My wife and I have watched the first two episodes of HBO's "Q: Into the Storm" because we find QAnon both ridiculous and dangerous.
Ridiculous, because QAnon faithful believe in absolutely crazy stuff -- such as Hillary Clinton and other Democrats operating a pedophile ring out of the basement of a Washington D.C. pizza restaurant.
Dangerous, because so many followers of Trump in this country accept the QAnon insanity, including that mass arrests of Democrats will take place and the Orange One (Trump) will become president again.
I can't recommend the HBO series because it is much more boring than it should be, given its subject matter.
As a review correctly points out, the makers of this documentary went overboard on filming the people involved in the web sites Q posts on in excruciating detail. Their disputes, eccentricities, and such are mildly interesting, but what gets lost are the larger questions.
Notably, how can so many people be so infatuated with the QAnon conspiracy theories that have no basis in fact?
I don't have an answer. All I can say is that the first two episodes show how closely related QAnon is to religiosity, a subject of a previous post, "QAnon and religion are both mass delusions."
No one knows who Q is.
However, posts from Q appear on the Internet. Likewise, no one knows if God even exists, much less what the probably non-existent God is like -- since there is no real evidence of any communications from God.
Yet QAnon believers and religious devotees spend a huge amount of time conjuring up theories about their chosen faith.
Every detail of Q's posts is examined for hidden meanings, in much the same way religious writings and utterances of religious leaders considered to have a direct connection with God are studied by the faithful.
QAnon followers wrongly consider that they're part of a truth-seeking movement.
Even when predictions by Q fail to come to pass, his acolytes are spurred to dig deeper and find the reality hidden from everyone else -- you know, the people who accept facts and reason, a group I'm proud to belong to.
This bears a lot of resemblance to religious fantasies such as the Second Coming of Christ, the Christian version of QAnon's "storm."
A new conspiracy theory called “The Storm” has taken the grimiest parts of the internet by, well, storm. Like Pizzagate, the Storm conspiracy features secret cabals, a child sex-trafficking ring led (in part) by the satanic Democratic Party, and of course, countless logical leaps and paranoid assumptions that fail to hold up under the slightest fact-based scrutiny. However, unlike Pizzagate, the Storm isn’t focused on a single block of shops in D.C., or John Podesta’s emails. It’s much, much bigger than that.
I'm bothered by the fact that so many otherwise normal people are so easily sucked into the fact-free whirlpool of QAnon. Sure, religions have been doing this sort of sucking for thousands of years, preying upon the gullibility of humans who enjoy a good story, even if it is made up.
QAnon, though, lacks the moral foundation that most religions have, which tends to limit how destructive they can be. So far as I can tell, QAnon has no ethical standards, no commitment to caring and compassion, no respect for open debate into the nature of reality.
QAnon, like the worst of the world's religions, only cares about spreading lies. Flee from it, if you're ever tempted to embrace some aspect of QAnon craziness.
Several things as discussed in storm, judging from what you wrote, do exist but it is doubtful, that it exists as an "organized" evil.
Since 1968, the intellectual elite has done whatever it could to shame the cultural establishment on all levels, be it political, religious or science and art.
It is like weakening the mortar of an building, destroying its binding qualities.
If the mortar has become like sand the whole stability of the building is at risk and the building is no longer safe to live in.
There was an neuro physiologist that found in sensoric deprivation experiments, that if the brain was deprived of stimuli for a longer time, the brain starts to produce its own stimuli in order to keep the function alive.
What he found is working in many other fields as well. Identity for example but also in the games that people play.
Whether we are aware of it or not, whatever we do, is part of an "game". Games are organized activities,
Economics are games, politics are games. Democracy is a game. Maybe more complex than base ball, but never the less it is a game.
Religion too is a game.
Deprive the masses from its game, in order to continue, the birth of Qanon should not suprise.
It all started in 1968 ... hahahaha
Posted by: um | April 04, 2021 at 03:06 AM
>>QAnon, though, lacks the moral foundation that most religions have, which tends to limit how destructive they can be. So far as I can tell, QAnon has no ethical standards, no commitment to caring and compassion, no respect for open debate into the nature of reality.<<
That is what society gets after ridiculing, blaming, criminalizing by those intellectuals that have not faith, not willing or able to believe in the divine and who are not willing to see that within themselves and project instead on the shortcomings of religious establishment.
