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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
Unfortunately, if someone wants to find an enemy, there’s not much that can be done to snap them out of it.
My musician pageSo, wait, the Q-Anon theory says that people are harvesting blood from children to stay young. Now, do the people who believe in this think that the ringleaders are crazy for thinking bathing in the blood of children will keep them young, or do they genuinely believe that bathing in the blood of children actually does keep you young?
The Qanon theory was made on 4chan as a joke initially before it was monetized. As such, it absorbs plenty of other conspiracy theories:
- Pedophiles
- cannibalism
- Satanism
- Aliens
And so on.
Edited by CharlesPhipps on Aug 25th 2020 at 6:44:46 AM
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.To my knowledge, there's also a variation that they don't keep their youth from children sacrifice, but that they synthesize some sort of hallucinogenic drug from children's suffering. So more like an ancient cabal of stoner pedophiles.
"All you Fascists bound to lose."The conspiracy theorist in general has a bit of doublethink going on: they believe in a conspiracy that is vast and powerful enough to control everything, yet somehow isn't able to silence the conspiracy theorist (who generally isn't anyone particularly important or powerful).
The appeal of the conspiracy theory is that it lets a sheep think it's a wolf. After all, if you believe you're one of the only people in the world who knows the "truth", you (in your own mind) are already better than almost everyone else on Earth.
Edited by M84 on Aug 25th 2020 at 9:53:20 PM
Disgusted, but not surprisedOr alternatively it just creates a vision of the world that "makes sense" and has some kind of simplistic order to it. While conspiracies present some pretty messed up scenarios that would be horrifying if true, the idea that the world is a complex place where a lot of complex factors intersect to make things how they are and that often things happen for not necessarily any particular reason is far scarier.
People make conspiracy theories because in reality the rich and powerful are actively plotting against the working class as well as engaged in campaigns of disinformation, disenfranchisement, and gross abuse.
Its just people try and explain this in a way that their enemies are deviant in some way (Satanists, aliens, Democrats) rather than the people they ostensibly admire (GOP, Super Rich).
But I don't think anyone expected any other answer from me.
Edited by CharlesPhipps on Aug 25th 2020 at 7:06:57 AM
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.There's no evidence for anything Qanon claims.
Ironically, they resemble a lot of things that happened in reality like celebrities molesting other celebrities (see Kevin Spacey) or pedophile sex trafficking rings (Epstein) and a political party based cover up for horrific crimes.
However, none of them are the people they blame.
Because, again, Qanon is a con game by 3 con men who market lies to people who support them on Patreon.
Edited by CharlesPhipps on Aug 25th 2020 at 7:09:19 AM
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.The Alt Right Playbook channel on Youtube had an interesting series of videos about the alt-right, and how it is basically a cult that sucks people in. It was all rather disturbing, and it convinces me that a lot of people who get sucked into that stuff need help more than anything else.
The worst thing is, this particular cult does not even have an actual leadership. It is like the internet fosters cultist recruitment without an actual central cultist leader. It also makes them more dangerous, because recruits end up having nothing to direct their anger and frustration at, so they become lone wolf terrorists sometimes.
The best advice the series had, I think, is to keep talking to them, not politically or to convince them, but to show them that other people view the world differently. It prevents them from being isolated by the cult and indoctrinated.
Hope shines brightest in the darkest timesI feel the need to point out that Qanon is something that needs to be both acknowledged as extremely dangerous as well as ridiculous. It was created as a JOKE on 4chan. The whole "religion" is the result of people making up secret messages from "Q" (a fictitious deep cover agent in the US government) that talk about Trump as a superhero working with Mueller.
It's no different from a cult based around stories about Slenderman. It's an internet flash game that drew in thousands of people with "secret messages" and "decoding" them.
It was weaponized by con men appealing to Right Wingers with money and became such a big deal that Republicans picked it up.
Edited by CharlesPhipps on Aug 25th 2020 at 7:48:02 AM
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
The weird thing is that I'm pretty plugged into the gaming communities so I was a forum page or two over when this shit started. It's the perfect Donald Trump conspiracy because it's so fucking stupid and obvious you'd never think anyone would fall for it. You don't need to go far to see where it began and the mountains of evidence it's nothing but a bunch of trolls and amateur bloggers.
And yet, unironically, it's an actual honest-to-God terrorist group.
Edit:
Edited for language. Only one fbomb per post. :)
Edited by CharlesPhipps on Aug 25th 2020 at 7:58:10 AM
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.Never fails to amaze me how the West claims to be a superior society than most of the third world, and yet they have some of the highest proportions of unhinged people on the Internet.
And remember, anti-vaxx, Q Anon and similar conspiracy theories isn't just an exclusively American or Western thing. I've seen conservative Indians, Koreans, Latin Americans and some Africans actively supporting Trump and spreading Quackery and anti intellectual shit on social media.
Turns out the deadliest pandemic in the world isn't a virus, but rather human stupidity.
Scaled seekerQ Anon's big plan is to present themselves as a heroic force and all their critics as pedophiles or apart of some imaginary sex ring. And as Charles says, in their narrative Trump is a messiah figure trying to root out all the sex offenders on the left.
It is dangerous though. Very dangerous, especially since the growing presence of young people online presents a never ending supply of potential recruits.
Just Having Fun

I wouldn't know she makes sure to not associate with me as much as possible.
She's bubbly & nice to the rest of the family & her friends but with me I'm of half a mind that she may genuinely want to kill me.
Even her friends think she treats me too bad. Sure I may be annoying but I'm not sure scratching me hard enough to draw blood is the proportionate response to trying to hug her.
Edited by slimcoder on Aug 25th 2020 at 6:35:39 AM
"I am Alpharius. This is a lie."