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You are referring to the examples where we found out about the message. But it's impossible to know about the times we did not find out about the message, because we never found out! This could be because it never happened, or because the message was contained.

It's theoretically impossible to know. This is just a fun thought exercise though, not trying to have a real argument.

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There are plenty of cases where the message was contained in the short term, but became public later on to no great consequence.

For example the president maneuvering the US into WW2 would have been a scandal at the time, but after the war WW2 was seen as inevitable so the now pubic records didn’t cause an uproar.

Or the MKUltra declassified documents. If it has come out at the time, it would have been scandalous, but 30 years later it’s seen as not worth pursuing criminal charges, or even stopping similar things from being done in the future.

I think there are two different kinds of messages to consider here.

The first is an ideology. For an ideology to even be a threat there has to be a lot of believers in the first place.

The second is a secret. Killing someone before they can spill the beans is viable.

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