Pronoia (psychology) - Other Voices

Other Voices

The Outsourced Zippy and Pronoia Page claims that the Zippie/Pronoia phenomenon is simply a hoax and the Zippy Pronoia Tour was nothing more than a publicity stunt for Wired Magazine. It seems that pronoia, aside from being a system of provisions, took on a practical psychological and linguistic role during the mid-Twentieth Century. At first various people, like John Perry Barlow (Grateful Dead) and Jules Marshall (Mediamatic), tried to attribute pronoia to "an open conspiracy" involving Wired Magazine. Pronoia is not merely an ideology about land and property, but also the opposite of paranoia, "the belief that others are conspiring behind your back to help you", or "the idea that the universe is a conspiracy on your behalf".

Pronoia is referenced as the opposite of a noted line from Catch 22 by Joseph Heller, “Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't after you”, by actress Susan Sarandon in relation to the Cloud Atlas movie, as the "universe being for you".