[HN Gopher] The Now-Defunct Firms Behind 8chan, QAnon
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The Now-Defunct Firms Behind 8chan, QAnon
Author : headalgorithm
Score : 162 points
Date : 2020-10-23 09:15 UTC (13 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (krebsonsecurity.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (krebsonsecurity.com)
| motohagiography wrote:
| It's an interesting find. The difference between these sites and
| spam sites is that they are mostly self-contained comment boards.
| You have to actually go do them to interact with them, where
| spammers were breaking the internet.
|
| What clicked for me in this article is asking why I ever thought
| the internet was about ideas, what it might have meant pre-
| internet for people to be free of a "mainstream" in the old music
| and style subcultures, and what the consequences of "eternal
| september," really were.
|
| When we say mainstream, I think we mean aligned to the dominant
| power, and the culture that comes with a mainstream is based on
| litigating rules for incremental advantage. Internet trolls use
| the higher bar for entry of tech focused platforms to harass
| people who are competing in the desperate political struggle for
| approval that is mainstream social media. Conversely, this
| mainstream culture is also the source of the visceral disgust
| some people have for lawyers, journalists, activists, and other
| people who affect being underdogs so they aren't held to the
| standards of honest people, and then antagonize others using
| those dominant rules as a cover. The same can be said for trolls.
| What it comes down to is this calculus of self permission to act
| like a piece of shit because you identify as the underdog.
|
| It's not the platforms, it's the single idea that identifying as
| an outsider, resister, pariah, defender, or challenger, justifies
| cruelty because being "good," is defined by your chosen bugbear.
| The reality is the mainstream is not "good," the public sphere is
| an open sewer, and the only things that float in it are turds.
| It's not a right/left thing, it's a conflict between people
| competing for mainstream power and people trying to find freedom
| from that mainstream's domain, with some of each self-identifying
| as beneath decency.
|
| The conspiracy-sphere of alternative internet platforms isn't the
| problem. I would defend the necessity of their existence because
| trying and failing and building new things requires real privacy
| away from the mindless predation of both the mainstream and the
| pariah net. Sure, take them down as a forcing function to make
| the new private sphere stronger with a higher bar to entry that
| is cryptographically enabled, but it's not solving the problem
| they think.
| leftyted wrote:
| > Internet trolls use the higher bar for entry of tech focused
| platforms to harass people who are competing in the desperate
| political struggle for approval that is mainstream social
| media. Conversely, this mainstream culture is also the source
| of the visceral disgust some people have for lawyers,
| journalists, activists, and other people who affect being
| underdogs so they aren't held to the standards of honest
| people, and then antagonize others using those dominant rules
| as a cover. The same can be said for trolls. What it comes down
| to is this calculus of self permission to act like a piece of
| shit because you identify as the underdog.
|
| > It's not the platforms, it's the single idea that identifying
| as an outsider, resister, pariah, defender, or challenger,
| justifies cruelty because being "good," is defined by your
| chosen bugbear. The reality is the mainstream is not "good,"
| the public sphere is an open sewer, and the only things that
| float in it are turds. It's not a right/left thing, it's a
| conflict between people competing for mainstream power and
| people trying to find freedom from that mainstream's domain,
| with some of each self-identifying as beneath decency.
|
| What a great insight.
|
| My opinion is that this comes down to the fact that we cannot
| be good in public. The more "in public" we are, the more
| dishonest we are.
|
| The private sphere -- family, close friends, personal intimacy,
| etc -- is where people are at their best. We can be honest
| there. We can show weakness, we can apologize, we can
| compromise and we can forgive.
|
| The internet has made lots of things public that used to be
| private. It is also taking things that were public and making
| them more public. This is making the world worse.
|
| Since I know you've read Hannah Arendt, this matches up well
| with her assertion that "in politics, love is a stranger, and
| when it intrudes upon it nothing is being achieved except
| hypocrisy" and "hatred and love belong together, and they are
| both destructive; you can afford them only in the private". She
| insisted on glory -- not goodness or justice or love -- as the
| sole criterion for political action.
| vonwoodson wrote:
| The idea that we are "good in private" is a cultural
| statement. In fact, I'd have argued against it only a few
| months ago before I became aware that this is the norm for
| most of the world. In my world, all the dirty lies and
| secrets are kept private. We "put our best foot forward" and
| "manage our personal brand". I think that this idea alone is
| worth discussing more, especially as it relates to justice.
| In my world, if you act out in public the police get
| involved. The police carry guns here, and they use them. On
| the internet, if you act out... ... ...honestly, I can't
| finish that. It's liberating to those of us who have
| suppressed ourselves, but it's also culturally devastating to
| be so viciously attacked openly by people in public. It makes
| me want to shut down the offenders, with a violent
| righteousness of a public super-hero. Yet, I'm as helpless
| ever.
| bigbubba wrote:
| I assume 'your part of the world' is America. I can flip
| somebody the bird for obeying the speed limit and nobody
| calls cops with guns to stop me from being a shithead. I
| think it's _generally_ true that people are more willing to
| be assholes to strangers than their close acquaintances.
| This has certainly been my observation of American culture
| at least. People are ruder to people the further removed
| from those people they are and are very rarely ever ruder
| than they are in public. I 've heard similar sentiments
| from people who work in public facing jobs, particularly
| retail.
| motohagiography wrote:
| Thanks, her whole thing on private/public is something I'd
| like to read next, as I have a hypothesis that there is a
| thread of continuity between the collapse of the Private and
| the scale of cruelty in the 20th century. These conflicts
| about chans and censorship and conspiracy theories are
| artifacts of categories I think we've all seen before.
|
| I'd agree that truth in public is as welcome as truth to
| power, perhaps because they are related. The point of a
| separate public is to keep the ball in the air so we can
| coexist under conventions and merciful pretenses, whereas
| when it becomes overpowering and breaches the private sphere,
| it's just Hobbes' war of all against all.
|
| Feminist critiques I read at school back in the day about the
| Private sphere as the origin of patriarchy bring the division
| into a modern context. If we imagine the current trend in
| global internet culture as an extension of that revolt
| against the private sphere, it yields some uncomfortable
| questions about what the endgame looks like if that animus
| swings out of balance. Hence, I see a lot of the crazy online
| stuff as people expressing their instincts for what's going
| on and what they fear is going to happen to them, but they
| don't have the critical tools or the privacy to develop and
| articulate them.
|
| HN provides the closest thing we have to an elevated semi-
| private discourse to raise this stuff.
| MrMan wrote:
| there is nothing elevated about HN, that is your brain
| playing tricks on you. Privacy is an illusion, self is an
| illusion. smart people are manipulated just as easily as
| dumb people, by people who have been studying how to do it,
| and now with mass social media, have the tools to do it.
| hutzlibu wrote:
| Well, I would say here on HN at least the general bar is
| higher.
|
| And sure, anybody can be manipulated, but also, with
| different amount of effort.
|
| Tricking my young family teenage members into buying
| something shiny they don't really need?
|
| Not too hard, show a cool ad or pay some influencer to
| feature the product in a way. Getting people of the HN
| crowd to buy somehing shiny they don't need? Lets say,
| the new KI assistance?
|
| I would say, that is a lot harder, as most people here
| understand how (political) marketing works. And once you
| understand, you don't fall for it so easily.
| watwut wrote:
| The private sphere is where the most severe abuse happens.
| motohagiography wrote:
| There's a fair bit of back and forth on it, here's wiki to
| start it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_sphere
|
| Most of the criticisms of the ideas of the public/private
| sphere root back to Aristotle, and unfortunately, Google
| has elevated more recent, post Marx criticisms of it (imo)
| since setting it up as an evil is the basis of popular
| current cultural theory, but it's a foundational concept
| that predates the view of history as progress.
|
| The idea of the private has more relevance today now that
| it's so rare.
| [deleted]
| 0xy wrote:
| The best antidote for bad ideas and conspiracy theories is
| transparency and public debate.
|
| This move will serve to push these movements underground to Tor
| or other uncensorable networks where they're even harder to
| monitor. It also sends a message to them that they're on to
| something (because if the QAnon conspiracy was real, the "deep
| state" would indeed try to snuff it out).
|
| I feel like this is such a bad precedent and will not end well.
| It will embolden the crazies. It's also not clear where this is
| supposed to end?
|
| Flat earthers? 9/11 truthers? Who's next?
| Broken_Hippo wrote:
| _The best antidote for bad ideas and conspiracy theories is
| transparency and public debate._
|
| Folks have tried this - multiple times - with anti-vaxxers. And
| flat earthers. And other anti-science folks. Yet, it has
| spread. THe other party has to be willing to actually accept
| the facts: Unfortunately, the very nature of a conspiracy is
| that they don't accept the facts that others have.
|
| _This move will serve to push these movements underground to
| Tor or other uncensorable networks where they 're even harder
| to monitor. It also sends a message to them that they're on to
| something (because if the QAnon conspiracy was real, the "deep
| state" would indeed try to snuff it out)._
|
| Good. You know what happens when the information isn't easy to
| access? They have less reach. It gets harder to radicalize and
| convince others. It gets harder to stumble across the content.
| It isn't like we can avoid them thinking they are onto
| something: Everything against them is a sign to that.
|
| It isn't like we really monitor them well enough to prevent all
| attacks, anyway.
|
| _I feel like this is such a bad precedent and will not end
| well. It will embolden the crazies. It 's also not clear where
| this is supposed to end? Flat earthers? 9/11 truthers? Who's
| next?_
|
| Folks whose conspiracies harm others. Most flat earthers aren't
| going to cause harm to you unless you work in the right field.
| Some folks might just need watched from time to time. However,
| anti-vaxxers hurt others. Not only do they convince others not
| to vaccinate, but they put folks that can't be vaccinated or
| the immunocompromised at risk.
|
| In any case, it will end somewhere, like things always do.
| dragontamer wrote:
| > The best antidote for bad ideas and conspiracy theories is
| transparency and public debate.
|
| I've been on the internet for decades. I fully disagree with
| this. EDIT: Mass bannings, aka an "Exodus Event", was the
| solution to almost all major conspiracies I've witnessed.
|
| 1. When GameFAQs LUEsers gained conspiracy theories against the
| website and other reckless behavior, to the point of harming
| the website, the solution was to cut off LUE and prevent the
| public from viewing that message board.
|
| 2. I never visited SomethingAwful, but clearly the toxic subset
| of that community was banned and eventually moved to 4chan.
|
| 3. 4Chan's prominence in the late 00s / early 10s was clearly
| toxic and always was. 4chan was just focused on hitting "safe"
| targets, such as harassing Scientology / Scientologists. As
| soon as 4chan's toxic behavior was unleashed to more mainstream
| ideas, it was clear that the toxicity had to be stopped, and
| 4chan moderators stepped up their game.
|
| 4. 8Chan was created in response to the Gamergate conspiracies,
| as was some legitimate sites like Resetera (though they took
| the less conspiracy-minded side).
|
| ----------
|
| For the most part, the bannings on 4Chan worked. We don't see
| Gamergaters pushing their silly conspiracy theories today, or
| other vile attacks on people. Furthermore, the doxing /
| swatting mostly stopped on that subject.
|
| > This move will serve to push these movements underground to
| Tor or other uncensorable networks where they're even harder to
| monitor.
|
| Yes, that's called an exodus. But as various websites gain
| prominence, they discover again-and-again that with prominence
| comes responsibility.
|
| When you have a group of doxers and swatters visiting your
| website, you start to punish that subgroup. That's just what
| must happen. Yeah, its a temporary fix (doxers / swatters will
| move elsewhere), but at a minimum, it sends the message that
| such behavior won't be tolerated.
|
| > It also sends a message to them that they're on to something
| (because if the QAnon conspiracy was real, the "deep state"
| would indeed try to snuff it out).
|
| Tell me: when a child is misbehaving and thinks "Adults are out
| to get me", do you go more lenient on them?
|
| EDIT: Adults are just like children: you have to punish bad
| behavior and reward good behavior. That's just the basis of
| building a modern society.
| 3np wrote:
| There's a very significant difference between website
| operators moderating content and banning users, versus
| coercing ISPs to block access to those sites or revoking
| ownership of IP numbers or DNS names.
| dragontamer wrote:
| The issue being raised is that the 8chan IPs here are owned
| by nobody.
|
| > Both the Nevada-based web hosting company owned by
| 8chan's current figurehead and the California firm that
| provides its sole connection to the Internet are defunct
| businesses in the eyes of their respective state
| regulators.
|
| > In practical terms, what this means is that the legal
| contracts which granted these companies temporary control
| over large swaths of Internet address space are now null
| and void, and American Internet regulators would be well
| within their rights to cancel those contracts and reclaim
| the space.
| bitdizzy wrote:
| Goodness! Someone else who remembers LUE. It's refreshing
| that someone else has noticed the repetitive cycle of the
| Internet. There were white supremacists taking advantage of
| usenet from the beginning. "Sunlight is the best
| disinfectant" is useless pablum to someone like me who has
| seen the same people acting in bad faith pushing the most
| pernicious ideas on each communication platform that comes
| and goes for decades.
