The first modern use* of the word pronoia I can trace occurred during the psychedelic 1960s and 1970s - following a charismatic smile from John Perry Barlow. The EFF co-founder, Grateful Dead lyricist, and grizzled veteran of both Millbrook and Haight-Ashbury defined pronoia as:

the suspicion the Universe is a conspiracy

on your behalf.

The word was revived in the public mediasphere in early Spring 1994, when several members of a British and European bohemian subculture loosely known as zippies empathized with the pronoia concept and took it as a banner. It was agreed among these veteran ravers and festival-crusties that the American cyberhippy Barlow's interpretation of a "universal origin" of pronoia was definitely an element of the vibe they were experiencing there in the early 1990s.

As an exercise in memetics, the zippies declared with joy that on the terrestrial level, pronoia should be defined as the opposite of paranoia:

the sneaking suspicion others are conspiring to help you

(and you them!)

@Curionic

#staycurious

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