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The QAnon Conspiracy Theory: A Security Threat in the Making?

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Re: The QAnon Conspiracy Theory: A Security Threat in the Making?

#131

Post by happytoexplain »

zozbot234 wrote: post #34
rblatz wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This already happened because of QAnon. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/22/us/pizzagate-attack-sente... These people see a powerful satanic child raping cabal of power that run things from the shadows. Their champion is Donald Trump, if he were to lose this election it's not a reach to see an uptick in these sorts of attacks. Because, honestly, if this conspiracy were true, the only moral thing to do would be to oppo…

Urban legends about a "powerful satanic child raping cabal of power that run things from the shadows" date back to the 1980s at least. Some of the underlying tropes are centuries old or even more - for instance, there's plenty of historical, blatantly biased propaganda about Roman emperors portraying them as vicious, crazy sex predators. So what's new about Pizza and Q exactly?

What's new is the sociopolitical climate and the modern web.

Re: The QAnon Conspiracy Theory: A Security Threat in the Making?

#133

Post by fouric »

happytoexplain wrote: post #123
fouric wrote: post #120

> retaining the central belief that a cabal of powerful elites control the world, using their power to covertly abuse children They're going to need to be more precise about the Pizzagate conspiracy, because the above wording very closely describes the Jeffrey Epstein case, which has been proven to be true.

I don't understand - why is it misleading to describe Pizzagate that way because a powerful elite abused children?

The article is worded such that it implies that the given scenario is a false conspiracy theory, while in fact the scenario did happen. Conflating the two scenarios both implicitly discredits the Epstein case and also makes no compelling argument that Pizzagate is false.

Re: The QAnon Conspiracy Theory: A Security Threat in the Making?

#134

Post by 99_00 »

onyva wrote: post #103
99_00 wrote: post #35

All misinformation is a risk and threat. But Qanon seems minor when compared to others that are perpetuated by major news organization and undermine democracy: Russia collusion conspiracy theory, fine people on both sides hoax (the belief that the President called neo-nazis fine people). These have much more public and institutional support than QAnon.

These attempt at spinning the discussion is lame. Russia collusion is not a conspiracy, nor the fact that trump is a neonazi sympathizer. Like father like son.

>Russia collusion is not a conspiracy

It's a "conspiracy theory", not a "conspiracy".

>Like father like son.

Proverbs aren't arguments or evidence.

Re: The QAnon Conspiracy Theory: A Security Threat in the Making?

#135

Post by onyva »

99_00 wrote: post #134
onyva wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These attempt at spinning the discussion is lame. Russia collusion is not a conspiracy, nor the fact that trump is a neonazi sympathizer. Like father like son.

>Russia collusion is not a conspiracy It's a "conspiracy theory", not a "conspiracy". >Like father like son. Proverbs aren't arguments or evidence.

Says the person who just claimed with full confidence that night is in fact day.

Re: The QAnon Conspiracy Theory: A Security Threat in the Making?

#136

Post by notacoward »

"in the making"? No, in the now. It doesn't matter if half the people pushing all this are just bored teenagers in it for the lulz. Even if that's the case, they're feeding into the genuine delusional and often dangerous behavior of a few who seriously believe in it. They're also feeding enough garbage into public discussions that real content is obscured, much like jamming a radio signal with noise. Especially with an election coming up, QAnon is already a security threat.

Re: The QAnon Conspiracy Theory: A Security Threat in the Making?

#137

Post by dleslie »

m_ke wrote: post #118
dleslie wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's really not so different than many previous popular conspiracy theories. Replace QAnon's pedophile elite with one of: - The Catholic Church - Free Masons - Rosicrutians - Illuminati - Jewish Bankers - Satanist Elites - Lizard People - The CIA - UN Globalists w/ Agenda 21 - And so on... What makes a conspiracy theory really _stick_ is when it confounds a _kernel of truth_. The more convincing and defensible that…

I agree, but as mentioned here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24159257 QAnon has morphed into a master conspiracy to unite all of these crazy groups. The same people that push Qanon are also pushing anti mask, anti vaccine and etc conspiracies.

I saw that, but I'm not convinced that the breadth of scope is what's interesting. The other targets of interest I mentioned are also often "big tent" or "broad umbrella" conspiracies that pull in many others.

Ie, Lizard people come from the Hollow Earth and are conspiring with Planned Parenhood and UN Agenda 21 to depopulate the planet; this is a believed conspiracy you can find on conspiracy boards.

What makes QAnon different is that it's a movement that exists largely as a result of the sophistication of modern social networks and the ability of small groups of people to wield enormous platforms on them.

The Anti-Vax, Birther and Sandy Hook conspiracies were sort of the early progenitors of this medium: they took the conversations off the aged PHPbb boards and various sub-reddits and on to the social networks. QAnon is often _the same people_ simply continuing to talk with each other.

They've just been learning how to use the tools at their disposal, and have become proficient at it.

Re: The QAnon Conspiracy Theory: A Security Threat in the Making?

#139

Post by luxuryballs »

dleslie wrote: post #80
hammock wrote: post #53

What if we thought of QAnon as a political party?

It's not so dissimilar to the Tea Party movement in its early days. That was a fringe tax-revolt movement that relied heavily on misconceptions and ignorance about how progressive taxation works and who benefits from social spending; and it really took off when it gained assistance from private capital and public figures.

I think that whole misconception and ignorance of how it works thing was more of the astro turfing rebuttals to delegitimize the movement. In reality you didn’t need any understanding of the tax system to see that the taxes are too high and entitlements are out of control, many of them insolvent.
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