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US election 2020 thread

if these people become well and truly a laughing joke for the majority, they would soon exam their beliefs. trump never once said "look, you bunch of dumbases, waht the FUCK are you on about?"

hopefully that'll change
 
if these people become well and truly a laughing joke for the majority, they would soon exam their beliefs. trump never once said "look, you bunch of dumbases, waht the FUCK are you on about?"

hopefully that'll change
I'm starting to think you might be the thick one tbh
 
the main narrative is already that they're bedroom dwelling social retards & misfits tbf. But they keep getting bigger. What next?
 
the main narrative is already that they're bedroom dwelling social retards & misfits tbf. But they keep getting bigger. What next?
Well, getting rid of the king of them all is not a start - no? He offered them no opposition. he was pulling the strings from the start.
 
Investment scams like Ponzi scheme type things? I don’t think so. That might be useful when thinking about people who just fell for Donald trump as someone who would help them, but I don’t think Qanon is similar, people aren’t involved just because they got duped by shiny promises, they are getting something out of it. But all this is for another thread probably isn’t it.
Stuff like Onecoin or all the long term pump-and-dump no-hope share things where it's more than transactional scam - it has a social and belief element and people end up fully part of it.
 
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Well, getting rid of the king of them all is not a start - no? He offered them no opposition. he was pulling the strings from the start.
it's a good thing that trump will no longer be president in a couple of weeks, but to imagine that if we all got together and laughed at the far right movements that have grown up in his wake is - sorry - really fucking stupid.
 
it's a good thing that trump will no longer be president in a couple of weeks, but to imagine that if we all got together and laughed at the far right movements that have grown up in his wake is - sorry - really fucking stupid.
would a stern faced expression do then? What would happen to me if I started spouting Qanon stuff on here?
 
What would happen to me if I started spouting Qanon stuff on here?
I think this is a fair question. It's one I've pondered before when reading people calling Qanoners and similar people stupid cunts, fuckwits, etc. On one level, I think it's ok to have a go at people making wilfully stupid posts. God knows I was rude enough to Marty1. On another level, I think it's possible to engage in a different way, and I try to when talking on here to people about bitcoin, for instance. I doubt many of us are entirely consistent.
 
I think this is a fair question. It's one I've pondered before when reading people calling Qanoners and similar people stupid cunts, fuckwits, etc. On one level, I think it's ok to have a go at people making wilfully stupid posts. God knows I was rude enough to Marty1. On another level, I think it's possible to engage in a different way, and I try to when talking on here to people about bitcoin, for instance. I doubt many of us are entirely consistent.


There’s a thread going on right now with people trying to talk a long time poster out of the rabbit hole.

Someone just said “you’re obviously stupid if you believe/post that shit” but that’s lazy and simplistic, and doesn’t address the underlying problem (whatever it is) that has led to this conspiracy problem.

It’s not going away; it needs be understood .
 
There’s a thread going on right now with people trying to talk a long time poster out of the rabbit hole.

Someone just said “you’re obviously stupid if you believe/post that shit” but that’s lazy and simplistic, and doesn’t address the underlying problem (whatever it is) that has led to this conspiracy problem.

It’s not going away; it needs be under understood .
I still don't have good answers about any of it, really, in terms of helping people climb out of the rabbit hole. Biggest problem is the old cliche that they need to want to climb out of it, and that has to come from them.

tbh it's kind of weird for me seeing this stuff going so 'mainstream'.
 
There’s a thread going on right now with people trying to talk a long time poster out of the rabbit hole.

Someone just said “you’re obviously stupid if you believe/post that shit” but that’s lazy and simplistic, and doesn’t address the underlying problem (whatever it is) that has led to this conspiracy problem.

It’s not going away; it needs be understood .



This post

if believing in Q anon, covid deniel, etc are NOT a sign of stupidity, not sure what is?
 
I'm sure it would be right and true to find the socio-economic structural reasons
take creationism - There is a rough consensus that this is a discredited and unhepful belief. Now can you imagine you had a world leader who supported, encouraged, and didn't opposes such a belief in creationism. That is exactly what trump has done with the far right lunacy. I am saying the narrative will change that he is gone. These people will have even less credibility than they already have. All things need to be understood on a structural level, but that applies to the top as well as to what is screwing people at the bottom. Trump was an evil puppet master. If the next set of Republicans start courting this shit, and courting it seriously, then yes, we are truly fucked.
 
