Forum:If SRA was real, what would the implications be?

Let's pretend that when the whole Satanic Ritual Abuse thing broke in the 80's, investigation showed it was real. Nothing supernatural, no actual demons, but everything else: human sacrifice, child kidnappings, secret tunnels, the works. First, what would it have taken to get the cults to that level, and second, once it was exposed, what would the fall-out have been? Thanos6 (talk) 03:57, 24 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Stop JAQing off in public, it's icky. --Arisboch (talk) 10:22, 19 May 2015 (UTC)
 * ...What? I'm not. I'm honestly curious what people think it would mean for society if they existed. You're acting paranoid. Thanos6 (talk) 06:07, 22 May 2015 (UTC)
 * That the Unified Conspiracy Theory is correct? But seriously, this is one of the least interesting counterfactual history scenarios I've encountered so far. It's like asking what it would mean for society if the moon hoaxers had it right all along and you could substitute any number of non-supernatural conspiracy theories. ScepticWombat (talk) 06:18, 22 May 2015 (UTC)
 * And what's wrong with that? Just because I don't believe in something doesn't mean I don't find it interesting to speculate what it would mean if it did exist. Thanos6 (talk) 06:50, 22 May 2015 (UTC)


 * What would happen? There'd be a media freak out and the people involved would be arrested? Really, pedophile rings, human trafickers and crazy cults aren't exactly unprecedented. Unless if it were an Illuminati-like movement that pervades all levels of society, there wouldn't be a lot of implications. 141.134.75.236 (talk) 07:11, 22 May 2015 (UTC)
 * But that's exactly what I'm talking about. Just to make myself clear--I DO NOT believe such a movement exists, that it ever existed, or that it is at all likely to exist in the future. Bearing that in mind, IF such a movement existed, and was finally exposed in the 80's, what would the (purely hypothetical) fallout be? Thanos6 (talk) 07:27, 22 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Probably a complete collapse of the existing order in society. That pretty much follows directly from how you've framed the hypothetical scenario (i.e. a pervasive conspiracy + exposure), which, along with the complete improbability of the scenario, is why I find it a rather uninteresting case from a counterfactual history perspective. ScepticWombat (talk) 08:48, 22 May 2015 (UTC)
 * If you find that uninteresting, we must have very different conceptions of the concept. :) Thanos6 (talk) 09:18, 22 May 2015 (UTC)
 * The uninteresting bit is due to the implausibility, unlike, say, "What if Hitler had won WWII?", or "What if Gavrilo Princip's assassination attempt had failed?" The outcomes of the SRA scenario you've proposed are also, as I've said, fairly constrained by the way in which you've framed it. To me, an interesting counterfactual history scenario needs to be both plausible and set up with some "loose ends". This one has neither quality. ScepticWombat (talk) 09:32, 22 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Now see, I think "a complete collapse of the existing order in society" provides lots of interesting loose ends. As for the implausibility, I freely admit that; but why limit counterfactuals to what's probable or even possible?  I like to imagine what would happen if you introduced an "unreal" element into the "real world" and see how it would play out. Thanos6 (talk) 09:57, 22 May 2015 (UTC)
 * You know, if there was such a thing as pervasive as you suggest, then I doubt it could've 'broke' to the general public. Satanic ritualists in high positions would've made sure any investigation was dismissed as a hoax or conspiracy bollocks. 141.134.75.236 (talk) 10:41, 22 May 2015 (UTC)
 * The "loose ends" is any other outcome than complete collapse. Once you go into such "post-apocalyptic territory" it's pretty much like tossing out the game board and pieces - fun for a given value of emotional outburst, but not very interesting on an analytical or intellectual level.
 * The reason that I prefer a certain level of plausibility to a counterfactual scenario is because otherwise we end up with something more akin to science fiction pulp than alternate history. Sci-fi pulp may be entertaining, but it lacks the educational quality to stimulate afterthoughts about actual history.
 * I like to use sci-fi as a sort of educational reductio ad absurdum where some known trend is taken to an extreme (e.g. playing with a society built on the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis in his Book of the Long Sun series or the late Terry Pratchett's Discworld satires), but this is most useful to hammer out relatively simple points, not for providing actual alternatives. ScepticWombat (talk) 12:54, 22 May 2015 (UTC)
 * As for .236's points that's why I find the scenario uninterestingly implausible: Either such a wide conspiracy would have been blown long before it reached the epic proportions of the SRA scheme, or it would be so all-encompassing that it couldn't be uncovered. This "Goldilocks-scenario" runs afoul of both of these problems by on the one hand asserting that the conspiracy would be wide enough to have tendrils everywhere, while on the other hand having all these bigwig conspirators be lax enough to allow the conspiracy to break and incompetent enough to fail to contain it. ScepticWombat (talk) 13:11, 22 May 2015 (UTC)

We here at RatWik don't believe Satan exists, so all it reduces to is a bunch of people torturing a few others to death. That already happened. The implication if true -which it's not- is that there were a bunch more Manson Families running around. That's it. CorruptUser (talk) 13:42, 22 May 2015 (UTC)