> It's a convention, in the ComicCon sense

This is a common way people use to rationalise it. But how do you think decisions are made when there is group of people where each one has a part to play to execute a policy? The word you are looking for is a meeting. People meet, discuss, share concerns and agree plan. At this level, this is not something you can do over a Zoom call as you don't know who may be in the room and there are other security risks to consider. So they organise ComicCon, in a semi-open fashion. After all, what pleb like me and you can do about it?

Even if you write online, like I do, you can see I am getting dismissed, often ridiculed and often ad hominem follow as well.

They can totally do it and there is nothing people can do about it, so they don't even have to hide that much.

One way you can tell it's a conspiracy theory is that people talk about the WEF, which has no power other than arranging the name tags on the lunch tables at the gatherings, rather than the actual policy makers making decisions.

That argument doesn't make sense. It is like saying that the policies Bharatiya Janata Party are a conspiracy theory because the party is basically just a big social club, and upsetting a few key members of the BJP executive doesn't imply anything. It doesn't, but then later in unrelated news a billion Indians might start making life difficult for our hypothetical upsetter at the direction of the Indian parliament.

The social club is convened for the purpose of high status people deciding how to influence the direction of the World Economy. It isn't a literature club. Their consensus opinions and the voices in the room matter a lot.

> .. people talk about the WEF ... rather than the actual policy makers

The names aren't a mystery. Klaus Schwab organises the thing. Lists of the politicians and businessmen are published. It is easier to say WEF than to say "9 of the 10 wealthiest people except Adani". Especially since Adani still attends some of the meetups.

https://qz.com/davos-2023-world-economic-forum-attendees-184...

The BJP is in fact not just a big social club.

The WEF is in fact not just a big social club either. People go their to coordinate, discuss policy and make deals.

They aren't going for the merch. They are there to lobby and influence, dare I say, the World Economy.

I mean, https://www.weforum.org/focus/the-great-reset . They're not talking about the weather. They're looking at the future and coordinating a response.

EDIT https://www.weforum.org/great-reset was a better link.

The WEF is if anything less than a social club. It's a series of social events. It's nothing. The only potential energy it has at all is people imputing it power on threads about how it's the secret architect of the global economy. That is not something you can say about the BJP, which has real power.

What powers do you think the BJP has that the WEF doesn't?

The BJP is one of the two largest political parties in India.

So say someone walks in and argues that the BJP has no power other than adding a tag to names in an election, and we should rather talk about the actual policy makers making decisions? Seem like a fair argument to you for why the BJP is not a real political entity?

Because that misses the points just as much as it does in describing the WEF. There is coordination going on beyond the official powers of the organisation. The organisation exists to coordinate political action!

That is drastically more power than the WEF has.

> no power other than arranging the name tags on the lunch tables

The WEF itself would starkly disagree.

For more than 50 years, the Forum has engaged global Partners to drive significant impact – creating historic initiatives, industry breakthroughs, economic solutions and tens of thousands of projects and collaborations – improving the state of the world

That's a lot more than arranging name tags.

https://www.weforum.org/impact

The WEF says it's important. Shocking.

That’s not what “power” means. They don’t have the power to force anything to happen outside their little get together.

The only “power” they have is limited to what participants can or can’t do while attending. Such as: they have the power to require attendees wear their name tags as a condition for attending.

(Not sure if that’s actually a thing; it’s merely illustrative)

If you only think power = force, you don't understand how real power is wielded. You're absolutely correct, WEF will not jail you if you do something its members don't like. If you assume that means it doesn't have any power other than enforcing name tag rules, you're naive.

Can you give an example where they have wielded this power? That is, can you give a single, solitary example where the WEF has implemented something that goes against the wishes of the electorate somewhere? Anything?

I don't think you'll find a single person, including hardcore climate deniers, (let alone an entire "electorate") that would endorse 1000+ private jets all heading to the same event. Why not hold the conference over Zoom?

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/environment...

> They can totally do it and there is nothing people can do about it, so they don't even have to hide that much.

All the "theories" I've seen conveniently forget about China & India - the world's largest population by a long shot. How does these conspiracy of WEF impact them?

Until I see something that doesn't have a "me" complex as the main reasoning I'm going to dismiss it.

It's quite simple. There are multiple conspiracies and they ally with each other but those bonds are fluid and shifting.

To give two examples relating to China and India here was a thread very recently that mentioned how the Mexican cartels are making inroads in the US, succesfully corrupting some police union and that cartel was also in cahoots with the chinese as thats where they were sourcing their fentanyl from.

There is also the Indian Brahmin conspiracy where they favor each other over other castes even abroad.

Both of these are real and established. But it's also clear that neither of them are all-powerful.

In those 2 examples, they have nothing to do with WEF's goal as far as I can tell.

In fact, Indian Brahmin would seem to contradict with WEF's supposed goals.

wrt Mexican cartels, I'm not sure how that fits into the original narrative of WEF - do Mexican cartels work for the WEF? I've never heard this theory before.

I don't see why any of the groups mentioned would submit themselves to endgoals WEF is supposedly aiming for. I'm skeptical why they would.

Sounds pretty simple. Every abusive group in the world is coordinating with every other group.

I didn't word that very well, I meant that they sometimes ally, and sometimes oppose each other and often they are neutral.

So their behaviour is entirely normal?

Well the point is that they are conspiracies, that is, groups of people scheming in secret how they can get more power at everyone else's expense.

The less plausible the theory is, the more plausible it is!

No, it's more of a conspiracy fact.

Comparing WEF specifically to ComicCon, like it's a harmless goofy diversion, is deceptively dismissive, and surely not an accident on your part.

At the very least you could compare it to an industry trade show, like an annual convention of trial attorneys or of insurance adjusters, which is a key vector for introducing and spreading new concepts and ideas in those industries.

Not an accident indeed. The shadowy hand of the WEF reveals itself again!

That’s a good analogy. But it misses an important component; Every one of those convention attendees is fiercely competitive with each other. Some are even in a state of war with others. They all have different races, religions, belief systems and they all face drastically different domestic challenges. So yeah, while they may all work in the same industry (so to speak) they are hardly likely to be working together towards some secret nefarious common goal. Not to say that you were implying that, but many do. Anyways, I really like the trade show metaphor.