I fully agree that this book is lacking in rational arguments. But I IMHO you are not using the phrase "conspiracy theory" correctly. There are a lot of conspiracies out there. E.g. the wage fixing between Google, Oracle and Microsoft is on the YHN front page today.

What are you talking about? Conspiracy theories? This bombing is a conspiracy by definition (Edit: Unless he acted alone).

This missuse of the term conspiracy as something only a crackpot would use need to end.

BTW my favourite conspiracy theory is that lunatic conspiracy theories are a conspiracy to limit free speech.

I'd agree with that.

It's the claim that they're in on a massive conspiracy because of a select set of articles on the subject is the line I've taken to issue.

I'm just saying that I find the motivation behind the conspiracy theory more interesting than the theories themselves, which are generally information light and insinuation rich.

I dunno, I went to public schools...

Come on. You can't claim that something isn't a conspiracy and then invoke world-government conspiracies in the same paragraph and expect to be taken seriously.

Are you saying that conspiracy theories are all true?

> I'm not sacrificing truth to point out your mistake.

You are wasting 100% of your effort on arguing semantics instead of engaging with my actual argument, sounds like a tradeoff to me. And no, it's not a mistake, don't know where you got that idea from.

You're doing it again!

You can't justify belief in a baseless conspiracy theory by saying that some other vaguely related thing was true! You can't. The logic doesn't work.

And it's expressly harmful, because now that "justified" belief can be weaponized to hurt your political enemies. Stop it.

Thus, you can't say it wasn't a conspiracy. Yeah, you can't say it was one either. Both of you are jumping to conclusions, what's irrational by the definition of the article.

Yeah, because people prefer to hold their pet conspiracy theories.

That is one of the most blatant statements of a textbook fallacy I've seen in a while. The affiliations and motivations of the arguer do not affect the trueness of facts or the validity of arguments.

Historically speaking on western social media, making a bold claim on something as generic as American primary education being influenced by foreign powers without any real evidence does tend to go down conspiracy territory. Most conpiracy theories aren't made in good faith, no.

Also isn't particularly good faith to respond with ad-hominem when asked to prove claims, which tends to happen with conspiracy that has little/no firm evidence attached.

And this style of claiming that anyone who takes issue with top down declaration that all conspiracy theories are as ridiculous as frogs being turned gay is why so many people have lost faith in our institutions.

Where is there mention of a conspiracy or anything nefarious?

Examples abound of class ideology being used in exactly this way. It’s not some kind of secret.

> No offense,

It’s generally not a good sign of honesty when people say this.

> but I can't take your arguments seriously.

Obviously not true, since you then go on to do so.

>> I'm not saying the elite are there because our politics are some kind of official "class system",

>I'm saying the elite have become entrenched, which functionally creates a separate class.

Obviously not true. The examples I gave are not there because of some kind of ‘entrenchment’. You simply chose to ignore that.

Yes, statistical social mobility is low and varies depending on conditions. Yes, it seems like low social mobility limits what’s possible. That doesn’t magic ‘classes’ into reality.

>> Conspiracy theories are what we turn to when we want to stop thinking and just have a bad guy to blame, or when we want to manipulate others into doing so.

> Says the person who just accused me of spreading a nefarious conspiracy "to divide society and leverage ignorance for political gain"...

Continuing to repeat this doesn’t make it true. See above. That’s exactly how class ideology has been used historically.

>> This is getting silly!

>What I'm saying isn't a conspiracy, it's not even hidden...

It’s a conspiracy if you blame a small group of people for the outcome, as opposed to understanding the processes.

Obviously it’s not hidden. You can’t hide what doesn’t exist.

whether or not they would doesn't mean they did

Plausible or not, implying that it's true because there's an incentive only promotes a biased opinion.

No it's not.

Maybe because you literally just said:

> a political tool whose value is to divide society and leverage ignorance for political gain

No offense, but I can't take your arguments seriously.

I'm not saying the elite are there because our politics are some kind of official "class system", I'm saying the elite have become entrenched, which functionally creates a separate class.

> Conspiracy theories are what we turn to when we want to stop thinking and just have a bad guy to blame, or when we want to manipulate others into doing so.

Says the person who just accused me of spreading a nefarious conspiracy "to divide society and leverage ignorance for political gain"... This is getting silly!

What I'm saying isn't a conspiracy, it's not even hidden...

Wow, just wow. I'm not sure if it is even possible to be more wrong about something than you are about this.

That vast majority of conspiracy theories remain exactly the type of garbage they started out as. I can't even imagine how you could come the position that they are some sort of billboard of truth, ignored by the masses. I mean you literally embedded a conspiracy theory into your stance that anybody who argues against a conspiracy theory(which is evidentially truth by definition) is one who is attempting to suppress the truth.

... he said, hoping everyone would accept the statement as fact.