Conspiracy theories are attractive to people not just because they reaffirm some (often prejudiced) construction of the world but because they confer the ego-boost of secret knowledge
I tend to think of it as people getting so caught up in proving a thing is possible they don’t stop to think about whether or not it’s plausible. Which I guess is much the same as what you said above.
I wonder if, in this case, how much of it is us having a different view of how identity is customarily proven. We use ID documents and serial numbers a lot more often than in the last century, and there are more centralized databases, etc. But maybe because more people need IDs issued, the apparatus that generates them is larger; and less business is done face-to-face, so if you are able to steal a cc or social-security number, you’re in like Flynn. In the article, the thing that finally convinces the reporter there was no hoax is when she looks at the record of a property sale from 1931, signed by Jeanne (who allegedly was already tubercular and replaced by Yvonne for public appearances), the local notary, and the purchaser; and she notices the notary is the same official who notarized Yvonne’s marriage certificate a few years earlier, and Jeanne’s marriage certificate, years before that. I suppose I could potentially go to one of Toronto’s ServiceOntario offices and get a driver’s license issued with my picture and someone else’s name, if I had a copy of their birth certificate and whatever other evidence I’d need to convince the clerk; but this would have been closer to someone in a small town rolling up to the one local DMV, where the chief clerk goes to the same church as her family, and trying to pass yourself off as your own mom. And if you succeed in tricking or bribing them, there are still dozens of other people you’ll have to convince.
ETA— otoh I’m kind of willing to suspend some of my disbelief for Obvious Disguises in pre-18th-c settings, because (a) no electric lights, (b) fewer eyeglasses.
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Date: 2020-02-13 12:26 am (UTC)From:I tend to think of it as people getting so caught up in proving a thing is possible they don’t stop to think about whether or not it’s plausible. Which I guess is much the same as what you said above.
I wonder if, in this case, how much of it is us having a different view of how identity is customarily proven. We use ID documents and serial numbers a lot more often than in the last century, and there are more centralized databases, etc. But maybe because more people need IDs issued, the apparatus that generates them is larger; and less business is done face-to-face, so if you are able to steal a cc or social-security number, you’re in like Flynn. In the article, the thing that finally convinces the reporter there was no hoax is when she looks at the record of a property sale from 1931, signed by Jeanne (who allegedly was already tubercular and replaced by Yvonne for public appearances), the local notary, and the purchaser; and she notices the notary is the same official who notarized Yvonne’s marriage certificate a few years earlier, and Jeanne’s marriage certificate, years before that. I suppose I could potentially go to one of Toronto’s ServiceOntario offices and get a driver’s license issued with my picture and someone else’s name, if I had a copy of their birth certificate and whatever other evidence I’d need to convince the clerk; but this would have been closer to someone in a small town rolling up to the one local DMV, where the chief clerk goes to the same church as her family, and trying to pass yourself off as your own mom. And if you succeed in tricking or bribing them, there are still dozens of other people you’ll have to convince.
ETA— otoh I’m kind of willing to suspend some of my disbelief for Obvious Disguises in pre-18th-c settings, because (a) no electric lights, (b) fewer eyeglasses.
ETA2— Meanwhile: https://mooncustafer.tumblr.com/post/190798255655/embed