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Evangelicals are looking for answers online. They’re finding QAnon instead

technologyreview.com

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Re: Evangelicals are looking for answers online. They’re finding QAnon instead

#21

Post by senectus1 »

in my experience QAnon is the political arm of 4Chan.

certainly its roots a and strength is/was 4chan based.

The fact that people who's social and even fiscal success is based in the circles of the evangelicals, are finding themselves very comfortable in the QAnon world just seems like a natural fit.

But it stretches much further than that. I know people that are Deep QAnon consumers that are non religious, living in very secular countries and have logic based (read IT), white collar type jobs.

Don't let yourself forget that gullible and willfully misled comes from all shapes and sizes and from all sectors in society.

Re: Evangelicals are looking for answers online. They’re finding QAnon instead

#22

Post by senectus1 »

ur-whale wrote: post #7
spaetzleesser wrote: post #3

It's pretty sad how underdeveloped the BS detectors of a lot of people are. I find it hard to understand how people can fall for QAnon but then I also find it hard to understand how anybody can be swayed by campaign speeches or political advertising but obviously these things work.

If they had a working BS detector, they would be into religion in the first place. [EDIT]: meant to say "they wouldn't be into religion"

Bullshit doesn't have as much to do with it as you might think. These people are often in it because its a part of who they think they are. Also socially applied beliefs are often just acquired and accepted based on their immediate surroundings.

Re: Evangelicals are looking for answers online. They’re finding QAnon instead

#23

Post by RickJWagner »

williamstein wrote: post #8
spaetzleesser wrote: post #3

It's pretty sad how underdeveloped the BS detectors of a lot of people are. I find it hard to understand how people can fall for QAnon but then I also find it hard to understand how anybody can be swayed by campaign speeches or political advertising but obviously these things work.

The foundational principle of Christianity (in America at least, in my experience) is believe something with no evidence it is true . They call it "faith". I was raised in small town Oregon and Texas going to Christian private schools and church for years, and that "faith" thing is absolutely their central belief. I remember clearly once when I was 9 finding the whole thing deeply illogical. Later in life I got a PhD…

I'm not at all surprised your comment has been downvoted to oblivion.

Such arrogance. Faith (of any kind) increases humanity.

Re: Evangelicals are looking for answers online. They’re finding QAnon instead

#24

Post by rbecker »

plugger wrote: post #19
ffggvv wrote: post #15

i see misinformation from BLM etc every single day on twitter. how come now one cares about this misinformation or gets upset or writes articles about it?

Whataboutism isn't productive. Best to have conversations about the topic at hand or create a new one if you want to bemoan BLM twitter posts.

As I understood it, they're not bemoaning BLM twitter, but the (supposed) double standard.

Re: Evangelicals are looking for answers online. They’re finding QAnon instead

#25

Post by timbit42 »

im3w1l wrote: post #5

It's only a sidenote in the article but I'm kind of interested in the part where facebook are taking qanon pages down. Which ones and with what justification?

Wouldn't the justification be that it is their platform and they are not required to permit free speech?

Re: Evangelicals are looking for answers online. They’re finding QAnon instead

#26

Post by timbit42 »

grawprog wrote: post #18
spaetzleesser wrote: post #3

It's pretty sad how underdeveloped the BS detectors of a lot of people are. I find it hard to understand how people can fall for QAnon but then I also find it hard to understand how anybody can be swayed by campaign speeches or political advertising but obviously these things work.

The thing about bullshit detectors is, they tend to work well for most people towards things they don't feel strongly about or things they're opposed to. It's when it comes to things that validates a person's already held beliefs that the bullshit detectors tend to get inaccurate as it were. At least from what i've noticed with people anyway.

When we want to believe something we ask ourselves, "Can I believe it?" and the answer is almost always, "Yes".

When we don't want to believe something we ask ourselves, "Must I believe it?", and the answer is almost always, "No".

Re: Evangelicals are looking for answers online. They’re finding QAnon instead

#27

Post by mcgt »

senectus1 wrote: post #21

in my experience QAnon is the political arm of 4Chan. certainly its roots a and strength is/was 4chan based. The fact that people who's social and even fiscal success is based in the circles of the evangelicals, are finding themselves very comfortable in the QAnon world just seems like a natural fit. But it stretches much further than that. I know people that are Deep QAnon consumers that are non religious, living in…

>in my experience QAnon is the political arm of 4Chan

This is a spurious claim to make. Do you have any evidence of this? 4chan and 8kun have different owners who both hate each other.

Spreading gossip about problems as big as this does nothing good.

Re: Evangelicals are looking for answers online. They’re finding QAnon instead

#28

Post by squarefoot »

spaetzleesser wrote: post #3

It's pretty sad how underdeveloped the BS detectors of a lot of people are. I find it hard to understand how people can fall for QAnon but then I also find it hard to understand how anybody can be swayed by campaign speeches or political advertising but obviously these things work.

> It's pretty sad how underdeveloped the BS detectors of a lot of people are

Sometimes they're not just underdeveloped, but completely and voluntarily turned off. Those who believe in bullshit conspiracies and as a result find themselves surrounded by other people believing the same absurdities are the hardest to convince. They might have been depressed loners before, and no matter how absurd their beliefs are, they introduced them into some form of society, and more importantly gave them a purpose in life.

Case in point, a friend of mine who believes every conspiracy his facebook friends throw at him. One day we were arguing about chemtrails, and after heavy reasoning and proof showing that it's all a lie from my part, he had nothing more to reply, so he went with "well, ok, then I want to believe in chemtrails, is that clear?". It might be that they need a bullshit story to feel them unite, then stronger, which would be like gold for conspiracies creators. QAnon very likely feeds on that.

Re: Evangelicals are looking for answers online. They’re finding QAnon instead

#29

Post by squarefoot »

orestarod wrote: post #20
williamstein wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The foundational principle of Christianity (in America at least, in my experience) is believe something with no evidence it is true . They call it "faith". I was raised in small town Oregon and Texas going to Christian private schools and church for years, and that "faith" thing is absolutely their central belief. I remember clearly once when I was 9 finding the whole thing deeply illogical. Later in life I got a PhD…

Every religion is based on faith, in the exact way you portrayed it. Faith by definition regards things that cannot be proven. If they could be proven, it would be knowledge, not faith.

Exactly, but I wonder how does affect the mind of a child, being raised for years into believing something that cannot be proved and getting reprimanded (often punished in the past) for questioning it.

Would an atheist be a better leader? In my opinion yes, but cannot prove it. What I'm sure about is that being educated into not questioning beliefs imposed from above makes people more easy to herd by bad leaders. I wish someone could do some independent unbiased research in this field, then make sure the results remain independent and unbiased even after publication.

Re: Evangelicals are looking for answers online. They’re finding QAnon instead

#30

Post by calciphus »

orestarod wrote: post #20
williamstein wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The foundational principle of Christianity (in America at least, in my experience) is believe something with no evidence it is true . They call it "faith". I was raised in small town Oregon and Texas going to Christian private schools and church for years, and that "faith" thing is absolutely their central belief. I remember clearly once when I was 9 finding the whole thing deeply illogical. Later in life I got a PhD…

Every religion is based on faith, in the exact way you portrayed it. Faith by definition regards things that cannot be proven. If they could be proven, it would be knowledge, not faith.

True. But Evangelicals have a unique position at this moment in their ideological history, where their leardship is aggressively backing someone who defies their core tenants. Such a crisis of faith happens in all religions from time to time, but in this moment for this group, it is now. As such, "find a new sect they doesn't require me to reconsile such things" is at peak likelihood for many of that faith.
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