I’m not sure I’ve ever read such a dense statement... I don’t understand how a person who says something like this can operate in society.
I’m not sure I’ve ever read such a dense statement...
As well as being a self-professed QAnon follower, Wright has retweeted a claim that vaccines are "part of the satanic Deep State Agenda 21 for depopulation” and that Bill Gates funded a Wuhan lab where the coronavirus was man-made.
I don’t understand how a person who says something like this can operate in society.
She's not just on the internet. She's very much in the real world.
She's not just on the internet.
Among the candidates Disarm the Deep State says it will support is Joanne Wright, who is running in California’s 34th Congressional District in Los Angeles County, and last week was endorsed by the California Republican Party.
Point taken. That's my personal bias shining through; the hope that anyone who espouses such views IRL will be either rapidly and vocally challenged for the nonsense they're spouting, or socially...
Point taken. That's my personal bias shining through; the hope that anyone who espouses such views IRL will be either rapidly and vocally challenged for the nonsense they're spouting, or socially ostracized.
What's often fascinating about these sorts of conspiracy theory groups is how they take numerous individual beliefs that are generally fashionable at the moment, and, while wrong, are not...
What's often fascinating about these sorts of conspiracy theory groups is how they take numerous individual beliefs that are generally fashionable at the moment, and, while wrong, are not intrinsically nonsensical, and combine them into larger theories that don't make sense.
The belief that vaccines cause autism is wrong, but it isn't a nonsensical claim: one could envision a universe where it is true, it just isn't. The belief that there are groups that want to reduce population is similarly not intrinsically nonsensical. But combined, the idea that groups are conspiring to reduce population by causing autism in a small part of the population makes no sense. If a group existed that could dictate vaccine contents in order to harm people, and their goal was mass depopulation, why would they choose autism, of all things? Why not, for example, use a prion-transmitted disease?
Similarly, suppose COVID-19 is actually a biological weapon. If you wanted to create a biological weapon to harm Trump's reelection (and why, of all things, choose that method?), why would you release it in China? And, with that level of power, why make a disease that is much milder and less threatening than it could be?
There seems to be this fundamental assumption, amongst many conspiracy theorists, that every popular belief is somehow true, and somehow linked to the fundamental beliefs of the theorist. Their task is not to distinguish true and false beliefs, but to find how each belief supports their fundamental beliefs. You thus rarely see a conspiracy theorist describing only a simple, self-contained conspiracy, even though those are probably the most likely to be true. Instead, the conspiracies almost always become something like a religion that is syncretic to the point of incoherence.
Is this inevitable for conspiracy theorists? One could suggest that the fundamental credulity required to start believing in a conspiracy theory makes it very likely that the theorist will be similarly credulous for everything else.
Interestingly, you see this in many low-brow and popular works in the fantasy and science fiction genres as well, where there is a common trope that every folk belief is linked somehow to the fictional world's reality. Every creature exists. Every superstition has an underlying modicum of validity. Few, if any, beliefs that exist within the real world are, in the fictional world, simply wrong in their entirety.
One could wonder how much this "everything has some truth, and everything is connected" trope in fiction of the 20th century in particular has impacted popular belief in conspiracy theories, or whether the reverse is true: that the popularity of conspiracy theories resulted in this trope in fiction.
I am particularly reminded of Eco's satire and investigation of this in Foucault's Pendulum. And yet, somehow, even there, Wikipedia points out that some people eventually came to describe Foucault's Pendulum as "the thinking man's Da Vinci Code" (after the latter, much later work, became popular), even while Eco frustratedly tried to explain that his work was trying to point out the problems with such works, and that it would be better to say "that Dan Brown is one of the characters in my novel Foucault's Pendulum".
I'm undecided as to whether this is Watkins trying to squeeze more money out of the Qanon grift or if he seriously hopes to influence politics in this way.
I'm undecided as to whether this is Watkins trying to squeeze more money out of the Qanon grift or if he seriously hopes to influence politics in this way.
Probably a bit of both. Fredrick Brennan has pretty much distanced himself from 8chan's/8kun's community due to the Christchurch and El Paso shootings and feels the site should be shut down...
Probably a bit of both.
