'Recovering' QAnon Members Seek Help from Therapists, Subreddits, and On Telegram (go.com) 400
"More than at any point since the QAnon conspiracy began, there is a tremendous opportunity to pull disaffected followers out of the conspiracy," writes FiveThirtyEight. And while it's just one of three possible scenarios, online posts suggest at least some members are abandoning the group, "but they will need support to really sever their connection."
ABC News reports that some QAnon adherents "are turning to therapy and online support groups to talk about the damage done when beliefs collide with reality," including Ceally Smith, a working single mom in Kansas City: "We as a society need to start teaching our kids to ask: Where is this information coming from? Can I trust it?" she said. "Anyone can cut and paste anything." After a year, Smith wanted out, suffocated by dark prophesies that were taking up more and more of her time, leaving her terrified....
Another ex-believer, Jitarth Jadeja, now moderates a Reddit forum called QAnon Casualties to help others like him, as well as the relatives of people still consumed by the theory. Membership has doubled in recent weeks to more than 119,000 members. Three new moderators had to be added just to keep up. "They are our friends and family," said Jadeja, of Sydney, Australia. "It's not about who is right or who is wrong. I'm here to preach empathy, for the normal people, the good people who got brainwashed by this death cult." His advice to those fleeing QAnon? Get off social media, take deep breaths, and pour that energy and internet time into local volunteering.
Michael Frink is a Mississippi computer engineer who helps administer a QAnon recovery channel on the social media platform Telegram. He said that while mocking the group has never been more popular online, it will only further alienate people. Frink said he never believed in the QAnon theory but sympathizes with those who did. "I think after the inauguration a lot of them realized they've been taken for a ride," he said.
The New York Times tells the story of one Bernie Sanders supporter who entered — and then exited — the QAnon movement: Those who do leave are often filled with shame. Sometimes their addiction was so severe that they have become estranged from family and friends... "We felt we were coming from a place of moral superiority. We were part of a special club." Meanwhile, her family was eating takeout all the time since she had stopped cooking and her stress levels had shot up, causing her blood pressure medication to stop working. Her doctor, worried, doubled her dose...
When she first left QAnon, she felt a lot of shame and guilt. It was also humbling: Ms. Perron, who has a master's degree, had looked down on Scientologists as people who believed crazy things. But there she was...
She agreed to speak for this article to help others who are still in the throes of QAnon.
And CNN reporter Anderson Cooper recently interviewed a recovering QAnon supporter, who tells him there were many theories about Cooper, including one that said he was actually a robot. The embarrassed former QAnon supporter admits that he had once believed that the people behind Q "were actually a group of 5th dimensional, intra-dimensional, extraterrestrial bi-pedal bird aliens called blue avians."
During that interview, he also tells Anderson Cooper, "I apologize for thinking that you ate babies."
ABC News reports that some QAnon adherents "are turning to therapy and online support groups to talk about the damage done when beliefs collide with reality," including Ceally Smith, a working single mom in Kansas City: "We as a society need to start teaching our kids to ask: Where is this information coming from? Can I trust it?" she said. "Anyone can cut and paste anything." After a year, Smith wanted out, suffocated by dark prophesies that were taking up more and more of her time, leaving her terrified....
Another ex-believer, Jitarth Jadeja, now moderates a Reddit forum called QAnon Casualties to help others like him, as well as the relatives of people still consumed by the theory. Membership has doubled in recent weeks to more than 119,000 members. Three new moderators had to be added just to keep up. "They are our friends and family," said Jadeja, of Sydney, Australia. "It's not about who is right or who is wrong. I'm here to preach empathy, for the normal people, the good people who got brainwashed by this death cult." His advice to those fleeing QAnon? Get off social media, take deep breaths, and pour that energy and internet time into local volunteering.
Michael Frink is a Mississippi computer engineer who helps administer a QAnon recovery channel on the social media platform Telegram. He said that while mocking the group has never been more popular online, it will only further alienate people. Frink said he never believed in the QAnon theory but sympathizes with those who did. "I think after the inauguration a lot of them realized they've been taken for a ride," he said.
The New York Times tells the story of one Bernie Sanders supporter who entered — and then exited — the QAnon movement: Those who do leave are often filled with shame. Sometimes their addiction was so severe that they have become estranged from family and friends... "We felt we were coming from a place of moral superiority. We were part of a special club." Meanwhile, her family was eating takeout all the time since she had stopped cooking and her stress levels had shot up, causing her blood pressure medication to stop working. Her doctor, worried, doubled her dose...
