Cult Expert Predicts QAnon Adherents Will 'Get Angry and Exit' (nbcnews.com) 343
"From my time studying cults and helping followers escape them, I can reassure you that QAnon will disintegrate in the United States over time if effective measures are taken if and when Trump is defeated," writes prominent mental health counselor Steven Haasan:
When cult adherents get confused, then ashamed, then realize they've been scammed, they get angry and exit. While some followers may continue to believe in the cult for some time — especially if they stay in an information silo — eventually contact with family and friends who care about them and others who have escaped from cults can and will help people come back to themselves. People are not permanently programmed, despite what some pundits and politicians may say. Like fashions and fads, movements end.
How do we dismantle a dangerous cult safely and turn this into yet another American fad as embarrassing as bell-bottoms, polyester and pet rocks? By dismantling the power of its mythology so people who have been pulled into it return to independent thinking. Fundamentally, QAnon is a mind virus, and we must bring the rate of transmission down. For starters, stop mocking QAnon and calling it a conspiracy theory; it is a psy-op, an intentional online cult movement aimed at recruiting and indoctrinating people into an all-or-nothing, us-vs.-them, good-vs.-evil frame. It is important to understand that QAnon believers think they are heroes and believe they are aligned with a righteous cause. We must take them seriously and build a rapport of respect. In other words, agree and amplify that human trafficking is bad and wrong. Then show legitimate groups fighting trafficking... Reclaim this issue and demonstrate that QAnon is talking about it but does nothing, while others are taking action to make a difference...
[W]hile QAnon promoters are currently being removed from the internet platforms they use to spread their propaganda and interact with adherents, as they should be, this approach will only temporarily disrupt and slow down new recruits, rather than help anyone exit. In fact, these moves can validate followers' beliefs that they are being persecuted, while a large percentage of cult members will simply be directed to alternative platforms... The key to helping these folks out is more respectful interaction — not cancel culture, demonization or mockery. People need to be able to exit with dignity. We need to find ways to allow people to return to society with their humanity intact, in a way that honors the very real questions that led them to look toward alternative answers in the first place.
How do we dismantle a dangerous cult safely and turn this into yet another American fad as embarrassing as bell-bottoms, polyester and pet rocks? By dismantling the power of its mythology so people who have been pulled into it return to independent thinking. Fundamentally, QAnon is a mind virus, and we must bring the rate of transmission down. For starters, stop mocking QAnon and calling it a conspiracy theory; it is a psy-op, an intentional online cult movement aimed at recruiting and indoctrinating people into an all-or-nothing, us-vs.-them, good-vs.-evil frame. It is important to understand that QAnon believers think they are heroes and believe they are aligned with a righteous cause. We must take them seriously and build a rapport of respect. In other words, agree and amplify that human trafficking is bad and wrong. Then show legitimate groups fighting trafficking... Reclaim this issue and demonstrate that QAnon is talking about it but does nothing, while others are taking action to make a difference...
[W]hile QAnon promoters are currently being removed from the internet platforms they use to spread their propaganda and interact with adherents, as they should be, this approach will only temporarily disrupt and slow down new recruits, rather than help anyone exit. In fact, these moves can validate followers' beliefs that they are being persecuted, while a large percentage of cult members will simply be directed to alternative platforms... The key to helping these folks out is more respectful interaction — not cancel culture, demonization or mockery. People need to be able to exit with dignity. We need to find ways to allow people to return to society with their humanity intact, in a way that honors the very real questions that led them to look toward alternative answers in the first place.
An inside story (Score:4, Interesting)
This story [cnn.com] is the true account of someone who was scammed by the Qanon cult. His most telling statement:
The theory's believers "always fantasize that they are saving children and they're bringing criminals to justice," View says. "But QAnon only hurts people. It has helped nobody."
They're like the Evangelicals who have their ministers spout off that they must vote according to Christian principles*, yet willingly ignore the adulterer who has had multiple affairs, lies repeatedly and bears false witness against others because only they know the truth.
