No, I don't believe anything like that. In fact I think """Theorists""" are always wrong because it is always impossible to speak to other people's intent. It's hard to even trust a person to accurately tell you their own intent. The system selects for true believers, because there is no more effective mind control than what feels like one's own decisions. I would like to unironically suggest this piece by T. Kaczynski — please don't shoot the messenger :) https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/ted-kaczynski-the-sy...

This is why there's so much overlap between the security state and the 20th Century development of advertising. Both rely on accurately predicting the public's reaction given some stimuli, then trying to inject the most effective stimuli. In advertising it's done in pursuit of profit. In statecraft it's done in pursuit of ?????. Remember that propaganda doesn't mean lies, it means idea-you-feel-compelled-to-share: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committee_on_Public_Informatio...

"[George] Creel urged [Woodrow] Wilson to create a government agency to coordinate “not propaganda as the Germans defined it, but propaganda in the true sense of the word, meaning the 'propagation of faith.'”. "Creel later published his memoirs of his service with the CPI, 'How We Advertised America', in which he wrote:

“In no degree was the Committee an agency of censorship, a machinery of concealment or repression. Its emphasis throughout was on the open and the positive. At no point did it seek or exercise authorities under those war laws that limited the freedom of speech and press. In all things, from first to last, without halt or change, it was a plain publicity proposition, a vast enterprise in salesmanship, the world's greatest adventures in advertising… We did not call it propaganda, for that word, in German hands, had come to be associated with deceit and corruption. Our effort was educational and informative throughout, for we had such confidence in our case as to feel that no other argument was needed than the simple, straightforward presentation of the facts.”"