A diagram of Sandia National Laboratories’ simple closed-loop Brayton cycle test loop. The working fluid being compressed, heated and expanded to produce power is supercritical carbon dioxide.

Rather, they are the result of a vicious cycle in which conspiratorial narratives emerge, are amplified and become fuel for ugly political fights. We call this dynamic the "conspiracy loop".

The bubble, bust, repeat cycle begins with the inequality wedge, as shown in this figure by EPI’s Elise Gould.