Antifa, for example, is objectively a much greater threat to life and property, is anti-capitalist, and have been much more proactive in doxxing their political enemies, yet members and sympathizers are highly placed in Twitter, Google, US schools and colleges, the Democrat party, and many other sensitive locations.
Are we to shut all of those down as well while an intensive security review is performed?
Do people realise that Antifa simply means Anti-Fascist? Its origin is Antifaschistische Aktion during the Weimar Republic, though the current movement is ideologically a bit different.
Still, it seems that "antifa" has been politically co-opted in the US and is not being used in the right context at all.
How is Antifa objectively a threat to life and property?
That's a weak argument, it's like saying North Korea is ran by its people because it's called People's Republic of Korea and Congo was always democratic because it's called Democratic Republic of Congo etc...
The name is meaningless. Any group can call themselves "the good guys club" or "the anti bad guy society" if they please. If such an argument held any water, I would legally change my name to "Beyond Reproach".
I'm speaking of the American antifa, which are assaulting, harassing, and doxxing people they deem "fascist" (which is anyone who looks at them funny) and burning down buildings and vehicles. Surely you have watched a news report or read a newspaper in the past several months. Even CNN has grudgingly been forced to honestly report on their activities.
I'm not personally aware of any such actions on the part of "qanon". But if any exist at all, they are without dispute dwarfed by the havoc antifa has wrought.
Reading things about Qanon I can't help but think how easy it is to fool large swaths of people by telling them exactly what they want to hear. Especially if they, like all Qanon supporters, believe that "disinformation is necessary", something that enables them to believe in you when you're demonstrably lying.
Decennia of sagas, myths, legends, religions and cults have proven that people just want to believe in something that explains the things they themselves can't explain. Things that enable them to form groups that give them a sense of safety. A sense of belonging. A way to feel superior to members of other groups.
No matter how bizarre a believe system looks to the general public, the scale of the internet enables you to reach a large group of people anyway. There will always be an audience that actively searches for things to believe in. You don't have to do anything but to sow some seeds, and they'll actively search for the "facts" that will strengthen their believe.
The internet also enables you to monetise your scam easily with Patreons and advertising.
“People will do anything for those who encourage their dreams, justify their failures, allay their fears, confirm their suspicions, and help them throw rocks at their enemies.”
-Blair Warren, "The One Sentence Persuasion Course: 27 Words to Make the World Do Your Bidding"
The thinking behind this sentence is the cause of the disease, but also the cure. If everyone would teach their children that this is how some people will try to fool you, the world could be a better place.
Surprisingly, about the first point at least, the reporting I remember is exactly that : "Pentagon says Irak has WMD, but the rest of the world is not convinced."
In the Netherlands no-one of any importance sincerely believed US intelligence, because nobody trusted Bush. But the thinking here was "Well, it's the US and they have us by the balls. The diplomatic thing is to say we understand their stance on Irak."
This is how almost all news is presented, unfortunately many people don't seem to understand this - i.e. if it's in quotes it's not the editorial opinion of the newspaper! (Otherwise the BBC would be pro-left pro-right etc.)
Exposure can lead to the inference that something is true. So if you are wanting to be careful, you need to consider that there may be no effective difference in publishing "Iraq has WMDs" and "the Pentagon says Iraq has WMDs."
There's a difference between believing a plausible lie that one can't verify on their own, like Iraq having WMDs, verses believing an insane conspiracy theory like that there's an Illuminati child sex/eating cult operating under a pizza shop.
It's the level of fervor and delusion behind these beliefs that has me concerned.
> Can't blame people start to believe with these kind of predictions.
Agilent Technologies stock price will go up on Monday.
Alcoa Corporation's stock price will go up on Monday.
[... all the rest of the NYSE]
Zynerba pharmaceuticals stock price will go up on Monday.
Zyzec In's stock price will go up on Monday.
I've just made about 6500 predictions. Some of them will come true. Based on that, would you believe everything I say?
If someone makes enough predictions, some of them will come true or at least can be read as having come true. This doesn't mean that you should believe people when they predict things that they could not possibly predict.
