What if QAnon had been right about everything?

[Bird on a Fire]

Like if, during the inauguration, they'd locked the doors and arrested all the Democrats and taken them to a military base and court martialed them for satanic paedophilia or whatever, how would you have reacted?

Like, obviously "surprised."

But I mean, it would be such a deep shock to my worldview and to how I process evidence and so on, I wouldn't know where to start the next day.

[Bird on a Fire]

Presumably there's a lot of QAnoners going through all this right now, with the added difficulty of all being on crack.

[dyqik]

I'd have been in my car, heading for the Canadian border to join the queue early.

[Bird on a Fire]

I'd have been in my car, heading for the Canadian border to join the Q early.

FTFY

[bjn]

Presumably there's a lot of QAnoners going through all this right now, with the added difficulty of all being on crack.

Meth, no crack.

[Bird on a Fire]

Presumably there's a lot of QAnoners going through all this right now, with the added difficulty of all being on crack.

Meth, no crack.

Probably true, but there was a Scrutable meme about their being on crack and I was just trying to fit in with the cool kids GOD BJN YOUR SO EMBARRASSING

[bjn]

Presumably there's a lot of QAnoners going through all this right now, with the added difficulty of all being on crack.

Meth, no crack.

Probably true, but there was a Scrutable meme about their being on crack and I was just trying to fit in with the cool kids GOD BJN YOUR SO EMBARRASSING

My work here is done. I can now depart this forum with a true sense of having contributed to the fullness of human experience with this one selfless act of mine.

[Bird on a Fire]

Nooooo don't go! You can embarrass me so much more!

[Stranger Mouse]

I’ve often tried to imagine my reaction to finding out ghosts exist or homeopathy works and I have no idea.

I can’t imagine Qanon is going away but will be fascinated to see how it is going to mutate

[JQH]

They'll probably decide it's all part of Putin's Trump's cunning plan to lull the commie mutant traitor Democrats into a false sense of security.

[dyqik]

I’ve often tried to imagine my reaction to finding out ghosts exist or homeopathy works and I have no idea.

I can’t imagine Qanon is going away but will be fascinated to see how it is going to mutate

Homeopathy is easy, tbh. It's a "huh, that's weird, isn't biology/chemistry/liquid state quantum physics stuff complicated" matter. There's no real fundamental issue with it, except that chemistry and physics doesn't work that way.

Ghosts are a little weirder, but again, not absolutely crazy from fundamental principles.

QAnon, otoh, violates all common sense of human interactions, and is self contradictory where it's specific.

[Lew Dolby]

Aren't ghost prohibited by the laws of physics !!?? Moving forever with no energy input - that'd make em perpetual motion machines - No ??

[jaap]

Aren't ghost prohibited by the laws of physics !!?? Moving forever with no energy input - that'd make em perpetual motion machines - No ??

How can you be sure there's no energy input? Maybe they feed off the energy of people that see them, Monsters Inc style.
And given that they are incorporeal, their moving about would not use energy anyway.

[Gfamily]

Aren't ghost prohibited by the laws of physics !!?? Moving forever with no energy input - that'd make em perpetual motion machines - No ??

Ethereal bodies aren't affected by conservation rules - that's a consequence of the Noether theorem.

[dyqik]

Aren't ghost prohibited by the laws of physics !!?? Moving forever with no energy input - that'd make em perpetual motion machines - No ??

Who said anything about "forever" and no energy input?

[dyqik]

I'd have been in my car, heading for the Canadian border to join the Q early.

FTFY

Either way, I probably would have to queue behind the Von Trapp family. They'd get there first, as they live a lot closer to the Canadian border.

[malbui]

Presumably there's a lot of QAnoners going through all this right now, with the added difficulty of all being on crack.

Meth, no crack.

Probably true, but there was a Scrutable meme about their being on crack and I was just trying to fit in with the cool kids GOD BJN YOUR SO EMBARRASSING

I enjoyed seeing my crack questions taken up here and elsewhere, but I did feel outclassed by Marina Hyde's suggestion of a standard question, which was something like "Have you recently suffered head trauma?"

[jimbob]

Presumably there's a lot of QAnoners going through all this right now, with the added difficulty of all being on crack.

Meth, no crack.

In New Zealand, they call it "P" if I recall correctly, so appropiate.

I do think this whole thread might demonstrate an interesting thing about people's mindsets. Because, seemingly like BOAF, I do sometimes wonder if it's me or the wingnuts that are wrong... then assess what I know about the world and come to the conclusion that the wingnuts are indeed wingnuts, and, for example, Covid-19 is real.

[dyqik]

I do think this whole thread might demonstrate an interesting thing about people's mindsets. Because, seemingly like BOAF, I do sometimes wonder if it's me or the wingnuts that are wrong... then assess what I know about the world and come to the conclusion that the wingnuts are indeed wingnuts, and, for example, Covid-19 is real.

You can spot wingnuts, because they go down elaborate conspiracy trails that you can't believe anyone would believe. They're wingnuts because you don't need to think hard about whether they might be right, based on some basic common sense about how people operate.

