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Mass media, social networks, and mass advertising bombard us with fallacies every morning. Sometimes, the fallacy is so blatant that we're embarrassed to see or hear it.

When a minister says that last month's inflation rate was 2.3%, one tends to wonder where the hell such precision came from. I mean, why 2.3 and not 2.12? There's no answer to this, because the number is a lie, but even so, the masses would give their lives to believe it's true.

When a disinfectant commercial tells us that it "eliminates 99% of bacteria," the laboratory in question is so ridiculed that it could even face a lawsuit. That 99% is an embarrassment, and everyone knows it, but no one dares to ask what happens to the remaining 1%. If there were 100 bacteria on my floor, and the disinfectant killed 99, why did my little boy happen to put his hand where the remaining bacteria was and get infected with typhoid?

When election polls say that 43% of the residents of Villa Krostenbach would vote for the far right, they're telling us that they surveyed a sample designed with a specific criterion and margin of error, and then divided that percentage by the total number of people surveyed. And if they didn't like 45.56, the mathematical result of the division, they decided to use 43% because it sounds much more sophisticated.

It's all a huge lie. It's not that I'm having a Schopenhauer or Nietzschean fit. It's just that I find it laughable to watch or listen to anything on any of the devices that electricity allows us to operate.

About 30 years ago, a book fell into my hands (I don't remember how) that had a great impact on me, and which I still reread periodically. It's called "The Book of the Fallacy: A Training Manual for Intellectual Subversives," written by an Englishman named Madsen Pirie, at the time President of the Adam Smith Institute and secretary of Mensa, the high IQ society, among other accolades. In this manual for intellectual subversives, the author analyzes a hundred fallacies of all kinds, with sharp and ironic English humor. The book, besides being entertaining, deeply encourages reflection on language, the emphasis on different words in a sentence, and, ultimately, the development of critical thinking in communication.

In particular, I'm going to briefly analyze one of those fallacies here, which the author calls "False Conversion." I believe it can be used to train intellectual subversives who oppose the fractional-reserve banking system that enriches banks and the top 1% of the world's population.

The false conversion fallacy occurs when we deduce from the fact that all cats are animals the consequent information that all animals are cats. In some cases, the subject and predicate of a sentence can be inverted without problems, but not in all. When it is not possible, and yet one attempts it, one falls into the fallacy of false conversion.

The trick of this fallacy lies in the distinction that can be made between two mathematical sets: the one that contains "all" and the one that contains "some."

Let's see why.

“All cats are for-legged animals, so, obviously, all four-legged animals are cats.” (The only obvious thing here is that this is embarrassingly false.)

“Some mortal beings are not cats, therefore, some cats are not mortal beings.” (Especially my recently deceased cat James, who will be immortal to me forever and ever.)

The problem is quite complicated, which is why it's only for subversives.

The author proposes a matrix with two columns and two rows. The columns are “all” and “some.” The rows are “affirmation” and “negation.”

So we have four quadrants:

1- All are

2- Some are

3- None are

4- Some are not

The rule is that only quadrants 2 and 3 allow valid conversions. However, if you try to interchange the subject and predicate of quadrants 1 and 4, you commit the false conversion fallacy. This is because a distributed subject that encompasses an entire class cannot be swapped with a non-distributed predicate that divides a class into parts. In quadrant 2, both the subject and predicate refer only to a part of the class, and in quadrant 3, both subject and predicate refer to the entire class. Quadrants 1 and 4, however, do not allow subject and predicate swapping because they mix distributed and non-distributed terms.

In practice, to be precise:

Subject and predicate can be swapped when the sentence has either of the following forms: “Some As are Bs” and “No As are Bs”.

Subject and predicate cannot be swapped when the sentence has either of the following forms: “All As are Bs” and “Some As are not Bs”.

Now let's move on to designing our fallacies, which you've probably read about in hundreds of posts.

Let's assume we're going to work with two classes: Meme Coins and Ponzi Schemes.

Under the premises of quadrant 2, if we say that some Meme Coins are Ponzi Schemes, it's perfectly valid to say that some Ponzi Schemes are Meme Coins.

Under the premises of quadrant 3, if we say that no Meme Coin is a Ponzi Scheme, it's perfectly valid to say that no Ponzi Scheme is a Meme Coin.

Under the premises of quadrant 1, if we say that all Meme Coins are Ponzi Schemes, it's a false inversion of subject and predicate to say that all Ponzi Schemes are Meme Coins.

Under the premises of quadrant 4, if we say that some Meme Coins are not Ponzi Schemes, it's a false inversion of subject and predicate to say that some Ponzi Schemes are not Meme Coins. This may be true, but it's not valid to deduce it from the false conversion.

Let's change the categories. Now let's relate cryptocurrencies to money laundering.

Under the premises of quadrant 2, if we say that some cryptocurrencies are tools for money laundering, it's perfectly valid to say that some tools for money laundering are cryptocurrencies.

Under the premises of quadrant 3, if we say that no cryptocurrency is a tool for money laundering, it's perfectly valid to say that no tool for money laundering is a cryptocurrency.

Under the premises of quadrant 1, if we say that all cryptocurrencies are tools for money laundering, it's a false inversion of subject and predicate to say that all tools for money laundering are cryptocurrencies.

Based on the premises of quadrant 4, if we say that some cryptocurrencies are not tools for money laundering, it is a false inversion of subject and predicate to say that some tools for money laundering are not cryptocurrencies. This may be true, but it is not valid to deduce it from the false conversion.

Now then. Communicators who want to exploit the false conversion fallacy must be very careful and carefully plan what they are going to say. False conversion is a short-term tactic, and it can be better concealed among audiences (especially social media audiences that prioritize immediacy and superficiality) if the difference between "all" and "some" is hidden at all times.

The most important thing is to conceal the reference to "All" or "Some."

If I say that cryptocurrencies free individuals from the slavery of the fractional-reserve banking system, I'm being exquisitely ambiguous, because I'm not specifying whether I mean all cryptocurrencies or just some of them, and I'm somehow leading the audience to deduce, using the false conversion fallacy, that anything that saves us from slavery must necessarily be a cryptocurrency. (This would infuriate banks, especially one whose CEO once said that Bitcoin advocates should be crushed like cockroaches, and now offers Bitcoin custody services.)

Don't you think?

Conclusion

If you want to be reasonably sure your morning will be calm and happy, don't turn on a machine of fallacies like your television or smartphone. If something stronger compels you to do so, then be aware that you'll spend the morning listening to very precise figures (like 43%) about what's happening outside your bubble, from one side or the other. And the worst part is that, in some cases, you'll think that what you see or hear wasn't deliberately constructed as a fallacy. It all depends on which side of the precipice you're on.

Thanks for taking the time to read this.