Fredrick Brennan has pretty much distanced himself from 8chan's/8kun's community due to the Christchurch and El Paso shootings and feels the site should be shut down because free speech has gone too far and created a toxic cesspool of violence and hatred. Meanwhile, Jim Watkins is running the show, is trying to do everything possible to defy the wishes of the site's founder, and has gone so far as to file a cyberlibel complaint against Brennan with the Filipino authorities.
I’m not sure I’ve ever read such a dense statement...
I don’t understand how a person who says something like this can operate in society.
They can't. Which is why they're on the internet.
She's not just on the internet.
She's very much in the real world.
Point taken. That's my personal bias shining through; the hope that anyone who espouses such views IRL will be either rapidly and vocally challenged for the nonsense they're spouting, or socially ostracized.
I see the point but, to be precise, interactions via the Internet are still social interactions.
What's often fascinating about these sorts of conspiracy theory groups is how they take numerous individual beliefs that are generally fashionable at the moment, and, while wrong, are not intrinsically nonsensical, and combine them into larger theories that don't make sense.
The belief that vaccines cause autism is wrong, but it isn't a nonsensical claim: one could envision a universe where it is true, it just isn't. The belief that there are groups that want to reduce population is similarly not intrinsically nonsensical. But combined, the idea that groups are conspiring to reduce population by causing autism in a small part of the population makes no sense. If a group existed that could dictate vaccine contents in order to harm people, and their goal was mass depopulation, why would they choose autism, of all things? Why not, for example, use a prion-transmitted disease?
Similarly, suppose COVID-19 is actually a biological weapon. If you wanted to create a biological weapon to harm Trump's reelection (and why, of all things, choose that method?), why would you release it in China? And, with that level of power, why make a disease that is much milder and less threatening than it could be?
There seems to be this fundamental assumption, amongst many conspiracy theorists, that every popular belief is somehow true, and somehow linked to the fundamental beliefs of the theorist. Their task is not to distinguish true and false beliefs, but to find how each belief supports their fundamental beliefs. You thus rarely see a conspiracy theorist describing only a simple, self-contained conspiracy, even though those are probably the most likely to be true. Instead, the conspiracies almost always become something like a religion that is syncretic to the point of incoherence.
Is this inevitable for conspiracy theorists? One could suggest that the fundamental credulity required to start believing in a conspiracy theory makes it very likely that the theorist will be similarly credulous for everything else.
Interestingly, you see this in many low-brow and popular works in the fantasy and science fiction genres as well, where there is a common trope that every folk belief is linked somehow to the fictional world's reality. Every creature exists. Every superstition has an underlying modicum of validity. Few, if any, beliefs that exist within the real world are, in the fictional world, simply wrong in their entirety.
One could wonder how much this "everything has some truth, and everything is connected" trope in fiction of the 20th century in particular has impacted popular belief in conspiracy theories, or whether the reverse is true: that the popularity of conspiracy theories resulted in this trope in fiction.
I am particularly reminded of Eco's satire and investigation of this in Foucault's Pendulum. And yet, somehow, even there, Wikipedia points out that some people eventually came to describe Foucault's Pendulum as "the thinking man's Da Vinci Code" (after the latter, much later work, became popular), even while Eco frustratedly tried to explain that his work was trying to point out the problems with such works, and that it would be better to say "that Dan Brown is one of the characters in my novel Foucault's Pendulum".
How about this?
This is truly Idiocracy in the making. What the actual fuck.
I don't know how this is going to end, but I know future history books are going to be completely bonkers.
As if they're just gonna allow people to write about them like that. Let's be honest this shit will be purged from history if they lose power.
I'm undecided as to whether this is Watkins trying to squeeze more money out of the Qanon grift or if he seriously hopes to influence politics in this way.
Probably a bit of both.
Fredrick Brennan has pretty much distanced himself from 8chan's/8kun's community due to the Christchurch and El Paso shootings and feels the site should be shut down because free speech has gone too far and created a toxic cesspool of violence and hatred. Meanwhile, Jim Watkins is running the show, is trying to do everything possible to defy the wishes of the site's founder, and has gone so far as to file a cyberlibel complaint against Brennan with the Filipino authorities.
Blegh, well hopefully it's bad enough that it inoculates people against these sorts of memetic attacks.
I don't believe they've made their FARA disclosure.