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There is a [Conspiracy Thread] here, and I will seek it out!

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Posts

  • chrisnlchrisnl Registered User regular
    "Where we go one, we go all" still remains one of the most nonsensical slogans I have ever heard. It's just terrible on every level.

    steam_sig.png
  • PreacherPreacher Registered User regular
    This will not help the qidiots, but any place they are banned from helps keep Q curious people from falling into their stupidity.

    I would like some money because these are artisanal nuggets of wisdom philistine.

    pleasepaypreacher.net
  • MayabirdMayabird Pecking at the keyboardRegistered User regular
    DarkPrimus wrote: »
    There are politicians at the state and federal level knowingly feeding into the Q theories, media sources are as well, and at least one avowed true believer is on the ballot for this year.

    More than 46 true believers.



    Ejkd0J8WAAAbe7a?format=png&name=360x360

    EjkdwrZXcAAWONB?format=png&name=small

    Alex Kaplan is a senior researcher for Media Matters for America.

    More, because there are only three for Minnesota on those lists but there are at least six QAnon backers running for office in Minnesota, all Republicans of course.

  • augustaugust where you come from is gone Registered User regular
  • ForarForar #432 Toronto, Ontario, CanadaRegistered User regular
    Tweet by Ben Collins (who is apparently an NBC reporter), with an image of an email that was apparently sent to him by one "Robert Parker" (I have no idea who this is).

    Tweet contents: "At the end of the day, QAnon people just want their political enemies murdered on television.

    That's all this is, and that's all it ever was."

    Image contents: NOTHING can stop what is coming. You will be remembered. Panic in DC. Panic in the media. Panic inside NBC as they await their fate. When the public fully understands what the media and government have conjured up against the best interests of hard working people in United States for America: you will not feel safe ever again. God Bless President Trump and USA! You and nbc, the rest of the corrupt media can be drawn and quartered in public, and we will cheer the demise Of satanic warfare you propagate."

    A friendly reminder to source and quote tweets. Context is valuable, and especially when I'm on mobile it feels like 2/3 of the time they just don't show up at all.

    First they came for the Muslims, and we said NOT TODAY, MOTHERFUCKER!
  • ProhassProhass Registered User regular
    edited October 2020
    I think Facebook banning qanon, depending on how well the ban is enforced, could actually strangle the movement. It’s gotten by just on the ease of access and the feedback loop of the algorithms

    The underlying conspiratorial tendencies and nutty ideas won’t disappear, but the idea of putting it all under one banner might dissipate, and the more diffuse these kinds of things are the less likely it will have real world “organisation” or impacts. It feels like qnanon is just a snowball that collected all the existing nuttiness under one banner. If you break them up into individual pieces of craziness it might become easier to deal with

    Prohass on
  • 21stCentury21stCentury Call me Pixel, or Pix for short! [They/Them]Registered User regular
    Goodbye QAnon. Welcome WAnon.

  • Kipling217Kipling217 Registered User regular
    chrisnl wrote: »
    "Where we go one, we go all" still remains one of the most nonsensical slogans I have ever heard. It's just terrible on every level.

    Actually its a very good one. Its non-descript, vaguely inspirational, implies a majority support and doesn't actually commit the person using it to do anything specific.

    Its like Eat, Pray, Love for the conspiracy crowd.

    The sky was full of stars, every star an exploding ship. One of ours.
  • Kipling217Kipling217 Registered User regular
    edited October 2020
    By comparison, think of last years "Storm Area 51, they can't stop us all".

    Turns out that while the military can't stop everybody, they can stop you and that is a real dampener.

    Kipling217 on
    The sky was full of stars, every star an exploding ship. One of ours.
  • BlindPsychicBlindPsychic Registered User regular
    We'll see how efficient the bannings will be, the boogaloo boys have managed to stay afloat by just renaming their channels and carrying on

  • Smaug6Smaug6 Registered User regular
    Goodbye QAnon. Welcome WAnon.

