Skip to main content

New top story from Time: Why Does the QAnon Conspiracy Thrive Despite All its Unfulfilled Prophecies?

https://ift.tt/3610wpM

To any reasonable person, the failure of a long-foretold event to materialize should erode the belief that it will happen. A perfect example is the long-foretold and never arriving “storm” of mass arrests promised by the mysterious “military intelligence” team at the heart of the QAnon conspiracy. How could anyone think something promised for years, and put off countless times, is actually going to happen this time?

Belief doesn’t need to be reasonable—particularly when it revolves around the punishment of the people you’ve been told are responsible for all of the world’s ills. And this stubborn lack of logic isn’t limited to people who think the deep state is trafficking children or that Joe Biden is actually a fake president. We all have an innate need to believe in good things that are extremely unlikely to take place. It’s the essence of hope. And a life without hope is . . . hopeless.
[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]

Even when Q believers are presented with crushing proof that they’ve been fooled, they still believe—often taking the proof that they’re wrong as proof that they’re actually right. To do otherwise would be to give in to hopelessness.

By the time of the COVID-19 lockdown, Q had been exposed countless times as a fraud and a troll with no connection to military intelligence whose “predictions” were the same kind of rapid-fire guessing that a strip-mall psychic uses, while the movement’s members were running into the law for their increasingly violent and untethered behavior. But to the faithful, these were all temporary setbacks, perpetrated by a bought-and-paid-for media. Everyone just needed to “trust the plan” and believe.

To understand why QAnon followers believe and hang on to that belief requires understanding why people believe in conspiracy theories in the first place. To begin, Q is almost never anyone’s first conspiracy theory, but the next step on a ladder that includes any number of plots and schemes. So when people find Q, which already incorporates so many other conspiracy theories, it easily fits into their world view. And it doesn’t mean they’re crazy or stupid.

Human brains need to recognize dangerous situations, and we are hardwired to seek patterns, to find order in chaos, and to exert control where none can be found. Conspiracy theories, at their most basic level, assert that we are in danger from hidden forces. This helps give difficult questions and random events satisfying answers—and puts us at the center of those events. And we all do it.

If you’re hearing danger in a strange noise late at night, or looking at a world event and thinking that there must be more to it than what we’re being told, you’re just doing what your brain has evolved to do as a way to make sense of the senseless.

Our lives are often full of failure—personal, professional, and collective. We don’t want to believe these failures are due to honest mistakes by others or random chance. And most of all, we don’t want to believe that they’re our own fault. To believe otherwise is to believe that either we screwed up, or that we have no control over what happens to us. And that’s just too horrible to accept.

Such beliefs don’t begin with the Internet, nor are they more prevalent in the Internet age. Decades of polling consistently show that over half of Americans believe in some conspiracy theory, and that about as many people in 1963 believed that multiple assassins killed JFK as they did in 2013, according to Conspiracy Theories and the People Who Use Them.

Notions that someone is trying to get something over on us go viral for a good reason: many times, someone is trying to get something over on us. Conspiracy theories can be held by people who work normal jobs, have loving families, and don’t spend every hour of every day soaking in violent ideation. They can take the form merely of irritating our friends with yet another ramble about whatever hidden chicanery we’ve chosen to believe in—our phone breaking suspiciously just as the service contract expires so that we have to buy a new one, and so on. They can even be fun to speculate about—like the viral conspiracy theory about Chuck E. Cheese “recycling” unused pizza slices to make misshapen new pizzas.

Further complicating matters is that some conspiracies are real. Julius Caesar was murdered by Roman politicians conspiring together. And 150 years later, a conspiracy of killers succeeded in assassinating President Abraham Lincoln, with plans to kill both the Vice President and Secretary of War. A conspiracy of German officers tried to kill Adolf Hitler in July 1944. And the U.S. Public Health Service engaged in a grossly unethical four-decade conspiracy to withhold syphilis treatment from Black sharecroppers in Tuskegee, Alabama.

Conspiracy theories, on the other hand, find believers because they fit in with our need to find hidden danger and revelations about how the world “really” works. As we’ve seen, this is not necessarily a bad thing. But for many Q believers, that nebulous feeling that they’re all out to get me becomes They’re all out to get me, and I’m gonna get them first. This is the danger of Q—not that people believe it, but that believing it means that those who don’t are the enemy.

For the QAnon adherent, Q is not a conspiracy theory—and many believers bristle at the term, calling themselves “conspiracy researchers” instead. It’s a way of clearly seeing the world and of organizing the players into columns of good guys and bad guys. And it provides its believers something nobody usually expects out of cultish conspiracy movements—hope. Q believers speak excitedly of the promise of a new future that Q would deliver—something ex-believer Jitarth Jadeja explained to me.