| njharman wrote:
| So, the banning worked. There is no opinions you don't like
| on the internet anymore?
|
| And all the reporting and exposure from protesters and
| activists, and portrayals in media aka sunshine. Hasn't
| reduced racism and gender bigotry over last 50 years.
|
| I've been alive 50 years. Everything is better now than in
| the 70s 80s or 90s.
|
| There are louder fringers, amplified by internet et al.
| But, society at large has, is, and will continue to
| progress to less bigotry.
| dragontamer wrote:
| > So, the banning worked. There is no opinions you don't
| like on the internet anymore?
|
| The "exodus" events were never about silencing
| __opinions__. They were about destroying __actions__.
|
| In the case of 4chan and Gamergate, the Gamergaters were
| constantly Doxxing people and Swatting people online.
| Because these doxxing events and swatting events have
| mostly stopped, I can absolutely say that it was a
| success.
|
| -----
|
| In the case of GameFAQs LUEsers, it was a matter of "mods
| are asleep, post pornography" on child-friendly sections
| of the site (Like Pokemon and whatnot). Large scale
| coordinated efforts to troll and harass.
|
| That behavior largely stopped once LUE was silenced.
| Everyone agreed that free-speech was important, but not
| when that speech was used to disrupt and destroy the
| community. (IE: Coordinating widespread trolling
| efforts).
|
| Twitter, Facebook, and other mainstream sites are finally
| coming to terms with this reality. Heck, even Reddit had
| its exodus events when it banned /r/TheFappening,
| /r/jailbait, /r/WatchPeopleDie, /r/CreepShots, and other
| groups.
|
| Everyone is for freedom of speech, but the line is drawn
| at obviously abusive behavior. And guess what? Banning
| those communities works. People stopped making
| /r/CreepShots when the community was banned.
|
| ------
|
| Success? Yes. In every instance. Limited albeit: it
| forced the trolls and /r/CreepShot groups off the site
| and into worser corners of the internet. But it
| absolutely curtailed the growth of these communities.
|
| Its a limited success, but one that has clearly worked.
| More so than naive hopes of "engaging in debate" with
| these deplorables. Debate works on reasonable people. But
| when people decide to be unreasonable, you must enact
| stricter actions. An exodus event should never be taken
| lightly, and should only be used as a last resort.
|
| The new webmasters would accept the nomadic group (ie:
| LUEsers went to Something Awful IIRC), but when their
| toxic behavior became apparent, the exodus continued (ie:
| to 4Chan, and then finally to 8chan today).
|
| I'm no "internet historian": there are other people who
| have far better understanding of how these groups moved
| about. But from my casual perspective, the pattern of
| "harass -> banning -> exodus to new website -> harassment
| -> banning" is cyclical and almost predictable.
|
| --------
|
| Under no circumstances have I ever seen "debate" actually
| work to fix the poor behavior of a group. Absolutely
| never. Period. When a group has reached "critical
| trolling mass", its no longer about debate, but about
| harassment, and online intimidation. When you move in to
| try to engage in a friendly debate, they'll work to
| release your IP address, your phone number, your Facebook
| accounts... and harass you in the real world (and may
| even start Swatting you).
| 0xy wrote:
| There's 9 hits for the hard-R N-word on 4chan's /pol/ board
| right now.
|
| >We don't see Gamergaters pushing their silly conspiracy
| theories today
|
| According to a 4chan archive site, there have been 4,845
| mentions of "gamergate" this year alone. So that's absolutely
| false.
| rangibaby wrote:
| Only 9 basically proves OPs point. I haven't been near
| 4chan for over a decade but it was more like 9 times per
| post back in the day(a slight exaggeration)
| dragontamer wrote:
| > According to a 4chan archive site, there have been 4,845
| mentions of "gamergate" this year alone. So that's
| absolutely false.
|
| At the height of the Gamergate conspiracy, there were
| constant Doxxing and Swatting of game journalists. That
| behavior (knock on wood) seems to have stopped.
|
| MOOT publicly condemning the practice made a huge
| difference. It set lines in the sand, and people do trust
| their leaders. (And yes, 4chan's leader at the time was
| MOOT).
| srtjstjsj wrote:
| *moot
| tzs wrote:
| > The best antidote for bad ideas and conspiracy theories is
| transparency and public debate.
|
| Have you actually tried that? I have. I spent quite a while
| when I was in law school on some Usenet groups where tax
| conspiracy theorists hung out, thoroughly refuting their
| arguments (it was a good way for me to practice legal
| research).
|
| The problem was that the people who were coming up with the
| totally false but believable to people who only have a layman's
| understanding of law claims were easily able to do so faster
| than I and the other people also doing this could refute them.
| dooglius wrote:
| You seem to be implying it didn't work, but how do you know?
| Sure, the other person didn't go "I admit defeat", but the
| ideas can sit and percolate. Also, your messages may have had
| an effect on lurkers.
| TigeriusKirk wrote:
| Great point.
|
| People saying "You know what, I was wrong" is incredibly
| rare in public internet forums. Nearly non-existent in a
| lot of places.
|
| But it doesn't mean that they didn't shift their beliefs.
| And if nothing else, they may not spread it again.
|
| You'll just likely never know.
| dhimes wrote:
| Yes, debate doesn't seem to work very well. The "persuaders"
| just pivot to another nonsense claim, and you waste a ton of
| time debunking it.
|
| It has to start with public culture. People should be a
| little embarrassed to be wrong; they should strive to be
| right. They should demand evidence.
|
| We're losing that. The rise of anti-intellectualism is
| allowing this fungus to grow and spread.
| sickcodebruh wrote:
| > The best antidote for bad ideas and conspiracy theories is
| transparency and public debate.
|
| This is only true when people participating in the debate
| operate in good faith and are able and willing to genuinely
| consider other ideas. Conspiracy theories often have more to do
| with faith than facts, there are no ideas to debate, so giving
| them room to breath becomes an opportunity for believers to
| proselytize. Traditionally, this has been somewhere between
| funny and annoying, but this is different.
|
| > Flat earthers? 9/11 truthers? Who's next?
|
| Well that's the thing, as far as I know, the big tech companies
| clamping down on QAnon haven't gone after flat earthers or 9/11
| truthers because those believers haven't been connected to
| multiple violent crimes. Flat Earth "thought leaders" aren't
| telling believers that elected officials are cult members who
| kill children, urging them to action. So to your statement,
| "It's also not clear where this is supposed to end?" I'd say
| that the response to QAnon is a demonstration of the end -- it
| is the destination reached when one starts with more benign
| conspiracy theories.
| kevinmchugh wrote:
| The recent converts to qanon have been on instagram. Before
| that it was Twitter. Maybe people get on the dark web to keep
| following it, but it's going to be really hard for it to keep
| growing if it's not allowed on the open web.
| vkou wrote:
| In all the time I have spent on the internet, I have never seen
| facts or logic convince someone who believed in truly beyond-
| the-pale, completely-outrageous, not-even-a-matter-of-opinion
| bullshit.
|
| You can't reason someone out of a position that they didn't
| reason themselves into. That's not how human brains work - and
| Homo Rationalus only exists in economics textbooks.
| Pick-A-Hill2019 wrote:
| Gosh, I'm conflicted. I upvoted the submission for the
| interesting HN comments that are likely to appear based on it but
| also so, so, soooo didn't want to upvote a Krebs article and give
| him the Ads revenue from the page views.
| nobody9999 wrote:
| >Gosh, I'm conflicted. I upvoted the submission for the
| interesting HN comments that are likely to appear based on it
| but also so, so, soooo didn't want to upvote a Krebs article
| and give him the Ads revenue from the page views.
|
| In that case, you'll be glad to know that I use ad/tracking
| blockers, so even when I read the article, he won't get any ad
| revenue from me.
|
| And I imagine that many folks around here do the same.
|
| In my case, it's isn't because I have a problem with Brian
| Krebs, rather it's because I despise advertising and go to
| great lengths (sometimes at my own expense) to avoid it.
| gruez wrote:
| >but also so, so, soooo didn't want to upvote a Krebs article
| and give him the Ads revenue from the page views.
|
| what's wrong with kerbs?
| MivLives wrote:
| Some people don't like that he doxes people.
| strathmeyer wrote:
| We're all Internet users here and reporting the news isn't
| what we are going to consider doxxing.
| BLKNSLVR wrote:
| And sometimes the doxing is of the wrong people, or people
| that are undeserving of being doxed.
| criddell wrote:
| I didn't know this. What are some examples? Did Krebs do
| anything to make amends for the innocent people he doxed?
| ed25519FUUU wrote:
| > _The public face of 8chan is Jim Watkins, a pig farmer in the
| Philippines who many experts believe is also the person behind
| the shadowy persona of "Q" at the center of the conspiracy theory
| movement._
|
| It's funny to me that people think Jim is capable of leading a
| worldwide movement and has enough opsec not to get caught. Have
| you seen the guy on YouTube? Give it a watch and decide for
| yourself.
|
| I followed Q (not qanon) in relation to spygate, and let's just
| say I was surprised. It's not some basement mouth breather, it's
| state level. Have the people who followed Q also considered it
| could be some Russian or other country's psyop against us? Again
| think for yourself folks.
|
| Anyway, I'm convinced Q at this point is out of the bag. Even if
| you banned it on the clear web it would spill out from the dark
| web into every public space. The only way to attack it
| effectively now is to get transparent about some of the central
| claims Q says control the levers of power:
|
| 1. What was happening on Epstein's island?
|
| 2. What evidence does Assange have regarding the source of hacked
| emails?
|
| 3. What were the deleted emails on HRC server and how did the
| Clinton foundation amass so much money?
|
| Interesting enough just _now_ after two years of Q, we're getting
| some more information about these, so it really is going to be do
| or die for "qanon".
|
| https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2020/10/09/poli...
|
| https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/17318376/united-states-...
| bigbubba wrote:
| > _The only way to attack it effectively now is to get
| transparent [...]_
|
| I think you're right. Looney theories flourish when authorities
| are perceived to lack credibility. It's little wonder that
| politicians of any persuasion are popular focal points for such
| doubt; either because they are known habitual liars or because
| they are simply perceived as such by those on the other side.
| Transparency and blind justice are key to stopping the spread
| of loony theories. If Jeffery Epstein hadn't received
| preferential treatment when he was convicted in 2008, I think
| few would remember him today (much less harbor so many
| suspicions about what politicians may have been involved with
| him.)
|
| Consider moon landings: Many people doubt they occurred because
| the American government lost a ton of credibility during the
| cold war. I considered the possibility that it was faked, but
| easily concluded that it was real because NASA is very
| transparent with the details. The information they've made
| public about it has breadth and depth; for nearly any little
| tiny detail of those missions you can think of, a little bit of
| research will reveal information about it. Autistic detail of
| anything from the helmet visors to the guidance computers is
| all available for anybody who chooses to look; to fabricate a
| story with such breadth and depth is simply inconceivable. The
| truth of the moon landings is apparent because NASA is open
| with it.
| ed25519FUUU wrote:
| > _If Jeffery Epstein hadn 't received preferential treatment
| when he was convicted in 2008, I think few would remember him
| today (much less harbor so many suspicions about what
| politicians may have been involved with him.)_
|
| The Epstein saga, I think, is providing the most fuel for the
| fire right now. Just yesterday Ghislaine Maxwell's 2016
| deposition was unsealed, and it mentions Clinton and Prince
| Andrew, among others[1].
|
| The conspiracy burned for 2 years, and when more information
| is unsealed it only confirms things people believe. Anyone
| watching knew something was up with Epstein, his sweet-heart
| deal for sex crimes against children, and that island, and
| his untimely death. Until everything is unsealed and in the
| light, things are only going to get more intense.
|
| Furthermore, there seems to be a lot of bipartisan appetite
| for truth in regards to Epstein, partly because many believe
| it also implicates Trump. How powerful is something that
| unites Qanon and Trump's critics under the same flag?
|
| 1. https://free.law/pdf/gov.uscourts.nysd.447706.1137.2_2.pdf
| philipkglass wrote:
| Did you mean to link to another PDF? There's only one page
| of deposition in that file and it doesn't name any Epstein
| clients. It's just a bit of back-and-forth between the
| plaintiff's attorney and the defendant's attorney.
| _whiteCaps_ wrote:
| Maybe this one? https://assets.documentcloud.org/document
| s/7274479/Maxwell-D...
|
| People have been working on unredacting it:
| https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/10/ghislaine-
| maxwel...
| theplague42 wrote:
| What about it makes it "state level"? Dozens of failed
| predictions. Vague, open-ended insinuations that can be
| interpreted by anyone in totally different ways. No legitimate
| information that can't be found with a search engine.
