I'm really interested in the way that the discourse of "conspiracy" operates in our thinking about the nature of power and politics. I don't want to talk about specific conspiracies, but the idea of conspiracy as such. When people dismiss something as being "a conspiracy theory," this seems to rest an an a priori assumption that there are no conspiracies - an assumption which I find to be much more absurd, on the face of it, that the claim that there might be conspiracies. So what do you guys think about conspiracies?
A) There are no conspiracies at all; any analysis of power which relies on something that sounds vaguely like "a conspiracy" is therefore incorrect and should be mocked.
B) There are some conspiracies, but they don't have any power and exist at the fringes of society.
C) There are some conspiracies which have some power but it's nothing to worry about.
D) There is one conspiracy which rules everything and all those in power participate in it.
E) There are multiple competing conspiracies which divide the ruling elite.
What do you think. Let's talk about conspiracies. I especially am interested to hear from people who think that there aren't any conspiracies in power in the world explain their reasoning for why they think that. What does it mean for something to be a conspiracy, and why are you so sure they don't exist?
On October 28 2015 07:34 notesfromunderground wrote: When people dismiss something as being "a conspiracy theory," this seems to rest an an a priori assumption that there are no conspiracies - an assumption which I find to be much more absurd, on the face of it, that the claim that there might be conspiracies.
You might want to reconsider this assertion. It may be true for some people, but I think it's far from universal.
If someone tries to tell me we never landed people on the moon, I'm going to dismiss it as a conspiracy theory... not because I don't think there are any conspiracies, but because I don't believe there is a conspiracy that is covering up the fact that we didn't go to the moon. You can argue at length about why most people share my beliefs, but that's a separate topic from the claim that everyone who calls something a conspiracy theory doesn't believe conspiracies can exist.
I mean what is a conspiracy? It merely requires two or more people. There are plenty of conspiracies, so you should define more specifically what you actually mean when you say conspiracy here.
I guess specifically I'm interested in what people think about "the visibility of power in society." So is most of the power in society visible, or invisible? If there does exist some power which is invisible or secret, what is the status of claims ABOUT that invisible power? Can we know anything about it?
A claim which we might call 'conspiracy theory' would be one which holds that most of, or all of, the real power in society is 'invisible' power - a power which is somehow distinct from the visible, 'official' power.
You brought up a point about the relative absurdity of the narrative which might be told about that invisible power. So one kind of conspiracy theory has a sort of impossibly convoluted story about how the moon landing was not real - leaving us to wonder why anyone in power would spend their time on such absurdities.
But what if the claim being made also assumes an invisible power, but involves a less prima facie absurd story? For instance, I do believe that the US equities market is rigged. When I suggested this, Kwark banned me from his blog and compared me to some person named Alex Jones (I have not heard of this person). Surely we would agree that the claims "the moon landing was faked" and "the stock market is rigged" are claims of a very different order of absurdity. So when Kwark accuses me of conspiracy theory, is he claiming that a belief in the rigged nature of the stock market is akin to beliefs about UFOs or moon landings? Is this is a legitimate rhetorical move? What is going on here? That's what I'm interested in, because this is a very common thing to say (I think Kwark is a silly person, but not an especially silly person),
So I think it would be entirely naive and absurd to think that the economic elites who control the markets DO NOT collude and engage in secret agreements in order to further their own interests. I mean, just think of the LIBOR scandal. Of course they do this. So what does it mean to call something like this a conspiracy theory? Suppose before the LIBOR thing broke, I had suggested that traders at major banks were conspiring to rig the interbank loan rate. Would this be an example of what we mean by 'conspiracy theory'? Would it be an illegitimate claim, AS SUCH?
Really, the point is: once we accept the obvious conclusion that there really are conspiracies in the world, and that they are powerful, how do we investigate them without descending into a kind of gnostic hysteria characteristic of that thing we call "conspiracy theory"? What is the epistemologically rigorous way to investigate secret power? Is this possible?
