steve philion wrote:
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> --well yeah Michael, and you might have noticed that in addition to Chip and
> Casey, steve rosenthal has also argued against conspiracy theory on that
> thread. further, most of the people on the list have stayed away from the
> conspiracy discussion, finding it rather trivial,
It's more worthwhile, I think, to discuss conspiracy theories as a social phenomenon than to try to refute them. Fortunately, the capacity of humans to doublethink is a saving grace sometimes -- that is I have known a number of people who can (as it were) believe a conspiracy theory with one chunk of their brain and yet be quite rational otherwise. As with anarchism, it is useful to see conspiracy theories as one more penalty the working class pays for its sins of opportunism.
Carrol