The “[[Butterfly Effect]]” is more than just a movie, but a now-popular notion that comes from [[chaos theory]], named so because of the “theoretical example of a hurricane’s formation being contingent on whether or not a distant butterfly had flapped its wings several weeks before.”
In other words, a small action influences or causes other actions, outward like an ever-increasing ripple, even snowballing into something vastly larger in scale than the original action.
It all works like dominoes. And that is why the theory (as popularly understood) is idiotic.
{At this point, I offer the caveat that I am addressing the popular notion of the Butterfly Effect, not the specifics of the actual theory as set forth by [[Edward Lorenz]]. This is not meant as a criticism of [[Chaos Theory]], nor an argument about [[theoretical physics]].}
Continuing this analogy, we can see the real world is made up of countless dominoes all falling against each other in different directions, not in neat lines that do not cross or interfere with each other. And even if we could isolate lines of dominoes from the same point, ripples generally dissipate when distributed, not get stronger or even maintain their full energy. And then even if they didn’t, they reflect back onto themselves when they hit an object, cancelling some or all of the force. The only reason the system doesn’t average out to stillness is because of new actions outside the pattern entering in.
As for butterflies, for every butterfly that works toward that hypothetical hurricane, a million others cancel him out. The whole thing is averaged to there being no storm at all, and there never could be. If one man hadn’t changed the world in some front-page way, someone else arguable would have, as no one action is so far-reaching that it defines history, even if some butterfly wings are larger than others. The names on monuments may as well be randomly generated, because in the grander scale of things, they nearly are.
But why should anyone care if I just debunked the (popular notions of) Butterfly Effect? Because this flawed thinking is why we oversimplify politics and derive overarching conspiracy theories about world domination by some unified group.
First, there is no such thing as a unified group. No nation, no company, no organization of any real size is homogeneous in it’s goals and intentions. It may seem that way from the outside, but in the end, a pond is not a single thing, but countless molecules affected differently from their neighbors in accordance with differences in their location in time and space.
This means that while a nation may go to war, there may be completely contradictory reasons within a regime for doing so. In [[Iraq]], did we go to find WMDs, liberate people from a dictator, or to create deliciously lucrative contracts for [[Haliburton]]? The answer is all of them. And this doesn’t include all the reasons we as a nation did not want to go to war.
I learned this while participating the [[Harvard Model UN]] years back. Any group must try to satisfy the varied interests of many sub-groups (special interests) as well as put on a good face to the voting public. That is why politicians euphemize the names of countless bills and laws, and Armageddon-bearing bombers are named “[[Convair B-36|Peacemakers]]”.
This is even more evident when you have an entity that goes back and forth between ideologically different leadership, such as [[Democrat]] and [[Republican]] presidents, or between very different popes, such as [[John Paul II]] and [[Pope Benedict XVI]].
No, groups can be said to have agendas in general, but in reality only the units — individual human beings — can have agendas, and it is statistically impossible for all of them to be on the same page, all the time. If anything, some agendas will be dominant at different times, but always different ones at play beneath the surface, waiting their turn.
This understanding teaches us two things:
(1) Agendas cross the distinction (boundaries) between groups. A dissenting faction (meaning by minority or contrasting against the public image of the group) will be working with, intentionally or unintentionally, toward the concurring agenda of some within another group. In other words, when you identify a network of people in collusion to undertake some vast control scenario, they will be found belonging to many groups, not some some uber-Illuminati that is separate from, or defined as specific collectives of, the many powerful groups in the world.
(2) Conflicting agendas cancel each other out. Even if it were true that some group was trying to establish a one-world government under their control, establishing their own ideals and values as law, then it would be unrealistic to assume that there were not many, many others trying to do the same. And as the gravity of collective strength pulls people together, the energy of individual wills spreads it apart. There will always be accretion of power; likewise there will always be dissipation through factioning and secession.
This second lesson is comforting. For every action taken toward one global power agenda, there are many others interfering with the inertia of those actions because of their own efforts to do the same. The names and identities of groups, such as “The British Empire” or the “Trilateral Commission” will come and go, but even the [[Bilderbergs]] of the world do not represent one great interest, but a conglomeration of many, each looking for their own advantage, even if through a collective.
It is the power struggle of the powerful that always leave room for the liberty of the weak. If we see ourselves as sheep, then who is the shepherd? We are herded in every direction from disparate media, political parties, and even conspiracy theorists themselves. It is only a matter of which we choose to follow, and if that following is done blindly or by choice — which requires the knowledge of such forces. We just need to see where the fences are.
So I will not say that there are no global power conspiracies. I will say that there are many, and we should be grateful. All these currents cancel each other out to a great extent, leaving us to choose which one to follow, or even just choose to be still.