    Welcome WAP-annon

    steam_sig.png
  • MuzzmuzzMuzzmuzz Registered User regular
    I've fallen into the 'Shakespeare didn't write those plays' conspiracy pit, and even though it's basically classism 'Only Rich Nobility can write masterpieces, not the grubby poor' (Even though William's family was pretty well off for their society), it's still refreshing change from 'DA JEEEEWS' ickiness.

  • knitdanknitdan In ur base Killin ur guysRegistered User regular
    My college Shakespeare professor, who was built like a linebacker and dressed like Willy Wonka, was an adherent of the Baconian theory of Shakespeare authorship.

    Wish i could remember his name, he was quite the character

    “I was quick when I came in here, I’m twice as quick now”
    -Indiana Solo, runner of blades
  • ProhassProhass Registered User regular
    edited October 2020
    I love David Mitchell’s take on that, which is essentially “what if some guy nobody now knows didn’t write the plays, but it was some other guy nobody now knows”. Like outside of being an interesting way to look at class and elitism and historicity Theories and such, it really doesn’t matter who wrote the plays

    Prohass on
  • WiseManTobesWiseManTobes Registered User regular
    I was thinking today if we could hurt q's brain by agreeing Trump is a deep state worker but for the Democrats heh. Between infecting all of them and being so terrible at his response die hard red states are flipping.

    Also because of the above, has he accidentally kept a campaign promise and drained the swamp lol?

    Steam! Battlenet:Wisemantobes#1508
  • HevachHevach Registered User regular
    edited October 2020
    https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/kat-kerr-says-1000-special-ops-angels-have-been-dispatched-from-heaven-to-ensure-trumps-reelection/
    Presented without comment:
    Among the participants was “prophetess” and “weather warrior” Kat Kerr, who announced in a Facebook video Saturday that 1,000 “special ops angels” were dispatched from heaven to ensure that President Donald Trump is reelected.

    Oh yes, and lest there be any doubt she says they're all white.

    Hevach on
  • CelestialBadgerCelestialBadger Registered User regular
    I was thinking today if we could hurt q's brain by agreeing Trump is a deep state worker but for the Democrats heh. Between infecting all of them and being so terrible at his response die hard red states are flipping.

    Also because of the above, has he accidentally kept a campaign promise and drained the swamp lol?

    Well, you know he was a Democrat for many years....

  • RingoRingo He/Him a distinct lack of substanceRegistered User regular
    Hevach wrote: »
    https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/kat-kerr-says-1000-special-ops-angels-have-been-dispatched-from-heaven-to-ensure-trumps-reelection/
    Presented without comment:
    Among the participants was “prophetess” and “weather warrior” Kat Kerr, who announced in a Facebook video Saturday that 1,000 “special ops angels” were dispatched from heaven to ensure that President Donald Trump is reelected.

    Oh yes, and lest there be any doubt she says they're all white.

    Sometimes I read about these things and think, "Man, I wanna hear more about that crazy fantasy setting!" but inevitably it's revealed that even the believers are oppressed by the fantastical Conservative Authorities they consider the 'good guys'. Their hopes and dreams are to be crushed under the bootheels of people with less empathy than them.

    It's both sad and frustrating. Select your pistol, and then, select your conservative fantasy world
    That comic is twelve years old300269380_CmABy-L-2.jpg

    Sterica wrote: »
    I know my last visit to my grandpa on his deathbed was to find out how the whole Nazi werewolf thing turned out.
    Edcrab's Exigency RPG
  • spool32spool32 Contrary Library Registered User regular
    Wow, I had never heard of Kat Kerr but she has some kooky shit going on in her headcanon
    “And I can tell you that whole event was filled with the presence of God. And yes, there were 1,000 angels waiting. You know who these angels were? I could see them sitting all up in the upper stands and everything, in the seats, and they were white—they just glow with the glory of God. But they actually were wearing red, white, and blue robes.”

    “And the Holy Spirit said, ‘These angels are special ops angels that were sent from Heaven back in 2016 to fight on behalf of America, on our president, on his administration, God’s plans that he has for this country.’ And they were there to be sent out again right now. And we all did that,” she claimed. “It was very powerful to see them. They shoot past us like beams of light, and they were very powerful beings.”