It's a very serious question for me. I'm trying to write an essay about it. So I guess this is a "homework thread."
What is a conspiracy supposed to accomplish? The power doesn't need to hide, thats why it is power. That doesn't mean that everything is clear and that one can see and understand everything, but an investigation of conspiracies which are, by my definition at least, secret and thus impossible to detect seems rather esoteric.
You don't think powerful people make plans at cocktail parties which they would not care to have known?
I don't buy your claim that power doesn't need to hide "because it's power." Why couldn't power function from a place of secrecy? What about the CIA? What if some power is power because it is secret? What about the Wizard of OZ?
I feel like conspiracies could accomplish very banal things. Really I guess what I am trying to get at is a certain claim about the 'banality of conspiracy,' perhaps. I don't think conspiracies are these grandiose things with rituals and organ music and stuff. They are just sort of everywhere.
What about the CIA? We know what it does and what role it plays. There is a wikipedia article on it. Power might function from any place it wants. That doesn't change the fact that the idea of conspiracies is rather useless to understand how power and the world work. Why would you investigate such a concept.
You seriously think that you know what the CIA is and what role it plays?
On October 28 2015 09:35 Paljas wrote: That doesn't change the fact that the idea of conspiracies is rather useless to understand how power and the world work. .
this is just a question begging assertion, my friend
I'm interested in the question because I'm trying to investigate hidden power located in the distant past (specifically, the financial power of (pre-)classical temple complexes). This produces a reading practice which becomes rather "conspiracy theoretical." You search for clues and hints and get led down a rabbit hole.
I think there's a lot to be said for the general inability of different holders of a particular threshold amount of "power" when it comes to getting along with one another, particularly with enough cooperation to give rise to a "conspiracy" with any real force. Normal terms of cooperative motivation start to look very different once a given person or group of people accrue a certain amount of "power" in that the very boundaries of that "power" can oftentimes run up against the boundaries of other powerful people or groups. In other words, the top becomes lonely not because the ladder is too small but because the top stops seeming like the top when you have to share it. This is not to say that different powerful groups or individuals don't cooperate to great effect; the issue is that the very same motivations that go into a desire to conspire are also those that motivate a suspicion that one's own "power" necessarily requires a disjunction from the plight of competitors. I legitimately think that the phrase "power is paranoia" has a lot of truth to it.
there is lots of "wink-wink-nudge-nudge" crap that goes on between leaders in the country in which i live.
the Canadian Liberal "AdScam" got blown open for the public to see during a year long backroom power struggle between Paul Martin and Jean Chretien. Chretien's little power empire was being threatened by Martin's new lieutenants and the squabbling occurred on many levels.
Had Martin and Chretien come to an amicable settlement then AdScam would've remain hidden and never to be discovered. It would've remained an undiscovered criminal conspiracy.
Jean Chretien and his power empire did such a good job managing Canada and its economy... i say... let'em sneak away with a few billion dollars. You can't run an economy as big as Canada without some level of embezzlement, corruption, and fraud. In fact, if all you did was work to eliminate fraud and corruption you'd never get anything else done.
Did Jean Chretien and his power brokers embezzle and rob canadian taxpayers for untold billions? sure they did. They did such a great fucking job running the economy.. i say... let'em keep the money.. they earned it.
I think that one good starting point if you want to have a good discussion is the unfortunate but necessary debate of semantics. What constitutes a conspiracy? Perhaps "an organized secretive plan to accomplish something nefarious"? The intent is to gain something (political power, financial, strategic, etc.) or otherwise by hiding the truth from certain people?
By those standards, conspiracies happen constantly. Most politics happen behind closed doors with power brokers who remain nameless, and people who aren't part of government like lobbyists collude with government to have certain benefits, sometimes at the detriment of the actual electorate. But those are not interesting conspiracies, even though sometimes the goal is specifically to avoid public scrutiny by maneuvering politically under the radar. Yet it seems to fit the conventional definition of conspiracy, despite the lack of theatrics.
