How to Prevent Paranoia

Given my last post where I asserted that I believe that the world is full of people who are "capable of being quite cruel and inflicting pain on others with no apparent remorse," and who have succeeded in "making it to the top," and that there are others, equally cruel and callous, who are willing to do their will, for the proper price," one might assume that I must believe there are evil conspiracists lurking behind every tree and bush, plotting my downfall. Shouldn't I be consumed by overwhelming anxiety that I will fall victim to some devilish scheme at any moment? Shouldn't I, in fact, be very paranoid?

No. I believe the two bullies of my youth weren't out looking for me in particular. It was just their lucky day to find a lone, little boy with no one watching out for him. I was never accosted by them again. Conspiracies are not always easy things to pull off. Things must go just right. The more difficult the plan, the greater the likelihood that something will go wrong and be discovered. Therefore, the less likely it will be for people to try pull off something very significant, unless the payoff is great.

So in evaluating the likelihood that a conspiracy has occurred, one should always ask, was it really worth it to the supposed conspirators to try to do this? In my case, it might be worth it to someone to attack me in various ways. But am I worth it to them? I'm a rather insignificant person, whose opinions matter to nobody. I might become a victim of a conspiracy sometime. But it will be a very inexpensive one.

Meanwhile, the conspiracy of 9/11 (and even the official story admits that there were conspirators), may have been of great value to many people. How many hundreds of billions of dollars have been spent on the two resulting wars? Who benefited from that? Who benefited politically? How much would one be willing to spend to achieve those benefits? How much risk would one be willing to take?

Asking questions like these keeps me from constantly suspecting the worse. But it also allows me to rationally consider whether a conspiracy is worth investigating.