  • 21stCentury21stCentury Call me Pixel, or Pix for short! [They/Them]Registered User regular
    spool32 wrote: »
    Wow, I had never heard of Kat Kerr but she has some kooky shit going on in her headcanon
    “And I can tell you that whole event was filled with the presence of God. And yes, there were 1,000 angels waiting. You know who these angels were? I could see them sitting all up in the upper stands and everything, in the seats, and they were white—they just glow with the glory of God. But they actually were wearing red, white, and blue robes.”

    “And the Holy Spirit said, ‘These angels are special ops angels that were sent from Heaven back in 2016 to fight on behalf of America, on our president, on his administration, God’s plans that he has for this country.’ And they were there to be sent out again right now. And we all did that,” she claimed. “It was very powerful to see them. They shoot past us like beams of light, and they were very powerful beings.”

    Of COurse GOD is on Trump's SIde. Because OF COURSE God takes sides in politics.

  • MayabirdMayabird Pecking at the keyboardRegistered User regular
    I know a lot of people are avoiding the Election thread, because sanity and stuff, but I was thinking about the Fourteen Elements of Fascism again.
    1. The cult of tradition. "One has only to look at the syllabus of every fascist movement to find the major traditionalist thinkers. The Nazi gnosis was nourished by traditionalist, syncretistic, occult elements."

    2. The rejection of modernism. "The Enlightenment, the Age of Reason, is seen as the beginning of modern depravity. In this sense Ur-Fascism can be defined as irrationalism."

    3. The cult of action for action's sake. "Action being beautiful in itself, it must be taken before, or without, any previous reflection. Thinking is a form of emasculation."

    4. Disagreement is treason. "The critical spirit makes distinctions, and to distinguish is a sign of modernism. In modern culture the scientific community praises disagreement as a way to improve knowledge."

    5. Fear of difference. "The first appeal of a fascist or prematurely fascist movement is an appeal against the intruders. Thus Ur-Fascism is racist by definition."

    6. Appeal to social frustration. "One of the most typical features of the historical fascism was the appeal to a frustrated middle class, a class suffering from an economic crisis or feelings of political humiliation, and frightened by the pressure of lower social groups."

    7. The obsession with a plot. "The followers must feel besieged. The easiest way to solve the plot is the appeal to xenophobia."

    8. The enemy is both strong and weak. "By a continuous shifting of rhetorical focus, the enemies are at the same time too strong and too weak."

    9. Pacifism is trafficking with the enemy. "For Ur-Fascism there is no struggle for life but, rather, life is lived for struggle."

    10. Contempt for the weak. "Elitism is a typical aspect of any reactionary ideology."

    11. Everybody is educated to become a hero. "In Ur-Fascist ideology, heroism is the norm. This cult of heroism is strictly linked with the cult of death."

    12. Machismo and weaponry. "Machismo implies both disdain for women and intolerance and condemnation of nonstandard sexual habits, from chastity to homosexuality."

    13. Selective populism. "There is in our future a TV or Internet populism, in which the emotional response of a selected group of citizens can be presented and accepted as the Voice of the People."

    14. Ur-Fascism speaks Newspeak. "All the Nazi or Fascist schoolbooks made use of an impoverished vocabulary, and an elementary syntax, in order to limit the instruments for complex and critical reasoning."

    Especially #7 in relation to this here thread. So, very much #7.

  • L Ron HowardL Ron Howard The duck MinnesotaRegistered User regular
    USPS Special Agents Find Massive Amount Of Undelivered Mail At QAnon Postal Worker's Home

    https://www.nationalmemo.com/qanon-cult
    United States Postal Service (USPS) special agents reportedly discovered large amounts of undelivered mail after raiding the home of a mail carrier who aligns with the far-right conspiracy theory QAnon.