When she first left QAnon, she felt a lot of shame and guilt. It was also humbling: Ms. Perron, who has a master's degree, had looked down on Scientologists as people who believed crazy things. But there she was...
She agreed to speak for this article to help others who are still in the throes of QAnon.
And CNN reporter Anderson Cooper recently interviewed a recovering QAnon supporter, who tells him there were many theories about Cooper, including one that said he was actually a robot. The embarrassed former QAnon supporter admits that he had once believed that the people behind Q "were actually a group of 5th dimensional, intra-dimensional, extraterrestrial bi-pedal bird aliens called blue avians."
During that interview, he also tells Anderson Cooper, "I apologize for thinking that you ate babies."
Not as many as you'd think (Score:4, Interesting)
The ones who leave the cult are the more moderate voices... the convinced faction will double down and resume comfort in their familiar rabbit hole.
The result will be the average fanaticism of individual members will increase.
Shame on those who would exploit these most vulnerable... by any means necessary is the war cry of the chieftan we don't want, but perhaps deserve.
Re:Not as many as you'd think (Score:5, Insightful)
There's never been an apocalyptic cult that disappeared just because the apocalypse didn't happen when predicted; you lose a few followers, but the same gullibility that made most cult members members makes it easy for them to swallow excuses for why the apocalypse didn't happen. Broadly speaking it breaks down to two options: the timing of the prediction is a little off, or the Apocalypse actually *did* happen, people aren't attuned enough to the esoteric truth to see. We're seeing *both* flavors of rationalization in QAnon believers: that the storm is still yet to come, only on March 20, or that the storm actually happened, and Trump is still president, just *secretly*.
Re: Not as many as you'd think (Score:2)
And here's an example of the batshit crazy lunacy.
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But maybe the flat Earthers are right, there really is a global conspiracy.
Follow the money, selling globes is more profitable then selling flat maps.
To be fooled again. (Score:3)
What's interesting about these people is that they are confused and angry that they could be duped but alas they both lack to tools needed to not be duped and distrust the very sources of information that could help them. What this means is that their "recovery" is a temporary status because they will be once again duped by something that would be otherwise recognized as outlandish.
Sadly, the best defense for these types of people is to not participate in the political arena where disinformation is abound.
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What's interesting about these people is that they are confused and angry that they could be duped but alas they both lack to tools needed to not be duped and distrust the very sources of information that could help them. What this means is that their "recovery" is a temporary status because they will be once again duped by something that would be otherwise recognized as outlandish.
Sadly, the best defense for these types of people is to not participate in the political arena where disinformation is abound.
It's easy to be dismissive of folks and suggest they're "those kinds of people," meaning dumb, credulous, uneducated, mentally ill, etc
I would caution, however, those adjectives don't always seem to apply to everyone joining these conspiracy cults. Indeed, there are more than a few sensitive, intelligent folks who seem to be joining these things, and, honestly, it should concern everybody who wants a society functioning off good scientific information that's not based in conspiracy reasoning.
There are abso
Re:To be fooled again. (Score:5, Insightful)
Q: Who is susceptible to deception?
A: Everyone.
Deceivers don't appeal to logic. They appeal to the scary parts of us we don't want to admit are within us. The parts of us that contain fear, anger, confusion, doubt, etc. Pseudo-logic and outright fallacies can be the bait, the subtle 'truthiness' that seduces us into listening. And their hook is the promise of a quick and simple solution or explanation for everything. They manipulate us into misplacing our trust in them. And once we have (mis)placed our trust in something, we tend to keep buying in, because to do otherwise is embarrassing, an admission of a failure on our part to spot the deception.
Getting people out of this kind of mind-trap requires compassion from those who know them. You need to recognize what happened to them could happen to anyone. They don't 'lack the tools' to get out. They just need to be reminded that they still have them, that they're entitled to question what they believe, that they're entitled to do their own research. And there are many people who have escaped cults permanently. But what starts the process (according to many recovered cultists) is planting a seed of doubt in their minds, a pernicious fact that the cult cannot explain. Any one of us can plant that seed with care and love.
Re:To be fooled again. (Score:5, Interesting)
Q: Who is susceptible to deception? A: Everyone.
Deceivers don't appeal to logic.