The reason why some people are hesitant to admit the existence of conspiracy is the following: the term conspiracy lost its meaning to whacky and far fetched conspiracy theories. Now the conspiracy has to be Mission Impossible/James Bond level fuckery, involving highly complex criminal networks with insane technology or something like that. A key meeting happening behind closed doors that leads to a certain decision that favors a certain group of people over another doesn't bother anybody. Mundane collusion and corruption is no longer worthy of the title "conspiracy". The Watergate scandal is a real life big-ass conspiracy that happened in real life and that is massively documented, and undoubtedly Nixon participated to tens of other little underhanded maneuvers like that on a smaller scale, namely to keep the populace in the dark about some of most disgusting shit the US did at the time. So in other words, everyone knows that conspiracy happens, it's the term "conspiracy" that has changed in the minds of people because of how it has been used.
And so this leads us to conspiracy theories. -9/11 was an inside job -The free masons and the Illuminati run everything: two secret societies so secret that 16 year olds with youtube are onto them. -Triangles on shit -Katy Perry and a bunch of actors used the same words referring to the devil, what does it mean? (TRIANGLES?) -All powerful people are actually lizards that look like men -No moon landing -No holocaust -Vaccines as a form of mind control and to dumb people down -AIDS is bio weapon -Aliens, Area51 and shit
Some of those are more absurd than others, but none of them have enough evidence to be actually believable. Literally every argument that is made in those conspiracy theories is either unsupported by evidence completely, or it's wild conjecture. Often, the conspiracy theorists make up some motive and build upon it by assuming things, drawing insane conclusions from fuzzy pictures, and rejecting the "official" version of what happened by saying that the evidence is not conclusive, while offering evidence which is much worse.
In the face of this kind of behavior, and with these ideas getting as much traction, the term "conspiracy" is basically being dragged in the mud. Conspiracies are in movies. In real life, no one is capable of pulling off these huge operations that require thousands if not tens of thousands of people to stay quiet.
TLDR: Everyone agrees that conspiracies exist but they're not called conspiracies anymore, they're just labeled under collusion and corruption. Big ass spectacular conspiracies (like the ones that are being theorized by people who scrutinized evidence based on their personal preferences rather than credibility) are fantasy and they don't happen because no one has the organisational capability to pull them off.
This conversation only has a point if we talk about specific conspiracy theories (not necessarily with a negative connotation to that phrase). I don't see how a discussion about whether conspiracies theories exist can advance without looking at specific ones. So can you please explain your claim that the equities market is rigged?
On October 28 2015 10:40 Doodsmack wrote: This conversation only has a point if we talk about specific conspiracy theories (not necessarily with a negative connotation to that phrase). I don't see how a discussion about whether conspiracies theories exist can advance without looking at specific ones. So can you please explain your claim that the equities market is rigged?
it's just a big credit bubble. basically a bunch of smoke and light show being put on by the big banks and the central bankers (which is a revolving door relationship).... in the context of a global currency war.
but I really do in this thread want to stick to the idea of conspiracy, secrecy, and power in a more general way. sorry if that feels vague to you I don't want the discussion to live or die on my own ability to convincingly argue for this specific thing; I want to examine the epistemological concerns in a more general way. The fact that TLers are dumb money is not my main worry
@djapz - great post! so you think that there's a sort of informational barrier to most things we would call conspiracies - that they just can't happen because they require a sort of organizational capacity which would be beyond the 'computational capacity' of people, even the very powerful. an interesting point
On October 28 2015 11:20 notesfromunderground wrote: @djapz - great post! so you think that there's a sort of informational barrier to most things we would call conspiracies - that they just can't happen because they require a sort of organizational capacity which would be beyond the 'computational capacity' of people, even the very powerful. an interesting point
Well it's hard to discuss these things without referring to a specific case, but basically, yes. Let's just say that some conspiracy theories tell the story an immense number of "moving parts", so to speak. And by moving parts, I mean a lot of people coordinating events in a way that is way too complex to be planned for reliably.