Unfortunately, like most cults, it will hang around a long time, poisoning society with their deranged ramblings.
* Those were the literal words I happened to hear today on the radio. Don't ask why I was listening to an Evangelical station, it was an accident, but a hilarious one at that.
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Well hell. CNN. Sure can't doubt them, now can we? Kinda like doubting the Pope.
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Don't ask why I was listening to an Evangelical station, it was an accident, but a hilarious one at that.
Brought to mind some of the, to say the least, interesting stuff I heard on shortwave radio stations back when i had a receiver.
Re:An inside story (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: An inside story (Score:5, Insightful)
No, you don't question his morals. But if instead if a grabbing a hose he whips out his dick and starts pissing on the fire you are well justified on questioning his abilities.
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When your house is on fire, you don't question the moral values of the firefighter.
Trump may be an awful person, but that is not relevant to his ability to do his job.
Well, from available evidence, he is utterly incapable of doing his job well. The only thing he can do is pissing off people and allies and doing damage. None of that is a winning move when leading a country. To go with your analogy, when my house is on fire, I most certainly do not want the "firefighter" that pours gasoline on the flames or the one that started the fire in the first place.
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His response to Covid would prove otherwise. Hell he even caught the virus and was airlifted to a hospital and received experimental drugs.
Re: An inside story (Score:2)
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Please give us examples of when he did his job damn well... Or well or even not-horribly-bad.
Well, as someone outside America I can assure you it's been delightful to have no new wars imposed on us for the last four years.
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Of course you don't. You assume them. You assume the firefighter will not let your house burn because it's in the wrong neighborhood or owned by the wrong people. You assume the firefighter didn't start the fire themselves. That they took the call seriously. That they wouldn't steal anything from the house if they could. An amoral person couldn't do the job.
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When your house is on fire, you don't sit inside it and deny the fire will kill you. Which is what Qanon and the others in that deathcult believe. They straight up deny reality.
Re: Interesting analogy (Score:2)
"so it doesn't matter what my opinion of him is, or yours"
Cool, then I can ignore the paragraphs of opinion and that follow after that statement. Why did you even bother?
Re: Interesting analogy (Score:2)
Re:Interesting analogy (Score:4, Informative)
Considering you have been boasting be more knowleageble in politics than me your words show a total naivete. The economics have been largerly funded by debt and this borrow-and-spend has resulted in a bubble bursting hard with the help of the coronavirus that has caused actual record unemployment. The UAE and the Saudis have been holding talks for years before Trump, them granting overflight rights during Trumps presidency is merely a coincidence. This is shown by the laughable justification of having Israel to promice thinking twice about annexing more land in Judea and Samarita.
Say, ever heard of Matthew 7:5?
Re:Interesting analogy (Score:4, Interesting)
Before I say anything else, let me point out that according to 538 crunching the numbers, there is about a 15% chance Trump will win, 85% Biden. Trump is on his way out...
Either you're not paying attention or have a very short memory [fivethirtyeight.com].
Record breaking unemployment levels for minorities (best ever)
It's supposedly best-ever unemployment rates for everyone. Minorities are still the highest. [npr.org] The numbers are bullshit though since they don't take into account people that have given up, part time workers struggling with multiple jobs etc. The gig economy is helping unemployment numbers but not really helping people in a lasting way.
great performance for retirement investments
This is QE from the fed. Trump obviously has little influence with the fed given his constant whining about how the fed should reduce interest rates to make him look good. Also, keeping interest rates so low for the long term isn't necessarily a good thing.
while signing off on policies that just kept working well.
Like his policy of separating children from their mothers at the border? Right, your 401k is doing well so who gives a shit really?
US administrations since the 1960s have been trying to bring peace in the middle East, to normalize relations between Israel and their neighbors. With damn little progress in 60 years. I can't believe Trump has brokered normalizing relations between Israel and FOUR different Muslim nations. Not one, not two, but four. Wow.