|
| Whoever made up Q is similar to Trump in that they identified a
| group of people with real problems (loss of faith in
| institutions, fear of losing social power) to whom they could
| spread propaganda, but have no real solutions to any of the
| identified problems.
|
| I find it ironic that you say "think for yourself" while
| repeating nonsense propaganda that has little to no impact
| outside of made-up scandals targeting the Clintons.
| nootropicat wrote:
| I think the point of Q is to prevent conservative American
| boomers from organizing, by duping them into thinking that
| 'their guys' are already winning and they don't have to do
| anything.
| Covzire wrote:
| "made-up scandals"
|
| If I had the choice of a superpower, whether flight, or
| invincibility, or setting things on fire with my mind, I
| wouldn't be all that disappointed if I had to settle for a
| superpower where I could force half the population and the
| vast majority of journalists to simply give me the benefit of
| the doubt of any situation and not question things too much
| beyond that. There's almost nothing I could do wrong and be
| punished for by society.
| gruez wrote:
| Are ip address blocks registered to defunct companies a
| relatively common thing? Clearly ARIN isn't regularly checking
| whether the owners of ip address blocks are still in business, so
| I'd imagine there are plenty of other blocks that belong to
| defunct companies.
| rwmj wrote:
| I know that the company I used to work for held on to a modest
| block for years after it went out of business. (IIRC it was a
| /20 of IPv4. It has since been recovered by RIPE.)
| cgh wrote:
| Similarly, I wonder about internet ports assigned to dormant or
| defunct companies. I used to work for a company back in the
| '90s that had their own IANA port assignment for a proprietary
| database product. Of course, they don't use it anymore as the
| company and product are both long gone.
| Nullabillity wrote:
| Err, presumably the product still works for existing
| customers?
| ufmace wrote:
| Man, I never cared much for QAnon, but the way so many mainstream
| institutions are joining together, using the exact same
| misleading talking points, to censor something off the internet
| makes me wonder if they're onto something after all.
| voldacar wrote:
| Paying attention to the evolution of media and narrative over
| the past several years, it's as if every "mainstream
| institution" is fusing into one enormous superorganism mega-
| institution occupied by the same people, putting out the same
| stories and messages.
|
| It's sort of disturbing but also really fascinating.
| theplague42 wrote:
| What misleading talking points? How does the media mis-
| represent what QAnon is?
| logicchains wrote:
| It's amazing how skeptical people are of the idea of a
| paedophile ring among the elites when only recently Jeffrey
| Epstein was arrested for running one (and mysteriously died in
| custody).
| ibejoeb wrote:
| This is what I don't understand about qanon, which I assume
| is because what I know of qanon is only this surface-level
| premise.
|
| Where does it go off the rails?
|
| Because--if we're being real with ourselves--we have to
| contend with the fact there is a pedophile island, and heads
| of state, royals, and other elite are credibly implicated the
| sex trafficking that sustains it.
| voldacar wrote:
| Well the actual Q posts routinely give false predictions -
| I think I recall one where he said that hillary clinton
| would be arrested on date X, which obviously never
| happened. Also there was some kind of thing earlier this
| year about coronavirus being a hoax to scare the elites
| into saying indoors to make them easier for trump to arrest
| them (lol)
|
| But that said the _general_ idea that powerful people can
| get away with pedophilia and probably all sorts of other
| crazy stuff should be undeniable by now given Epstein and
| his associates
| arminiusreturns wrote:
| I can explain. Its psyops techniques at play, one of the
| most blatant displays in a long time. There are a myriad,
| but the primary one at play is called "limited hangout".
| The example I usually use to illustrate this in
| conversation is flat earth conspiracy. Its so laughable,
| but what one will notice, with more analysis, is that many
| of the same people or sites that purport this genuinely
| ridiculous notion will also talk about things that are much
| more legitimate. The primary design is to discredit the
| genuine/legitimate " conspiracy theory" as crazy _by
| association_. In essence, qanon(the group and the boards
| that host believers), by giving a false outlet to those who
| would otherwise be digging into some very dangerous places,
| and then going on ridiculous tangents /assertions,
| essentially gets in front of the problem, so to speak.
| There are many more techniques at play with fun names
| regarding qanon, and it is highly likely there are gov and
| private intelligence agencies behind this. With an added
| benefit of being one of the best honeypots for conspiracy
| theorist metadata in the world. I could go on...
| ufmace wrote:
| AIUI, the key part of QAnon is "the storm", the idea that
| some secretive group in the Trump administration is
| preparing some kind of mass indictments, possibly involving
| military tribunals, to bust all of the secret pedophiles.
| This is "the plan" that QAnon people implore us to "trust".
| No matter how bizarre and disconnected the happenings in
| various Government agencies seem, it's all supposedly part
| of "the plan" that we're supposed to just trust.
|
| Pedophile rings in the highest levels of Government and
| high society seem disturbingly plausible. I have no idea
| who's connected to it or how it all works, but I bet we'd
| all be pretty disturbed if it ever really came to light.
| But I'm not about to buy that there's a secret plan that's
| going to make it all work out, and everything is actually
| happening according to that plan.
| throwawaygh wrote:
| To be honest it sounds like a way to build a groundswell
| of populist support before arresting vast swaths of
| political prisoners. The same thing happened in Germany
| with Jews -- they were called enslavers and disease
| spreaders. So that people who didn't hate Jews could
| still get behind the violence because slavery and disease
| spreading are bad.
| hajile wrote:
| I was doing some reading on Qanon. The weirdest part to
| me was how FEW correlations they have to offer.
|
| If I give a large group 4,000+ pieces of random
| information and a multi-year block of history, I'd expect
| the number of interesting and surprising coincidences to
| be staggering. Instead, the "deltas" and obsession with
| 17 is weak at best. One could say that it is more
| interesting that so many Q posts somehow have so very
| little in common with anything at all.
| ibejoeb wrote:
| >we'd all be pretty disturbed if it ever really came to
| light.
|
| It did, though. I would've expected more attention.
|
| Edit: so what, then? Did a massive sex trafficking ring
| that delivered underage girls to some of the world's most
| powerful people just get exposed? Did the head of it just
| die in a Manhattan jail. Was his partner just finally
| found after months on the lam? Or am I crazy?
| ufmace wrote:
| What's already out there is disturbing enough, but I
| don't think even 10% of what's really going on has come
| to light yet. Ex - how did Epstein die in jail? No way
| that's a legit suicide IMO. Some very powerful people
| must have arranged that. To expend so much energy on
| that, there must be a lot of powerful people who have a
| lot to lose if he were to ever talk.
|
| Who else might be out there involved in this? What sort
| of evidence is hidden away out there somewhere, waiting
| for somebody's dead man switch to flip? Exactly what is
| it that these people have been up to that they're so
| afraid of everybody finding out? I don't have any idea.
| Possibly it could be nothing, but I think there's way too
| many suspicious coincidences that look like somebody
| powerful pulling some strings for there to be nothing
| else there.
|
| Also, voting on Q related stuff gets really weird
| sometimes. No sense worrying about it.
| criddell wrote:
| And Donald Trump has been the chief investigator going back a
| decade or two now? His recent trip to Walter Reed was just
| cover for his actual purpose which was a trip to hunt and
| kill some of these cannibalistic paedophiles? You aren't
| skeptical of that?
| googthrowaway42 wrote:
| I don't believe any of that literally but Fred Trump
| (Donald Trump's father) was supposedly a member and
| financier of the John Birch Society:
| https://www.wikiwand.com/en/John_Birch_Society
| holidayacct wrote:
| Pay close attention to social media companies and privately run
| social networks and forums. I used to work for a major social
| media network that was growing and eventually stalled.
|
| If you run a social network and it gets popular you're going to
| run into major problems that no one talks about.
|
| 1.) Multiple governments, private organization and luddites send
| people to your company to compromise the source code.
|
| 2.) People eventually find out they can use the social network as
| a covert advertising platform. They end up trying to make side
| money using the platform to slip ad campaigns as normal human
| interactions.
|
| 3.) Eventually someone figures out they can control the behavior
| of people on the social media platform in strange ways. One guy
| figured out he could create sock puppet accounts and automate the
| process of bringing women he liked everywhere he went. Don't do
| this!!! If you start slipping covert advertising in the platform
| and you get caught you're eventually going to run into organized
| crime, the govt or both.
|
| 4.) And my favorite, people start offering your best employees
| obscsene amounts of money to try and stop you from starting
| another social network.
| kordlessagain wrote:
| Someone should grow some balls and advertise their routes on BGP.
| s9w wrote:
| > hate-filled anonymous message board 8chan
|
| not as hate-filled as Twitter. I don't think people like him have
| actually been on these sites.
| mathgorges wrote:
| As someone who spent a decent amount of time on 8chan and
| boards like it in high school, this comment legitimately
| confuses me.
|
| Can you expand please?
| s9w wrote:
| It depends on who you are on what you define as hate. The
| sites both have a very clear political preference. And both
| are harsh towards the other. But the chans due to the way the
| work have less of a vendetta style activism and mostly ignore
| or ridicule outsiders.
|
| There's some rough language - I would say on average the
| chans are certainly more direct and less signaling, but the
| lows are pretty equal for both sites. Death wishes are very
| common on both.
|
| And of course what you interpret as hateful is massively
| defined by your beliefs. If you define using wrong pronouns
| as such, then you're gonna have a bad time on the chans. But
| so would you on Twitter for having a photo with a MAGA hat.
|
| The chans can be surprisingly humane and supportive. Truly so
| and not just for social points. Their usual dismissive
| description is not matched by the actual content. Which is
| understandable since honestly at the moment, a very good
| chunk of the content is by bots and organized groups.
|
| Related: I recently posted a long article on all sorts of c++
| stuff on a technical Reddit. It also contained criticism of
| Git. People got their god damn pitchforks! They told me to
| give up my job, told me I'm a bad coder, they went through
| reddit and git histories, looked up accounts on other sites
| and sent me things to my private E-mail that carry a prison
| sentence in my country. And the mods didn't even remove any
| of it. Because I criticized Git. But they do insta-ban people
| for using the wrong pronouns.
|
| Things are not like they seem if you're not in the
| 'in'-group. Deviate just a little and people come for you -
| on Twitter like on Reddit. There's no such thing on the
| chans.
| theplague42 wrote:
| One regularly talks about killing Jews and one doesn't.
| swebs wrote:
| Twitter does all the time, just with a different target.
| Someone even set up a satirical subreddit to take all the
| hateful messages posted on Twitter and replacing
| "white/men/etc" with "jews" just to prove the point.
|
| https://old.reddit.com/r/menkampf
| charlchi wrote:
| In South Africa, twitter users make regular calls for the
| killing of white people, about as regularly as 4chan/pol
| has calls for killing jews.
|
| The other day twitter refused to remove of an extremely
| hateful image of 2 white people's decapited heads being
| held up by 2 black women.
|
| So no, they are about the same. One platform will ban
| hate speech from some groups but not from others.
| happytoexplain wrote:
| I have, a lot. Your comparison is nowhere near realistic.
| olah_1 wrote:
| The difference is that people on Twitter are chasing a real
| commodity called clout. Never underestimate what people are
| willing to do for clout.
|
| In comparison, 8chan was downright comfy.
| daveevad wrote:
| > The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it.
|
| Using legal tactics to stop text on the Internet seems folly to
| me.
| varjag wrote:
| Derouting obsolete IPV4 blocks is as technical as it gets.
| jmnicolas wrote:
| Of course everybody knows the right way to convince conspiracy
| theorists that they're wrong is to go after them.
|
| I don't see what's wrong with having internet trash bins. At
| least the trash is in a know location, it doesn't spill
| everywhere.
|
| I'm not from the US, the only mentions of those sites I have ever
| encountered was journalists making a few articles about them.
| api wrote:
| I sympathize with this view, but visit Reddit
| /r/qanoncasualties for a counterpoint.
|
| On one hand I am pretty close to a free speech maximalist. On
| the other hand, I do believe in the "fire in a crowded theater
| test." I am starting to think that certain forms of public
| speech, namely that which harms large numbers of mentally ill
| people or has the potential to create a huge outburst of
| stochastic terrorism, may fail that test.
|
| The Internet changes things because now you can have a billion
| people in a crowded theater and one person can yell fire.
|
| On the stochastic terrorism front: a less ethical person
| hacking the President's Twitter account could have tweeted "The
| storm is upon us! Where we go one we go all!" followed by some
| instructions and probably killed more people than the 9/11
| attacks.
|
| One person. All they would have had to do is guess "maga2020!"
| as a password if reports are to be believed. Meanwhile we spend
| hundreds of billions on defenses to prevent such attacks...
| which would have been worthless in the face of one person
| guessing a dumb password and leveraging a meme-plex to mass
| trigger the mentally ill.
|
| This is what is possible today. Attacks only get better.
|
| We do have a problem. I am not sure going after the platforms
| is right or will work, but I can't think of anything else.