I've been using this site for over twenty years, and it's a been most of a decade since I've commented. This is the best thing I've seen on here since then. Whatever you do, keep drumming up the fight against ignorance and propaganda, and the people who've fallen victims of it. I don't want to get personal, but lets just say that I know from intimate experience what brainwashing does to a person, and the tremendous cost of clawing one's way out of it. Division in modern society is inevitable--and we must fight against those who seek to destroy rational thought!--but without empathy for those infected by bad ideas, shortchanged by their personal experiences, we'll end up punishing and alientating those victimized by bad actors exploiting cognitive vulnerabilities that every one of us has, we will push them out of sheer self-defense into voting in the people who will undo us.
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Namaste, kind sir/madam.
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Q: Who is susceptible to deception?
A: Everyone.
Deceivers don't appeal to logic. They appeal to the scary parts of us we don't want to admit are within us.
No way, I'm way too smart to that, you see I'm rational... or at least a good mark.
There was an excellent article about this in the FT recently.
https://www.ft.com/content/13f... [ft.com]
Paywalled sorry (IMO good journalism costs money, and I personally think it's worth supporting. Also the FT hardly ever gets torn a new one in Private Eye, which is a UK rag on curr
Obama's gonna take everybody's gunz!! (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm curious where these fucking idiots were when it turned out Obama didn't take everybody's guns and make America subject to Sharia law?
Re:Obama's gonna take everybody's gunz!! (Score:5, Interesting)
Oh I remember people and their Jade Helm [wikipedia.org] conspiracy. Back in the day, all the alt-righties were just sure that Obama was going to invoke martial law and assume complete dictatorship control. Even a family member told me that FEMA was building large fenced impound areas with (as he touches my shoulder for emphasis) the barbwire on the top facing inwards! Just four years later a cult leader comes along and did try a coup d'ate and they were praying/hoping for martial law. Go figure. It is nutz.
Re: Obama's gonna take everybody's gunz!! (Score:3, Insightful)
Well... I'd rather a bunch of crazy people keep an eye out for these things and br wrong than everyone assume "it can't happen here!!" and be wrong. The cost in the first place is pretty low. In the latter we're all fucked.
I hadn't heard much about Q before the election but dug in deep in maybe mid November and tracked back a bunch of Twitter theories to their origin videos on YouTube and the websites those guys hosted elsewhere linked to from the videoes.
What did I learn?
1) there are tunnels dug by Elon
Re: Obama's gonna take everybody's gunz!! (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd rather a bunch of crazy people keep an eye out for these things and br wrong than everyone assume "it can't happen here!!" and be wrong.
The problem is that the crazy people who were afraid Obama would seize the government were cheering and helping Trump as he attempted exactly that. There is a fascist movement in the Republican party, and it is powerful enough that few elected Republicans dare to condemn even the most batshit insanity. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news... [msn.com]
A lot of people freaked out when (Score:5, Insightful)
To make matters worse Fox News and other right wing media spent 8 years telling them that retribution was coming any day now. It whipped a lot of them into a frenzy. Then Trump and company spent 4 years feeding that frenzy until it blew up on Jan 6th.
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An name brought up in irony to point out how crazy all these theories are? Or a sincere belief Soros is trying to take over the world by giving money to liberals and can only be fought by giving money to conservatives who are trying to take over the world?
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It boggles the mind.
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Some people I think just parrot lines. My mom does this. She doesn't really have the sort of thinking where she could just debate someone and win, but she's good at repeating lines she hear from political spammy newsletters. Today it was a complaint about church not reopening for a couple more weeks because of "socialist rules", in the past it was "why are you so opposed to marriage" if i don't seem anti-gay enough for her, and so forth. And when she says this they sound like she's reading from a script
Re:Obama's gonna take everybody's gunz!! (Score:4, Insightful)
There was an interview with an ex-QAnon recently that talked about this, but I can't find it now. The gist of it was that people like the rhetoric and the dubious logic because it feels like they are being smart and rational. They have these "gotcha" lines they can throw out and then act like the just checkmated the argument.
Re: Obama's gonna take everybody's gunz!! (Score:2)
Biden campaigned on applying the NFA to all semiautomatic weapons. He doesn't have statutory authority to do so, but he said it and did some ads with Beto "hell yes we're going to take your AR15" O'Rourke during the campaign.