The hard part in those 60 years has been brokering peace between Israel and the *Palestinians* which they kicked out of their country in a racist attempt to have a 100% jewish state. We now have an apartheid which Trump has all but signed off on by moving our embassy to Jerusalem.
For decades every presidential candidate have vowed to move the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem and for decades every president has reneged on that promise, to avoid upsetting the Muslim nations.
Please find a quote from a democratic presidential candidate to backup this claim. They didn't want to move the embassy because it would be the end of their hope for a two state solution. It has literally nothing to do with any other Muslim country.
For someone that supposedly doesn't like Trump you sure seem to be quite wilfully ignorant of his failings.
Re:Interesting analogy (Score:4, Informative)
You know, I have always wanted to move our embassy to West Jerusalem. We have a designated site there. I have not done so because I didn't want to do anything to undermine our ability to help broker a secure and fair and lasting peace for Israelis and for Palestinians.
Bush is a republican. Obama retracted his statement [reuters.com].
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Don't play stupid. You know that Trump deliberately and enthusiastically separated children from their parents in a program that was exponentially worse than anything that happened under Obama.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/1... [nytimes.com]
https://www.nbcnews.com/politi... [nbcnews.com]
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Are there enough fervent pro-lifers to win all by themselves? Or will they as a group need to find some common ground with other people who may not hold exactly the same beliefs or let alone the same priorities? Democracy is hard.
I don't want to believe (Score:4, Insightful)
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Also Epstein did not kill himself.
Also Bill Clinton is corrupt, but that doesn't mean he goes around killing people (he doesn't).
Better to get your information from other sources besides QAnon, then you don't have to filter out the shit.
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History repeated itself. The media made Trump president and now they're making Qanon the biggest cult ever.
The media claim to be pro-Democrat, but really they're pro-revenue. And that's something Trump and Qanon do very well.
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> they must have accidentally stumbled on something that embarrassed someone.
Slate has been doing a good job unredactimg the Maxwell deposition.
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Nothing at all, it was just a dam-break effect set off by the first major social media platforms banning them.
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Their followers are a danger and are receiving the same treatment as any other radical group. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/0... [nytimes.com]
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Except Antifa. Antifa is radical group of leftist lunatics, rioters and thugs that keeps getting bailed out, released and shielded by their collaborators in the deep-state and the Media. No one is taking that danger seriously as it deserves. Now watch some cockroach crawl out from under a rock and defend them.
Re: I don't want to believe (Score:3)
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Except Antifa. Antifa is radical group of leftist lunatics, rioters and thugs that keeps getting bailed out, released and shielded by their collaborators in the deep-state and the Media. No one is taking that danger seriously as it deserves. Now watch some cockroach crawl out from under a rock and defend them.
That's like saying Militias are a radical group of rightist lunatics except its even more disjoint than that. Antifa is a battleflag that just means Anti-fascist. There are groups (just like there are militia groups) with different names that would identify as anti-fascist and thus are "antifa". They each have their own ideology and specific issues and leaders. But there is no umbrella organization and organized isn't something I would call them.
AM Radio and others have turned antifa into a boogie-man
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Q didn't stumble onto any profound truth. Some guy going by Q on the chans started dribbling out cryptic BS back in late 2015 or something like that. A few things looked pretty tantalizing at first, but were later followed by things proven to be nonsense later ("trust Sessions" gets cited a lot) and then things just got weird with Q clocks and people turning it into some crazy numerology BS.
The media hates Q because he tells people not to trust the media. We have plenty of good reasons to doubt the narra
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The core of QAnon is clearly nuts, but it also seems fairly clear that they must have accidentally stumbled on something that embarrassed someone.
None other than themselves.
The reason these fucking lunatics are being deplatformed is that this bullshit has real life consequences. Not too long ago some whacko stormed a pizza place with an AR-15 because he was convinced the basement was part of a pedophilia ring run by Clinton, for fuck's sake.