|
| Sure they can move to Tor, less popular boards, etc. but the
| point is to shut down the mass scale propagation machine that
| depends on access to wide platforms. This will at least contain
| the cult to a smaller and thus less dangerous group.
| [deleted]
| njharman wrote:
| You can't stop attacks. You can only defend against them.
| Which means; treat the mentally ill, reduce ignorance
| (education), and widely and pervasively teach critical
| thinking skills.
| happytoexplain wrote:
| The goal is not to convince conspiracy theorists that they are
| wrong, the goal is to prevent them from hurting people or
| society and, to that end, keep the dangerous ones from
| organizing anonymously online in large numbers (I honestly
| don't know if that's possible).
| jmnicolas wrote:
| If I'm not mistaken the NZ killer was on 8chan?
|
| It's the same argument with serial killer movies (at the risk
| of showing my age there was a strong controversy with
| "Natural Born Killers" at the time): you don't kill people
| because you chatted on the internet or watched a movie.
|
| You kill people because you had it in you. The things you
| were exposed before might color your act but that's it.
| pjc50 wrote:
| He left a manifesto which explained why he did it, citing
| both racist conspiracy theory from chan culture _and_
| "mainstream" racist Melanie Phillips.
| dragontamer wrote:
| > It's the same argument with serial killer movies
|
| Hollywood is infamous for misunderstanding psychology. At
| best, Hollywood has outdated notions of psychology
| (favoring long outdated ideas like Freud, because such
| ideas are exciting). Hollywood sells movies, not
| understanding.
|
| What we're discovering today is that there's a "pathway to
| radicalization". People are NOT born radical, they realign
| themselves as radical over time.
| srtjstjsj wrote:
| > What we're discovering today
|
| We who? This was known at least as far back as since
| Scientology and Holocaust.
| [deleted]
| formerly_proven wrote:
| Yes, so how is giving internet trash cans like QAnon huge
| amounts of exposure and thus free advertisement supposed
| to help?
| dragontamer wrote:
| With QAnon politicians reaching mainstream status (Jo Rae
| Perkins), we're long past that point. QAnon is reaching
| mainstream, the question is what do we do about
| indicating that its message should not be tolerated.
| [deleted]
| Jetrel wrote:
| I've long been sympathetic to ideas like this - I remember
| as a little kid, blowing off the big stigma around the
| (then-novel) 3d shooters that had just come out, like Doom.
| Ironically I agree with exactly what you said, but
| simultaneously think you might miss something in the
| analysis. I think that maybe a better way to phrase the
| idea is:
|
| In the rare case that you're positive for a trait, you can
| be incited to it by stimuli.
|
| For example, if you have an anger-management problem, you
| can live quite peacefully, left alone, but you are uniquely
| dangerous to provoke. Behaviors and stimuli that are
| harmless to other people cause a violent outburst from you.
| Same thing with alcoholics and, for example, pedophiles -
| stimuli that provoke no negative behavior from other people
| will provoke it in someone positive for a trait. Violent
| media left us with a tiny driblet of actual killers because
| only a tiny fraction of people are positive for a trait of
| being stone-cold killers.
|
| --
|
| So what are we afraid of? We have barely any actual
| killers. We're afraid of _enablers_.
|
| We have a tiny, tiny group of people that will dare to do
| crimes (say, shooting up a synagogue) when there are clear
| and present consequences for it. I'm quite sure, however,
| we have a still small, but much, much larger group that are
| "latent" trait-positive for violence. They'd do it - if
| they could get away with it.
|
| What we're really scared of is a third group - which might
| be a group so large that it could be anywhere from 30-60%
| of our society. People who could be coerced into not caring
| about the violence. That third group is the people who are
| trait-positive for gullibility (and several other related
| traits). I think it could very well be "most people" - a
| plurality if not a majority.
|
| These are what enable horrible things. People who have
| bought into propaganda really don't do anything, and that's
| exactly what's so horrible about them; because they don't
| express some sort of obvious, negative externality in their
| neighbors and coworker's lives, nobody really cares if they
| believe horrible things. Because they don't really "act on"
| those beliefs - they don't go out and do things that hurt
| people.
|
| _But they also don 't intervene when a crime aligning with
| their beliefs is perpetrated._
|
| And that's what's so scary.
|
| When a black man would get lynched in the old south, the
| real thing that made it possible was the hundreds of other
| bystanders who felt like the black guy deserved it. If they
| didn't exist, such a killer would rapidly be brought to
| justice. But instead, since so many were okay with it (and
| even cheered it on), not only would the killer get away
| with the act, but quite a few much more "minor" trait-
| positive people participated in it - people much less
| naturally driven to kill, but who could work up the courage
| to do so if they could get away with it.
| macintux wrote:
| In addition to your excellent point, the fact that there
| is such a groundswell of people who tacitly buy into
| these destructive theories is incredibly demoralizing to
| many.
|
| The fact that there are so many Americans who accept this
| is enough to make me rethink my participation in society
| here. Who are we if we've become enablers of this? I
| can't fight this, there's no "there" there.
| watwut wrote:
| You can get radicalized by people you communicate with via
| internet. Especially when you are isolated irl.
| swebs wrote:
| He was on Facebook too.
| gameswithgo wrote:
| > you don't kill people because you chatted on the internet
| or watched a movie.
|
| There is this pervasive idea lately a crazy youtube video
| or text can't actually be harmful, which just isn't true.
| Ideas can inspire wars, murder, revolution, they can warp
| minds. People previously productive can end up obsessed
| with crazy junk. It is important to protect each other and
| ourselves from bad ideas. The question is how, of course.
| Some people violently oppose any form of curation, whether
| it be censorship by government, or choices made by
| companies like facebook. Others insist the solution to bad
| speech is good speech, but I've been seeing that fail on
| the internet for 30 years. Perhaps higher quality education
| can help, perhaps improving economic inequity can help.
| Other ideas are welcome!
| pwinnski wrote:
| I think this line of thinking is absolutely correct when
| conspiracy theories are fringe or harmless. You don't believe
| we landed on the moon? Okay, buddy, have a nice day.
|
| Occasionally, though, conspiracy theorists escape the harmless
| fringe and become actively harmful to society, which is what
| many of us believe is happening in the USA today. A racist
| conspiracy theory that posited, contrary to all evidence, that
| our previous president was born in another country, combined
| with some conspiracy theories popular among "the Tea Party
| movement" as they were known, propelled our current president
| into office, where the theories have snowballed and escalated
| into shots fired in a pizza parlor, protesters murdered by car,
| protestors murdered by gun, illegal voter intimidation, and a
| significant chunk of the population not quite ruling out the
| possibility that a huge chunk of elected officials and others
| are part of a cabal of devil-worshipping pederasts who drink
| the blood of children.
|
| Faked moon landings this ain't. Crazy Uncle Roger this ain't.
|
| I do live in the US, and I encounter the results of this
| weekly, sometimes more often. It doesn't take visiting 8kun to
| be affected by this here.
|
| Update: There are people on this page, right here at HN,
| stating misleading nonsense tangentially related to QAnon. The
| spread of this stuff is pervasive already.
| mistermann wrote:
| > Occasionally, though, conspiracy theorists escape the
| harmless fringe and become actively harmful to society
|
| To some degree, of both "frequency of escape" and "magnitude
| of harm", both of which are valid variables to be considered
| _within the aggregate of all(!) variables_ related to
| conspiracy theories (of which these are but two, contrary to
| popular consensus).
|
| > A racist conspiracy theory that posited, contrary to all
| evidence, that our previous president was born in another
| country, combined with some conspiracy theories popular among
| "the Tea Party movement" as they were known, _propelled our
| current president into office_ , where the theories have
| snowballed and escalated into shots fired in a pizza parlor,
| protesters murdered by car, protestors murdered by gun,
| illegal voter intimidation, and a significant chunk of the
| population not quite ruling out the possibility that a huge
| chunk of elected officials and others are part of a cabal of
| devil-worshipping pederasts who drink the blood of children.
|
| This is an interesting sentence, and certainly a popular
| story. The interesting part is that it uses epistemology as a
| tool for dismissal ("contrary to all evidence"), but then
| proceeds to assert _several other_ complex ideas that involve
| coordinated behavior between multiple people (there 's a word
| for this sort of thing: _conspiracy theory_ ), and does so
| _with no concern whatsoever for whether evidence actually
| (and entirely) supports it_.
|
| > There are people on this page, right here at HN, stating
| misleading nonsense tangentially related to QAnon. The spread
| of this stuff is pervasive already.
|
| There are various forms of misleading nonsense on this page.
| For example, numerous people asserting that QAnon, and
| conspiracy theories (conspiracy theorists) in general, "are"
| or "believe" certain things. If one pays close attention to
| these threads every time they appear on HN (or elsewhere, be
| it social media or formal media), one may notice that the
| asserted descriptions are always very vague, and always
| _only_ include the very worst /silliest of ideas that exist
| within the communities - very often, ideas that _really don
| 't have high consensus agreement in the actual communities
| themselves_. And again, with no with no concern whatsoever
| for whether the assertions _are actually true_.
|
| The same talking points can be observed in every thread on
| these subjects, but one talking point you will _rarely_ make
| an appearance: _what is actually true_? What is the
| _actual(!)_ truth of what is discussed /believed among
| _actual_ conspiracy theorists, as well as what is the
| _actual(!)_ truth of _of each discrete idea (and the sub-
| ideas within each_ )?
|
| It is very concerning to me how easily such a powerful
| subconscious heuristic can be mass installed into the minds
| of the populace, _even those of the relatively competent
| critical thinkers here on HN_. This heuristic is roughly:
|
| _if [an idea has been labelled a Conspiracy Theory], then
| therefore [the epistemic status is FALSE]_
|
| How often does the output of this heuristic make an
| appearance (as a rhetorical, unchallenged axiom) in this
| thread (and in all others)? I would say: extremely
| frequently.
|
| How often does the fundamentally more important heuristic
| make an appearance: _what is actually true, at a discrete
| level_? I would say (as an understatement): rarely.
|
| If truth and rationality is truly on the side of the "anti-
| conspiracy" side of the divide, you'd think it would be
| child's play to "destroy conspiracy theorists with facts and
| logic". And yet, what accompanies the heuristic seems to be
| an inoculation to any epistemic challenges: circling of the
| wagons, typically via insubstantial/rhetorical dismissals (ad
| hominen character attacks), appeals to ends justifying the
| means, or simply downvoting + silence.
|
| Please pay attention to what is really going on in your
| countries, and in your media. I do not ask that you believe
| anything specific, but only that you always ask: _what is the
| actual truth_? And also, when forming your worldview, do not
| consider only what you see (or are told, often without any
| actual evidence), but also _what you do not see_.
|
| Pay attention to what portions of reality are freely
| discussed in the media (and in turn on social media), and the
| manner in which they are discussed (watch out for framing via
| a small set of perspectives _that are not inclusive of all
| details_ ). Observe _the nature of_ the ideas being asserted
| (are they specific, and supported by logic and evidence, or
| vague conspiratorial slurs?). Compare specific claims (like
| "X's believe/say Y") to what is actual reality - which
| requires _going and seeing for yourself_. It is regularly
| recommended that climate change "deniers" "educate
| themselves on the facts" - be careful that you are not
| holding them to a standard _that you are unwilling to meet
| (or even acknowledge) yourself_.
| pwinnski wrote:
| That's a lot of words that could be replaced with "I don't
| understand the phrase 'contrary to all evidence.'"
|
| Although I suspect you know that, the rules around here say
| I should assume the most gracious possible explanation, so:
|
| My long sentence did _not_ in fact suggest any coordinated
| behavior at all, nor is there any known evidence to suggest
| any part of the sentence is wrong.
|
| That's the difference between something being proven false,
| like racist birtherism, and a lack of evidence to support
| your misreading of my assertion. Do I need to provide links
| for "shots fired in a pizza parlor" or "protesters murdered
| by car" or "protestors murdered by gun" or "illegal voter
| intimidation" or "not quite ruling out the possibility that
| a huge chunk of elected officials and others are part of a
| cabal of devil-worshipping pederasts who drink the blood of
| children," really?
|
| You go on a bit suggesting that the only reason any of the
| above might possibly be considered bad is that it's labeled
| a certain way, but I think you've got that very, very
| backward. All of the above are considered bad, and it turns
| out that all of them seem to be linked to a somewhat
| popular and growing source which happens to fall into a
| category popularly known as a conspiracy theory. Call it
| that, or call it harmful garbage, I don't care.
|
| This sentence is the one that would give away your game, by
| the way:
|
| > If truth and rationality is truly on the side of the
| "anti-conspiracy" side of the divide, you'd think it would
| be child's play to "destroy conspiracy theorists with facts
| and logic". And yet, what accompanies the heuristic seems
| to be an inoculation to any epistemic challenges: circling
| of the wagons, typically via insubstantial/rhetorical
| dismissals (ad hominen character attacks), appeals to ends
| justifying the means, or simply downvoting + silence.