    A total of eight large garbage bags—believed to be filled with undelivered mail—were confiscated from the home of USPS mail carrier

  • CelestialBadgerCelestialBadger Registered User regular
    USPS Special Agents Find Massive Amount Of Undelivered Mail At QAnon Postal Worker's Home

    https://www.nationalmemo.com/qanon-cult
    United States Postal Service (USPS) special agents reportedly discovered large amounts of undelivered mail after raiding the home of a mail carrier who aligns with the far-right conspiracy theory QAnon.

    A total of eight large garbage bags—believed to be filled with undelivered mail—were confiscated from the home of USPS mail carrier

    Mentally ill worker struggles at work and tries to hide it?

  • furlionfurlion Riskbreaker Lea MondeRegistered User regular
    USPS Special Agents Find Massive Amount Of Undelivered Mail At QAnon Postal Worker's Home

    https://www.nationalmemo.com/qanon-cult
    United States Postal Service (USPS) special agents reportedly discovered large amounts of undelivered mail after raiding the home of a mail carrier who aligns with the far-right conspiracy theory QAnon.

    A total of eight large garbage bags—believed to be filled with undelivered mail—were confiscated from the home of USPS mail carrier

    Mentally ill worker struggles at work and tries to hide it?

    Some people are pretty hesitant to call Q people mentally ill but I disagree. One of the most important parts of a mental illness is that it negatively effects your life. If you are so deep into the Q shit that you commit a felony, that is negatively effecting your life. I think that soon, in the next decade or so, there will be a new mental health category for people who are unable to escape these kinds of things.

    sig.gif Gamertag: KL Retribution
    PSN:Furlion
  • Edith_Bagot-DixEdith_Bagot-Dix Registered User regular
    So I have a theory that the Illuminati, in conjunction with the reverse vampires, secretly had all other conspiracy theorists (except myself and my followers) killed and replaced with clones. But the clones were made stupid on purpose to discredit conspiracy theorists. As evidence, I present all other current conspiracy theorists.



    Also on Steam and PSN: twobadcats
  • MayabirdMayabird Pecking at the keyboardRegistered User regular
    furlion wrote: »
    Some people are pretty hesitant to call Q people mentally ill but I disagree. One of the most important parts of a mental illness is that it negatively effects your life. If you are so deep into the Q shit that you commit a felony, that is negatively effecting your life. I think that soon, in the next decade or so, there will be a new mental health category for people who are unable to escape these kinds of things.

    The question is more if they were mentally ill before, or if their Q obsessions induced it. A lot of people were already clearly lost before it, but there are plenty more who have alienated their entire families and ruined what seemed to have been perfectly functional lives previously for their internet-madness.

  • Ninja Snarl PNinja Snarl P My helmet is my burden. Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered User regular
    Obsession with conspiracies is something that can definitely be associated with a mental illness, but it doesn't necessarily mean a person is mentally ill. Our brains are built to look for patterns whether or not they exist, and our wiring "rewards" us when we think we've fond "solutions" for patterns, real or otherwise. So it's entirely possible for a person to be completely mentally stable and way into QAnon. Their critical thinking skills and/or overall level of knowledge might totally be shit, but they aren't necessarily mentally ill. And I would say the latter is far more the result of the right-wing cultural push towards hating education and valuing ignorance as if learning is a disease and real wisdom only comes from a low-information life, rather than somebody having actual mental issues.

    However, the fact that this person, in spite of knowing exactly what the penalties are for messing with mail and clearly being right-wing, worked for the post office and withheld a huge pile of incriminating evidence as part of their QAnon bullshit? I'd say that's a big sign of a mental illness. Messing with USPS mail is a serious crime, and having eight bags of evidence sitting around suggests they're so far out there as to make their grip on reality very questionable.

  • TastyfishTastyfish Registered User regular
    edited October 2020
    Human brains are built for pattern recognition, but that's not what this is. It's obsession.
    A misfiring 'reward' that gets you stuck in a downward spiral isn't really any different than how you'd describe alcoholism and gambling or sex addiction.

    They're not falling into Q-anon due to an existing mental illness, QAnon and other conspiracy thinking is a mental illness.