These two tweets/threads from Katie Mack give a variation on this theme
https://twitter.com/AstroKatie/status/1 ... 80417?s=20
https://twitter.com/AstroKatie/status/1 ... 36163?s=20

As does Arnie (final paragraph):
https://twitter.com/ketch/status/135201 ... 45026?s=20

[jimbob]

I do think this whole thread might demonstrate an interesting thing about people's mindsets. Because, seemingly like BOAF, I do sometimes wonder if it's me or the wingnuts that are wrong... then assess what I know about the world and come to the conclusion that the wingnuts are indeed wingnuts, and, for example, Covid-19 is real.

You can spot wingnuts, because they go down elaborate conspiracy trails that you can't believe anyone would believe. They're wingnuts because you don't need to think hard about whether they might be right, based on some basic common sense about how people operate.

These two tweets/threads from Katie Mack give a variation on this theme
https://twitter.com/AstroKatie/status/1 ... 80417?s=20
https://twitter.com/AstroKatie/status/1 ... 36163?s=20

As does Arnie (final paragraph):
https://twitter.com/ketch/status/135201 ... 45026?s=20

Indeed, but do you every so often sanity check your view (and then come to that conclusion) because it's obvious for that reason?

[dyqik]

I do think this whole thread might demonstrate an interesting thing about people's mindsets. Because, seemingly like BOAF, I do sometimes wonder if it's me or the wingnuts that are wrong... then assess what I know about the world and come to the conclusion that the wingnuts are indeed wingnuts, and, for example, Covid-19 is real.

You can spot wingnuts, because they go down elaborate conspiracy trails that you can't believe anyone would believe. They're wingnuts because you don't need to think hard about whether they might be right, based on some basic common sense about how people operate.

These two tweets/threads from Katie Mack give a variation on this theme
https://twitter.com/AstroKatie/status/1 ... 80417?s=20
https://twitter.com/AstroKatie/status/1 ... 36163?s=20

As does Arnie (final paragraph):
https://twitter.com/ketch/status/135201 ... 45026?s=20

Indeed, but do you every so often sanity check your view (and then come to that conclusion) because it's obvious for that reason?

I rely on talking to other people with a range of reading habits, and reading things like middle of road media outlets to know that I'm not drifting into a rabbit hole. If conservative and liberal newspaper columnists, people on here, various Slacks, my government scientist colleagues and wife and neighbors are still making sense, then I'm probably fine.

[jimbob]

I rely on talking to other people with a range of reading habits, and reading things like middle of road media outlets to know that I'm not drifting into a rabbit hole. If conservative and liberal newspaper columnists, people on here, various Slacks, my government scientist colleagues and wife and neighbors are still making sense, then I'm probably fine.

My point is that you do seem to actually check this. Whilst a lot of those who embrace certainty and dogmatism, don't.

[dyqik]

I rely on talking to other people with a range of reading habits, and reading things like middle of road media outlets to know that I'm not drifting into a rabbit hole. If conservative and liberal newspaper columnists, people on here, various Slacks, my government scientist colleagues and wife and neighbors are still making sense, then I'm probably fine.

My point is that you do seem to actually check this. Whilst a lot of those who embrace certainty and dogmatism, don't.

It's not really necessary to actively check though if you talk to/read a range of other people generally. And read/watch/listen to satire and understand it.

[Bird on a Fire]

These are good points. I suppose there are fairly objective behavioural differences between me/ dyqik versus a stereotypical wingnut. I also deliberately keep a broad social circle, use generalist online forums rather than echo chambers (it's always reassuring to be disagreed with by smart people, in a way), and so on.

A friend's dad has been youtube radicalised during lockdown, and is now a full-on flat earth QAnon antivaxer.

Online algorithms are especially pernicious. A while ago Reddit added a new default algorithm, described opaquely as showing you the "Best" content. Suddenly, everyone agreed with me and were posting about topics I'm interested in. I reverted to the old algorithm, "Top", which shows the content that has the most positive engagements from other users, and suddenly there was a lot of boring stuff and stupid opinions. And then I sorted by "Controversial", which also factors in negative engagements, and hooooooly sh.t it magically filled up with trolls and c.nts.

At least Reddit is transparent. Facebook and Twitter and stuff also manipulate the content you're shown based on how they think you'll react (whatever holds your attention best for selling you sponsored content). So everyone is just getting radicalised by algorithms all the time.

Scrutable shows posts in chronological order, no funny business. You're safe here, friends.

[Bird on a Fire]

Presumably there's a lot of QAnoners going through all this right now, with the added difficulty of all being on crack.

Meth, no crack.

In New Zealand, they call it "P" if I recall correctly, so appropiate.

So that's what on the famous "P" tape!

I do think this whole thread might demonstrate an interesting thing about people's mindsets. Because, seemingly like BOAF, I do sometimes wonder if it's me or the wingnuts that are wrong... then assess what I know about the world and come to the conclusion that the wingnuts are indeed wingnuts, and, for example, Covid-19 is real.

Indeed. I mean I'm pretty sure on QAnon and covid the wingnuts are definitely wrong.

But perhaps a reasonable person should assume that while no single view of theirs is ostensibly wingnutty, they probably are a wingnut on at least one of their views.