If some alleged conspiracies are too complex to be planned and executed flawlessly, others are just too vile to happen without anybody speaking up. How can you have hundreds of people committing unspeakable crimes without anybody coming forward about it? I mean, we get whistleblowers and leaks into the news for all kinds of stuff, and we know that government agencies suck both at coordinating stuff and at keeping secrets.
Say what you will, powerful people are mostly rational and they, formally or informally, weigh their options carefully. They know that at any moment some of the shady stuff they've done could leak to the media because it's truly impossible to find more than a handful people whom you can trust. High places of power are very... backstabby. So how are you going to recruit all the people you'd need to put an elaborate devious plan into practice? At the end of the day, elaborate conspiracies are way too risky, and sometimes there doesn't even seem to be anything to gain from doing them, and a LOT to lose if they were to fail.
That's why conspiracies happen in closed circles. They're mostly subtle. And undoubtedly there have been very consequential conspiracies that we'll never heard about, but nothing as spectacular as the fairytales we sometimes hear about.
I feel like now we have to start worrying about blind watchmakers What if conspiracies sort of assemble themselves without having to be 'masterminded,' so to speak?
Well, if you mean like disjointed criminal acts born of a common interest leading a single outcome, I'd be hesitant to call it a conspiracy. The way I see it, a conspiracy requires conscious planning with a specific goal in mind. It requires design.
check out "The Fix" by Declan Hill for a look at criminal conspiracies involved in the world of high level sports.
He was laughed at before his book was published and told his ideas were idiotic and he has zero credible evidence. Basically painted with the same brush as any one who introduces a conspiracy theory.
Now, European Football organizers and Olympic organizers hire him as a consultant to learn how to tighten up their leagues and organizations.
in the NBA , Tim Donaghy was the tip of the iceberg and not an isolated individual case as the league and David Stern would have us believe. Stern had to claim every referee was clean, otherwise, the credibility of the entire league falls into question and franchise values fall.
Nice! My feeling is, if someone would go to the trouble of conspiring about pro sports, why wouldn't they go to the trouble of conspiring about things that, you know, matter.
Conspiring about sports usually involves gambling which involves money. And everyone likes money. Just see the explosion in totally inane daily fantasy sports betting this year.
their database guys are fucking with the data and producing their own winning teams
do you know who your biggest security threat is within any IT infrastructure? its the IT security speclalist. LOL
have you been watching MLB this year? ads for "DraftKings" were plastered across every ballpark in the United States. All of a sudden, about 3 weeks ago every single fucking ad just disappeared
On October 28 2015 13:03 IgnE wrote: Conspiring about sports usually involves gambling which involves money. And everyone likes money. Just see the explosion in totally inane daily fantasy sports betting this year.
Counterpoint: conspiring about equities markets involves gambling which involves money. And everyone likes money
Notice what people dismiss is "conspiracy theories" whereas your multiple choice options are all "conspiracies." That may be semantics, but people do mean different things by that word choice. If all you are trying to show is that conspiracy means two or more people planning something in secret, then yes, everyone of those people that are dismissive of "conspiracy theories" will say that conspiracies exist. Conspiracies do exist- you can be charged under criminal law for conspiracy.
But that is not what people mean by "conspiracy theory." As another said, people are dismissing things like the Illuminati- whether it is Jews, the Satanists of the 80's, the bankers/ the Bilderberg group, the anti-Christ all leading to a One World Government by means of convoluted plans that would make Emperor Palpatine's head spin.
But I don't know if we are any further ahead by having established that. What we still come down to is you force the anti-conspiracy theorist folks to pause and say 'yes people plan things and secret' but the faked moon landings and the Illuminati theories are just as crazy before forcing the clarification as after.