    Tastyfish on
  • spool32spool32 Contrary Library Registered User regular
    Tastyfish wrote: »
    Human brains are built for pattern recognition, but that's not what this is. It's obsession.
    A misfiring 'reward' that gets you stuck in a downward spiral isn't really any different than how you'd describe alcoholism and gambling or sex addiction.

    They're not falling into Q-anon due to an existing mental illness, QAnon and other conspiracy thinking is a mental illness.

    that's an interesting take. Would you argue that disclosure of QAnon belief is protected by HIPAA? Should companies be expected to make reasonable accommodations for those with a 'conspiracy thinking disorder'?

    It's not academic - I'm a hiring manager and I not only refuse to employ conspiracy theorists, I would fire someone that I discovered was a QAnon believer. Am I opening my company up to a discrimination lawsuit?

  • 21stCentury21stCentury Call me Pixel, or Pix for short! [They/Them]Registered User regular
    spool32 wrote: »
    Tastyfish wrote: »
    Human brains are built for pattern recognition, but that's not what this is. It's obsession.
    A misfiring 'reward' that gets you stuck in a downward spiral isn't really any different than how you'd describe alcoholism and gambling or sex addiction.

    They're not falling into Q-anon due to an existing mental illness, QAnon and other conspiracy thinking is a mental illness.

    that's an interesting take. Would you argue that disclosure of QAnon belief is protected by HIPAA? Should companies be expected to make reasonable accommodations for those with a 'conspiracy thinking disorder'?

    It's not academic - I'm a hiring manager and I not only refuse to employ conspiracy theorists, I would fire someone that I discovered was a QAnon believer. Am I opening my company up to a discrimination lawsuit?

    i mean, there's two ways about this.

    No, because crackpots aren't protected under the charter of rights or whatever
    Yes, because as a monstrous other, it'd be religiously motivated to fire good christians.

  • Centipede DamascusCentipede Damascus Registered User regular
    I'm not sure how it works, if someone has a mental illness such as schizophrenia or bipolar disorder, how much of a reasonable accommodation do employers need to make, and are those people obligated to inform their employer of their diagnosis in the application process?

  • jothkijothki Registered User regular
    Obsession with conspiracies is something that can definitely be associated with a mental illness, but it doesn't necessarily mean a person is mentally ill. Our brains are built to look for patterns whether or not they exist, and our wiring "rewards" us when we think we've fond "solutions" for patterns, real or otherwise. So it's entirely possible for a person to be completely mentally stable and way into QAnon. Their critical thinking skills and/or overall level of knowledge might totally be shit, but they aren't necessarily mentally ill. And I would say the latter is far more the result of the right-wing cultural push towards hating education and valuing ignorance as if learning is a disease and real wisdom only comes from a low-information life, rather than somebody having actual mental issues.

    However, the fact that this person, in spite of knowing exactly what the penalties are for messing with mail and clearly being right-wing, worked for the post office and withheld a huge pile of incriminating evidence as part of their QAnon bullshit? I'd say that's a big sign of a mental illness. Messing with USPS mail is a serious crime, and having eight bags of evidence sitting around suggests they're so far out there as to make their grip on reality very questionable.

    I'd say that if PTSD is considered a mental illness, extreme conspiracy theorism has grounds for being considered one as well.

  • Phoenix-DPhoenix-D Registered User regular
    jothki wrote: »
    Obsession with conspiracies is something that can definitely be associated with a mental illness, but it doesn't necessarily mean a person is mentally ill. Our brains are built to look for patterns whether or not they exist, and our wiring "rewards" us when we think we've fond "solutions" for patterns, real or otherwise. So it's entirely possible for a person to be completely mentally stable and way into QAnon. Their critical thinking skills and/or overall level of knowledge might totally be shit, but they aren't necessarily mentally ill. And I would say the latter is far more the result of the right-wing cultural push towards hating education and valuing ignorance as if learning is a disease and real wisdom only comes from a low-information life, rather than somebody having actual mental issues.