It all started in 1968 ... with the artist that were not able to paint even a simple tree and instead of admitting that to themselves, blamed the schools, the teachers that their teachings were stupid and had to be left behind.
Hahaha ... just an example to make a point. It happened also on the university and in almost all spheres of human activity.
The new credo is blame the other for your shortcomings.
The rise of gurudom in the west, can be explained as an search for spirituality but also as an unwillingly or inability to accept the reality of the divine... an projection of the divine upon humans with white beards in the east.
Faith, real faith is a rare commodity and it brings luster on the face of those who have it ... the rest is just fake.
Qanon is the mental offspring of those who fight it.
Posted by: um | April 04, 2021 at 04:53 AM
Agreed. QAnon, and more generally Trump-cultism, is the scum-de-la-scum of craziness. Trump is a reprehensible loathsome creature, but at least his self-serving ways are sane; his brainwashed brain-dead unthinking zombie worshipers are pathetic in a way that even he isn't, because they participate in this madness at their own cost and to their own detriment (unlike the self-serving Trump who keeps bilking his cult-followers, bilking them of money, and of time, and of attention, and of effort).
And agreed, religious whack-jobs, while without a doubt whackos, are decidedly saner than the QAnon Trump-cultist morons, because religions are so very old and so very complex that many who do not think things through might be excused their confusion and their mistaken blind faith; but people who've been hoodwinked by the transparent nonsense that QAnon and Trumpism is all about, are a whole different degree of pathetic.
Posted by: Appreciative Reader | April 04, 2021 at 05:38 AM
Quote um:
" ... hahahaha"
-------
Hey um, I think I like your approach, very much. There is after all no need at all to get all self-important and solemn when thinking about or discussing things, be it politics or be it religion or spirituality or whatever. Not that these things aren't important, they are indeed important as long as we think them important; but it takes nothing away to engage with them with a smile and a laugh, as you seem to invariably do, and instead makes the world a more pleasant place, regardless of our particular position as far as some particular issue.
hahahaha, indeed. Cheers!
Posted by: Appreciative Reader | April 04, 2021 at 07:08 AM
The incapacity to work together and trust those of different colors, nationalities, orientations and beliefs for the common good, with a belief in the inherent good in all people, has lead to the fabrication of lies and propaganda for personal gain at great harm and expense to others.
It is just a phase. As more people use the internet to organize, we see, and will see more, organization for projects that are worthy, and which draw participants and support from around the globe.
Naturally, there will be continuing abuse as well. Perhaps that was where it started with every new form of media and communication: abuse and corruption, and legitimacy. The wild west days of error and lawlessness happen in every newly opened land.
Where there are shadows there must be light. And where the light is strongest, shadows appear darkest.
Posted by: Spence Tepper | April 04, 2021 at 10:20 AM
Uh oh, it seems right-wing crazies do have a religion; Atheism. Well I say new, but nothing "new" about it really, it's just it seems like "news" on a blog that appears to think belief in God or the paranormal equates to madness, whilst rationality, materialism and atheism equates to paradise on earth.
More facts for the brave and courageous scouts of this group:
https://www.salon.com/2021/06/05/how-the-new-atheists-merged-with-the-far-right-a-story-of-intellectual-grift-and-abject-surrender/
The irony would be delicious, if it wasn't so darn tragic and sad
Posted by: manjit | June 07, 2021 at 10:26 AM
Incoming - more "rationality" for the scouts to ignore on their "crusade" against woo and irrationality......
https://www.currentaffairs.org/2018/10/being-mr-reasonable
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/3/27/15695060/sam-harris-charles-murray-race-iq-forbidden-knowledge-podcast-bell-curve
https://www.wired.com/story/sam-harris-and-the-myth-of-perfectly-rational-thought/
https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2013/4/2/scientific-racism-militarism-and-the-new-atheists
https://youtu.be/_A1cmqbI31M
Posted by: manjit | June 09, 2021 at 11:33 AM