“I wanted to believe that the good guys were fighting the good fight, and in a better future,” he told me over Zoom. “Q makes you feel important and gives you meaning and self-esteem. You are saving the world when you’re in Q, [it’s] the highest way you can view yourself.”

Undoubtedly, at least some Q believers are in the grip of delusion, to the point of being unable to stand trial for crimes they’ve committed. Others vaguely believe some of its tenets without specifically calling themselves Q believers. And some are just in it for the trolling—or because they really hate Jews and Democrats, or worship Donald Trump. But those extremes are out of the ordinary. Many are just people who passionately believe in a thing that isn’t real because it tells them what they want to hear.

This is ultimately what brings people to Q, and what keeps them there. The promise of bad people being punished is one element of it, but the feeling of being part of something important and powerful is vastly underestimated. Q believers see themselves as soldiers fighting for the ultimate cause—and are surrounded by people who validate them, rather than insult or belittle them, or try to fact-check them out of what they think is real. Yes, Q will sometimes admit to making errors in drops. And Q posts their drops on 8chan, a place full of racists and anti-Semites saying racist and anti-Semitic things.

But that can be explained away, or written off as just another attack by the enemy.

What’s real, what’s tangible to Q believers is how it makes them feel. What questions it answers. What holes it fills that other aspects of their life don’t. For many believers, who truly see themselves as non-violent patriots, it’s that simple —good feelings shared with a community about something awesome that will happen to people who are keeping them down.

But for a few, it metastasizes. Sometimes it’s due to mental illness. Other times, it’s need and anger curdling into violent resentment. No matter the cause, the end is the same: from the Capitol attack to countless tiny familial tragedies, the results are violence, pain, and shattered lives. And onlookers struggling to understand what about this was so alluring in the first place.

Adapted from The Storm is Upon Us: How QAnon Became a Movement, Cult, and Conspiracy Theory of Everything. © Copyright 2021 Mike Rothschild. Reprinted with permission from Melville House.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

L Taraval Improvement Project Update

L Taraval Improvement Project Update By Sevilla Mann Roundtable at the Community Parklet Shares Project Updates  This past week, the SFMTA hosted a media roundtable discussing updates about the L Taraval Improvement Project at the community parklet located in front of the The Rolling Out Café  on Taraval St.   Segment B construction began in February 2022 and is scheduled to be completed Fall 2024. Sewer and water infrastructure work is currently taking place. Future work includes track work, overhead line work, the construction of new boarding islands and streetscape improvements.    On hand to answer questions and provide updates was District Four Supervisor Gordon Mar, SFMTA Board Director Sharon Lai and Director of Transportation Jefferey Tumlin.   The Roundtable  Supervisor Mar opened the discussion by highlighting the many benefits that the local community will receive with the planned infrastructure upgrades along the corridor. These benefits include:   Replacing sew

FOX NEWS: Cincinnati zoo renames sloth habitat after late 1-year-old who loved sloths The sloth habitat at Ohio's Cincinnati Zoo will be named after a toddler who recently passed away.

Cincinnati zoo renames sloth habitat after late 1-year-old who loved sloths The sloth habitat at Ohio's Cincinnati Zoo will be named after a toddler who recently passed away. via FOX NEWS https://ift.tt/3DLAshi

IPL 2020 | KKR, SRH search for first win to get off the mark https://ift.tt/333a9nc

Having suffered defeats in their opening games, the Kolkata Knight Riders and Sunrisers Hyderabad will lock horns on Saturday at the Sheikh Zayed Stadium in Abu Dhabi. While Kolkata faced a tough 49-run loss to defending champions Mumbai Indians, the Sunrisers suffered a monumental batting collapse against Royal Challengers Bangalore, losing the game by 10 runs.

FOX NEWS: Decadent double chocolate mint cookies for National Chocolate Day National Chocolate Day on Oct. 28th calls for a serious dose of chocolate.

Decadent double chocolate mint cookies for National Chocolate Day National Chocolate Day on Oct. 28th calls for a serious dose of chocolate. via FOX NEWS https://ift.tt/3nEJxSB

Powered Scooters Charge City’s Transportation Recovery

Powered Scooters Charge City’s Transportation Recovery By Jason Hyde The SFMTA is releasing its next round of Powered Scooter Share permits on July 1. Scooters remain a sustainable mode of travel and a complement to Muni and public transit service as the city recovers from the pandemic and San Franciscans begin to travel more. The SFMTA’s Powered Scooter Share Program is essential in ensuring that shared scooter operations support the city’s economic recovery in a safe, sustainable, and equitable way.  The SFMTA received four submittals for the permit program and will issue permits to two operators : Spin and Lime. Permits will be in effect for a one-year term, with the option to extend for another year at the discretion of the SFMTA based on compliance with various program metrics. While the new permit program does not set a limit on the number of scooters each operator may deploy, it does limit the overall citywide fleet size at 10,000. Starting at a base of 2,000 scooters per