    However, the fact that this person, in spite of knowing exactly what the penalties are for messing with mail and clearly being right-wing, worked for the post office and withheld a huge pile of incriminating evidence as part of their QAnon bullshit? I'd say that's a big sign of a mental illness. Messing with USPS mail is a serious crime, and having eight bags of evidence sitting around suggests they're so far out there as to make their grip on reality very questionable.

    I'd say that if PTSD is considered a mental illness, extreme conspiracy theorism has grounds for being considered one as well.

    o.O

  • furlionfurlion Riskbreaker Lea MondeRegistered User regular
    A common theme in the true believer is the absolute refusal to accept any evidence that runs counter to their belief no matter how factual. That is not just pattern recognition going awry. Paranoia, obsession with people and places, inability to recognize reality from the fantasy they have built, constant fear of "them", like in many ways it shares a large overlap with schizophrenia. And again the key difference between a mental illness and a personality quirk is the negative impact it has on your life. Thinking 9/11 was an inside job is dumb, but harmless. Quitting your job and ending up homeless because you keep spending all your time online trying to find the truth is not.

    sig.gif Gamertag: KL Retribution
    PSN:Furlion
  • PolaritiePolaritie Sleepy Registered User regular
    furlion wrote: »
    A common theme in the true believer is the absolute refusal to accept any evidence that runs counter to their belief no matter how factual. That is not just pattern recognition going awry. Paranoia, obsession with people and places, inability to recognize reality from the fantasy they have built, constant fear of "them", like in many ways it shares a large overlap with schizophrenia. And again the key difference between a mental illness and a personality quirk is the negative impact it has on your life. Thinking 9/11 was an inside job is dumb, but harmless. Quitting your job and ending up homeless because you keep spending all your time online trying to find the truth is not.

    Yeah, there's definitely a level of detachment from reality that can occur there that should qualify as a medical condition. Definitely a minefield there too though.

    Steam: Polaritie
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  • Ninja Snarl PNinja Snarl P My helmet is my burden. Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered User regular
    Tastyfish wrote: »
    Human brains are built for pattern recognition, but that's not what this is. It's obsession.
    A misfiring 'reward' that gets you stuck in a downward spiral isn't really any different than how you'd describe alcoholism and gambling or sex addiction.

    They're not falling into Q-anon due to an existing mental illness, QAnon and other conspiracy thinking is a mental illness.

    I have to disagree on the point of the conspiracies themselves being a mental illness. For one thing, that route opens a huge fucking door for letting people with bad intentions just label ideas they don't like as "mental illness", which is obviously problematic. For another, this shit is easily countered by government transparency and proper education; just hearing the QAnon bullshit doesn't cause you to be mentally ill, but a combination of a severe lack of critical thinking, real-world knowledge, and a seductive conspiracy with self-sealing arguments combines to make something that can cause somebody to be mentally ill.

    Additionally, I don't see people falling hard into QAnon crap without having some preexisting level of real mental illness. It's potentially toxic nonsense that gets magnified significantly by taking root in vulnerabilities people already have. I've heard a bunch of QAnon bullshit and I've never been inclined to throw away my life serving that "cause", but I also have the perspective, critical thinking skill, and education to look at it and laugh instead of going "hmm, they make some good points..." I'd bet that if the US education system was even remotely adequate for teaching students, QAnon basically wouldn't exist outside a handful of isolated nobodies.

    But you can also have people that are legit normal people and get suckered in for a while. There's really nothing actually wrong with them, they've just latched on to a stupid idea and haven't mulled it over enough yet to ditch it for being moronic.
    jothki wrote: »
    I'd say that if PTSD is considered a mental illness, extreme conspiracy theorism has grounds for being considered one as well.

    I agree, in the sense that both situations can reach a point where a) the person is basically trapped and needs help to cope and b) the two situations can both have hugely negative effects on a person's quality of life but they may not be able to control it. Somebody deeply in the thrall of conspiracy crap likely has source issues like extreme uncontrolled paranoia and whatnot, so they're definitely mentally ill. It could be essentially any conspiracy idea, though, QAnon is just the current flavor of conspiracy making the rounds. Being a QAnon believer doesn't make you mentally ill on its own, but I would absolutely question the mental integrity of somebody who leaned really hard into that shit.