Article contradicts itself (Score:3, Insightful)
What Q-Anon adherents really need, is to learn how to think critically and rationally, and to detect logical fallacies. And of course all of us need that. I disagree with the article that mockery is 100% inappropriate. Mind you, I agree that mindless, schoolyard taunt style mockery is inappropriate, however rational deconstruction is absolutely a good idea, and sorry, but nobody is going to read this stuff if it isn't funny.
The article's tying Q-Anon to Trump was unnecessary, and made this read like a not to subtle Biden campaign ad. With very few exceptions that seem to be tied to individuals with mental illnesses, Q-Anon is largely harmless as wacko conspiracy theories go. It's not an emergency. Trump can serve another four years and we will all be just fine, at least as far as Q-Anon is concerned. Banning its adherents from social media is unnecessary, and like most form of censorship, just makes them into "martyrs" and confirms their worst fears about the vast cabal of conspirators.
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What Q-Anon adherents really need, is to learn how to think critically and rationally, and to detect logical fallacies.
Yeah, well how exactly can we get them to learn that?
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There aren't really any shortcuts to learning how to think critically, so unfortunately this isn't exactly a workable solution to the problem at hand. You can't squeeze blood from a turnip.
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The article's tying Q-Anon to Trump was unnecessary,
Except that Trump is the central figure and saviour in their whole insane web of conspiracy theories, and he himself has goaded them on. It would require careful and deliberate omissions to not tie QAnon to Trump.
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If you don't like conspiracy theories leading people to live in fictional alternate realities and vote in ours, then you won't like QAnon or Trump, they're almost two sides of the same coin.
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Sorry, but being banned from social media equals cancel culture.
Your definition of "cancel culture" is clearly different from the guy in the article. He does explain what he means if you read the whole sentence: "The key to helping these folks out is more respectful interaction — not cancel culture, demonization or mockery." See? He says "these folks." He's talking about a difference between how to deal with an organization and misinformation vs. how to deal with individuals.
I don't think there's any real definition for the term "cancel culture," it's just a ph
Re:Article contradicts itself (Score:4, Informative)
The article says NOT to use cancel culture against Q-Anon, but also fully approves of social media banning anything related to Q-Anon. That alone makes this article an incoherent mess.
??? The article made exactly the same point that you made. It did not "fully approve". It gave qualified approval, with the exact same caveat that you made. Here are the words of the article:
Similarly, while QAnon promoters are currently being removed from the internet platforms they use to spread their propaganda and interact with adherents, as they should be, this approach will only temporarily disrupt and slow down new recruits, rather than help anyone exit. In fact, these moves can validate followers’ beliefs that they are being persecuted, while a large percentage of cult members will simply be directed to alternative platforms.
Reposted from CNN (Score:2, Troll)
CNN Trump is Bad New Network.
For the past 3 years its been nothing but TRUMP is bad.
Like nothing else is news worthy.
Gag me.
Re: Reposted from CNN (Score:2)
Do you think Trump contributes at all to his negative coverage?
Re:Reposted from CNN (Score:4, Insightful)
Literally every news source on the planet with the exception of Fox says he is bad. That should tell you something.
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The News Industry is the least trusted group of people in human history.
Do you really believe this? You put the news industry at the bottom of the list, below scammers, snake oil salesmen, tele-evangelists, drug cartels, etc?
You really need to check your self into the nearest psych ward, you are a danger not only to your surroundings but yourself. Take care of yourself and remember your meds. Hope you are better soon. Hugs!
Pet rocks weren't a fad... (Score:3)
They were a way of life.
Guys ... I'm a conservative ... (Score:5, Insightful)
I had never heard of Q-Anon until the left family members start insisting that I was a member and ready to burn the country down.
I *still* don't really know who they are. The conservative talk circles like are literally trying to figure out who this Q-Anon group actually is that we're all supposed to be part of.
Chill ... you're seeing things.