A lot of things Q says isn't verifiable yet, and maybe to most not believable but that doesn't make them categoricly "false". He predicted Christ Church hours before it happened and even said it will probably be a mass shooting this time outside the US. Although he claimed Europe as the country it might happen. He also predicted the El Paso shooting 48 hours in advance but wrongly claimed it happens in the next 24 hours. These are very close predictions and you also have to consider that an exact prediction would start people wondering if he couldn't have prevented them.
> He predicted Christ Church hours before it happened and even said it will probably be a mass shooting this time outside the US.
Hold on, what did it predict exactly? Did it say "there'll be a mass shooting in New Zealand, on a specific day" or just "something violent will happen somewhere, maybe"?
You're being taken in by a very old technique; make many, many, very vague predictions. Look at the daily news every day, either personally, or farm it out to your fanbase. Cross-reference the daily news with your library of predictions, and take anything that could possibly be read as predictive. Rinse, repeat. Nostradamus was a well-known offender (or, rather, he made the predictions, his fanbase did the rest). See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postdiction#Skepticism
> ...you also have to consider that an exact prediction would start people wondering if he couldn't have prevented them.
This sounds an awful lot like the "When he's right, he should be lauded, but when he's wrong it's because of $valid_reason." Am I summarizing what you're saying accurately?
And if so, I have to ask- is there anything which would convince you that QAnon is untrustworthy and/or full of BS? If so, what would that be?
An Image where people around Trump make a Q symbol thats starts with a phrase that probability of occuring is less 2^30. I would say is more than just luck.
QAnon posted on 25.07.2018 4:28pm a image of McCain with his hands up and with a black backdrop. McCain died 25.08.2018 4:28pm. A day before QAnon also stated that McCain's dog days are over and to Compare the minute and month of the previous post.
Qanon also stated month in advance that McCain will get in secret the death panalty, but only people following him will know.
What explanation do you have for the dozens of times that Q has said a specific date that the mass arrests were coming and nothing happened? The best you have is a file hash?
I legitimately wonder: was there a point in your life maybe a decade ago or more, where you looked at the wildest conspiracy theorists (flat earthers and worse) etc and thought "wow, those people are fucking nuts"?
Like, observed the type of thing they'd tell you in comments, how x and y and z lined up just right and "how do you explain that?!?!" and all that bollocks and thought "man, they're so far gone, I feel bad for them…"
Sorry, what's a "Q symbol"? That post is a picture of five people showing "thumbs up". And again, Trump doesn't get to pick that ID. It's generated internal to Twitter, the "message" you're imputing here isn't coming from Trump, it's coming from TWITTER.
Edit: also, you're making a classic numeric error here. The likelihood of that particular "message" (DOITQ) in isolation isn't the number you're interested in, because other than the letter "Q" it doesn't contain any actual information to verify. You'd be here saying exactly the same thing if it read "DoItQ", "GoQ", "QAnon", "IluvQ", etc...
There are literally MILLIONS of trivially constructable 1-5 character strings that might be interpreted as a "message" to someone that wants to see a message. And needless to say Trump has tweeted many thousands of such "messages".
So, you're a little mixed up on the image thing. He posted an image with a FILE NAME that begain with DOITQ. And I believe this has been pretty thoroughly debunked, as those file IDs (which don't look like a hash at all) are entirely under the control of Twitter, not the poster. This is the post you're talking about, btw: https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/92832566755654860...
I hadn't heard the McCain prediction before, and I suspect that's going to turn out to be a bit spun too. But I'd love to see it.
It's still strange coincidence even if the id's aren't determistic, they still should be random.
Here is the prediction [1], there was also a post shortly before his death that referenced this and hinted that the month [30] and minute [:28] will be relevant in the future, but it seems to be missing in all archives. Only the QAnon post [2] mentioning this additional info after the death is avaiable.
Help me out here. I don't understand that message. It's a date and time, but it seems to have been sent on the same day it's "predicting"?
This is getting awfully Nostradamusy for my tastes. I mean, everyone knew McCain was dying on the day he died, the announcement wasn't really a surprise. What exactly was predicted?
So, wait, do you think Twitter is in on it? (They generate the IDs, not Donald). Like, what do you think is going on here? If not a coincidence, how do you think the ID got like that?