(Unless you are implying that if all these small c conspiracies are true (x), then it is probable that big C Conspiracy Theories are true (simply x multiplied). Whereas conspiracies theories are not even in the same category as small conspiracies- rather than x multiplied, it is y.)
Falling I guess the question is how, from an epistemological standpoint, can one differentiate one category from the other. I'll just add two little question, who are the people who fall for the crazy one, and how does it happen ? If you know that, maybe you can know the difference, maybe it's the opposite. Might help, but I can't do more And also, as you like ancient greece examples, were hetairei conspiracy clubs ? Was the Hermes affair an elaborate plot to instaure oligarchy ? Was it Alcibiade, his friends or his ennemies ? How can we know ? Is there anything new under the sun ?
Chomsky's "political economy of the mass media" (forget if that's the exact title) is a good example of a conspiracy that assembles itself rather than achieves direct manipulation through deliberate coordination. Basically political power structures accomplish media complicity not through direct puppet stringing but through a system structure that forces the media to live off the government. The result is a lesser degree of control than could be achieved by puppet stringing or straight up state run media. And it may not even be a deliberate effort by those in power but rather an emergent feature caused by natural self-interest on the part of political power components of the "system".
On October 28 2015 17:28 corumjhaelen wrote: Falling I guess the question is how, from an epistemological standpoint, can one differentiate one category from the other. I'll just add two little question, who are the people who fall for the crazy one, and how does it happen ? If you know that, maybe you can know the difference, maybe it's the opposite. Might help, but I can't do more And also, as you like ancient greece examples, were hetairei conspiracy clubs ? Was the Hermes affair an elaborate plot to instaure oligarchy ? Was it Alcibiade, his friends or his ennemies ? How can we know ? Is there anything new under the sun ?
My brother works in a pizza shop between two small cities and some of the regulars are conspiracy theory nutters so I hear a fair a bit from him about chem trails, vaxx conspiracies, etc, etc. I would say a common trait for those that fall for the crazy ones is they tend to personalize most bad things that come their way. One fellow is CONVINCED that the former premier of our province was out to grab HIS pay cheque. And not like generic tax increases for everyone, but that the premier is personally out for his money above and beyond the regular tax payer's money. But you see this fairly commonly- little allowance is made for undirected bad events or unintended consequences. Everything fits into the pattern of a deliberate, master plan. It's personal. There is also a tendency to reduce a wide array of interests to one secret and shadowy organization (a League of Shadows, if you will.) There must be one prime mover- somewhat akin to an evil pagan god, if you think about it.
They also tend to have a real shot-gun approach to facts- an indepth knowledge of a certain peculiar set of facts, but nothing around it because they tend to cycle through their arguments in a rather rapid pace, making it difficult to pin down any one of piece of their menagerie of facts. This is makes it fairly difficult to discuss their theories because you can never stay on one topic long enough to get down to their ground level assumptions, but they WILL cycle back to that set of facts again- possibly multiple times in the same discussion. Alex Jones is very much like this, but my brother and I have had very similar experiences with the local conspiracy theorists.
They also tend to have an unrealistic of view of human's capacity for secrecy (or rather the lack.) Franklin's "Three can keep a secret, if two are dead" never applies. They drastically underestimate (or else do not consider) just how many people would need to be in on the secret and how many people would need to be silenced.
On October 29 2015 00:04 Doodsmack wrote: Chomsky's "political economy of the mass media" (forget if that's the exact title) is a good example of a conspiracy that assembles itself rather than achieves direct manipulation through deliberate coordination. Basically political power structures accomplish media complicity not through direct puppet stringing but through a system structure that forces the media to live off the government. The result is a lesser degree of control than could be achieved by puppet stringing or straight up state run media. And it may not even be a deliberate effort by those in power but rather an emergent feature caused by natural self-interest on the part of political power components of the "system".
