The Now-Defunct Firms Behind 8chan, QAnon • Hacker News Board

Re: The Now-Defunct Firms Behind 8chan, QAnon

#231

Post by klmadfejno » Sat, Oct 24, 2020, 2:50 PM UTC

arminiusreturns wrote: post #156

klmadfejno wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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.…

> 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.

The Britta joke is entirely my point. I believe there's corrupt actors in the state department who hawk war for profit. You believe the same thing, but have added some specifics that you probably can't support any better than the general statement about corrupt actors. Maybe that's not true and you DO have more evidence for the specifics than the average conspiracy theory, I don't care much. But either way, you've assigned great importance to something that most people would agree with at a high level but doubt at the very low level. The fault with conspiracy theories is they vastly overindex on specifics they can't defend, which makes generic problems sound much more urgent than most people would interpret them

Re: The Now-Defunct Firms Behind 8chan, QAnon

#232

Post by klmadfejno » Sat, Oct 24, 2020, 3:01 PM UTC

will4274 wrote: post #142

klmadfejno wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> 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…

> 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.

I don't think it makes a huge difference tbh.

> We're talking about forums on the internet. Are you an I "aligned" because we had this discussion here?

No. But this is a forum that generally frowns on and downvotes conspiracy theories. If you go to a forum that's primary function is discussing them, then I would say yes.

> 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.

>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.

Well given that your theory could be wrong, yeah, you should probably either do the investigation yourself, fund someone else to do the investigation, or find a different problem to solve that is within your power to affect. Raising awareness of something in the form of a conspiracy theory delegitamizes it.

For example, how legitamite anti human trafficking non-profits have had a harder time doing productive things due to conspiracy theory influence: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/qanons-obsession-with-s...

Re: The Now-Defunct Firms Behind 8chan, QAnon

#233

Post by klmadfejno » Sat, Oct 24, 2020, 3:08 PM UTC

mistermann wrote: post #194

klmadfejno wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> 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. Here's why: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burden_of_proof_(philosophy) When two parties are in a discussion and one [makes a claim] [that the other disputes], [the one who makes the claim typically has a burden of proof to justify or…

You are claiming that because something cannot be proven false, it cannot be assumed false. That's fine, but just because something can't be proven false, one doesn't need to assume it has merit beyond a random statement.

My statement about mental health of conspiracy theorists is based on a journalist who interviewed dozens of conspiracy theorists and found that almost all of them had suffered an incident where they were betrayed in their personal lives and believed that most people were lying about them. I found that compelling. He wasn't god though. Maybe he was wrong.

Re: The Now-Defunct Firms Behind 8chan, QAnon

#234

Post by ALittleLight » Sat, Oct 24, 2020, 3:59 PM UTC

alimw wrote: post #226

ALittleLight wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's appropriate to say things like "Stop it". Please do me the courtesy of not treating me like a child and acting like you are instructing me. The QAnon conspiracy is about pedophiles in government. The Rotterham scandal is about pedophiles enabled by government. The Epstein case is a mix of pedophiles and government. It's not crazy to suggest that pedophiles are mixed up with the government. We have…

Since you can't even spell Rotherham, I'll not give much weight to your analysis of the reasons behind the police failure there.

Since you evaluate arguments based on the spelling of proper nouns from foreign places I'm afraid I can't bring myself to care about the esteem with which you regard my analysis.

Re: The Now-Defunct Firms Behind 8chan, QAnon

#235

Post by ALittleLight » Sat, Oct 24, 2020, 4:04 PM UTC

newacct583 wrote: post #229

ALittleLight wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's appropriate to say things like "Stop it". Please do me the courtesy of not treating me like a child and acting like you are instructing me. The QAnon conspiracy is about pedophiles in government. The Rotterham scandal is about pedophiles enabled by government. The Epstein case is a mix of pedophiles and government. It's not crazy to suggest that pedophiles are mixed up with the government. We have…

> It's not crazy to suggest that pedophiles are mixed up with the government. Yes. It. Is. Because that suggestion requires evidence, which Q Does. Not. Have. Rotherham is not evidence for Q. Epstein is not evidence for Q. Rotherham and Epstein existing in history are not a license to make shit up about democrats and pretend it's the truth.

I've not said Epstein and Rotherham were evidence for Q. I've said they're examples of pedophiles intermixed with governments and examples of where holding high standards for what is appropriate to say resulted in the rape of innumerable children.