Obama wanted to push gun control after Sandy Hook and the Democrat-aligned media keep fawning over Australian, British, Canadian, and Nee Zealand gun confiscation.
You may doubt that such a policy would ever pass in the US (I'd agree at the federal level, but I also live in a state that
Cults and disinfo aren't new (Score:5, Insightful)
Cults aren't just Jim Jones and grifter gurus. They are a composite of things that can all be present in varying degrees, and all of them are toxic even in low-dose.
If it tries to force people to skip a blood transfusion that could save their lives, it's a cult.
If it demands that people believe only the "news" that comes from its insiders, and cites itself for evidence, it's a cult.
If it uses jargon words that mean one thing to the person off the street, but slow-walks people into an alternate meaning, it's a cult.
If it pulls out the stops to attack former insiders who dare to leave, and threaten their standing or safety, it's a cult.
But all of those things can happen in more subtle levels than drinking the poison kool-aid. Anyone who's gotten out of extreme fundamentalist religions or militia movements or whatever can tell you that.
Q-Anon was just a rehash of stuff that's been around for decades, and as someone formerly raised in cultish Pentecostalism who got tons of retribution when I left, I do feel for those waking up and realizing they've been used by a rebranded fascist cult that tried to recruit them for another Kristallnacht.
I'm glad we're seeing the signs that this is starting to end.
Get these folks each a copy of Carl Sagan's "The Demon-Haunted World". They don't need handed-down instructions from another authority. They need that famous baloney detection kit. They need walk-through of what the process of discovering truth looks like.
Re: Cults and disinfo aren't new (Score:2)
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You described a lot of the major stupid cult ideas, but you left out the general signs. A lot of major cults start off claiming they are the good guys and someone else is the cult (i.e. blaming the Jews, Antifa, Democrats, gays, Uighars, Muslims, Christians, etc.) So it ends up being who is the cult - us or them? One of the hall marks is that you claim the bad guys are SECRETLY a cult. Does happen, but rarely, so you need to double check by asking theses questions:
1) If it does not ask "Is there n
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You're exactly right. If, hypothetically, you're demonizing people, making cartoon caricatures of them, you can't understand or predict them. If they actually are up to something that's hurting society, you're not going to know how to fight them effectively. There are truly insane psychopaths in the world, at least 19 times out of 20, and yes things do happen that would blow most people's minds, but those are corner cases.
One should try to imagine a rational actor in another life, another social in-group
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A good book also would be Jame's Randi's Flim-Flam.
Surely... (Score:2)
Impeach (Score:2)
Can QAnon explain why they are saying you can't impeach a president after he leaves office .. this while they previously state a president can pardon himself?
Doesn't that mean a president can assault (or worse) a bunch of people on January 20th morning and immediately pardon himself and get away with that? It seems like a loophole the founders would not have wanted, since they didn't want anyone above the law.
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It's been well understood that presidents can be impeached after leaving office. We don't have to take this argument any more seriously than Bill Barr's confusion about whether it was legal for people to vote twice, after Donnie recommended that they do so.
In any case, Republicans previously voted to acquit because they wanted to let voters decide, but Donnie still refuses to acknowledge the voter's decision, so in this case it's particularly appropriate to continue with the impeachment.
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Nearly all of the republican thought leaders (aka radio talk show hosts) have been unanimous in saying the president can pardon himself and also that the president can't be impeached after leaving office. It has to be one or the either. I am sure around the time of Biden's presidency ending they'll change their position and revert it back when/if Trump comes back.
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Which is so stupid since they won't have to face them for another two years.
Truth? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Truth? (Score:5, Insightful)
When are you going to realize that if you vote for someone who won't recognize elections then you're voting to give up your own vote?
The biggest difference between Biden and Donnie is that Biden will leave when he loses. That has to be a baseline quality for a US politician or we'll fail as a country. The people who are too dim to see that really owe Biden and the Democrats big for saving their butts.
Re:Truth? (Score:5, Insightful)
He didn't leave when he lost the election, he left when his coup attempt failed. That is not the same.
Fuck them. (Score:5, Insightful)
You don't get to go back to normal. You should be greatly ashamed of your gullibility and you should keep reminding yourself that you were easily led, despite thinking you were intelligent and free thinker and only you knows what's really going on. That goes for all you alt-right and right wing nerds on Slashdot. You're not above everybody else just because you think you're more intelligent. You're not more intelligent - you're just a nerd. You believe all sorts of ideological crap from which you interpret the world. You don't know what's really going on anymore than anyone else.