|
| That's a doozy, and wrong both in fact and in what I think
| is its clear intent.
| mistermann wrote:
| > That's a lot of words that could be replaced with "I
| don't understand the phrase 'contrary to all evidence.'"
|
| This statement is objectively incorrect. The "lot of
| words" contained within my comment cannot, _in fact_ , be
| replaced with "I don't understand the phrase 'contrary to
| all evidence.'"
|
| This is the sort of response that interests me,
| especially on a high-intellect site like HN.
|
| > My long sentence did not in fact suggest any
| coordinated behavior at all
|
| This statement is objectively incorrect.
|
| You wrote: "...combined with some [ [ _conspiracy
| theories_ ] popular among [" _the Tea Party movement_ "]
| ] as they were known, [ _propelled our current president
| into office_ ].
|
| https://www.dictionary.com/browse/conspiracy
|
| - the act of conspiring.
|
| - an evil, unlawful, treacherous, or surreptitious plan
| formulated in secret by two or more persons; plot.
|
| - a combination of persons for a secret, unlawful, or
| evil purpose: He joined the conspiracy to overthrow the
| government. Law.
|
| - an agreement by two or more persons to commit a crime,
| fraud, or other wrongful act.
|
| - any concurrence in action; combination in bringing
| about a given result.
|
| .
|
| > nor is there any known evidence to suggest any part of
| the sentence is wrong
|
| This sounds like you believe that you can assert
| anything, and the onus is on others to _disprove_ it.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burden_of_proof_(philosophy
| )
|
| > That's the difference between something being proven
| false, like racist birtherism, and a lack of evidence to
| support your misreading of my assertion.
|
| I don't think it's actually true that I've misread or
| mischaracterized your assertion. I have provided some
| information above upon which my reasoning is based.
|
| More likely, I suspect your objection is that I have
| interpreted it literally, as opposed to "knowing what you
| mean" - the issue with the latter approach is, it has a
| dependency on the manner in which each individual reader
| unpacks the text you have written into complex ideas in
| their mind. The advantage of speaking
| explicitly/precisely/literally is that it is far more
| immune to errors during transmission. Of course, this can
| also e a disadvantage, such as when endeavouring to
| persuade people to believe certain ideas, that are not
| actually (known to be) True (which is why I suspect my
| style of writing is so unpopular - it interferes with
| that process).
|
| > Do I need to provide links for "shots fired in a pizza
| parlor" or "protesters murdered by car" or "protestors
| murdered by gun" or "illegal voter intimidation" or "not
| quite ruling out the possibility that a huge chunk of
| elected officials and others are part of a cabal of
| devil-worshipping pederasts who drink the blood of
| children," really?
|
| No, but it would be preferable if you speak in more
| precise terms (less vagueness, less rhetoric), or _at
| least acknowledge_ the form in which you are speaking.
| But of course, you are free to do whatever you would
| like.
|
| > You go on a bit suggesting that the only reason any of
| the above might possibly be considered bad is that it's
| labeled a certain way
|
| Not quite. I did point out that this labelling is bad,
| but I also pointed out some specifics of why it is bad.
| And, I did not suggest that this is "the only thing that
| is bad" - that is your _interpretation_ of what I 've
| said, an interpretation that is distinctly different than
| what I actually said. It is this phenomenon (and the
| increasing frequency of it, on certain important topics)
| that bothers me.
|
| > but I think you've got that very, very backward. All of
| the above are considered bad, and it turns out that all
| of them seem to be....
|
| When you say "they seem to be X linked to..." - what
| information is your perception of this linkage based on?
| Did you roll up your sleeve and do the associative
| backtracing yourself, or did you outsource that to a
| third party, and accepts the resulting assessment at face
| value, with no concern for its _relative, quantitative_
| accuracy?
|
| > ...linked to a somewhat popular and growing source
| which happens to fall into a category popularly known as
| a conspiracy theory. Call it that, or call it harmful
| garbage, I don't care.
|
| Some of us care. Firstly, I care about what is actually
| true. Secondly, I care that so many people exhibit signs
| of not caring about what is true, _while simultaneously
| accusing other people of doing that very thing_ - and
| seem to be completely unaware that this phenomenon is
| occurring. Based on my (admittedly imperfect)
| understanding of history, the long term consequences of
| this sort of mindset is often unpleasant.
|
| > This sentence is the one that would give away your
| game, by the way
|
| That you consider truth to be _some sort of a game_ is
| similarly concerning.
|
| > That's a doozy, and wrong both in fact and in what I
| think is its clear intent.
|
| Are you able to point out what is factually wrong with it
| (and if so, could you please state explicitly what that
| is)? I am also very curious to know what you think my
| intent is, as well as how that belief formed in your
| mind, but that's purely optional.
|
| Lest you allow your intuition that I am "up to
| something", or "trying to gaslight you" dissuade you from
| addressing the points that I have actually made (as
| opposed to addressing inaccurate, non-comprehensive
| interpretations of them), I would like to preemptively
| point out that the thinking style I am using here is no
| different than that which most of us use all day long
| when we are writing code: disciplined, fact-based
| (consistent with observable reality) logic. If we write
| unsound code based on incorrect premises, will our
| programs not produce incorrect (inconsistent with
| reality) results, and do we not exert significant effort
| to ensure that we avoid that? Well then, if that is
| appropriate for matters in the workplace that affect only
| small slices of the world population, is there some
| logical reason that this style of thinking becomes
| _inappropriate_ when dealing with arguably more important
| matters: _events in the real world_ , many of which have
| complex cascading effects on very large slices of the
| world population?
| tptacek wrote:
| Two things. First, you know you're on extremely weak
| rhetorical ice, and also kind of outside the norms of our
| community, when you start quoting the dictionary as a
| rebuttal. The person you're debating told you what they
| meant; what they meant is no longer a part of the debate.
|
| Second, it is very much out of the norms of HN to do
| email-style alternating quote/response the way you are.
| It's also very difficult to read on this site. Try just
| writing paragraphs? We can all read the comment you're
| replying to; we don't need to read it twice.
| mistermann wrote:
| > First, you know you're on extremely weak rhetorical ice
|
| a) You do not know what I know
|
| b) I would say that I am not on "rhetorical ice" _at all_
| - rather, I am _combating_ rhetoric with precise, _non-
| rhetorical_ ideas
|
| > and also kind of outside the norms of our community
|
| _This is my very complaint_. It may be true that I am
| "outside of the norms (Overton Window) of the community",
| but have I violated the HN guidelines? Is strict
| epistemology (disciplined adherence to _that which is
| actually true_ ) a _formal_ violation of explicit
| community rules, or an undocumented, culturally imposed
| one?
|
| > when you start quoting the dictionary as a rebuttal.
|
| Adherence to formal, broadly accepted definitions of
| words (upon which someone else's argument is based) is
| improper behavior?
|
| > The person you're debating told you what they meant;
| what they meant is no longer a part of the debate.
|
| How does one know what portions of reality are acceptable
| to discuss, and which ones shall not be discussed? I see
| nothing in the guidelines. And I would strongly disagree
| to objections based on "Please respond to the strongest
| plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a
| weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good
| faith." It is a fine guideline, but when it starts being
| used as a wildcard to suppress true ideas, the discussion
| of which may not to be some people's liking, I think that
| crosses an important line.
|
| > Second, it is very much out of the norms of HN to do
| email-style alternating quote/response the way you are.
| It's also very difficult to read on this site.
|
| Certain forms of communication (precise, non-narrative)
| lend themselves to different writing styles.
|
| Do you have any objections that are based on the actual
| content of the ideas I have written? Or might your
| objection be not to the ideas themselves, but that I am
| stating them out loud?
|
| Does it matter to anyone what is actually True any
| longer, or have we mass adopted a culture of "the ends
| justifies the means" to managing and discussing the
| affairs of the world? Should bad ideas be fought with
| better ideas, or with censorship (formal, or informal)
| and pretending they do not exist?
|
| Based on how I see events unfolding in the world, now
| seems like an opportune time to be discussing _just what
| exactly we humans are actually up to on this planet_ (as
| opposed to what we like to tell ourselves we are up to),
| from a more philosophical /abstract perspective - this
| facilitates the ability to rise above the repetitive loop
| of object-level "he said, she said" conversations, and
| ascend to a level of more thoughtful, less
| combative/partisan communication and sense making - at
| least in theory. Are we _formally_ opposed to that level
| of conversation, is that "outside the norms of our
| community" - or not? This is not my decision to make, I
| am only asking the question.
| nitrogen wrote:
| I think this is the kernel of what you are saying, and I
| hope that it finds its way above all of the noise about
| specific websites or conspiracy theories:
|
| _> Does it matter to anyone what is actually True any
| longer, or have we mass adopted a culture of "the ends
| justifies the means" to managing and discussing the
| affairs of the world? Should bad ideas be fought with
| better ideas, or with censorship (formal, or informal)
| and pretending they do not exist?_
|
| And I believe this is your end goal:
|
| _> the abilty ... to ascend to a level of more
| thoughtful, less combative /partisan communication and
| sense making_
|
| Is that a fair set of summary quotations?
| mistermann wrote:
| Very much so!
| nitrogen wrote:
| _Second, it is very much out of the norms of HN to do
| email-style alternating quote /response the way you are._
|
| I've seen such used before (though with italics to help
| the eye find the breaks), when a comment makes too many
| points or is too complex to reply to without making it
| clear which part of the comment is relevant to which part
| of a reply.
|
| Is there a better way to format conversations on HN when
| comments reach this level of branching complexity?
| tptacek wrote:
| I really think the right way to do it is just to write a
| natural paragraph that refers to what the parent was
| saying. But what you did, with a single italicized
| reference at the top, is an HN idiom as well.
|
| A long back-and-forth of quote and rebuttal though is
| definitely not the style here. That style makes sense in
| Email and Usenet, because you're often using readers that
| don't show the parent comment at the same time or in a
| thread. It makes very little sense here, where we're
| essentially reading the same comment twice.
| klmadfejno wrote:
| > For example, numerous people asserting that QAnon, and
| conspiracy theories (conspiracy theorists) in general,
| "are" or "believe" certain things. If one pays close
| attention to these threads every time they appear on HN (or
| elsewhere, be it social media or formal media), one may
| notice that the asserted descriptions are always very
| vague, and always only include the very worst/silliest of
| ideas that exist within the communities - very often, ideas
| that really don't have high consensus agreement in the
| actual communities themselves. And again, with no with no
| concern whatsoever for whether the assertions are actually
| true.
|
| Wikipedia defines Qanon as "QAnon[a] (/,kju:@'nan/) is a
| far-right conspiracy theory.[b] It alleges that a cabal of
| Satan-worshiping pedophiles is running a global child sex-
| trafficking ring and plotting against US President Donald
| Trump, who is battling against the cabal"
|
| The ACTUAL TRUTH is that... there is not a cabal of Satanic
| pedophiles plotting against Donald Trump.
|
| If you want to claim that there's isn't a firm consensus
| around Qanon supporters about the exact definitions of this
| conspiracy theory, I'm still going to go ahead and say
| anyone in this vague ballpark is missing a few marbles.
| Qualifying that Conspiracy Theory != False is not a valid
| argument to deny that this theory, and many others, are
| obviously false. Debating the semantics of what a theory is
| or isn't to each subjective viewer is tiring and false and
| not a real debate.
|
| I say missing a few marbles, and that's rude, because most
| conspiracy theorists are genuinely suffering from a degree
| of paranoia and extreme distrust. They believe that others
| are lying to them, and affirmation of that belief is
| appealing. But they're still terribly incorrect.
|
| This happens on every type of definition, from Feminism to
| Socialism, to Nazism. If you want to have a nuanced
| discussion about aspects of QAnon in the context of what it
| means to you, you need to recognize that there's not point
| in pushing the brand. You need to state specific issues
| with their own identity.
|
| All the logic in your great wall of text is nullified and
| is more or less amounting to a reverse straw man. Implying
| that an outrageous claim has merit because a severely
| watered down version of it might be accurate.
| mistermann wrote:
| > The ACTUAL TRUTH is that...
|
| No, the actual truth of what Qanon -is-, _is what Qanon
| is_. There is that which exists in reality, and then
| there is mankind 's best efforts to measure and describe
| it (what you read in Wikipedia, history books,
| _scientific textbooks and papers_ , etc). These things
| are related, but they are not the same thing.
|
| > If you want to claim that there's isn't a firm
| consensus around Qanon supporters about the exact
| definitions of this conspiracy theory, I'm still going to
| go ahead and say anyone in this vague ballpark is missing
| a few marbles.
|
| The difference between you and I is that I base my
| beliefs on what is _known to be true_ , rather than on
| what others tell me is true, or on my subconscious
| heuristic predictions of what is true (ie: what I "want"
| to claim). What the "firm consensus" of what Qanon (or
| anything, for that matter) is may be interesting, but I
| am more concerned with what is actually True. If the
| "firm consensus" of global warming was that it's not
| happening, would your mind willingly accept that with no
| complaints? If not, _why not_?
