A collection of human errors: assessing the distant past

Émilie du Châtelet (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Émilie_du_Châtelet), mentioned at the beginning of the article, was a fascinating woman, living at a time when “natural philosophy” was morphing into different sciences. For a time she was also very active in the social scene. Like so many brilliant women of history (see Marry Wollstonecraft for another example), her biography ends in death during childbirth. Voltaire was her long time companion and lover (among many others), see this post for a look at their relationship: https://www.geriwalton.com/voltaire-emilie-du-chatelet/. For an in-depth coverage of her work, check out the Stanford Encyof Philosophy entry: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/emilie-du-chatelet/. Her life would make for a fantastic movie.

Maria Agnesi, of the Witch of Agnesi fame, was another woman mathematician whose life overlapped with du Châtelet‘s. She was also from a wealthy family (a must for being an educated female in those times) but she lived quite a different type of life, focusing on religion towards the end.

What is a conspiracy theory but a mystery cult? To be sure, the ancient mystery cults practiced in secret and only revealed the mysteries to the inner circle. Our modern mystery cults preach their secrets openly. They are alike in that the true believers have understanding that is not available to the outer world.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greco-Roman_mysteries

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To be clear:

1. There are real conspiracies.

2. None of them control the whole world, or are responsible for all of the problems that any one person or group of people faces.

3. The 'mystery'/'conspiracy' helps someone make sense of a world that makes no sense to them; you cannot disprove the mystery with evidence, the mystery is the only thing they have to hang onto. You have to give them something else to hang onto before you take away the mystery; by the time they have reconnected with the world, you don't need to disprove the mystery.

The connection to the article is the dichotomy of the fable vs history; myth vs reality. Humans still have the same tendencies as they ever did.

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