It's your own responsibility to develop a working internal bullshit detector, and it's your own responsibility to point that detector at yourself from time to time.
Re: Fuck them. (Score:2)
All true. But why limit your comments to the right? Do you believe the left also need bullshit detectors? Or is everything the left believes true without examination and question?
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There's plenty of what I would call "faith-based" bullshit on the left as well.
At the moment it's an indulgence in so-called anti-racism, "equity" and "systemic" racism. These are things that in order to believe them, you have to take them on faith (rather than facts).
For you to believe that systemic racism is a real ongoing problem you have to essentially engage in magical thinking--that there is some sort of nation-wide conspiracy by white people to put black-people in jail, deny them housing, and educati
Re: Fuck them. (Score:4, Insightful)
For you to believe that systemic racism is a real ongoing problem you have to essentially engage in magical thinking--that there is some sort of nation-wide conspiracy by white people to put black-people in jail, deny them housing, and educational opportunities.
That's ACTUAL racism, not systemic. Systemic racism is seeing where it has been built into the system, that people unaffected don't think about because it has always been there and "that's just how things have always been and everything's fine."
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laws have been passed, and social attitudes about racism has shifted.
That's hilarious that you believe that delusion while lecturing others about magical thinking.
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Re: Fuck them. (Score:5, Insightful)
I think most people believe what their authorities tell them. Either their religious leaders, their financial advisors, their boss at work, and so forth. The thing is, sometimes you get the authorities kind of mixed up. So some will accept what their religious and political leaders tell them and won't question it or research it.
Generally the left is kooky as hell when it comes to political beliefs. Same as the right. The difference perhaps is when things aren't political beliefs. Climate change is not political, and so what the scientists seem to generally accept is their authority on the left; but on the right they have twisted this to be a political issue and so they rely upon what their political leaders tell them.
But most of the difference between the classical left and the classical right is that they both agree what the problems are but they disagree on the best way to solve those problems. Today it has changed so that it's no longer a friendly competition of ideas, instead people are literally phrasing a mere political disagreement as a fight between good and evil (seriously, this meme came up just today on facebook, "do you want your children growing up in a world controlled by evil people?").
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Both sides (well, ALL sides) need bullshit detectors. And as soon as left-wing elected officals start talking about baby-eating lizard-man pedophiles, we'll post slashdot stories about them too. But until then we'll focus on detecting the current Crazy.
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In high school, Uri Geller was at the height of his fame and craziness. I was telling a friend how it's just a magic trick, and that I could bend car keys in a similar way using a magic trick. She asked me to demonstrate. So I borrowed her keys, told her it was just a trick, then "bent" the keys. I totally flubbed the trick though, I hadn't practiced, it was the first time I ever attempted it. But... the key was bent and she didn't see me do it. Her first words were "are you sure you're aren't psychic
Shifting blame for their own stupidity (Score:2)
Idiots that join the stupid club have only one person to blame,
the one they see in the mirror.
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Idiots that join the stupid club have only one person to blame,
the one they see in the mirror.
Ah, so it _is_ somebody else responsible! They lucked out.
Just to funny to be true (Score:2)
"who has a master's degree, had looked down on Scientologists as people who believed crazy things. But there she was..."
CNN reporter Anderson Cooper recently interviewed
What is their take on Trust?
There is no shame in admitting you were misled (Score:2)
Mindset of QAnon people I've known (Score:2)
They are of above average IQ, but seem drawn to movements that are anti-establishment, even if often of conflicting ideologies. They're needy opportunistic followers, and as such can be insanely gullible. If they are a member of a rational, sensible movement, it's because it feeds their need to be superior in knowledge and judgment over everyone outside of the movement, and will just as easily bounce back and forth between the rational and sensible that exist outside of them, and the irrational and most foo
what? (Score:2)
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The addiction (Score:2)
Sounds exactly like Facebook, only that one lacking the 'death cult' aspect.
Unfortunately, there is no way to directly kill an account other than maybe spamming "stop the steal" or something, but that is no surefire way to do it, and most FB addicts wouldn't think to do something like this anyway.
FB addiction is real, and destructive, and removing the ability to kill an account right away, instead they put you on a waiting period where one wrong move on a site only linked to FB can reset that clock, is down
How can you talk to a Qanon believer? (Score:5, Interesting)
Did you see a bit of drivel? Me neither.