New top story from Time: 3 Killed in Northern California as Wildfires Force Thousands to Evacuate

https://ift.tt/34at2Uy (SAN FRANCISCO) — Northern California’s wine country was on fire again Monday as strong winds fanned flames in the already scorched region, destroying homes and prompting orders for nearly 70,000 people to evacuated. Meanwhile, three people died in a separate fire further north in the state. In Sonoma County, residents of the Oakmont Gardens senior living facility in Santa Rosa boarded brightly lit city buses in the darkness overnight, some wearing bathrobes and using walkers. They wore masks to protect against the coronavirus as orange flames marked the dark sky. The fire threat forced Adventist Health St. Helena hospital to suspend care and transfer all patients elsewhere. The fires that began Sunday in the famed Napa-Sonoma wine country about 45 miles (72 kilometers) north of San Francisco came as the region nears the third anniversary of deadly wildfires that erupted in 2017, including one that killed 22 people. Just a month ago, many of those

Traffic Collisions have Decreased on San Francisco’s Slow Streets

Traffic Collisions have Decreased on San Francisco’s Slow Streets By Julia Malmo   As a whole, Slow Streets are safer than they were before being designated Slow Streets  Streets that are part of the SFMTA’s  Slow Streets Program have become measurably safer since the program began in 2020, with the number of traffic crashes falling by almost half. On average, these corridors have seen a 48% drop in collisions following their designation as Slow Streets, compared with a 14% drop in collisions citywide over the same period. Slow Streets also are more welcoming for people who walk, bike and roll. Fewer than 1,000 vehicles per day use all but four of the current Slow Streets (20th Street, Minnesota Street, Noe Street, and Page Street).  The goal of the program is to create safe, shared streets that are comfortable and enjoyable for people of all ages and abilities, using any mode of transportation. We now can see how it’s doing in a new evaluation report . When the SFMTA Board appr

New top story from Time: How History Is Repeating Itself for Haitian Migrants Trying to Enter the U.S.

https://ift.tt/3upRk9U In the past 11 years alone, Haitians have suffered natural disasters, rising gang violence, outbreaks of cholera and COVID-19, and political instability, including the recent assassination of President Jovenel Moïse . The crises left many in the hemisphere’s poorest nation feeling they had no option but to leave—despite the difficulties they face in fleeing to other countries. In late September, Americans were confronted with the reality of those difficulties too. An estimated 15,000 people arrived in Del Rio, Texas, during the month, below a bridge connecting the city to Mexico’s Ciudad Acuña. A majority were Haitian nationals, migrants and asylum seekers who ended up living in tents or under tarps, in conditions similar to those in other camps that have formed along the U.S.-Mexico border in recent years. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] Read more: Caught Between U.S. Policies and Instability at Home, Haitian Migrants in Tijuana Are in a State of L

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J कोरोना सकंट में TV सीरियल की शूटिंग शूरू, मास्क लगाकर पहुंचे स्टार्स- निया, पार्थ से लेकर रश्मि-PICS

कोरोना वायरस के चलते जारी लॉकडाउन में टीवी व फिल्मों की शूटिंग बंद थी। कोरोना के खतरे को देखते हुए तमाम सीरियल की शूटिंग रोक दी गई तो वहीं फिल्मों को रिलीज अटक गई। एंटरटेंमेंट इंडस्ट्री को कोरोना के चलते करोड़ों from टेलीविजन की खबरें | Television News in Hindi | TV Serials Update in Hindi – FilmiBeat Hindi http:/hindi.filmibeat.com/television/tv-shooting-starts-kasauti-zindagi-kay-naagin-nia-sharma-parth-samthaan-rashmi-desai-pics-090604.html?utm_source=/rss/filmibeat-hindi-television-fb.xml&utm_medium=23.11.231.156&utm_campaign=client-rss

Women Pioneers at Muni: Adeline Svendsen and Muni’s First Newsletter

Women Pioneers at Muni: Adeline Svendsen and Muni’s First Newsletter By Jeremy Menzies To close out Women’s History Month, here’s a look back at one woman whose work to bring Muni staff together in the late 1940s created a legacy that lives on to this day. Adeline “Addy” Svendsen was founding editor of Muni’s first internal newsletter, “ Trolley Topics .” Adeline Svendsen sits at her desk in the Geneva Carhouse office building in this 1949 shot. Trolley Topics was a new venture when it started in February 1946. As Svendsen wrote in the first issue it was created, “to bring a little fun, a little news, and a lot of good will to all our fellow employees in the Railway.” Just two years prior in 1944, Muni merged with the Market Street Railway Company, expanding the small municipal operation into the largest transit provider in the city with hundreds of employees, vehicles of every shape and size, and dozens of facilities scattered across town. The newsletter was meant to help unite