote - it isn't inherently either evil or good

It was/is like living in some surreal parallel universe. Common sense and logical thinking went completely out of the window, then boom last February it changed from Covid to Ukraine almost overnight (with a lot of people changing their profile pictures from masks to a flag).

Your part about the media is the truth and I am beginning to wonder if they ever really held TPTB to account in the past or if they've only ever existed as a tool to be exploited as Chomsky wrote to manufacture our consent.

To the OP we live in exciting times, to counter the Great Reset there is Great Awakening happening right now. The WEF played their hand too early, too hard and too fast. The people who didn't succumb to fear and could see through the narrative, logical inconsistencies and quite plainly don't want that proscribed technocratic Davos style future are alert. Remember the Canadian Truckers? The bud light boycott etc.

If politics are downstream from Culture there are lot of parallel Social Media platforms that support actual Free Speech that have been created and are thriving.

TPTB have lost a lot of their tools for controlling the narrative (hence the backlash to Elon buying X/Twitter and attempting to restore free speech).

Great post.

I totally agree. Everything does seem to have become quite surreal. Supposedly well informed and educated friends have become almost zombies to what the media feeds them. They seem unable to listen without prejudice and have lost the ability to make informed choices. I’m not so paranoid to believe everything is fake news, but sometimes you need to stand back and have a little bit of healthy cynicism about some of the shock, horror reporting.

I feel sometimes we are being collectively herded into a specific way of thinking. We’re made to constantly feel guilty about everything we do and the impact we are having on others and there’s a sort of righteous peer pressure from others if you don’t fall in line with the current narrative - you’re almost viewed with distrust.

Tbh, I’m not sure where we’re heading with this but I’ve become great believer in the Tytler Cycle.
Alexander Fraser Tytler was an 18th century lawyer, judge and academic who stated:

“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been 200 years. These nations have progressed through this sequence: From bondage to spiritual faith; From spiritual faith to great courage; From courage to liberty; From liberty to abundance; From abundance to selfishness; From selfishness to apathy; From apathy to dependence; From dependence back into bondage.”

Could you explain why you think shareholder capitalism, the economic system that we have now is better than stakeholder capitalism would be? What do you understand these terms to mean? Also quote the part of the great reset that advocates for less democracy.

Under this hypothesis, are Freeports / SEZs the brainchild of the WEF.

Because no one seems to know much about how they’re going to work in practice, but what I have read sounds alarming.