Conspiracy theories, apophenia, and ascribing order to chaos

[Thad]

A couple from BoingBoing:

How to make money betting against Qanon links to Atlantic article The Dark Reality of Betting Against QAnon

Conspiracy theorists' image of 5G Covid implant chip turns out to be guitar pedal schematic links to MusicTech article Conspiracy theorists mistake guitar pedal diagram for “5G Chip”, alleging it’s in COVID-19 vaccine

[Friday]

I'm sighing because people who name scandals are unoriginal morons and we have to refer to everything as [something]gate.

ah, ok. Fair. I think that shit is dumb too, I've just sort of become numb/accepted it at this point, I guess.

[JD]

In December a mathematician cracked the Zodiac Killer's "340" cipher.

Thank you for coming to my Ted Cruz talk!

Actually, Ted Cruz responded to the news by tweeting "Uh oh"

There's a lot of accidental 1488s. I think that's the point; it's deniable.

[Mongrel]

Well, Ted Cruz may be an absolutely awful human being, but I guess he at least knows the correct play for the internet is to cheekily lean into something like this.

Meanwhile...

The latest big idea out of looney bin is that:

Qanon was a democratic strategy to keep many conservatives complacent in "trusting the plan" while the left continued their evil corruption.

Q potentially losing control of his disciples marks would be... an interesting development.

[mharr]

"Our superheroes have magic computers that show them the actual future" is low key genius because once someone believes that they can handwave any amount of apparently counterproductive flailing from their champions.

[Thad]

Good piece by Barbara Fister about why people believe misinformation: Lizard People in the Library

One of the major points she makes is that, while schools do teach information literacy, they're still stuck in a very twentieth-century approach.

While school-based efforts to promote information literacy typically are tied to producing information (college papers, digital projects, PowerPoint slide decks), students are not invited to reflect on how information flows through and across platforms that shape and are shaped by participatory audiences and influencers. They aren’t learning much about how information systems (including radio, print journalism, academic and trade book publishing, television, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, etc.) make choices about which messages to promote and how those choices intersect with political messaging and the social engineering of interest groups.

[Mongrel]

A couple friends of mine were talking about the mindset of the Freeman-on-the-Land/Admiralty Law/etc. cranks. yesterday, when this comment came up.

A surprising number of people subscribe to the Rumplestiltskin theory of government where the state is almost all powerful and malignant but can be tricked and controlled with simple word games.

Calling the phenomenon "the Rumplestiltskin theory of government" seems so perfectly apt to me.

[Mongrel]

how did i not see "the snow in texas is fake" as the next conspiracy theory

I guess the winter down there gives people brain freeze too.

[Friday]

haha, oh man

I'm sorry, this is a worthless post

I don't even have a joke or pithy comment

but seriously what the fucking hell

[Yoji]

Didn't we do this the last time there was a big snowstorm in a place that normally doesn't get much snow? Like, not even ten years ago? And didn't we debunk it then? "That black stuff is unburnt butane, you dingus"? And is anyone else making tired, angry noises and rubbing their eyes really really hard?

[Mongrel]

And is anyone else making tired, angry noises and rubbing their eyes really really hard?

I just do that all the time anyway.

Though most of the time it's because I have cat danders in my eyes.

[Thad]

Kate Aronoff, the National Review: The John Birch Society Never Left

There's a popular strain of revisionist history that Bill Buckley and fellow establishment conservatives pushed the Birchers to the fringe of the conservative movement. That's a narrative that Buckley worked hard to build and reinforce, but "fringe" is a less accurate word than "vanguard". The establishment played good cop to the Birchers' bad cop, but they were all working toward the same goals. At best, the establishment saw the Birchers as useful idiots; at worst, establishment conservatives were just Birchers who were smart enough not to let the mask slip too much in public. (And you can see it slip a little more each generation, Nixon to Reagan to Bush to Trump.)

What we've got now is, the Birchers are the establishment. Almost nobody's even interested in playing the good cop anymore, with a few exceptions like the Lincoln Project (whose grift, I am pleased to see, appears to be collapsing) and a handful of Republicans with familiar names like McCain, Cheney, and Romney.

[Brantly B.]

HORSESHOE!

Er, sorry, I just saw the name "Cheney" associated with the phrase "good cop" and my brain bled into itself a little bit. Pinetree.

[Thad]

It helps if you remember that "good cop" just means "bad cop who is play-acting".

[Friday]

I'm such a good cop. I never do any crimes. Except the crime of constantly seeing other cops doing crimes and protecting them.

[nosimpleway]

One good apple

[Brantly B.]

I mean sure for the other two but the Cheneys have never pretended to be anything but second-rate Bond villains. That dynamic is more of a Starscream/Megatron than anything else; the only thing they really disagree on is who gets to wear the crown.

[Thad]

I mean sure for the other two but the Cheneys have never pretended to be anything but second-rate Bond villains.

I was alluding to Liz Cheney facing censure for voting to impeach.

That dynamic is more of a Starscream/Megatron than anything else; the only thing they really disagree on is who gets to wear the crown.

Which, leaving aside all the ways I want to poke holes in that analogy, is more or less my point. The difference between the Birchers and the Buckleyites has always been more about tone than substance.

(And if I wanna push it one farther, the Buckleyites have always tolerated the Birchers, despite their volatility, because they're seeking the same goals and they get results. Right up until the Birchers kick them out an airlock.)

[Mongrel]

[Mongrel]