The prefix ‘para’ means alongside. It is a useful beginning to a word or phrase to keep in mind now, when so many informal, private, or secret organisations exist alongside official ones. Their presence often points to convergent groups, ones in which predictability replaces accountability.

These are not always organisations in the ordinary sense. They are closer to ecologies. People gravitate together out of self-interest, joining with those they anticipate, predict, will most likely give them what they want, and roles emerge that function less as positions than as elements in a shared environment.

Jeffrey Epstein, for example, appears less as a solitary figure than as a node within a para-political ecology that included figures such as Peter Mandelson. Information circulates through such ecologies informally, sometimes illegally, detached from formal responsibility. It is gathered, traded, and distributed according to need rather than rule.

At least, that's what I've noticed.