Occam's Razor is a philosophical idea, or premise, that holds that the answer which makes the fewest assumptions, and is thereby the simplest, is usually the correct answer. Perhaps at an intuitive sense, this makes sense. Assume that we were to analyze the phenomena of motion; when we see somebody, that a short while ago we saw somewhere else, we assume that he had moved for whatever reason. We do not assume he teleported, or that he was cloned. That would be nonsense. We make conclusions of this kind on a daily basis to explain the things going on around us based on certain schemas that we have established. Children have no schemas, no concept of the world and the way life works, and thereby have trouble making concrete conclusions. Their lack of object permanence, the lack of spatial reasoning, challenges their ability to make simplifying assumptions. These assumptions are necessary for us to understand the world, and we make these kinds of assumptions every day, "If it Quacks like a duck and looks like a duck, it's probably a duck". When we get bogged down in the unrealistic and start making assumptions other than the ones justified by the situation at present, we lose reliability. This article will first talk about the applicability of this principle to conspiracy theories, as they relate to politics and ethics, and the second part will examine this principle's applicability in the much wider scope of public policy.

We can then apply this principle to conspiracy theories, which, ever so, unfortunately, have become a greater part of our political realm. Let us take a popular conspiracy theory, the one about the assassination of President Kennedy. There are details in the situation such as the umbrella man, or the issue of the trajectory of his head versus the trajectory of the bullet that doesn't seem to line up with the scene as common knowledge holds it. However, in order for this theory to hold, they have to take a lot of details, which otherwise would be unrelated and assume relation.

On top of that, you have to make assumptions about each and every extraneous variable as to their situation in the plot, so to speak. This makes the particular event foggy, and it makes it increasingly hard to draw the line between real and false. These stem, I'm nearly entirely certain, from the human inclination to seek order and to seek answers. They take information still unknown to us, as in humankind, and make assumptions about such information to make events where everything is not yet known, in order to bring a sense of peace. Humans tend to get restless when we do not know the answer and it can be easy to make assumptions about what is not yet known in the search for said knowledge.

The far right are spreading similar theories, except all the more dangerous because they target specific groups of people and their role in difficult phenomena. The far right have been formulating theories about the role that 'the Jews' have been playing in our financial and political sectors. They claim that they rule the financial sector and are aiming to control our political system. Another theory holds is that people are orchestrating a "white genocide" in order to wipe out our culture, way of life, and our race as a whole. To the reasonable person, to those who value factual information, this would seem nonsensical, which, if it isn't clear, it is.

However, their political inclinations and their environment have given them a way to combine otherwise unrelated facts into a "theory", although it should be noted that I use that word lightly. They take the fact that on the whole, Jewish Americans are well off and have higher incomes, to the fact that our political sphere is being 'difficult' so to speak, or the fact that our economy is not performing as well as it once was and connect to the fact that most Jewish Americans are liberal. These theories threaten not only the very basis of our entire system but also threaten the lives of those groups targeted. They have no basis in fact and make some very fallacious assumptions in order to validate their own theory, which in turn validates their political beliefs.

I am not here to claim that all conspiracy theories are wrong, or that they are correct, only to emphasize the fact that in the process of making continuing assumptions about things that are not known, or rather how details of what is known to connect, it grows continuously further from our present reality. There are times and places to make assumptions, as it is our natural inclination to do so in order to protect our current state of being and/or to better our future state. However, these conspiracy theories are neither the time nor place especially when they make assumptions and generalizations about entire people, as by nature this effects the nature of the politics. Which raises the question; is it thereby ethical to engage in conspiracy theories?

I would say yes, if and only if they do not target, assume things about, or generalize groups of people; or target, and then endanger the well-being of another person; and if they do not endanger the ability of a political system to operate effectively and efficiently. If a theory does not do any of these things I could see no potentially harmful consequences if it is shared between friends, if people engage in a discourse about said theories, there is no potential downfall or negative effects. The exceptions, however, I deem unethical because they have the ability to thereby affect other people negatively, either because of the theory targets or generalizes a group they belong to, targets a political system in which they are a part of, or they have an emotional attachment to the issue at hand. Negatively affecting others is bad, as defined as it negatively impacting the well-being of others. This is implicit in our whole system of government; do not harm others in the pursuit of self-improvement and freedom.

I would like to claim definitively that the use of this razor, so to speak, can be applied to conspiracy theories because theories like these make many assumptions about the way the world works and how people act without having the full extent of knowledge. The simplest alternative, that JFK was assassinated, and not because of the government, is thereby true until either;

a) their assumptions are proven true by the addition of extra knowledge or,

b) their assumptions are proven wrong by the addition of extra knowledge and a new conception of what happened becomes common knowledge.

However, at the time being, either of these options seems unlikely. Our political institutions are based on reasonable knowledge of the general population, and these theories destroy knowledge by making assumptions based on insufficient information and then passing it off as truth. When a sizable percentage of the population believe in the deep state, there becomes a problem of unreasonable knowledge and this threatens our political institutions.