Just curious to find out if anyone came to this board to see the "Q crazies" and ended up finding that there aren't nearly as many crazies as expected, and maybe even ended up agreeing with some of the information posted here hadn't ever been presented before.
I certainly don't expect people who have been lurking for only a little while to be a full-blown Q follower, but am wondering how many people found out about this board from an anti-"QAnon" board or news article, just to end up sticking around because you are genuinely interested in it as a resource?
Cheers.
Me personally? No; I kinda have more of a fatalistic, roll-of-the-dice view of the world.
But it's easy to see in Reddit/Twitter folks who cover this subject, or even behind-the-scenes political stuff in general (see: Louise Mensch, Seth Abramson): if your investigations require you to think in conspiracy terms, guess what? You're gonna start thinking in conspiracy terms, even when you shouldn't.
EDIT: banned, that's my cue, peace out yall -- it's been a ride.
I've heard maybe it's the CIA? But the term's been around forever, negative connotations and all, since at least the Civil War (which obviously had a few conspiracies in it).
One totally granular example: here's a book published in 1895, talking about the conspiracy theories behind secession.
Well, wait a second. If you didn't experience this, then how can you make the presumption that it is research that leads to conspiratorial mindsets?
Certainly you're not conflating correlation with causation?
But what about when you should? Conspiracies exist, which is why it's a legal classification of a crime. And more than that, we've seen in even just very recent years that there have been quite grand conspiracies that turned out not to be mere theories (or paranoia which is what most people actually mean when they say conspiracy theory). Whether we're looking at Epstein's connections, and to whom he was catering his underage sex slaves, or we look at the GME exposure of the Wall St cartel (another word for group of co-conspirators), or even the revelation from a few years ago that the FDA was being bribed by sugar lobbies to use fake studies that push the idea that fats were unhealthy and sugar was fine, when in fact, it turns out, increasing fats and decreasing simple sugars in the diet is much healthier for most people.
I completely agree that communities, such as this one, tend to attract the conspiracy-minded, but I would argue that is an effect, not a cause. I also agree that there are many (though I wouldn't say most) on this board who are conspiracy hammers (that is to say, when you're a hammer, everything looks like a nail), and tend to go down spirals lead by blind intellect -- but not any more-so than the vast majority of modern "scientists" where they are constantly changing theories (as it should be) but every year when it changes, stating with the foolish confidence rivaling the most zealous religious bigot, that they have finally cracked it with absolute certainty.
Asking questions is important, and trying to understand things, not taking status quo for granted, should be revered, not shamed. Perhaps if there wasn't such a pompous backlash to simply asking questions, many of the "flat-Earthers" would have finally learned something more about the nature of Earth and realized that it is, indeed, a Globe. Their theories and experiments to anyone who does understand something about astronomy, geology and physics, are obviously lacking, but that doesn't mean that there is nothing to learn from their investigations. They are right to question the current models, because clearly our current models are incorrect (or lacking data at the very least) in many areas or there wouldn't be things such as gravitational anomalies. Investigations into dark matter have been long and fruitless, and it would be beneficial to reexamine much of the scientific models we take for granted.
Because they voice those conspiratorial mindsets in their tweets and posts on the subject, fresh from the well.
Plus I'm just kinda extrapolating on big dumb human nature: spend enough time digging through dirt, you're gonna walk away dirty. Combine that metaphor with "When you've got a hammer, everything looks like a nail," and yep, that's what I'm trying to get at here.
I read something about this recently -- MSM writers investigating Q skeptically but feeling the same conspiracy mentality growing -- but it's lost somewhere in my twitter history, if I find it, I'll add it.
Totally agree -- but I think a knee-jerk reaction is unwise and often unhelpful, and that's what I keep seeing here: the automatic assumption that each and every discrepancy in the world is an indication of a secret conspiracy.
EDIT: banned, take it easy yall
Whereas, I would reiterate, this is an effect of the type of person drawn to a conspiracy theory, rather than a cause of researching it.
Yes, but this can be said of anything. If you spend all of your time studying mathematics everything looks like a math equation. All of your time in philosophy; everything is a philosophical law. But that doesn't mean these two conclusions are untrue.
Couldn't agree more. Nonetheless, everyone is on a different path; everyone being at different stages. Many need to discover this for themselves, and certainly there will be (and probably have been) times that you or I wrongly assume something true is just a knee-jerk assumption of the conspiracy-minded.
“For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.”
Whether you're religiously-minded or not, no thinking person can deny the overflowing wisdom of the Bible (or many other religious texts). This verse in particular (1 Timothy 6:10) is what I attribute the cause of evil "cabals" or conspiracies that DO exist, rather than "Devil worship" as some on this board believe, as I tend to side with the philosophers that "The Devil" is a personification of evil, especially that capacity for evil that exists in man. But that is a separate discussion entirely.
I guess the point I'm poorly attempting to make is that we have to be our own judges of what is true or untrue, and that in any group or community (especially one open to the public) you're going to have a lot of differing opinions and ideas, few of which are common to or representative of everyone. The WBC doesn't detract from the Truth in the commandments of Jesus of Nazareth, which were first, and above all else, to love God (which is Wisdom and Truth, however else you may conceive of it), and second, to love others as yourself (which, often overlooked, is really a total of three commandments).
For me, I certainly don't accept the MSM's portrayal of Q, and do see enough in the drops to know there is something there, though I can't say for sure what most of it means, but I've never known an attempt to brainwash that involved constantly reinforcing that "followers" should do their own research and look into evidence themselves, and to constantly question everything -- taking nothing for granted. That seems like generally good advice.
However, I generally don't agree with a lot of the interpretations of the drops, especially the ones that operate on the assumption that every little detail of media or events are controlled by people. But I have no problem with them believing this, as freedom of thought is of the utmost importance.