Great. Sleeping at night is overrated anyway.
It's an interesting piece. The "conspiracy theorists as believers in an ordered world" is plausible and on the face of it squares neatly with the distribution of authoritarian personalities (followers and leaders both) - believing in convoluted conspiracies under which somebody is in charge impose less cognitive load than accepting no-one is. The philosopher mentioned in the piece has some interesting-looking pieces. And the authoritarian bit.
I have a Magical Trump Thinker in my FB feed. She doesn't post Qanon stuff, but she often shares these lengthy posts about how Trump is playing nine-dimensional chess and just you wait!
The latest is about how Trump's complete capitulation over the shutdown is...actually this clever trick, and Trump will declare a national emergency and then build the wall so quickly that, even though a liberal judge will eventually order a halt to construction, by that time the wall will already be built, booyah take that libs!
The style construction that I see from my last remaining FB occasion-ultra-rightwingers is often clickbait titled something like "I thought something seemed off about the media's coverage of [scandal]!...turns out it's [click through]!" About things which would in theory horrify a random conservative Texan, like kids in migrant camps or whatever.
Media: Pelosi was playing chess, Trump was playing checkers.
Nixon Foundation: Don't bring the dog into it.
I wonder how much pop culture feeds into this, and in particular the kind of plotting that supervillains do. If you've been brought up in a world where Bond villains plan to hijack nuclear weapons, or whatever the basis of today's superhero find do, that kind of paranoia must seem more plausible. My parents'generation, and mine, believed horrible dehumanising things. But not this style of horrible dehumanising thing.
4: It's like their brains function like a steam engine, rather than a rational calculating machine. When there's an inconvenient fact, pressure builds in their brain, and they simply look for a valve to relieve the pressure.
I was at MOA a few months ago, waiting for a bus while a white woman in her 30s, clearly at least middle class, had a long phone conversation with a relative about the necessity of buying MOAR COLLOIDAL SILVER from Alex Jones's snake oil website. This country has lost whatever damned mind it had to begin with.
Also, the CIA killed Wellstone.
6: Neil Gaiman beat you to it.
6 is a very interesting thought. The conspiratorial style obviously is basic, as with witchcraft scares, which I think are basically universal. I think the simplest explanation is to take modern fiction as a new form of that old impulse (OPINIONATED ARTHUR MILLER), but of course things change too. And tentpole Hollywood with its assumption of audience stupidity maybe tends to pull the mainstream toward that level.
COLLOIDAL SILVER
There was no colloidal.
Having looked up theories about the origins of the "Q" in QAnon, they all seem too lofty. My money is on the Star Trek character. Or maybe that's the loftiest theory of them all.*
* Seriously, I don't know why that speculation isn't in the Wikipedia article, which is the extent of my research. No one's made the connection in a citable format between people who probably watch a lot of sci-fi** and the name 'Q'?
** Not that there's anything wrong with that.
I think you need to ask yourself who is keeping Star Trek out of the discussion and why.
https://twitter.com/search?f=tweets&q=from%3Arikergoogling%20q&src=typd
I was recently reading tweets from notorious Kremlin asset under deep cover Sarah Kendzior, and wondering how easily I can separate my native sympathy for her basic view of Trump's motives from my learned (?) ability to consider all the available evidence. I guess I'll just quote from "The Paranoid Style in American Politics" (free from Harper's!) on the self-reinforcing nature of conspiracy beliefs:
Since the enemy is thought of as being totally evil and totally unappeasable, he must be totally eliminated-- if not from the world, at least from the theatre of operations to which the paranoid directs his attention. This demand for total triumph leads to the formulation of hopelessly unrealistic goals, and since these goals are not even remotely attainable, failure constantly heightens the paranoid's sense of frustration. Even partial success leaves him with the same feeling of powerlessness with which he began, and this in turn only strengthens his awareness of the vast and terrifying quality of the enemy he opposes.
Before you know it, you're pondering murdering your nephew to prevent him from becoming like his granddad before fleeing to an isolated planet where the local fauna happily gives you Green milk to drink.
If someone sold colloidal silver rebranded as nanotech they'd make millions.
Colloidal silver is just a plot by Big Ag.
Is it the same as that schnapps with gold flakes.
22 fa is killing it in this thread.
Applause for 20.
Having looked up theories about the origins of the "Q" in QAnon, they all seem too lofty. My money is on the Star Trek character.
No one's suggested the James Bond character?
But surely colloidal silver is a plot by Very Small Ag?
No one's suggested the James Bond character?
Have you considered the possibility that they're the same character?
That's part of the conspiracy.
That last point, about it being hard to shed your parents' worldview because so much of what they told you when you were little was true and reliable, is solid. I haven't moved that far from my parents politically -- they're pretty reliable Democrats, of the "in an ideal world plutocrats would be stripped of all their assets to fund a supportive, humane welfare state," variety. But they have their weird points, and I will still occasionally catch myself stating something as obviously, unquestionably true, that is clearly insane, because I heard it from Mom or Dad when I was twelve.
My grandma told me that you should always eat the crust on bread because that's where the vitamins are. I believed that until I was in my thirties.
You should always eat the crust on bread because it's the best bit. If you have bread and the crust is not the best bit, then you have shitty bread and should buy the stuff elsewhere in future.
SOMETIMES YOU HAVE TO MAKE DO
How many places do you think there are to buy bread in a HFCS belt town with a few thousand people?
29 Did she also tell you that about the potato skin? Because I still think that is true. If she also told you that about bananas she was just trolling you tho.
She did tell me that about the potato skins.