There is a difference between lies and conspiracy theories though. Lies have a lifespan after which they are exposed. Conspiracy theories are like lie factories, more lies will be manufactured to rationalize previous lies ad infinity.
If so, it is an extremely wise investment. It's not the only way, but its a very good path to take. It's not the best choice for everyone, but people who puppet 'college is a bad investment' are spreading dis-information that an hurt others.
No, as blanket advice goes it really isn't a wise investment. It depends entirely on the degree. Many Gen-Ys learned this the hard way after internalizing the notion that taking on lifelong debt to get a degree meant buying a one-way ticket to easy street.
Doctor, accountant, lawyer, engineer? Sure. College is a good investment.
Most other degrees qualify one to be management at Pottery Barn. Hardly worth the five-figure entry fee.
You can also see counterarguments to all of those.
QAnon is different because is it totally unfalsifiable in the eyes of those subscribing to it. There is no truth to any of it - whereas ,for example, Iraq didn't have nukes but they had used Chemical Weapons (WMD) on their own population.
These QAnon people genuinely believe Trump is the culmination of a 20 year plan to defeat the deep state. Right...
we tell ourselves stories to live. politicians use stories too. but is the story of, say the american dream (51% of 18-34 year olds still live with their parents) less dangerous for politicians to tell than that of hollywood child sex rings?
One one hand, mesianic movements tend to re-occur throughout history whenever populations are under prolonged stress for various reasons. Then you get the same thing all over again - some powerful figure shall rise, and is indeed rising as we speak, to deliver us all from our bondage.
On the other hand, yes, the internet and social media have made it a lot easier for bullshit to spread out and take over the minds of millions.
I don't think that combination was ever tried before.
Analytical thinking par excellence can be very dispassionate and lack empathy. All disinformation has in common it never talks about coming together as a whole. It is never truly compassionate or empathic to the plight of others. To build bridges. Instead othering is a way or tool to direct hate and increase polarization. Thats the true manipulation.
That is assuming the wrong causation - downvotes are often because of disagreeing with the details even if they agree that QAnon are a bunch of fruit loops. It would be like saying people are pro-pedophile because they don't support requiring all primary school teachers to be spayed or neutered. No they are against it because it is a horrifyingly bad solution.
This isn't a new thing; for instance see early 20th century antisemitic conspiracy theories (Protocols of the Elders of Zion, Naziism, etc). And for a somewhat more benign example, the Satanic ritual abuse conspiracy theories in the 80s and 90s. Some people just seem inclined to believe in vaguely occult lunacy, especially if it involves kids (as all three of these examples do).
wow and you are being downvoted. wonder how many qanon amd far right fans lurk around here, and how many are among the “elite”. says a lot about this swamp.
> The printing press was arguably the foundation of Protestant faith, and arguably all of the other Christian sects.
Well, clearly not the (Roman or Old) Catholic, or (Eastern or Oriental) Orthodox, or Nestorian branches of Christianity, all of which long-predate the printing press (the split between the Nestorians and what became both Roman Catholic and Orthodox was more than 1000 years before Gutenberg's printing press; the Catholic/Eastern Orthodox schism was ~400 years before the printing press), which covers basically all of non-Protestant Christianity, except for a few groups that are, if not Protestant, descendants of Protestantism (e.g., SDA, JW, LDS, etc.)
> I would not be surprised if Qanon becomes an actual faith in America, with the Donald as their Jesus.
I mean, I would argue that that has already happened; it's a fringe religion/cult. Again, though, that's not new. Fringe religions show up all the time, and have since before the dawn of recorded history. Even if you just restrict it to Christian traditions, look how many millennial cults there've been!
This one is a little peculiar to me. It looks like this person was just taking what "Q" wrote on 8kun and adding it to a website. It wasn't a discussion board or place where theories originate from. Though it looks like he took the website down on his own.
About a month ago it added a user posts section with comments- something like imgur.
It also added a lot of metadata to Q posts and related discoverability features.
For example, the page for a Q post that mentioned James Clapper and WWG1WGA would have a photo and "bio" of Clapper, definition of WWG1WGA, and show recent related posts based on the metadata for the lingo and person.
Qmap definitely had a direct relationship with Jim Watkins and 8kun.