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Re: Guys ... I'm a conservative ... (Score:2, Troll)
It's a troll group which has ensnared a small(for the internet) amount of real people, a bunch of fellow trolls, and drove leftists batshit insane. Case in point, when referencing Polanski in a debate about death of the author, I was accused of peddling QAnon conspiracy theories.
Re:Guys ... I'm a conservative ... (Score:4, Informative)
Re: Guys ... I'm a conservative ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Not sure how you missed all the Q signs/merchandise at Trump rallies, the sheriffs deputies wearing Q patches when meeting Trump down in Florida, the head of a NYPD union doing a Fox News interview with a Qanon mug plainly staged and displayed in the background, high profile former administration officials like Mike Flynn taking a QAnon pledge on YouTube, the hashtag/catch phrase WWG1WGA(where we go one, we go all) plastered everywhere, and actual elected officials openly supporting QAnon theories. Either you live under a rock or you are intentionally burning your head in the sand.
Re: Guys ... I'm a conservative ... (Score:3)
https://www.google.com/amp/s/w... [google.com]
https://www.google.com/amp/s/w... [google.com]
https://www.google.com/amp/s/w... [google.com]
https://www.npr.org/2020/08/12... [npr.org]
https://www.google.com/search?... [google.com]
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news... [msn.com]
Social media isn't letting it spread anymore (Score:2)
One of my YouTube channels made a good point, which is that Qannon's real start wasn't on 4 or 8 chan, it was when a bunch of politicos realized it would be advantages to accuse their opponents of being pedophiles. If nothing else you might Google bomb a few. Also the pedo angle let's them co-op popular "Save The Children" themed hashtags.
Basically the whole thing was a clever and cynical political campaign. And the Facebooks, Twitte
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Also fed quite well by all the pictures of Biden sniffing the hair of young girls that looks uncomfortable.
Lost Me at Fad (Score:2)
Either QAnon is a real problem, or it is a fad. The article is not worth the read.
QAnon is like the Anti-Antifa (Score:2)
QAnon is for suburbans afraid of Antifa, and Antifa is made of urbanites who are afraid of QAnon.
They're like a match made in hell.
Both of them are fully stocked with morons who believe the world gives a shit about them.
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People need to be able to exit with dignity. (Score:2)
Re:People need to be able to exit with dignity. (Score:5, Interesting)
Exiting a cult involves realizing one has been an complete and utter moron ...
I think it requires a good deal more than that. A cult creates a community of the chosen ones, that exerts considerable social pressure. Doubters are reviled. Apostates are punished. Somebody with the mental fortitude to overcome such pressures and admit they were wrong would probably not have joined a cult in the first place.
I was hacked by a meme - experience report (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: Is QAnon Software? (Score:2)
Re: Is QAnon Software? (Score:2)
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Who says that anyone fell for anything? Perhaps everyone is just in on the joke, but it has become so convoluted that nobody is really sure what is real or fake anymore. Trolls are trolling trolls, and no one is sure if they're the one trolling or the one being trolled.
I'd say it's working out quite well.
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This guy certainly fell for it and we're damn lucky nobody died. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/0... [nytimes.com]
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From what I've read the original QAnon posts were indeed made as an act of conservatrolling on 4chan (more a half-baked shitpost than an elaborate hoax), and then it took on a life of its own, and over time, with organized white nationalist involvement, it has morphed into what it is today, a rehash of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
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Because, fundamentally, people are fucking idiots. Even the smart ones. Humanity is populated by big brained chimps that, for the most part, still just fling shit around.
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Re:It's metaphor (Score:5, Informative)
Re: It's metaphor (Score:2)
Re: It's metaphor (Score:2)
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Right back at'cha! Read HIS second sentence at least. Is your attention span so short that you can only read one sentence? He asserts that they are NOT going to transfer to the next President.
This contrary to YOUR statement that the core idea is that the president that is heroically fighting against government insider and it will transfer. Where is the proof of that they see it this way and that it would transfer: ie that it is the precidency that fights rather than the person currently holding the preciden
Maybe you failed to persuade? + very partisan! (Score:3)
Well read the second sentence at least. Is your attention span so short that you can only read one sentence?