Is it a conspiracy if it's uncoordinated though? I previously asked that question. I'd personally say that no, you might want to use another word for spontaneous systems which are manipulative but were generated by common interests. It may have the effect of a conspiracy but I don't think it is. To me, a conspiracy requires direct hands on planning by at least two people or entities that have some direct contacts.
On October 28 2015 17:28 corumjhaelen wrote: Falling I guess the question is how, from an epistemological standpoint, can one differentiate one category from the other. I'll just add two little question, who are the people who fall for the crazy one, and how does it happen ? If you know that, maybe you can know the difference, maybe it's the opposite. Might help, but I can't do more And also, as you like ancient greece examples, were hetairei conspiracy clubs ? Was the Hermes affair an elaborate plot to instaure oligarchy ? Was it Alcibiade, his friends or his ennemies ? How can we know ? Is there anything new under the sun ?
That's what I'm trying to figure out. I'm reading Herodotus and following all these hints about secret financial crises in the temples and falling down a rabbit hole...
On October 29 2015 01:05 Djzapz wrote:To me, a conspiracy requires direct hands on planning by at least two people or entities that have some direct contacts.
So if Janet Yellen is having secret meeting with Jamie Dimon and not telling us about them, does that count as a conspiracy?
On October 28 2015 17:28 corumjhaelen wrote: Falling I guess the question is how, from an epistemological standpoint, can one differentiate one category from the other. I'll just add two little question, who are the people who fall for the crazy one, and how does it happen ? If you know that, maybe you can know the difference, maybe it's the opposite. Might help, but I can't do more And also, as you like ancient greece examples, were hetairei conspiracy clubs ? Was the Hermes affair an elaborate plot to instaure oligarchy ? Was it Alcibiade, his friends or his ennemies ? How can we know ? Is there anything new under the sun ?
My brother works in a pizza shop between two small cities and some of the regulars are conspiracy theory nutters so I hear a fair a bit from him about chem trails, vaxx conspiracies, etc, etc. I would say a common trait for those that fall for the crazy ones is they tend to personalize most bad things that come their way. One fellow is CONVINCED that the former premier of our province was out to grab HIS pay cheque. And not like generic tax increases for everyone, but that the premier is personally out for his money above and beyond the regular tax payer's money. But you see this fairly commonly- little allowance is made for undirected bad events or unintended consequences. Everything fits into the pattern of a deliberate, master plan. It's personal. There is also a tendency to reduce a wide array of interests to one secret and shadowy organization (a League of Shadows, if you will.) There must be one prime mover- somewhat akin to an evil pagan god, if you think about it.
They also tend to have a real shot-gun approach to facts- an indepth knowledge of a certain peculiar set of facts, but nothing around it because they tend to cycle through their arguments in a rather rapid pace, making it difficult to pin down any one of piece of their menagerie of facts. This is makes it fairly difficult to discuss their theories because you can never stay on one topic long enough to get down to their ground level assumptions, but they WILL cycle back to that set of facts again- possibly multiple times in the same discussion. Alex Jones is very much like this, but my brother and I have had very similar experiences with the local conspiracy theorists.
They also tend to have an unrealistic of view of human's capacity for secrecy (or rather the lack.) Franklin's "Three can keep a secret, if two are dead" never applies. They drastically underestimate (or else do not consider) just how many people would need to be in on the secret and how many people would need to be silenced.
On October 29 2015 00:04 Doodsmack wrote: Chomsky's "political economy of the mass media" (forget if that's the exact title) is a good example of a conspiracy that assembles itself rather than achieves direct manipulation through deliberate coordination. Basically political power structures accomplish media complicity not through direct puppet stringing but through a system structure that forces the media to live off the government. The result is a lesser degree of control than could be achieved by puppet stringing or straight up state run media. And it may not even be a deliberate effort by those in power but rather an emergent feature caused by natural self-interest on the part of political power components of the "system".