The full of extent of their partnership is not yet known but it appears Watkins was doing part of the infrastructure hosting for Qmap. There is also strong suspicion that Watkins either writes the current incarnation of 'Qanon' or directs whoever is writing the posts.
Why would anyone shut it down? Is the point to remain hidden and in-group only? If he’s outed, he’s out. Probably hasn’t dropped affiliations, but seems weird that it’s something to hide if it’s something he believes in.
We are talking about someone involved with a popular index site for QAnon posts, not QAnon or the operator of the "Image Board" QAnon uses to post his messages.
I really wanted to like QAnon as a conspiracy watcher. Unfortunately I was never able to wrap my mind around its stream of consciousness writing. It seemed like a bunch of right wing blather that used buzzwords to tantalize pro swamp drainers.
Looking into it, as far as I can tell it's not meant to be taken seriously. Q is an elaborate practical joke created by "The Hacker Known as 4chan" in order to troll the media into losing their minds. So far it seems to be working.
It seems a little circumstantial to me, frustratingly. He was involved for sure in the QMap site that archived the Q posts. Whether that makes him "Q" is I guess unknowable. He certainly could have made himself Q if he wasn't originally.
I mean... really there's no particular interest in Q's identity per se. Q didn't reveal any truths that were later confirmed, and got almost everything wrong in a factual sense. Exactly who wrote the posts is mostly academic.
The beauty of Q is that it does not need to have any claim confirmed by anyone else : the very fact that the claims are not confirmed, or, even better, denied by the mainstream media is proof that the claims are true.
That's just genius, and I'm kind of jealous not to be earning easy dollars this way as a non US citizen.
Some go as far as to say religious people are mentally ill.
What we’re witnessing with the modern conspiracy theory is basically an incubator (a legit ycombanitor) for religion startups. Literally watching the moment of the Big Bang when all of our major religions started from some unsubstantiated claims over to divine laws - with no one asking for a shred of proof as it spreads. How did that happen? A good story, characters, dumbasses, boredom, etc. Oh, sprinkle some persecution in there, that always fans the flames (Christianity in Rome).
So, QAnons being persecuted and banned now? Textbook startup, time for more funding.
That’s an interesting one. I think most peoples’ gut reactions, on hearing the sort of thing they believe, would be to say, yes, of course they’re mentally ill.
But there is precedent for this, for convincing very large numbers of normal (albeit not generally very smart) people to believe completely insane things.
The article says "Key figure"? Am I missing something here? I feel a little bit crazy. This guy was just reposting content from 8kun on his own website and a Patreon. Anyone can build this website in 5 minutes. Did this guy know anything special about qanon or was it just a money making operation?
I didn't say "key figure". I think it's totally plausible this guy was just scraping content as a grift (he appeared to be making a decent amount of money from this app). I think it's unlikely that he was doing that without involvement or argumentation by 8kun, and per other posters here there has been reporting on connections between 8kun and qmap in the past.
It strikes me as unlikely that QMap would have survived as it does without the sanction of 8kun. And as QAnon posts are only authenticatable in the context of 8kun's tripcodes, that seems to argue that they were in cahoots.
Pretty sure there will be elaborate arguments about free speech and doxing on this thread so let’s look at the facts:
* Qanaon is currently classified as a potential domestic terrorist threat to the country by the FBI. Free speech does not protect you from criminal activity.
* this wasn’t simply someone trying to talk freely about what he believed, it seems like this person was making thousands of dollars from this site. He created a fucking pattern account to get “donations”. Wow.
The generous way to view this is as a low level scam, but the FBI would probably disagree. I suspect this is why this person shut down the site, he doesn’t want to be the target of scrutiny or media attention.
QAnon followers are a bunch of delusional moron cultists and certainly are very easy to push but "potential domestic terrorist threat by the FBI" is a terrible metric and not a reason to abridge free speech - innocent until proven guilty applies. Occupy Wallstreet and Juggalos also got that designation.
"Potential x" is a disingenuous innuendo that implies without meaningful basis you can say every man or woman is a potential rapist or murderer.
Aside from watching the suspicious freaks and maybe investigation for some sort of outright donation fraud (just spewing bullshit for money doesn't count or David Icke would be in jail for decades) there isn't much that can be done and respect rights.
