QAnon

[iambiguous]

My main interest here in regard to moral and political value judgments comes down to two things:

1] the extent to which they are rooted in subjective political prejudices derived from my own estimation of dasein and
2] the extent to which they are rooted in assessments that can be confirmed based on actual facts able to be demonstrated by one side or the other

Which brings me to an op-ed in the NYT today:

QAnon

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/21/opin ... e=Homepage

In particular, this part:

'Her other major worry is the conspiracy lollapalooza known as QAnon. It’s often short-handed the way Savannah Guthrie did at her town hall takedown of Donald Trump last week — as a nutty conspiracy theory in which a heroic Trump is prosecuting a secret war against a satanic pedophile ring of lefty elites.

'But that undersells QAnon’s danger. To people who have been “Q-pilled,” QAnon plays a much deeper role in their lives; it has elements of a support group, a political party, a lifestyle brand, a collective delusion, a religion, a cult, a huge multiplayer game and an extremist network.

'Donovan thinks QAnon represents a new, flexible infrastructure for conspiracy. QAnon has origins in a tinfoil-hat story about a D.C.-area pizza shop, but over the years it has adapted to include theories about the “deep state” and the Mueller probe, Jeffrey Epstein, and a wild variety of misinformation about face masks, miracle cures, and other hoaxes regarding the coronavirus. QAnon has been linked to many instances of violence, and law enforcement and terrorism researchers discuss it as a growing security threat.

'“We now have a densely networked conspiracy theory that is extendible, adaptable, flexible and resilient to take down,” Donovan said of QAnon. It’s a very internet story, analogous to the way Amazon expanded from an online bookstore into a general-purpose system for selling anything to anyone.'

Lies. Lies about things that can actually -- easily -- be confirmed as lies. Lies that all politicians are known for but on a level now where Trump simply lies not caring if they can be confirmed as lies. Lies that particularly ignorant people are willing to believe because it fits right in with my own arguments regarding objectivism. The psychology of objectivism. Only now armed and dangerous and bringing the country closer and closer to one or another cataclysm.

Me, I've got my own rendition of the "deep state". But I'd like to believe that the facts bear out my assessment of how Wall Street and K Street in collusion with their political cronies in Washington are in fact in sync with those who own and operate the global economy.

This part: https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop ... s#p2397749

Facts galore here.

[Peter Kropotkin]

the interesting thing for me, is how the right will believe in their
conspiracy theories over any facts..... it is a fact that vaccine's will save your
life from a wide variety of diseases.. but instead anti-vaxxers will deny a vaccine
to fit some wild eye theory of vaccinations....

I must add a personal note here... my mother was infected with German measles
when she was 4 months pregnant with me.... had a vaccine existed at the time,
she would have already gotten the vaccine and I wouldn't have suffered
my severe hearing loss... I am a victim of not having my mother vaccinated from
a severe illness....I can see thousands of children suffering from easily preventable
diseases because of a foolish anti-vaccine conspiracy theory....

would you like your child to suffer a hearing loss like me, just
because you believe in some conspiracy theory?

Kropotkin

[iambiguous]

Could this be the end for these nuts too? You know, if they are nuts.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technolo ... ty-crisis/

President Trump’s election loss and the week-long silence of “Q,” the QAnon movement’s mysterious prophet, have wrenched some believers into a crisis of faith, with factions voicing unease about their future or rallying others to stay calm and “trust the plan.”

The uncertainty has been compounded by the abrupt public resignation, also last Tuesday, of Ron Watkins, the administrator of Q’s online sanctuary on the message board 8kun.

Q has gone quiet before. But the abrupt lack of posts since last Tuesday — Election Day, which the anonymous figure had touted for months as a key moment of reckoning — has sparked speculation and alarm among the movement’s most ardent followers.

Some QAnon proponents have begun to publicly grapple with reality and question whether the conspiracy theory is a hoax. “Have we all been conned?” one user wrote Saturday on 8kun.

Wrote another: “HOW CAN I SPEAK TO Q???? MY FAITH IS SHAKEN. I FOLLOWED THE PLAN. TRUMP LOST!!!!!!!!!!! WHAT NOW?????? WHERE IS THE PLAN???”

Trump’s defeat threatens to undermine the tale that Q, a supposed top-secret government operative, has woven over years: that Trump and his allies would soon vanquish a cabal of “deep state” child abusers and Satan-worshiping Democrats, exiling some to the U.S. detention facility in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

I mean if anything could be a complete hoax, it's QAnon.

Hell, for all I know I may have even started it.

And tell me these dittoheads aren't rabid objectivists!!

That YouTube page has itself become a town center for Q believers, with more than 35 million views and 27,000 comments. One of the most popularly voted comments reads: “It’s not just about trump, it’s good versus evil , light versus darkness! Victory of the light!!”

[Mr Reasonable]

These are the same people who think that pro wrestling is real.