|
| > Qualifying that Conspiracy Theory != False is not a
| valid argument to deny that this theory
|
| a) I have not denied this story.
|
| b) Is "Conspiracy Theory != False, _necessarily_ )"
| logically correct, or incorrect?
|
| > and many others, _are obviously false_
|
| "Obvious" falseness is a heuristic prediction - it has
| not been objectively established what is known(!) to be
| False (or True, or _Unknown_ ) in many instances -
| rather, it has only been _asserted_ (typically with
| little if any evidence) what is False. Again, apply your
| same logic to climate change and see if your thinking
| changes.
|
| > Debating the semantics of what a theory is or isn't to
| each subjective viewer is tiring and false and not a real
| debate.
|
| It would be interesting to see what would happen if you
| took this philosophy into the workplace when implementing
| software, or if a new hire brought it to you.
|
| > I say missing a few marbles, and that's rude, because
| most conspiracy theorists are genuinely suffering from a
| degree of paranoia and extreme distrust. They believe
| that others are lying to them, and affirmation of that
| belief is appealing.
|
| You have no way of knowing what most conspiracy theorists
| are, or are not, or what they believe, _just as_ a racist
| has no way of knowing the same about people who have a
| different skin color than them. This should be fairly
| easy to realize: _ask yourself what the literal source of
| that knowledge is_. Is it a broad, accurate survey of a
| large number of conspiracy theorists, or is it a
| subconscious heuristic operating on a dataset of some
| anecdotal personal experiences combined with large
| numbers of news articles and forum conversations _that
| are also not based on direct evidence_?
|
| > But they're still terribly incorrect.
|
| If you were to attempt to compile a substantial list of
| their beliefs and their correctness _that is consistent
| with measurable reality_ , I propose that you would
| immediately notice a problem - a severe lack of specific
| content.
|
| > This happens on every type of definition, from Feminism
| to Socialism, to Nazism.
|
| Indeed it does, including right here on HN.
|
| > If you want to have a nuanced discussion about aspects
| of QAnon in the context of what it means to you, you need
| to recognize that there's not point in pushing the brand.
|
| Completely agree, and I do realize this, and I am not
| "pushing the brand" - rather, I am discussing abstract
| principles like the value and importance of truthfulness,
| and the possible consequences of a culture that decides
| to turn its back on such principles. These are not
| exactly easy conversations to have, but that's why they
| are so important.
|
| > You need to state specific issues with their own
| identity.
|
| Actually, this is what I am requesting of others who are
| asserting that reality is composed of a specific state -
| my disagreement _should not be considered an assertion of
| the opposite_ , because it isn't - that is undisciplined,
| non-logical thinking. In fact, I am simply following the
| "critical thinking" advice suggested by the media: do not
| accept things you read at face value - ask questions,
| challenge assertions ( _especially_ those that lack
| evidence, _especially_ when their proponents are opposed
| to discussing evidence, preferring instead to use
| rhetoric), etc.
|
| > All the logic in your great wall of text is nullified
|
| Oh? What was it nullified by?
|
| > and is more or less amounting to a reverse straw man.
|
| Pure rhetoric.
|
| > Implying that an outrageous claim has merit because a
| severely watered down version of it might be accurate.
|
| Implying _that I have implied that_ is yet another
| example of the very thing I am protesting: _a lack of
| concern for what is true_.
| klmadfejno wrote:
| > If you were to attempt to compile a substantial list of
| their beliefs and their correctness that is consistent
| with measurable reality, I propose that you would
| immediately notice a problem - a severe lack of specific
| content.
|
| Why don't you list them for us then and give us your
| opinion on whether something is Provably True, Not
| provable but probably true, not provable but probably
| false, and provably false.
|
| Let's say top 5 beliefs to keep it simple.
| will4274 wrote:
| I actually thought the comment you replied to made a good
| point, but I think I can explain it differently (with
| examples), which might make it easier to understand.
|
| I browsed some conspiracy sites back in the day,
| including 4chan and /r/conspiracy. There seemed to be
| three levels of thought about Jews. A small number of
| people thought that Jews had a conspiracy whereby they
| coordinated with each other to run the world (active
| collusion). A larger number of people thought that
| powerful people generally ran the world in a way that
| actively benefited the powerful and hurt the poor
| (without active collusion) and that a disproportionate
| portion of those powerful people were Jewish. A third,
| even larger group, didn't really think it was about Jews
| - like the second group, they thought powerful people
| subtly colluded to benefit themselves, but they weren't
| really interested in the religious background of those
| people, or recognized that the disproportionate
| representation of Jews among the powerful is more likely
| a result of a higher than average interest in education
| and a lower rate of divorce among Jews - just normal
| population demographics playing out.
|
| One of the things that was interesting is that all three
| groups (even those that disavowrd anti-Semitism) used
| "anti-Semitic" memes like (((globalists))) and that the
| vast majority of contributors (from the second and third
| group) looked down on the first group. Thinking that Jews
| actually got into a secret room and actively conspired -
| this was low-brow - and you'd see comments mocking such
| views - the village idiots of conspiracy village.
|
| It's my observation that the media often describes
| conspiracy groups as the first group only. E.g. with Pepe
| in 2016, the media described a green frog as an anti-
| Semitic symbol. But on conspiracy forums, commenters were
| saying "no, Pepe doesn't refer to Jews, it refers to
| globalists / illuminati."
|
| I think a similar thing is going on the Q. I have one
| friend who has been watching and describes himself as a
| fan - he doesn't believe it all, or even most of it - but
| he does believe that powerful people conspire to evade
| laws that is common people follow and that powerful
| people in particular often engage in illegal sexual
| liasions, including prostitution and in some cases,
| prostitution involving minors.
|
| The larger point is - there's a spectrum here that ranges
| from literally believing Clinton and Trump hang out in
| the same pizza parlor raping children, to believing that
| powerful people are generally aware of the availability
| of prostitution and the prostitution of minors at
| expensive hotels (hello, Russia Ritz Carlton, can I get a
| room in the presidential suite). Many of the softer
| versions of these "conspiracies" don't seem too far
| fetched to me - after all, we know that powerful people
| were aware of Epstein and purchased services from Epstein
| well before the rest of us knew. On sites like 8chan, you
| see the whole range - with, frankly, the majority of the
| commenters on the softer end - but the media represents
| those sites as dominated or exclusively the harder
| versions. And it's misleading. Such misleading
| descriptions attached to an attempt to restrict free
| speech are very dangerous IMHO, as they can be used to
| restrict legitimate speech e.g. about the extent of
| complicity of major hotel chains and just general
| awareness of rich people and illegal sexual transactions.
| rat87 wrote:
| > The larger point is - there's a spectrum here that
| ranges from literally believing Clinton and Trump hang
| out in the same pizza parlor raping children
|
| One of the things that shows the total bankruptcy of
| QAnon is that despite the long history of trump sexual
| abuse and several credible rape claims and the fact that
| Trump peeked on underage teenage girls changing at a miss
| teen usa contest, almost none of these conspiracy
| theories accuse Trump of anything. Instead it's always
| perceived enemies of trump Democrat or Republican or
| celeb that doesn't like Trump accused almost always
| without any evidence
| klmadfejno wrote:
| I don't disagree, but it's more or less what I meant by
| this line
|
| > All the logic in your great wall of text is nullified
| and is more or less amounting to a reverse straw man.
| Implying that an outrageous claim has merit because a
| severely watered down version of it might be accurate.
|
| If you think there may be some rich people who engage in
| with underage prostitutes, you are almost certainly
| correct. It's kind of dumb to make that a salient issue
| in your day to day if you don't have any specifics, but
| sure, it's probably still true somewhere. But let's say
| you, for whatever reason, still think its really
| important to make sure people ask the question, are there
| rich pedophiles.
|
| It should be patently obvious that aligning yourself at
| all with stupider ideas, even if they share a similar
| vein, is a bad idea. It harms your credibility to defend
| QAnon and then qualify that you only mean your portion.
| If you want to have a discussion, all you need to do is
| say "pizza parlor stuff is dumb, QAnon is dumb, but there
| is some merit to rich pedophiles somewhere.
|
| The weakness of conspiracy theorists is that they align
| themselves with other conspiracy theorists who offer some
| form of affirmation to their beliefs because they think a
| larger force is telling them lies. And maybe they are
| being told some lies. Because that's really all it is.
| You can adjust your level of craziness but the entire
| point of a conspiracy theory in-group is getting
| affirmation from others. If you had a genuine interest in
| an issue that you wanted to raise in public awareness or
| do something to combat it, the route of the conspiracy
| theorist is an awfully dumb way to do it. The spectrum
| is, at worst, dumb as rocks, and at best, unwise and
| lacking in self awareness.
| will4274 wrote:
| I see two issues with what you're saying.
|
| First, it's not just that some rich people are
| pedophiles. It's called a conspiracy theory for a reason
| - there's conspiring going on. The CEO of the Ritz knows
| that his hotels offer underage prostitutes. The personal
| concierge directs the CEO to club which is known to be
| "good for rich people." The club owner knows that the
| company they outsource to for renting table dancers on
| the weekends also has dancers doing some prostituting on
| the side. The other rich attendees of the club (who are
| not purchasing) can see that that girl is clearly not 21.
| There's more than just pedophilia going on here - a
| system of winks and nods whereby powerful people are
| offered the opportunity to engage in illegal behavior and
| make no moves against the powerful people who facilitate
| these opportunities.
|
| The second thing is that you're missing the point around
| alignment. These people DON'T align themselves with each
| other. They frequent the same forums as each other (e.g.
| 8chan) and _disagree with each other_ on those forums. It
| 's only in the eyes of the media and in people influenced
| by the media that the various flavors of conspiracy
| people are actually aligned.
|
| Edit: was thinking about this line.
|
| > If you had a genuine interest in an issue that you
| wanted to raise in public awareness or do something to
| combat it, the route of the conspiracy theorist is an
| awfully dumb way to do it.
|
| What is the right way to address e.g. the widespread
| availability of illegal prostitution in hotels owned by
| American companies in foreign countries? I saw a few news
| articles in the press exploring the phenomenon a few
| years back, but nothing changed. Am I supposed to found a
| non-profit? A newspaper? Do the investigation myself and
| publish it to LiveLeak? Write a letter to my
| congresswoman? I'm honestly not sure how to work that
| problem, other than just talking to other people about
| it.
| klmadfejno wrote:
| > First, it's not just that some rich people are
| pedophiles. It's called a conspiracy theory for a reason
| - there's conspiring going on. The CEO of the Ritz knows
| that his hotels offer underage prostitutes. The personal
| concierge directs the CEO to club which is known to be
| "good for rich people." The club owner knows that the
| company they outsource to for renting table dancers on
| the weekends also has dancers doing some prostituting on
| the side. The other rich attendees of the club (who are
| not purchasing) can see that that girl is clearly not 21.
| There's more than just pedophilia going on here - a
| system of winks and nods whereby powerful people are
| offered the opportunity to engage in illegal behavior and
| make no moves against the powerful people who facilitate
| these opportunities.
|
| And? Is the claim made more meaningful by these
| specifics?
|
| > The second thing is that you're missing the point
| around alignment. These people DON'T align themselves
| with each other. They frequent the same forums as each
| other (e.g. 8chan) and disagree with each other on those
| forums. It's only in the eyes of the media and in people
| influenced by the media that the various flavors of
| conspiracy people are actually aligned.
|
| People who regularly meet and discuss things are aligned
| on the part that counts. They might not be organized, but
| they're definitely aligned
| will4274 wrote:
| > And? Is the claim made more meaningful by these
| specifics?
|
| Yes? It's a different claim. Somebody doing X and a
| culture where many people turn a blind eye to and enable
| X aren't the same thing.
|
| > People who regularly meet and discuss things are
| aligned on the part that counts. They might not be
| organized, but they're definitely aligned
|
| We're talking about forums on the internet. Are you an I
| "aligned" because we had this discussion here?
|
| Also, please do respond to my edit. I'm still pretty
| clueless as to the better way to work the problem of
| powerful people turning a blind eye to and enabling
| lawbreaking by other powerful people other than just
| talking about it.
| arminiusreturns wrote:
| I highly respect the way you have articulated this. Well
| done, and I learned a few things about the power of an even
| keeled approach.
| tptacek wrote:
| "Destroying people with facts and logic" isn't how human
| psychology works (in fact: attempts to do that often harden
| existing beliefs), and without that axiom I think the rest
| of this analysis falls apart.
| vkou wrote:
| It has also destoyed families. I know people whose parents
| have gone down the QAnon rabbit hole, and the outcome is
| absolutely insane. They can't have a 20 minute conversation
| without the vast pedophilic conspiracy in Washington
| intruding (Because the parents cannot understand why their
| children could possibly be acting in accord with it.)