My point is not "Because Epstein therefore Q" but rather "We should allow speculation and conspiracies, even hurtful, hateful, or baseless, because the alternative is restricting what people can say, and such restrictions enabled and perpetuated some horrible crimes of a similar nature that happened recently."

Re: The Now-Defunct Firms Behind 8chan, QAnon

#236

Post by otterley » Sat, Oct 24, 2020, 4:21 PM UTC

octoberfranklin wrote: post #219

otterlicious wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Acquired isn't defunct. The archaically named entity that owns your local telco cabinet almost certainly still exists: http://www.centurylink.com/static/PDF/AboutUs/DoingBusiness/...

It really is defunct. The corporation "US West" is no longer registered. Acquirors don't keep their acquisitions' corpses registered forever.

All of US West’s assets were acquired as part of the merger transaction.

In this case, there’s no evidence of a similar acquisition.

Re: The Now-Defunct Firms Behind 8chan, QAnon

#237

Post by pwinnski » Sat, Oct 24, 2020, 4:32 PM UTC

pwinnski wrote: post #86

mistermann wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

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 somethin…

Any observers still unclear on what the walls of text might be designed to do should note that anyone not in favor of letting Qanon run amok is required to produce incontrovertible evidence of every single assertion they make, held to an impossible standard if anyone is being dishonest, while on the other side, statements like 'it's mostly "the left" doing the censorship these days' can be dropped without any supporting evidence at all.

For all the appeals to objectivity, the sea-lioning[0] is very much one-sided.

0 http://www.wondermark.com/1k62/

Re: The Now-Defunct Firms Behind 8chan, QAnon

#238

Post by arminiusreturns » Sat, Oct 24, 2020, 4:50 PM UTC

UncleMeat wrote: post #230

arminiusreturns wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.…

Conspiracy has a legal definition. "Conspiracy theory" has a different meaning. It is the sort of theory that resists evidence, since any evidence that opposes the theory is instead proof of the conspiracy. It is a form of magical thinking.

No, thats just the definition you want to apply in order to dismiss anything that makes you uncomfortable or disagree with. Like I've said before the history of the world is a history of conspiracy, and often the people who were calling out those things were labelled as "conspiracy theorist" as basically a form of ad hominem attack. I can't tell you how often I was talking about the NSA et al prior to Snowden, but was called the same thing. Then almost all of those people now bend over backwards to say stuff like "well, we all knew it, why are you surprised?" etc, but it's just dismissing the fact that many conspiracy theories have truth to them.

Like I said, everyone is a conspiracy theorist, they just want to get to pick and choose which ones they like. Russiagate is a conspiracy theory that the mainstream media and many people pushed for 4 years, for example. We literally just had a "billionare" pedophile sex-trafficker assassinated in one of the most secure prisons in the world, with connections and likely blackmail material on tons of high up businessmen and politicians. Memory holed - these are not the conspiracy theories you are looking for.

Re: The Now-Defunct Firms Behind 8chan, QAnon

#239

Post by arminiusreturns » Sat, Oct 24, 2020, 4:54 PM UTC

klmadfejno wrote: post #231

arminiusreturns wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.…

> 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 disagre…

> I don't care much.

Well I think we know who is arguing in good faith here then...

Re: The Now-Defunct Firms Behind 8chan, QAnon

#240

Post by will4274 » Sat, Oct 24, 2020, 5:27 PM UTC

klmadfejno wrote: post #232

will4274 wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> 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. I don't think it makes a huge difference tbh. > We're talking about forums on the internet. Are you an I "aligned" because we had this discussion here? No. But this is a forum that generally frowns on and downvotes conspiracy theories. If you go to a forum that's primary function is…

You said:

> 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.

I said:

> What is the right way to address e.g. the widespread availability of illegal prostitution in hotels owned by American companies in foreign countries?

And you said:

> find a different problem to solve that is within your power to affect.

You clearly haven't answered the question. "There are better ways to solve this problem." "What are the better ways to solve this problem?" "You should solve a different problem." This is not engaging in good faith - you've made assertions and then refused to back them up.

Fwiw, I read the 538 article a few weeks back. They get more phone calls and also more donations and complain about the extra phone calls. I'm fairly certain the funding is worth more than the phone calls cost. So QAnon has actually helped here, if not in the way they intended, or as effectively as they could have. Claiming that a cost of a few phone calls significantly outweighs extra donations is just silly - and seems like the sort of political head-in-the-sand fake news that partisans publish constantly.