    Like if we take this postal agent who ditched the mail? My first thought is that he's mentally ill and I'd want a specialist dealing with him ASAP. But the QAnon stuff would just be a symptom to be, not a cause; I'm sure there are underlying issues involved and the individual simply managed to keep a lid on it enough to pass for semi-normal in the workplace.

  • TastyfishTastyfish Registered User regular
    spool32 wrote: »
    Tastyfish wrote: »
    Human brains are built for pattern recognition, but that's not what this is. It's obsession.
    A misfiring 'reward' that gets you stuck in a downward spiral isn't really any different than how you'd describe alcoholism and gambling or sex addiction.

    They're not falling into Q-anon due to an existing mental illness, QAnon and other conspiracy thinking is a mental illness.

    that's an interesting take. Would you argue that disclosure of QAnon belief is protected by HIPAA? Should companies be expected to make reasonable accommodations for those with a 'conspiracy thinking disorder'?

    It's not academic - I'm a hiring manager and I not only refuse to employ conspiracy theorists, I would fire someone that I discovered was a QAnon believer. Am I opening my company up to a discrimination lawsuit?

    I'm not really familiar with how US employment law interacts with this kind of thing, but presumbaly you'd be firing them because this was interfering with their work which would be allowed? So you're not firing the alcoholic for being an alcoholic, you're firing them for being repeatedly drunk at work, or some kind of gross misconduct like stealing money from the till to fund a gambling addiction. I expect the Christian fanatic that keeps flicking holy water at their coworkers as they are convinced that anyone at any time could have been replaced by a demon is also going to be shown the door pretty quickly.

    As for the slippery slope of outlawing thoughts, it's not the thoughts that are the problem. There's nothing wrong with thinking that the earth is flat, for whatever reason that the Earth is a sphere might just be something that hypothetically you never learned or noticed. It's when this turns into self reinforcing, paranoid conspiracy thinking that there is a problem, producing the same kind of behaviours as other addictions.
    Also something that they will find very hard to break out of on their own.

  • EncEnc A Fool with Compassion Pronouns: He, Him, HisRegistered User regular
    Believing in conspiracy theories is not mental illness, full stop. That whole line of reasoning to conflate the two leads to very damaging things, from playing down the seriousness of mental illnesses to playing up the protections conspiracy theorists should have in society.

    Conspiracy theories are a function of insecurity and ignorance, they appeal to people who either don't have enough information to understand a topic or are too insecure with the implications of reality about a topic to accept them. Mental illness can fall into the latter category, certainly, but there are plenty of flat earthers who are just poorly educated or under-socialized.

  • TavTav Irish Minister for DefenceRegistered User regular
    chrisnl wrote: »
    "Where we go one, we go all" still remains one of the most nonsensical slogans I have ever heard. It's just terrible on every level.



    Fun fact: It was originally the inscription on the bell on the boat Eye of the Wind, built in 1911. Qultists have tried to say that it was on JFK's boat Honey Fitz, but it demonstrably isn't (and it wasn't even JFK's boat). The phrase was used in the 1996 Jeff Bridges movie White Squall, which used Eye of the Wind in it's filming.

  • 21stCentury21stCentury Call me Pixel, or Pix for short! [They/Them]Registered User regular
    they talked about the Quebec branch of QAnon theorists yesterday on TV, on the weekly investigative journalism show.

    Turns out WWG1WGA is translated to just "One for all and all for one" in french. Literally the musketeers creed.

    Also they invited the major online personality spreading QAnon theories on youtube to the show. (I hate when they do that, giving shitty people a massive platform for free is horrible!)

    Apparently when he calls for violent revolution, it's not a call to action and when his followers leave violent comments talking about shooting the Premier, it's actually The Establishment doing that to make him look bad.

    I don't understand how a conspiracy that's so americentrist gets a solid foothold elsewhere.

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