|
| Another one of my friends can't even see his mother, because
| she doesn't believe that coronavirus is real, and is
| _actively refusing_ to get her symptoms tested.
|
| Edit: It's interesting to see how this is not a popular
| opinion to express here. Do folks disagree with me about this
| being a bad thing? Do folks actually think there's an iota of
| value in the Augean pile of QAnon crap? Do they think that
| this madness elevates the level of discourse in their
| society? Are they made uncomfortable by a mention of a human-
| scale anecdote of the observable harm that this movement is
| inflicting?
| ALittleLight wrote:
| I haven't (and won't) downvote you for expressing an
| opinion I disagree with - but I do disagree with you.
|
| Whether or not there is value in QAnon is beyond me. There
| is value in people being able to say what they want, even
| if it is baseless, or disturbed, or hateful. One example
| that comes to my mind is the Rotterham child rape
| scandal[1], which, were it not printed in the most
| reputable newspapers world wide, would sound like something
| out of the QAnon fantasy. Even worse than this scandal
| itself, which is saying something given that this scandal
| describes an organization of men raping children for
| decades with the tacit knowledge of local police and city
| government, is the fact that there are many similar
| occurrences in the UK. That is, this is not a one off
| horrific event, but part of a terrible and disturbing
| pattern.
|
| Why I bring this up as an example, is, that it seems to me
| part of the problem the UK has in getting the organized
| rape of children under control, is an unwillingness to
| speak about it and be open about it. The UK is so
| determined to control speech and avoid offending people
| that they kept secret the organized rape of hundreds if not
| thousands of children across their country for decades. I
| would much rather err on the side of allowing people to
| indulge in dark, even if absurd, fantasies (e.g. QAnon)
| than forbid or punish people for going public with
| imperfectly firm accusations (as happened in Rotterham -
| victims and their families reported the ongoing sexual
| abuse and rape to the authorities through the many years it
| was ongoing and the authorities ignored them for fear of
| being offensive[2]).
|
| The organized sexual abuse of children clearly does happen.
| Sometimes the government is intimately involved. For
| example the case with Jeffrey Epstein. It's worth it to let
| people talk about it and make accusations. Sometimes
| disturbed people will go too far and make baseless claims.
| That's not ideal, but preventing people from making
| anything but perfect accusations leads to a culture where
| horrible crimes are covered up for fear of not having
| enough evidence. I think it is a better balance to let mean
| people say mean things and expose whatever evidence there
| may be of things as soon as possible.
|
| 1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotherham_child_sexual_ex
| ploit...
|
| 2 - https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/police-ignored-
| child-s...
| Jetrel wrote:
| Speaking as someone who deals with a fair amount of this in
| their extended family, I honestly think a blind spot the
| human race has is a struggle to believe this can really get
| "that bad".
|
| I've had relatives (now deceased) who were way down the
| rabbit hole, long before the whole QAnon thing, and given
| the sort of destructive effects it has on their life, to me
| - it's in the same bucket as alcoholism or addiction. It
| did the same sort of things that joining a "cut ties" cult
| like scientology or 7th day adventists did; you'd lose
| friends, spouses, even your job, etc.
|
| None of this is a new phenomenon - it's just, people don't
| join the moonies or hare krishna anymore - they join weird
| internet cults now like QAnon.
|
| (In my case, we essentially lost a family member who went
| on a deep-dive into anti-semitic nationalism back in the
| 60s.)
| varjag wrote:
| > ...drink the blood of children
|
| This is an echo of another conspiracy theory, that culminated
| in its heyday into a world war.
| cheweh wrote:
| Note that Obama's birth was a conspiracy around 2008, before
| 8chan existed. I would argue that "the Donald" on reddit was
| a driver of Trump's online popularity. This argument is not
| for striking down individual websites as much as it is for
| pervasive rumor-quashing.
|
| One could look toward China's internet policy to measure the
| success of playing "whack-a-mole" at the rumor-level.
| Propaganda there still gets made and spread, it just stays
| online for minutes at a time before deletion, and so by the
| time people see it they have no way of asking for
| clarification on its truth.
| bleepblorp wrote:
| I sincerely hope there's some effective middle ground
| between allowing the kind of unrestrained rumor/conspiracy
| propagation that puts unhinged people in public office and
| Chinese-style ubiquitous law enforcement. Neither option is
| particularly attractive.
| kilo_bravo_3 wrote:
| >I don't see what's wrong with having internet trash bins. At
| least the trash is in a know location, it doesn't spill
| everywhere.
|
| The trash congregates and creates an echo chamber that
| radicalizes the most vulnerable and leads to them killing
| people.
| jameskilton wrote:
| > At least the trash is in a know location, it doesn't spill
| everywhere.
|
| Please do a little more research and thought before posting
| such things. There is no "trash can", it IS SPILLING
| EVERYWHERE. We even have a QAnon supporter most likely headed
| to Congress. People are dead because of these hate-filled
| groups. Shutting them down _saves lives_ , not only in the US
| but throughout the world.
|
| You can't just "leave these groups alone" because the last
| thing they will ever do is keep to themselves. Hate groups only
| want two things: to spread their hate and to get rid of the
| people they hate. To let them be is to support their agenda,
| and in doing so, people die.
| bogwog wrote:
| I wonder how many Qanon believers are hate-filed extremists,
| people going through mental health issues, or just edgy
| kids/teenagers. I doubt that the people who would actually
| commit a public shooting are in the majority, and I strongly
| doubt that taking down their website is going to kill the
| group. If anything, it will just strengthen the beliefs of
| the paranoid people who frequent it.
|
| What we should be doing is going after Youtube and other
| companies that are actively radicalizing people and turning
| them into Qanon crazies with their irresponsible
| recommendation algorithms. If Youtube stopped recommending
| conspiracy theory videos, Qanon and other communities like it
| would stop growing and would likely die a slow and uneventful
| death as people simply lose interest.
| commandlinefan wrote:
| > going after Youtube
|
| So... actual government-mandated suppression of free
| speech?
| MrMan wrote:
| when I was growing up, genocide is not free speech, war
| is not free speech
| mhoad wrote:
| Allow me to reframe this. Considering they are both now
| considered groups posing a terrorism threat according to
| the FBI we would hold a platform like YouTube to the same
| standard on QAnon that we do on ISIS.
|
| You can't host propaganda from either group because they
| both have an extremely high likelihood of leading to real
| world violence based on historical evidence.
|
| That isn't an unreasonable standard.
| drcongo wrote:
| Qanon believers are, by definition, people with mental
| health problems.
| macintux wrote:
| > I wonder how many Qanon believers are hate-filed
| extremists, people going through mental health issues, or
| just edgy kids/teenagers.
|
| There are enough who are simply run-of-the-mill angry white
| men to be terrifying.
| swebs wrote:
| >Of course everybody knows the right way to convince conspiracy
| theorists that they're wrong is to go after them.
|
| All this work to shut them down by various organizations can
| even accurately be described as a conspiracy. (Though more of a
| conspiracy-fact since they're so shameless about it)
| bleepblorp wrote:
| QAnon material has been retweeted by Trump and a QAnon-
| connected person is expected to be elected to the US congress.
| A QAnon believer was convicted for blocking a major dam while
| making terroristic threats[0]. Another believer was arrested
| for attempting to bomb a religious display in Illinois. [3] A
| believer in the QAnon predecessor, Pizzagate, shot up a pizza
| restaurant[1]. The recent attempt to assassinate the Canadian
| Prime Minister was perpetrated by an individual with Qanon
| leanings[3]. These incidents are not isolated and are part of a
| larger pattern of QAnon-connected violence[2][3].
|
| QAnon is, politically, an auxiliary of the Republican party.
| This, combined with the willingness of QAnon followers to use
| violence, means that the movement has the potential to be a
| proto-brownshirt movement. This is not something to dismiss
| lightly.
|
| QAnon is not a self-contained trash bin, it's a cancer that has
| metastasized into both violence and into the mainstream of
| American politics.
|
| _Hello, QAnon downvoters._
|
| [0]
| https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona/2020/02/1...
|
| [1] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/police-man-with-assault-
| rifle-d...
|
| [2] https://www.ctc.usma.edu/the-qanon-conspiracy-theory-a-
| secur...
|
| [3] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/oct/15/qanon-
| violen...
| Camas wrote:
| Article doesn't mention any bomb and "shot up" is stretching
| things.
| bleepblorp wrote:
| Updated. The QAnon bomber was, indeed, a different incident
| in Illinois. The Hoover Dam incident only involved firearms
| and an armored vehicle.
|
| And what term other than 'shot up' would you use to
| describe a deranged person recklessly discharging a firearm
| as part of a targeted attack?
| Camas wrote:
| He shot a locked door three times trying to open it. You
| know "shot up" is misleading, that's why you've already
| downgraded it to reckless discharge.
| bleepblorp wrote:
| The question of what constitutes 'shot up' is too
| pedantic to be worth considering further.
|
| Why are you so invested in defending an extremist
| conspiracy theory from criticism?
| panda-giddiness wrote:
| > I don't see what's wrong with having internet trash bins. At
| least the trash is in a know location, it doesn't spill
| everywhere.
|
| You're presenting a false dichotomy. The options aren't (1)
| whack-a-mole or (2) trash-binning. The options are (1) whack-a-
| mole or (2) whack-a-mole with trash-binning. When you remove
| the trash bin, you stymie the discourse.
| finnthehuman wrote:
| >I don't see what's wrong with having internet trash bins.
|
| I think it's because the busybodies don't have a way to stand
| down without losing face.
|
| Journalists have the real world savvy to not consider it
| important what political ideas are exposused by piss smelling
| disheveled streetpeople. But otherwise-"serious" jorunos have
| been spent the better part of a decade locked in a conflict
| with people who are mostly 12 years old and/or just trying to
| wind them up.
|
| They can't admit to themselves that they completely dropped the
| ball on understanding the internet. Even journalists who knew
| what the internet in the early 2000s seemed to forgot the lay
| of the land once high-status people got the internet on their
| cellphones and were shocked that the content on the screen that
| didn't instantly cater to them.
|
| So they will either push enough baddies off the internet to
| declare victory, or have to accept that they're a fucking
| embarrassment.
| ianai wrote:
| You may not be able to fully understand the scope of the
| problem precisely because you're not in the US. You're not
| seeing the affect and effects it's having in day to day life.
|
| I'm a white guy. Last week I went through a grocery store after
| forgetting my mask in my car. I needed to use the restroom
| badly and didn't realize I had forgotten the mask until I was
| mid-stream. That's when I understood why people were looking at
| me like a potential threat with fear in their eyes. They
| probably assumed I was "yet another" anti-masker there to
| threaten and attack them verbally or worse. (I quickly left to
| the car and got my mask.)
| briefcomment wrote:
| Lol, I highly doubt people are giving you weird looks because
| they think you're a Q acolyte. They're much more likely to
| think you're inconsiderate for voluntarily increasing their
| risk of catching covid. I follow Q for fun, and I barely
| think about it day to day. The average person probably thinks
| about Q less than once per week, when someone brings it up in
| the news.
| pwinnski wrote:
| You're likely right about the mask. I would give the guy
| weird looks because of his lack of consideration for
| others, not because I fear a crazed killer.
|
| That said, your experience with Q is not universal. There
| are many people who take it much, much more seriously than
| you do and have alienated friends and family members and
| lost jobs as a result. And, of course, fired a gun in a
| pizza shop, shot and killed protestors, etc.
| ianai wrote:
| The "casual followers" of conspiracy theories aren't
| doing anybody any good. They're just increasing the
| spread of the disinformation. This stuff needs to be
| fought, refuted, and relegated to the dustbin of history.
| "casual following" is the sort of thing that lets this
| win a place in the core of public discourse and culture.
| [deleted]
| Jetrel wrote:
| Something for historical consideration is that - if we
| just go full Godwin's law here: in Nazi Germany, most
| citizens were just "casual followers" of anti-semitism.
|
| You don't have to be gung ho to let someone ELSE do
| something horrible. You just have to be _just_ on-board
| enough to let them sit in the driver 's seat.
| mistermann wrote:
| > Lol, I highly doubt people are giving you weird looks
| because they think you're a Q acolyte.
|
| If you go into a thread on Reddit where the topic of
| conversation is related to anti-maskers/lockdowners, not
| only is there plentiful evidence of people enthusiastically
| confessing what it is they believe about people who do not
| wear masks (stated as _what these people actually(!)
| believe, as opposed to an_ estimate of* what they believe
| _), if one was to compile stats, one would often find that
| the majority of participants think this way (if you take
| their words literally - if one asks for confirmation or
| reasoning, post-hoc rationalization will typically ride to
| the rescue).
|
| The memeplex/matrix that is The Internet seems to be having
| extremely interesting cognitive effects on broad swaths of
| the public. And while most people have no problem seeing
| this behavior in their outgroup (say, conspiracy
| theorists), awareness of this (mainstream, well studied)
| _cognitive phenomenon* in oneself is extremely rare. As is
| people who are willing to discuss it _from an abstract
| perspective_ , using sound logic and epistemology (aka:
| _actual_ critical thinking).