I actually know a Qanon believer. Many years ago she used to be sane enough. Heck, at one period it was even conceivable we could have taken a path towards getting married. We didn't and after that she went back to the religious craziness and lately all the way to Qanon. Latest message was just a few days ago. An anti-vaxxer rant. I haven't blocked or ghosted her yet, though I'm thinking about it now.
I keep repeating the same two basic questions, and she keep responding with crazy religious rants:
(1) How are you being manipulated?
(2) Why?
On (1), it is clear enough that her faith is being used against her, though the details are still confusing. I've actually listened to a lot of Biblical exegesis and I can see how Q is using the hooks, but I still don't understand how the brain hacking is working.
Regarding (2), I know she's harmless and not powerful or influential. No guns and not rich or anything along those lines. Why is Q targeting people like her? Or is she just collateral damage?
Maybe I'm just crippled by my ethics? I don't like to be manipulated and applying Kant's Categorical Imperative, I don't want to manipulate anyone else. So therefore I can't understand how the brainphishing works?
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Those who are immersed in a religious faith-based worldview are generally easier to manipulate. Qanon is naturally targeting those who are easy to manipulate. And Q doesn't have a canonical scripture to hold back meme creation and mutation so combine this with the Internet and meme spread is fast, furious, and viral.
Re:How can you talk to a Qanon believer? (Score:5, Insightful)
Those who are immersed in a religious faith-based worldview are generally easier to manipulate.
The reasons for that are pretty obvious to anybody not affected: If you have a faith-based world-view, you already left a factual view behind with regards to some pretty fundamental questions. Sure, there are no known reliable answers for quite a few of these questions. For example "Is death the end?" does only have one scientifically sound answer at this time and that is "nobody really knows". People that have a faith-based worldview cannot stand that uncertainty and are desperate to fill that void. Whether it is by the usual religious constructions or, for example, by physicalism, i.e. a religion surrogate. Once you have started not requiring evidence on fundamental things, it gets easier and easier to add more things you just believe without evidence and at some point you stop asking for evidence altogether.
Now, I think anybody that managed to get out of this does not need to be embarrassed at all. Getting out of a worldview-related delusion is a huge accomplishment. I do think these people should be encouraged to question anything else they took on faith so far though.
Re:How can you talk to a Qanon believer? (Score:5, Interesting)
If you have a faith-based world-view, you already left a factual view behind with regards to some pretty fundamental questions.
But worse, you were conditioned to accept what someone in authority told you, and were threatened with punishment if you questioned that. (Physical or supernatural.)
The world is a scary and uncertain place, and although "I don't know" is the right answer a large percent of the time, a lot of people are really, really mentally and emotionally unable to choose that answer. Instead they resort to, "whatever someone I think is important tells me", and that's almost always what will most benefit that important person.
If I could have one wish, it would be that we could instill in everyone a bullshit detector. Unfortunately we can't, and a lot of people fail to question a lot of the bullshit they are fed day in and day out. If you can't see it and opt out, you're going to be well over your head in the stuff. And thus Qanon.
Re:How can you talk to a Qanon believer? (Score:5, Informative)
> For example "Is death the end?" does only have one scientifically sound answer at this time and that is "nobody really knows".
That isn't true. The scientific evidence that the mind is a process of the nervous system is pretty solid. The question is no harder to answer scientifically than "What happens to digestion after death?"
It's almost a tautology that death is the irrecoverable end of that process.
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You have that entirely backwards
There is a faith based belief that consciousness isn't a result of biological complexity and that it's somehow this outside 'thing' that puppets our bodies from a pretend alternate reality plane.
We can use science to figure out how a couple pounds of meat can use a complex set of interconnections to model the physical universe, and we can use faith to believe that fragile and delicate process continues somehow, without any physical explanation at all, unabated after the meat
Re:How can you talk to a Qanon believer? (Score:4, Insightful)
It isn't one because the other cannot be demonstrated.
This is a flawed argument, see a post I made above with detailed explanation and links as to why. Science is not about proving things, it is about adjusting beliefs based on the balance of evidence. The only valid proofs I know are over mathematical constructs.
Your conclusions are based on assumptions, while I have made none.
On the contrary, you seem to be assuming hidden/magical/obscure forces that extend "life" past the destruction of a body into "some other" realm. Those are SEVERAL and HUGE assumptions. I believe spikesahead is making little assumptions at all: "I see a live person, now I see a dead person, end of story".
