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A Game Designer’s Analysis Of QAnon - Playing with reality (20min+ read. A bit lengthy, but it worth)
In brief - apophenia. Just a tad more elaborated - induced/guided aphonenia.
What's fascinating is the buttons of human psyche that are pushed to sink people deep into the rabbit holes:
- Follow The Breadcrumbs - don't tell, just select the dots that are to be connected
- The Eureka Effect - the rush of the Aha! moments and the feeling of being rewarded
- Lamestream Media - passivate against the reality that's not supportive to the agenda
- Community - sense of belonging, behavior reinforcement; a population large and motivated enough to adopt an evolutionary strategy in selecting the best CT-es
All the above are exemplified - and these examples is how I got to get WTF Beyoncé has to do with QAnon.
So, if all it's an Alternate Reality Game, there's no harm, right? Not so fast, the US Military Academy ran the The QAnon Conspiracy Theory: A Security Threat in the Making? article in its "Combating Terrorism Center" journal, stating
QAnon represents a public security threat with the potential in the future to become a more impactful domestic terror threat. This is true especially given that conspiracy theories have a track record of propelling terrorist violence elsewhere in the West as well as QAnon’s more recent influence on mainstream political discourse.
(Score: 0, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 18 2020, @03:23PM (9 children)
It's the cumulative effect of things. People are generally willing to give the benefit of the doubt to people, even governments. But as incidents mount up, it becomes clear that malice is at play. Things like the fake WMD, NSA domestic surveillance, etc. were all quite bad but 2016 was a *major* inflection point. I think the issue is that that is the year that people began voting against establishment interests, probably at least in part because of the events of the past 20 years. And in response to that "problem", the establishment and the media responded in an incredibly hamfisted fashion that's likely only made things much worse and is driving far more people away from the establishment narrative:
- Weaponized identity politics [google.com]. I link to the Google Trends there since it's so incredibly overt when it entered the contemporary zeitgeist.
- The media going overt ad hominem. Support Trump? You're a racist. Not buying into the next great Red Scare? You're a Russian troll. Paying too much attention to irregularities in the 2020 election? You're a conspiracy theorist.
- A coordinated effort among various social media sites to engage in political censorship.
- Increasingly overt collusion among media sites to try to craft a unified narrative. When you look at the front page of 5 major media sites and they all are saying the same oddly specific thing in mostly the same way - it makes me feel like I'm living in the Soviet Union. It also takes me back to Irrefutable [washingtonpost.com] and Undeniable [nytimes.com]. If that's not the most overt propaganda you've ever seen, what is?
- Politicians themselves beginning to overtly call for violence and retaliation against political opponents. We've gone from things such as this [youtube.com] (Maxine Walters stuff) to more recently politicians like AOC calling for "lists" [jewishpress.com] to be made of Trump supporters. I reference that site since Jews tend to be somewhat more sensitive to such behaviors than most.
- The pushing of equity over equality. If you're not familiar with the political differences, that's by design. Equity is a dog whistle for equality of result. Equality itself is about equality of opportunity. Equality is a ideal that ought be strived for at all costs, equity gives you Brave New World.
Anyhow, I feel like I'm getting too "listy" here. I haven't gone full jmichaelhudson. ;-) I'm mostly just a normal person who's certainly been pushed away from any sort of mainstream political viewpoint largely because of the reasons I'm discussing here. That said I'm also not a QAnon type. But I find it very easy to see how people who are in a similar situation to myself (which I expect is probably quite a *lot* of people, and not just in the US) could be drawn to it. It's nice to try to imagine there's some insiders trying to do the right thing. But in reality I suspect our problems are endemic. Success in our modern political system practically has 'be a horrible person' as a prerequisite. We're only going to be able to correct things once we reach the climax of this all, and are able to reset things ourselves. But that's also certainly nothing to look forward to.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday November 18 2020, @03:46PM (5 children)
Predisposition due to various factors? Yes.
But QAnon without a deliberate push into that direction? Too improbable in my assessment.