| arminiusreturns wrote:
| I'm a conspiracy theorist, I'll admit it. Not the kind who spouts
| nonsense (at least I try not to), but who has spent a long time
| understanding the real big picture at a geopolitical and
| geostrategic level to the best of my limited ability. More on
| this later.
|
| These calls for censorship are dangerous in so many ways not
| being addressed. There are two primary issues at hand in my eyes
| though. One, that the censorship engine that many think will only
| apply to those "crazy crackpot conspiracy theorists" will
| eventually be turned on them at some point in the future. Two, is
| that instead of actually filtering out "crazy conspiracy
| theorists" it will only filter out the "individual crazy
| conspiracy theorists", while the other entities at play will have
| (more) free reign to run amok than they already do and have.
|
| I'm trying keep this meta, and not get into particulars for
| obvious reasons, but as a singular example to make a point; I
| particpated in one of the largest conspiracies in the last two
| decades, but it was a state and mainstream media sponsored one;
| the Global War on Terror (GWOT). If the deep state (in the
| original Peter Dale Scott sense of the term) wanted another Iraq
| equivalent today, how do you think this would be applied to
| people who fought against it? To ask the question is to answer
| it. As a matter of fact, this has happened more recently in a few
| cases, but most Americans just are completely unaware of the
| massive amounts of death and destruction being carried out in
| their name... because the media doesn't talk about it, and those
| that do are labelled... you guessed it... So for those who
| constantly clamor to use the "but _these_ conspiracy theories are
| dangerous because of real life consequences! " angle are focusing
| on outliers (that should still be addressed) while ignoring the
| thousands of deaths of people of a different color half the world
| away, either at our hands, at the hands of those we finance, or
| at the hands of those we supply weapons to.
|
| The bottom line is everyone is a conspiracy theorist, it's just
| that some people don't like certain ones, and clamour to silence
| those voices, not just for them, but for _everyone_. The term
| itself was brought into the perjorative by the CIA in an attempt
| to discredit anybody who questioned the Warren commission. The
| entire history of the world is a history of conspiracy! I tend to
| lean towards Michael Parenti 's disdain heaped on what he calls
| "coincidence theorists", because thats what so many rebuttals and
| "debunkings" end up being.
|
| By taking this ridicule and censor approach, instead of
| addressing things like half-truths and limited hangout psyops (of
| which Qanon certainly is), what happens is those who question
| things of this nature are forced further into isolated, filter
| bubbled communities that then become extremely defensive. This is
| not the way to address these things... but to be honest I think
| the pendulum may have swung too far already. It's too popular
| (even if much of it is manufactured popularity, a nice play on
| words of Chomsky's manufactured consent) a position. It's just
| another in the long line of boogeymen the state and other actors
| love utilize for other purposes. Communism! Terrorism! Protect
| the children! ... Conspiracy Theory! I suggest you don't fall for
| it. I also try not to blame too harshly those who do... after
| all, I fell for the GWOT in my younger and dumber days, as many
| of us did in the months and years after 9/11, and didn't get my
| brain back till I got out of the military.
|
| A few quotes from old comments of mine: "One issue is that people
| seem to have completely forgotten what inductive logic is, and
| how powerful it can be. Of course evidence (deductive logic) is
| preferred wherever possible, but in the arena of intelligence
| agencies and billionares who spend a lot of time covering up
| their tracks (especially by degrees of seperations), you aren't
| going to get that evidence except in the most rare cases. Even in
| the cases where the evidence does show up, it is often covered
| up, destroyed, lost, inadmissable, gag ordered, blackbagged,
| etc."
|
| "my anecdotal experience has been from starting with only one
| maxim. That I would rather know the truth than the lie, in
| particular the ugly truth over the beautiful lie. What started
| out for me just as the meager attempts of a USMC Iraq combat vet
| to understand his own place in what could truly be called a vast
| conspiracy (the war), became a lifelong journey of transformation
| in understanding the bigger picture of the realities of this
| world. Let me tell you, it is so much more conspiratorial than
| most would ever want to know (and I base this upon good, strong
| evidence, and where that is lacking, good inductive logic). I
| think most people honestly would prefer the beautiful lie. _My
| problem always has been and probably always will be when those
| who prefer the lie try to tell me the lie is truth, and then
| attack when incredulity inevitably rises as a reaction._ "
|
| I keep thinking about doing an hn "I am a conspiracy theorist,
| ama." right before I burn this account. Is now the time? I think
| I would need to discuss how to approach that delicately with mods
| first.
| klmadfejno wrote:
| I don't see anything that's a conspiracy theory though. Like,
| the fact that there's corruption in the high levels of
| government that willfully enable war... Sounds like something
| Britta said on Community. The fact that there may be specific
| groups of long tenured employees in the State Department doing
| it isn't that noteworthy either. They work there.
|
| The way you've written and described your views, experiences,
| and assumptions is what makes it seem like an offputting
| conspiracy theory.
| arminiusreturns wrote:
| Conspiracy has a legal definition. People are prosecuted for
| it quite frequently.
|
| "An agreement between two or more people to commit an illegal
| act, along with an intent to achieve the agreement's
| goal."[1]
|
| If the wars in the middle east, (I would say Iraq moreso than
| Afghanistan, as at least Afghanistan actually harbored Al
| Qaeda/Taliban), don't count as a textbook definition of
| conspiracy, I'm afraid nothing does. Indeed, I would even
| disagree with the statement about the DoS (a subsection of
| the government), their entire job is supposed to be
| diplomacy, not war, thats what DoD is for. This is why I
| strongly disagree with the now common knowledge among those
| in the realm, that intelligence agencies embed and use DoS as
| cover so frequently, as it undermines diplomatic initiatives
| heavily. As for dismissing something as "something Britta
| said on community", it isn't even worth addressing.
|
| "What happened on 9/11 is that we didn't have a strategy, we
| didn't have bipartisan agreement, we didn't have American
| understanding of it, and we had instead a policy coup in this
| country, a coup, a policy coup. Some hard-nose people took
| over the direction of American policy and they never bothered
| to inform the rest of us. Whether you're a Democrat or a
| Republican, if you're an American you ought to be concerned
| about the strategy of the United States in this region. What
| is our aim? What is our purpose? Why are we there? Why are
| Americans dying in this region? That is the issue." - General
| Wesley Clark
|
| [1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/conspiracy
| speeder wrote:
| I read 8chan and 4chan sometimes, not /b/ and not /pol/, I am
| more interested in the other boards that often care for or start
| open source projects.
|
| I am very disappointed with people that want to shut down these
| places, often because of false allegations (for example the
| attempt to shut down 8chan for child porn, that later were found
| out to be a false flag, the person accusing them were also the
| one that posted the porn in first place)
| happytoexplain wrote:
| I also spend a lot of time on 4chan, and visit 8chan
| occasionally. There is a universe of difference between them,
| and calls to shut down 4chan are much rarer and more ignorant
| of the content than calls to shut down 8chan. It's important
| not to conflate them.
| swebs wrote:
| Could you go into more detail?
| strathmeyer wrote:
| 8chan was created when 4chan disallowed child pornography
| and their owner bought it when all this QAnon stuff
| started.
| dhimes wrote:
| Would downvoters please explain why you're doing it? Is
| this statement untrue? Serious question- I have no idea.
| swebs wrote:
| It is completely untrue. That's been disallowed on both
| sites since day 1.
|
| >I came up with the original concept of 8chan while on a
| psychedelic mushroom trip. I was past the peak and was on
| the tail end of the trip, and I just decided to browse
| 4chan because that's what I did when sober. I was still
| tripping pretty bad though so I kept seeing these fractal
| patterns and I wrote down the words "infinite chan" to
| remember for later.
|
| >The next day, I was able to put into words more of what
| the site would be like. I was inspired partly by the
| admin of 4chon.net, savetheinternet, who routinely
| refused to make requested boards for users. I wondered
| what it would be like if there were a Reddit-style
| imageboard where anyone could make a board without
| express admin approval, and began hacking on the
| imageboard engine I knew best to make it a reality:
| vichan. I decided to expire boards after inactivity so
| that it didn't get full of dead boards like Reddit does
| with dead subreddits, and released version 1 of 8chan two
| days later.
|
| https://knowyourmeme.com/editorials/interviews/qa-with-
| fredr...
| dhimes wrote:
| Thank you.
| cultus wrote:
| 8chan doesn't officially allow child porn, but they have
| sexualized images of children which are 100% illegal.
|
| That's why Google delisted them for child abuse content.
| A lot of people on HN seem really eager to defend 8chan
| for some reason.
| SubjectToChange wrote:
| CP has never been allowed on 4chan or 8chan. The reason
| 8chan can about was because 4chan started banning
| gamergate stuff.
| cultus wrote:
| That's not actually true. In fact, Google delisted 8Chan
| due to child abuse content.
| googthrowaway42 wrote:
| Many tech companies ban things for political reasons and
| provide these types of explanations as cover. Similar to
| how Reddit banned the_donald because of supposed anti-cop
| violent threats on the subreddit which is of course
| completely and utterly absurd.
| srtjstjsj wrote:
| Do you have a source for that claim? Reddit admins were
| quite vocal about the many noncop reasons for banning TD
|
| https://www.dailywire.com/news/reddit-bans-the_donald-
| subred...
| googthrowaway42 wrote:
| A source?
|
| https://www.thedailybeast.com/reddit-quarantines-pro-
| trump-s...
| fallingfrog wrote:
| I'm pretty sure that anyone who is willing to swallow massively
| implausible theories like qanon is not the kind of person who
| will be amenable to logical arguments and fact checking. You
| can't just argue those people out if their positions because it's
| not about truth for them, it's about feeling like one is a member
| of the elect. Denying reality is not a bug, it's a feature of
| every millenarian belief system. Facts are ineffective, you just
| have to shut them down.
| fallingfrog wrote:
| Downvoted! Look: we here on hacker news are used to thinking
| about the world in a logical way. We test our ideas against
| reality and reject what doesn't fit. We have rational
| enlightenment ideals about democracy and reason. Well some
| people don't! They really don't. They have a prescientific,
| premodern understanding of the world. I know this is hard to
| accept but it's clearly true. And every time they turn on the
| tv and see gay people and atheists, they get furious and they
| want all those people to shut up and be silent, so the world
| can go back to being the comfortable, familiar place that they
| think it is without all the complexity and uncertainty that the
| real world contains. So if you don't understand the world, and
| it's scary, you're going to latch on to some belief system that
| says that some cabal of devil worshippers is responsible for
| everything you don't like. Logic has nothing to do with it.
| theplague42 wrote:
| HackerNews is just as vulnerable to confirmation bias and
| reactionary behavior as any other group of people. Being an
| engineer does not make one magically immune to cognitive
| bias.
| aYsY4dDQ2NrcNzA wrote:
| As the recently-departed James Randi pointed out
| repeatedly, scientists are among the easiest people to fool
| with magic tricks for this very reason.
| ibejoeb wrote:
| I've been able to avoid it entirely. Can you point to a good
| primer on qanon? Not an opinion piece or a takedown or
| anything, just an explainer.
|
| The only thing I know is what I've heard from MSM, and that has
| been that there is a secret cabal of pedophiles, and many
| members occupy powerful positions.
| carry_bit wrote:
| The movement according to itself:
| https://www.neonrevolt.com/2018/07/11/who-is-qanon-an-
| introd...
| ed25519FUUU wrote:
| You can read what the person or people who write as Q post
| (http://qposts.online/), then you can read the is written
| about Qanon (https://www.google.com/search?q=Qanon). Warning,
| they live in different universes.
| ibejoeb wrote:
| Thanks
| anoraca wrote:
| https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/06/qanon-n.
| ..
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/article/what-is-qanon.html
|
| https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2020/10/qano.
| ..
| fallingfrog wrote:
| Yeah it has this millenarian aspect too from what I can
| gather where Donald trump is a savior figure who will purge
| the cabal and issue in a new golden age of some kind. The
| basic structure is that everything about the world that q
| followers don't like us the fault of this cabal of Bad People
| and once they are removed then everything will be great. Very
| fascistic. Q made predictions of certain people being
| arrested, such as Hillary Clinton; when this didn't happen
| the explanation became that they had been replaced with
| clones.
|
| Google can probably find you better summaries of you dig more
| but heres one:
|
| https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a22646546/q-anon-
| trump...
| nitrohorse wrote:
| I'd recommend this podcast episode on the origins of QAnon
| from Media Roots Radio.
|
| https://mediaroots.org/media-roots-radio-the-origins-of-
| qano...
| norwegianwhale wrote:
| Some people believe that poverty is caused by other people
| becoming rich.
|
| So there's conspiracy theories that aren't treated as such, and
| other theories falsely labelled as such.
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