She didn't suggest filling them with cheese and bacon, thus I'm not in line to inherit an appetizer fortune.
30 also true about potato skins, at least baked potatoes. (Why do people put them in foil? This is wrong.)
Yes you are, why else would it say "EDIBLE gold foil" on the packet?
It's just dreadfully tacky and arriviste.
re: 28
Yeah, my Dad is a basically an anarchist misanthrope. His politics are fairly sound, in the sense that he's not a racist, he's not a homophobe (he was very explicit when I was a kid in talking about his gay and/or non-white friends, of whom he had many). For a Scottish working class Glaswegian ex-squaddy who grew up in the 50s and 60s, he's amazingly progressive. But he's moved from a solidly socialist worldview towards one which has McManusian elements of despair/disgust at society and the people in it, and I think he basically thinks people have made their bed and they can fucking lie in it.* He's very well read, but I occasionally catch myself repeating something he's said, and have to rewind and check it's not one of his madder assumptions.*
* i.e. die in some ecological catastrophe, or suffer at the hands of predatory capitalists.
** sometimes those mad assumptions are actually quite well grounded in his deep reading in various areas, but sometimes they are auto-didactic strangeness that he's invented from somewhere, and it's bullshit.
28: I'm of two minds about that claim. I see the author's worry -- that these kids are going to have a hard time distinguishing reality from conspiracies. On the other hand, my parents certainly believed every last conspiracy about the Clintons (Vince Foster!), listened to Limbaugh non-stop, told me never to trust the media or join a union, believed the government was coming to get their guns, tapping their phones, etc., and... well, I seem not to have those beliefs, but manage not to microwave tin foil. I have students who honestly believed that only morally corrupt people drank coffee until they got to college. I guess it's possibly that the current group of conspiracy theorists is more insular but most people manage OK.
I have students who honestly believed that only morally corrupt people drank coffee
What? I thought all Americans drank coffee.
No, Mormons do not drink coffee. They have been counseled not to drink coffee by their leaders and by God
https://www.mormon.org/blog/do-mormons-drink-coffee
It's not really about the caffeine -- Mormons are allowed to drink caffeinated soft drinks.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/01/mormon-caffeine-policy-cl_n_1848098.html
It seems the legal status of decaffeinated coffee in Mormonism is disputed. Maybe even if it is ok in principle, it's best not to present the appearance of sinning.
There may be no greater indicator of the decline of Unfogged, than that I am being allowed to pose as the expert on the The Church of Latter-Day Saints .
It's not like they're the first group to have religio-cultural practices not fully founded in institutional directives.
"We don't drink tea because tea is harmful to your body and you should live a healthy lifestyle. Fizzy sugar water with caffeine is fine, though!"
The original rule is no "hot drinks" which has been interpreted to mean coffee and tea (iced or not - some theorize it was the status of tea and coffee as a luxury that was the real issue, or maybe just that religions need to ban things for credibility.) Later on, people thought there must be some sensible godly health reason for the ban, and suggested caffeine because it is a stimulant, and then avoiding caffeine became a way of being holier-than-thou -- I don't even own a diet Coke, etc. You couldn't get a caffeinated soda at BYU. But now you can, because it's never been banned, and when Romney ran for President there was a big push to look normal. Most people are pretty reasonable about it, but shiv had a weird experience where one of his classmates refused to meet at the local coffee place for a group project, because he might be seen going in there, but Dunkin Donuts was OK, because one could plausibly be in there for donuts and not coffee.
Starbucks,however, does good business because of the milkshakes they sell.
when Romney ran for President there was a big push to look normal
For the set of "normal" which includes Mitt Romney.
I thought the media took notice at some point that Romney was really into cherry caffeine free Diet Coke or something messed-up like that.
He said something about it in his book about the Olympics.
[Cola brands] were all the same to me: sweet, delicious, and, because my Mom frowned on caffeine drinks, rare. At the soda machine, I would have elected whichever was closer to my pointer finger. Over the years, I began to associate Coke with all sorts of things I like: smiling young people, sports, music, the Olympics, and recently, polar bears. Those associations make me "feel good" about coke, a lot better than I do about RC Cola (are you still out there RC?). So when I pick up a twelve-pack at the grocery store or step up to a soft drink machine, I'll push the Coke button (of course caffeine free, Mom) even if it costs a little more.
The entire passage reads like something from an alien carefully mimicking humanity. A relatable anecdote about advertising campaigns instilling positive mental images! (It comes within what appears to be a long section about lining up sponsors for the Olympics.) At the same time, the parenthetical about caffeine free looks like it could be tongue in cheek.
In most of the media outlets that quoted this selection, it ran "because my Mother frowned on caffeine drinks". Probably edited in a later edition.
Speaking of religion and beverages, this Purim drink until "Howard Schultz is the candidate America needs to begin healing" seems plausible.
Or just this Friday, if you're not patient.
59: Steven Schmidt needs to keep that consultant money rolling in now that John McCain is dead, and billionaires are as easy as any mark (probably easier!) for the "you're so smart and popular and handsome, who wouldn't vote for you?" schtick.
61: It could probably work on me, but that wouldn't pay.
You could try to sell 2 billion cups of coffee.
64: Maybe if I could convince the Mormons that it's something else, that's not prohibited by God and Joseph Smith.
I think it was just an artifact of their former support of polygamy. If you spend money on coffee or avocado toast, you can't afford houses for multiple families.
|| Those really were the good old days.
https://slate.com/culture/2019/01/virginia-stopher-stofer-girl-hobo-1920s.html
||