Dude...blaming people for for not understanding your sentences is like a comedian blaming an audience for not getting his joke. You're failing at your job of persuasion, just as the comedian is failing at his job of making an audience laugh. If you can't get through to someone, try harder, but don't blame them. Nothing is more obnoxious than a comedian blaming the audience. There's a whole wave of comedians blaming college campuses because they tell dull and mediocre jokes about touchy topics and people
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Re:It's metaphor (Score:5, Insightful)
Unless of course you ask him how he ended up with a reported net worth of 9 million dollars despite ten million dollar gifts from China and Russia.
Well golly gee why don't you look at his tax returns? He released 22 years of them which is more than we can say for President Super Spreader.
So, ummm, what were you babbling about?
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I have to disagree...99.9% of QTards are Trump supporters. There's virtually zero support for QAnon (or stuff like QAnon) on the left.
Righties are generally more willing to believe in crazy shit and hidden 'structures' or cabals. The left, by and large, just doesn't seem to dabble in QAnon-type stuff.
To be sure, people on the Left certainly have lots of other goofy shit (healing crystals, essential oils, etc etc) but in general I don't see them going in for violent conspiracy theories or flat-out disregardi
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Translation: "Back in high school, I was voted 'Most Likely to End Up in Supermax for Mailing Pipe Bombs.'"
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Liberal democracy had the postwar period from 1945 to the present
Liberal democracy in the US apparently ended sometime in the 1970s or so.
Re:It's metaphor (Score:5, Insightful)
Looks like you're also engaging in alternative reality, alernative_right. And I really hope you limbered up before writing this because such large stretches can lead to pulled muscles.
Liberal democracy had the postwar period from 1945 to the present to achieve what it promised that it could, but instead delivered dystopia.
We're not living in a dystopia.
Similarly to the way that Flat Earth metaphorically describes a lack of faith in experts because they are bought by special interests
It also describes people who literally believe the earth is flat.
QAnon summarizes an elite of bureaucrats as pedophiles rather than simply calling them cruel manipulators and parasites, or whatever language one would like.
Yeah because QAnoner's actually think they're paedophiles. It started from pizzagate which was another paedophile conspiracy theory. Though the bureaucrat thing is also just invented too.
Our pursuit of safety and comfort has led us to create a society without meaning where no one has a connection to anything and people are relentlessly indulging carnal urges,
Ah here we go, a nice slathering of Judaeo-Christian puritanism, combined with a nebulous, but non specific "things were better in the olden days".
This corresponds to the rise in pedophilia, serial killing, rape, etc. since the liberalization of the 1960s period.
Violent crime has been going down, but reporting has been on the up. Sticking your fingers in your ears and humming loudly is not the same as the background noise being present. Someone taking your fingers out of your ears is no the same as the background noise getting louder.
Modern society became boring and miserable and first-world people stopped reproducing; this is not health
Wait weren't you just complaining about people engaging in carnal desires?
Let's start here (Score:3)
We are. High corruption, low order, high infighting, low energy, high costs, many dependents. That's a civilization caught in a death spiral.
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Nothing has gone up in America except technology since the 1960s. This country is a shadow of what it once was.
Ah yes, the cult of tradition and rejection of modernism.
I'm sure you might think so but then, for example women couldn't even open a bank account without their husband, own a credit card, practice law, etc etc. The civil rights act wasn't even passed until the late 1960s. Being gay wasn't fully decriminalised until the 2000s. Atheist rights have slowly been expanding, especially following a slew o
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This wave is not going away. Liberal democracy had the postwar period from 1945 to the present to achieve what it promised that it could, but instead delivered dystopia. People have lost faith in modernity and are looking for alternatives.
If the world is a bit shitty right now, I think it rather unfair to blame liberal democracy. What would you prefer, a totalitarian state like China?
