system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
What is the "Illuminati"?

I was browsing YouTube and came across some strange videos of this and how it was destroying the world. I was just curious and wanted to know if anyone knew what this was about.
gpt
The *real* Illuminati is a very, very old secret society whose members opposed the censorship of the church. They were typically very intelligent people, and wanted to read forbidden material and study things like astronomy, which the church didn't like too much. So they formed the Illuminati in order to discuss these things among other like-minded individuals, without the risk of being arrested/killed by the church. The church demonized them as Satanists because its members were largely atheists, agnostics, or antagonistic to the church.

That is the *real* Illuminati, and most experts would agree they do not exist anymore.

The conspiracy theorist's Illuminati (probably the one you're thinking of), is a faceless organization of extremely powerful people who run the world from behind the scenes. In the conspiracy theories, politicians, banks, governments, presidents, kings, emperors, CEOs... all of them are just puppets being controlled by the Illuminati. Their primary goal is "NWO" or New World Order, and they try to achieve this mostly through controlling governments by controlling banks. They are the figurative "puppet masters" of all of the world's affairs.

For example: conspiracy theorists could claim that the Illuminati are creating this Debt Ceiling debacle in Washington right now as a means of siphoning more money from the American public via the banks. They'd claim that the Illuminati are sitting in the shadows, telling Republicans to do X and Democrats to do Y, in order to force the country into a default...thus giving more power and more money to the banks, and thus giving more power and more money to the Illuminati.

But you'd have to be a conspiracy nut to believe any of it.