His biological explanation is also supported by some actual science/evidence, like the fact that brain accidents can dramatically change personality and other personal attributes that many attribute to a "soul".
Hope it helps :-)
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Re: How can you talk to a Qanon believer? (Score:4, Insightful)
"Part of the reason for that was his background in quantum chemistry (PhD, many publications) -- he felt there were too many largely inexplicable things in his area of research to believe that science and reason are the be all and end all."
You can be smart and still succumb to fear.
Re: How can you talk to a Qanon believer? (Score:3)
You are using logic and philosophy. Half the people here couldn't give a shit about those. It is their belief that they are superior and they spend their time thinking about how which is why you get gold polished turd "insights" like belief is bad aur people have raised to accept authority both of which are nonsensical unscientific bs statements completely opposite of fact.
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It is their belief that they are superior
*sigh*
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Depends on the faith. Science doesn't give a shit.
Hence the "theoretical", as in not real. Once demonstrated, it leaves that realm. Good you put those scare quotes around that word because postulating something does not equal believing it.
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I have noticed that many of the pro-Trump facebook posts and meme have very strong resemblance to posts and pictures from religious friends. Someone religious that just feels compelled to reshare every religious picture he comes across, versus a Trump follower that just feels compelled to reshare every pro-Trump or anti-non-Trump picture he comes across, they feel very very similar. The Trump followers do seem to have a very similar sort of devotion and ecstasy, although the religious friends tend to be h
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What's the point, other than a sort of religious devotion to the person?
Well, that's Trumpism in a nutshell. If you objectively look at what Trump said and did, there is no reason for anyone to like the guy. He cultivated a cult of personality through rambling and shouting long enough that everyone's eyes glazed over and they projected in him what they wanted.
There was never a real policy or plan on the part of Trump. No coherent direction for his presidency other than, "You're not happy, let me point you to possible people who are responsible for that."
I mean, FFS, he ran his
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Those who are immersed in a religious faith-based worldview are generally easier to manipulate.
Well of course- they're predisposed to believe in magical bullshit and are only to happy to suspend their disbelief.
Like shooting fish in a barrel.
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(1) How are you being manipulated?
(2) Why?
I'll be honest, those are not the questions you should ask someone if you want a sincere, reasonable answer.
Re:How can you talk to a Qanon believer? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why is Q targeting people like her?
Why do you think this is the result of targeting? I'm not convinced there's any significant targeting going on here at any level.
I am marginally acquainted with several people on the fringes of QAnon, and from what I can see they're doing it to themselves. And the one I've known for a long time (I went to college with him; and my wife and I still know him and his wife socially) has always leaned towards conspiracy theories in his personal explanations of situations he doesn't like.
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I think the fact that they were doing it to themselves by following their impulses should be a hopeful sign that they can largely undo it as well by following their more rational impulses. In most cults (according to my wikideep knowledge) the person has alienated friends and family and has surrounded themselves with fellow cultists. With youtube indoctrination, they aren't actually surrounded by cultmembers, and Joe Biden being boring is a daily reminder that Trump is out of office, and therefore that Q w
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I am marginally acquainted with several people on the fringes of QAnon,
If you wouldn't mind, the propagandhi campaign [youtube.com] could always use some more puppets^H^H^H^H^H^H^HCertified Sino-Russian Disinformation Agents, so would you please post their names, email addresses, and favorite TV shows?
With /s,
lessSock morePuppet
Re:How can you talk to a Qanon believer? (Score:4, Insightful)
It's probably a waste of time. If you could reason with QAnon supporters, there wouldn't be any QAnon supporters.
Same thing for religion and most of the other "woo" bullshit.
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I have a cousin that is a cloistered nun in a similar position. My advice was that she needed to step back from her sources of news and maybe read a book. I know I have my own biases, and that they are formed with incomplete information, but the obsession is amazing.
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Brother, you dodged a bullet. Maybe literally.
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Bigotry has to play a part. I don't mean Bigotry as a synonym for racism, but the real meaning of bigotry: The assumption that ones beliefs are correct because they are believed, leading to discounting any opposing ideas without bothering to reason about them.
If your belief is shown to be wrong, a non-bigot will change their belief. A bigot will seek out a new belief that reconciles the inconvenient facts or turns them on their head.