By and large, liberal democracies have delivered a great deal, in terms of economic growth, longer lives, lots of fun technology, cheap entertainment, and so on. But what they have not delivered is universal happiness. I do not think any form of government can do that, except maybe that described by Aldous Huxley in Brave New World. And you have to realise that
Re:Democrats are a mind virus... (Score:4, Funny)
I found a Russian under my sink yesterday.
Pesky things. Need to do something they are everywhere!!!
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Re: Democrats are a mind virus... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: Demoncrats are a mind virus... (Score:2)
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As opposed to the compromat that both Russia and China have on Trump? Trump is one of the most compromised men to ever hold office in the US. Looking at his actions through that lens, things start to make a lot more sense.
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Trump and Biden both are Alzheimer victims with different symptoms.
If Biden wins then it's effectively Kamala Harris that will take the seat.
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Just like with bush and obama. Fears that never panned out.
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I remember all the conspiracies the loonies were saying about Clinton in the 1990s. You know how much was true? Diddly squat.
Re:How is QANON a cult? (Score:5, Insightful)
It has no leader
You do know why it's called "Q"-anon, right?
Asks you to make up your own mind on facts
Sure, while providing you with a litany of wild accusations and maintaining that you are just a foolish cog in some sort of child-abuse machine if you believe anything else.
Wants you to interact with the outside world (research)
Technically, it wants you to 'research' only in the framework of the above mentioned wild accusations, and to understand that everything you find opposed to them is either a lie or a wilful misdirection.
You can leave any time without penalty
Of course, you only need to admit to yourself that everything you have just built your reality around is wrong, and that you were fooled into believing nonsense out of an incredibly sad desire to finally belong to something.
Isn't that the exact opposite of a cult?
This is *precisely* how cults function. This is real life, not TV, cults in real life aren't all running around with automatic weapons and murdering the non-believers who dare to leave, holding new members prisoner and screaming dogma at them in a cell until they mentally cave. Real cults are usually just a bunch of normal people who, thanks to a lack of existing personal social structure, are a little too prone to accepting an anti-social ideology proposed by a semi-charismatic leader that assures them they are both in on a secret and, more importantly, morally superior to those on the outside. It's religion taken to an extreme logical conclusion, and QAnon is close to a textbook example.
- Scott Adams
I have yet to decide whether or not he is kidding these last four years. Our culture's current distant relationship with how "irony" and "sarcasm" work has made everyone's actual viewpoints absolutely opaque.
Re:How is QANON a cult? (Score:5, Insightful)
I have yet to decide whether or not he is kidding these last four years. Our culture's current distant relationship with how "irony" and "sarcasm" work has made everyone's actual viewpoints absolutely opaque.
He's not, his opinions have been way too consistent. However, he's doing the cowardly thing of hiding behind them so that when the blowback gets too bad he can claim irony or sarcasm.
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At this point it doesn't matter if Scott Adams is kidding or not. He has considerable influence and people take him seriously, so he is part of the problem.
Re:How is QANON a cult? (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:3)
- Scott Adams
You're quoting someone who not only took a trip to crazytown, but decided to stay, buy a house and run for mayor. So... I'm not really sure what point you're trying to make.
Re:Got to spread this to /. also, huh? (Score:4, Insightful)
So they're nihilistic bullies. Yeah, that makes them harmful.
"harmless" (Score:4, Informative)
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/0... [nytimes.com]
Re: (Score:2)
The appropriate respect is the same kind of respect you show a slug in nature - leave it to fend for itself to avoid getting sticky.
Re:Is Qanon so bad? (Score:5, Insightful)
Leftists celebrate differences, righties fear them.
That's why to righties it seems like leftists are "dividing" people. No, we're recognizing their differences. There are real differences between people, and recognizing them is key to serving those people's needs, which differ as well.
Righties don't give a fuck about other people's needs. If they see people as all the same, it's only to avoid recognizing that they have different problems and issues in their lives. It's much easier to pretend that everyone is all the same, because then you don't have to think — especially about how your actions affect different people differently.