Since Ms Good's murder, I've been thinking a bit about the immigrant derangement syndrome in this country.

[UpInArms]

4. This paragraph describes my

Rural neighborhood conspiracy theorists

Educational resources are abundant, Skill acquisition has never been cheaper, Geographic isolation is no longer informational isolation. But self-improvement presumes three things that are often absent: Belief that effort will be rewarded, A coherent model of how the world works, Psychological safety during the learning process. When people perceive the system as: Rigged, Incomprehensible, Controlled by hostile elites…then conspiratorial frameworks are not laziness—they are adaptive simplifications. They reduce uncertainty, restore moral clarity, and explain failure without requiring self-revision. From the inside, this does not feel like wallowing. It feels like seeing through the lie.