So we get this sequence: "Trump is a good person" (belief) -> "Trump p
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Regarding (2), I know she's harmless and not powerful or influential. No guns and not rich or anything along those lines. Why is Q targeting people like her? Or is she just collateral damage?
I can think of two reasons to target someone like her: a) the more followers you have the more money you can make from them; and b) the more followers you have the more influence you have on the world outside QAnon (e.g on politics, markets, etc). So yeah, she is a pawn in someone else's game -- i.e. collateral damage.
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These hypotheses came up after it became an undeniable fact that German citizens, despite having enjoyed the relative luxury that is offered by the social state, for some reasons were convinced to join ISIS. Men were convinced into dying for their cause and women were convinced into effectively becoming breeding stoc
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Indeed. The modern "filter bubble" is a very old thing.
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Re:There are not enough social workers (Score:5, Insightful)
They're not necessarily stupid; a lot of them are ordinary people who fell into a cult that didn't look like a cult because it is a *civil* cult. If you pick it apart it's deeply apocalyptic and messianic under the surface.
And it's slick; they "red pill" new members using coded language, and by the time they're looking at the bare naked craziness they've become emotionally dependent on the social connections pushing it.
The closest thing I've seen to it before is anti-vaxxing. Antivaxxers get a rewarding sense of connection through their shared, Manichean world view. A lot of the tropes are the same "do the research", which is basically going online and finding the same bad information sources to locate the same pre-ordained coniclusions. And there's of course the occasional kernel of truth -- Jeffrey Epstein, and Martin Shkreli -- people who show there truly *is* something wrong with the system, just not everything and everyone.
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Very insightful, I was wondering whether to mod up or add a comment, the latter prevailed (I hope you'll get more mods up).
An important aspect of this is modern social media, which by definition filter content one showed interest before, leaving out anything one didn't like, it's like the last spiral fly of a moth, the more one get involved the more online content is filtered and narrowed, it all reminds me of this old movie "Cube" - what a metaphor for humanity it was.
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The social bubble is often also a political bubble, a religious bubble, and so forth. Like minded people who look inward at each other and ignore that there are other views out there by people they actually know or see on the street.
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An organization where members "get a rewarding sense of connection through their shared, Manichean world view" sounds a lot like a religion.
Which is one reason why no one should be surprised many people are susceptible to these kinds of beliefs, regardless of intelligence. Anyone who thinks only stupid people believe in religion have a very warped sense of reality.
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Looking for a Final Solution, eh?
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Too smart for existing institutions... but too stupid for society; something for the IQ 70-80 people needs to be built.
Oh for gods' sake, this has very little to do with intelligence. As recent as 20 years ago Nature found that nearly 10% of members of the National Academy of Science still believed in a god. If the people who are among the most intelligent and scientifically educated people in the world can still believe in 2000+ year old mythologies because of the culture they grew up in, intelligence isn't going to save them for falling for ridiculous movements.
Being intelligent does make you less susceptible to these kin
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Hahahaha on you (Score:2)
ABC, NYT, and CNN? Well, that's everything I need to judge the veracity of this submission.
Sarcasm detected. Now kindly share with us what you consider to be sufficient evidence to support the veracity of a submission.
Re:thank you, next step (Score:5, Insightful)
I am VERY prone to being misled by malicious conmen. May god give me the grace to accept this.
Oh, the irony.
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I am VERY prone to being misled by malicious conmen. May god give me the grace to accept this.
Oh, the irony.
Probably completely lost on this person. Of course, as cults go, these days the major religions are relatively benign.
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A large part of the evangelical christian movement is responsible for this whole mess. They are very much not benign.
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every morning, for the rest of your life, when you wake up, repeat this to yourself 3 times:
"I am an idiot and probably mentally unstable. I must work to accept this about myself, and cope with these problems, in order to ensure that I don't drag the rest of my species down into the screaming abyss. Most people are MUCH smarter than me, which means that I have a hard time distinguishing fact from fiction, and I am VERY prone to being misled by malicious conmen. May god give me the grace to accept this."
My friend, this seems like incredibly wise advice for absolutely everybody. I'd include Einstein, but he's dead and probably not interested.
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It's all relative. hah.
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exactly, look at these "sources" CNN, NYT, ABC
Not a reliable one in the bunch.
Must be Russian Collusion !!!
Anyone disgusted with Biden yet ?
You will be...