Chomsky actually is a pretty rigorous thinker about questions like this I think. I should read more of his work.
just want to leave this here for anyone who hasn't seen it:
On October 29 2015 01:05 Djzapz wrote:To me, a conspiracy requires direct hands on planning by at least two people or entities that have some direct contacts.
So if Janet Yellen is having secret meeting with Jamie Dimon and not telling us about them, does that count as a conspiracy?
I'd say it depends on what's in the meeting. I did specify "planning" needs to take place. So you need collusion, planning, and a nefarious goal. Janet Yellen meeting with Jamie Dimon is perhaps unethical (?) but would they directly conspire to accomplish anything? I don't know.
I guess the point I'm getting at is, are them minimum levels of planning, collusion and a minimum level of nefariousness before one can be called a conspirator or a co-conspirator?
Or is it a conspiracy to tell your colleague "hey let's steal $5 each from the cash registry, place yourself in front of the camera" and our boss will never know. Because in this case you have a little bit of planning, a little bit of collusion and a "little bit" of theft. So is there a scale or does that count?
Regardless whether or not this analysis of Sanders rheotirc is correct, this is acutally a nice example for the point I made earlier. "Billionaire class rigged the system" is not only ahistoric and oversimplified nonsense, but it's also an ineffecitve and poor critic of capitalism in general. What is stuff like this going to accomplish? It's trying to fix something which is not fixable. Billionaires don't have to rig the system.
But you agree that "the system" IS rigged, or not? It rigs itself through a sort of self-assembly?
On October 29 2015 22:01 Djzapz wrote: Janet Yellen meeting with Jamie Dimon is perhaps unethical (?) but would they directly conspire to accomplish anything?
You don't think Dimon telling Yellen how to run the Fed would be unethical or beneficial to him?
On October 30 2015 08:08 notesfromunderground wrote: You don't think Dimon telling Yellen how to run the Fed would be unethical or beneficial to him?
Well sure but who's to say that's how it would go down? More likely, Yellen would tell Dimon to fuck right off. Who's to say they would even agree on anything? Odds are, Yellen meets with a bunch of important people that we'll never hear about and they give her council and all that.
Also, despite her relative autonomy, Yellen would get kicked from the fed if the monetary policy didn't follow suit with the fiscal policy. So it would be a weak conspiracy because it wouldn't work. And I don't think the federal reserve is well suited to give an advantage to one specific business anyway, that'd more of a fiscal policy thing. That's why the lobbies are close to the legislature.
As for the criticism of Sander's approach, I don't think he can speak to the US electorate without making these types of oversimplifications. The system is rigged, he says, referring to unfairness and the absence of equal opportunity (or anything resembling equal opportunity). I think "a thousand years of nonlinear rigging" is a nice way to put it, because instead of assuming that the unfair system is this way by design, it suggests that it's natural, and to an extent it is, but your objection comes from the fact that rigged systems are rigged by design and billionaires don't need to design anything to give them an advantage because they have billions of dollars (unless I misunderstood you). If that is your objection, I say I agree that billionaires do have a natural advantage, but they've also been working hard, putting institutions into place that ensure that their wealth will continue to grow, often at the detriment of others.
That leads to murky waters... People will always seek to improve their situation - people with economic power are better suited to do it. They institutionalize things that advantage them in ways which regular folks cannot. Is it a conspiracy? Perhaps not, due to the disjointed way in which it takes place. Is it rigged? Regardless of the level of coordination in which the "rigging" took place, it's hard to argue against the fact that social mobility is not easy, with rampant nepotism and the advantages that come with starting off in life with a certain wealth...
EPT
![[image loading]](http://images.hngn.com/data/images/full/122623/hillary-clinton.png?w=650)
I don't want the discussion to live or die on my own ability to convincingly argue for this specific thing; I want to examine the epistemological concerns in a more general way. The fact that TLers are dumb money is not my main worry 