Note: I'm not saying that QAnon was a push to achieve a particular hidden agenda, it may have well been a for-the-lulz thing when it started. But, boy, isn't it suck a powerful psycho-social hack to not be opportunistically hijacked by various interests, short term as it may (one hopes) prove to be.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 18 2020, @04:13PM (4 children)
I think much of what I mentioned above could easily be attributable to pushing people towards it, though certainly not intentionally. For instance the media losing all credibility and then claiming Q was a giant conspiracy theory likely ended up giving far more credibility to it then it could have ever gained on its own. Similarly, as various American social media sites work to turn their political discussion into echo chambers it drives people who do not share those views elsewhere. These new destinations, in turn, end up becoming echo chambers of opposite ideological inclination. It's precisely in these (both the new and old destination) sort of environments with minimal diversity of thought where rather extreme ideas can foment since there's little in the way of people saying 'Hey man, this sounds like bullshit.'
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday November 18 2020, @04:21PM (3 children)
I doubt the various American social media sites see the political discussion as such a plus they're happy to claim as theirs.
I mean people paying attention to anything but ads are suboptimal consumers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 18 2020, @04:54PM (2 children)
I don't agree there. The same reason I once admired Silicon Valley is the same reason I now believe they are quite dangerous. While pursuit of profit is of course a major driver, Silicon Valley is also *heavily* ideologically driven.
This [twimg.com] is a screen cap of a Tweet the former CEO of Twitter made. In a discussion with another CEO who was suggesting that a politically neutral workplace is generally better for everybody, he said: "Me-first capitalist who think you can separate society from business are going to be the first people lined up against the wall and shot in the revolution. I'll happily provide video commentary." The Tweet was only removed once it started receiving major media coverage resulting in embarrassment for Twitter.
I'm sure you can find a link to the entire comment chain somewhere. I am in no way whatsoever distorting his Tweet or taking it out of context. It was hardcore out of left field. And far from a has-been that man [wikipedia.org] is still actively involved in Silicon Valley, sits on the board of directors of Patreon, and so on. But more importantly, I think his views are not especially uncommon in the valley.
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki 2.0 on Wednesday November 18 2020, @08:39PM (1 child)
That tweet isn't advocating violence, it is describing historic precedent. The US has shifted so far towards fascism in the pursuit of unfettered greedy capitalism while trying to silo different aspects of society. China had their communist revolution and a lot of land owners were murdered or sent to reeducation camps where many perished. That is what happens when you try and separate business from society. Same thing in France. It is cycles of greed where each successive generation is normalized to think they deserve all the riches they've inherited or stolen, so they steal some more until the peasants start lopping off heads.
Businesses that make these situations worse are remembered, and CEOs will indeed be the first ones attacked by mobs.
I find it strange you would get so outraged over SV politics when we have conservative militias openly planning to terrorize the nation, yet we hear zilch from conservatives about that threat. Conservatives condemn even the slightest hint of violence from liberals while cheering on rightwing violence and oppression.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday November 20 2020, @03:10PM
Sure, it is. Historical precedent here is almost two centuries old Marxist threats of violence, if they don't get what they want. It doesn't get even a little more palatable because some rich guy is saying it.
Cool story, bro. But it was a vastly corrupt Chinese society not business that was the fertile soil for a Communist revolution. Kuomintang didn't separate business from society. It was all revenue source to them.
As to your complaint about "try and separate business from society", that follows in the Marxist traditions quite well. Some of their best ideas were incidental or even intended as straw men arguments to be struck down in scorn (like the idea that capitalists work or that labor isn't the source of value). Truth haphazardly strewn through the delusion and lies. You want separation of business and society - it prevents things like "too big to fail" and the economic equivalent of the state church.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 18 2020, @06:39PM (2 children)
Ferkin closet racists!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 18 2020, @09:32PM (1 child)
Submitted into evidence as one example of the left alienating moderates and centrists. "If you're not with us, you're against us and you're a RACISSSS!" Parent missed the opportunity to use a few other choice terms such as homophobic, islamophobic, mysoginist, etc.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 19 2020, @06:28AM
Oh, look! Another fucking racist! Hope you have fun all racisting together! Not really, we are coming to genocide you racist bastards. Americans, all Americans, have no use for you, and if you raise your flag, we will take you out. Copy?