Conspiracy, tinfoil, etc.

I'd completely forgotten that George Orwell (1984) invented trolling the past to con the future. Some kind of sly comedy about totalitarian regimes, I suppose. I'd thought Ursula Le Guin (Lathe of Heaven) pwned the idea totally, but I shoulda knowed. It's probably some of kind of well-understood paranoid delusion, anyway. Ain't that a kick in the head?