I still don't have good answers about any of it, really, in terms of helping people climb out of the rabbit hole. Biggest problem is the old cliche that they need to want to climb out of it, and that has to come from them.

tbh it's kind of weird for me seeing this stuff going so 'mainstream'.


It is weird, for sure. And kind of in keeping with the whole (pseudo-)apocalyptic scene were all enduring right now.

We had a discussion on one of the hoax threads about whether it as worth making the effort, and how one might go about doing that. I talked about a sort of event horizon, past which all efforts are pointless, but up until that point I think it’s worth repeatedly throwing out a line for them to climb back up.

What that line is made of has to depend on the specifics in the situation (who, what, when where etc)
 
It's a big mistake to conflate gullibility (lack of critical thinking skills) and stupidity. The two are unrelated. And the IQ profile for people who get roped into cults, etc., tends to be higher than that of the general population.
Tbh it's not even lack of critical thinking skills. It's a suspension of those thinking skills in certain areas of thought, done subconsciously and for any number of underlying emotional motivational reasons, and combined with the human ability and propensity for confabulation. Certain things have to be true - you work backwards from there and the story you confabulate to make sense of it, however unlikely it may sound, also has to be true.
 
I'm sure it would be right and true to find the socio-economic structural reasons

take creationism - There is a rough consensus that this is a discredited and unhepful belief. Now can you imagine you had a world leader who supported, encouraged, and didn't opposes such a belief in creationism. That is exactly what trump has done with the far right lunacy. I am saying the narrative will change that he is gone. These people will have even less credibility than they already have. All things need to be understood on a structural level, but that applies to the top as well as to what is screwing people at the bottom. Trump was an evil puppet master. If the next set of Republicans start courting this shit, and courting it seriously, then yes, we are truly fucked.


Who is “these people”?

What narrative will change once he’s no longer in office? How? Where will it go?

What things need to be understood on a structural level?
What does that mean anyway?

You seem to be thinking about things as a cartoon or comic book.
 
It's a big mistake to conflate gullibility (lack of critical thinking skills) and stupidity. The two are unrelated. And the IQ profile for people who get roped into cults, etc., tends to be higher than that of the general population.
i guess we would have define stupidity? not walking infront of traffic? spreading dangerous beliefs about a disease they have read about on social media? We are all stupid to an extent, but I am not sure how to describe the belief, based on nothing, that Obama drinks children's blood other than...stupid? I understand that it's probably not helpful, but also to be called out on certain ways of thinking can be sometimes more helpful than being understood. Should we try and understand someone like Farage, or Nick Griffin?
 
Tbh it's not even lack of critical thinking skills. It's a suspension of those thinking skills in certain areas of thought, done subconsciously and for any number of underlying emotional motivational reasons, and combined with the human ability and propensity for confabulation. Certain things have to be true - you work backwards from there and the story you confabulate to make sense of it, however unlikely it may sound, also has to be true.
Exactly, the beliefs might be irrational but the motivation behind aligning yourself with them isn’t, it’s not just an error or inability to use google.
And then, once you’re in there, you’d need something to motivate you to even attempt to get out, to venture even so far as to try to check a fact for instance.
Because why would you do that if there’s nothing to be gained by it and everything seemingly to be lost (your community, belonging, way of making sense of the world).
 
i guess we would have define stupidity? not walking infront of traffic? spreading dangerous beliefs about a disease they have read about on social media? We are all stupid to an extent, but I am not sure how to describe the belief, based on nothing, that Obama drinks children's blood other than...stupid? I understand that it's probably not helpful, but also to be called out on certain ways of thinking can be sometimes more helpful than being understood. Should we try and understand someone like Farage, or Nick Griffin?
Does this perhaps come back to what I said earlier? Better to call the beliefs stupid rather than the people.
 
America is a country* founded by people who were high on ideals of millenarianism/eschatology (shining city on the hill etc.). It’s fascinating that this is still a live issue 400 years on.

(*apologies of course to aboriginal Americian)
 
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