Conspiracy theories, apophenia, and ascribing order to chaos

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Thad
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Conspiracy theories, apophenia, and ascribing order to chaos

Postby Thad » Thu Nov 19, 2020 2:16 pm

I figure, hey, we could use a thread for QAnon in particular and the psychology of conspiracy theories in general. To that end, here's an article I just read: A Game Designer’s Analysis Of QAnon

It doesn't really say anything new -- conspiracy theories, cults, and apophenia are already well-document and well-understood phenomena -- but I think it puts the information together pretty well. (Aside from a bit near the end where the article itself succumbs to darkly intimating that there are shadowy, sinister forces at the heart of this conspiracy but does not go into any detail about who they are or why they're doing it, which itself is conspiracy theory 101 stuff. I feel like that has to be deliberate, like it's the author nudging the audience to look at the technique they're using, but maybe the mirror is too perfect because I just find it off-putting.)

But overall it's a solid article. A couple details I wish it had mentioned:

It uses "Follow the money" as an example of how fictional contacts talk. I wish it had gone one farther and noted that that line is from a fictionalized account of actual events. The real Deep Throat never said "Follow the money"; the line does not appear in the book version of All the President's Men, only the movie version (script by William Goldman).

And the article uses the Cigarette Smoking Man as an example of a fictional Man in Black who leaves breadcrumbs. I'll add that CSM himself is like a metaphor for the entire convoluted mythology of The X-Files: the way Kim Manners told the story, CSM wasn't even in the original conception of the series; William B Davis was hired as an extra for the pilot, he stood in the background smoking a cigarette and looking sinister, and they decided to give him a bigger role later.

The point where I started to fall out of love with X-Files during its original run was perhaps a "eureka" moment itself -- it was the point where I realized there wasn't really any grand plan, the writers were just making it up as they went along. The truth was *never* out there; there was never going to be any real resolution, just layer after layer of complexity. Nothing meant anything.

There's another metaphor there.

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Re: Conspiracy theories, apophenia, and ascribing order to chaos

Postby Thad » Thu Nov 19, 2020 2:21 pm

Oh shit, Zara was writing a post about QAnon at exactly the same time I was! Coincidence?!?!?!!

...yes. Yes, obviously. Coincidences happen all the fucking time, and two people simultaneously sharing something related to a major topic in the news is not actually suggestive of any kind of intentional pattern or conspiracy.

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Re: Conspiracy theories, apophenia, and ascribing order to chaos

Postby Friday » Thu Nov 19, 2020 9:03 pm

Read the whole article, because a few of my friends actually have family that are now infected by this.

Trump really just fucked us so hard it's not even funny. Getting a presidential endorsement to your batshit fucking insane baby-eating conspiracy theory is like a shot of mega-adrenaline.

I mean, he fucked us in general, and this is just one more example. My friend's sister is now a Qanon convert and is actively (successfully) slowly converting her entire family. I sat down with her and FUCKING DESTROYED HER WITH FACTS AND LOGIC (no, really) and it just didn't matter. I tried again and did scummy manipulative emotional appeals and it didn't matter. She doesn't want to give up that one thing that makes her feel good in the year of our lord, the cursed 2020.
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Re: Conspiracy theories, apophenia, and ascribing order to chaos

Postby IGNORE ME » Fri Nov 20, 2020 1:38 am

The method you want is called exit counseling.

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Re: Conspiracy theories, apophenia, and ascribing order to chaos

Postby Thad » Fri Nov 20, 2020 10:20 am

Friday wrote:Trump really just fucked us so hard it's not even funny. Getting a presidential endorsement to your batshit fucking insane baby-eating conspiracy theory is like a shot of mega-adrenaline.

I believe it's called adrenochrome.

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Re: Conspiracy theories, apophenia, and ascribing order to chaos

Postby Friday » Fri Nov 20, 2020 7:18 pm

Thad, as your attorney, I advise you to take a hit out of the little brown bottle in my shaving kit.

You won't need much.

Just a... tiny taste.
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Re: Conspiracy theories, apophenia, and ascribing order to chaos

Postby Mongrel » Fri Nov 20, 2020 7:25 pm

Friday wrote:Thad, as your attorney, I advise you to take a hit out of the little brown bottle in my shaving kit.

You won't need much.

Just a... tiny taste.

Yeah, too much and it starts leaking off your skull and down towards your collar.
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Re: Conspiracy theories, apophenia, and ascribing order to chaos

Postby Thad » Fri Nov 20, 2020 8:33 pm

Idea for later: QAnon-themed parody of Kodachrome called Adrenochrome.

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Re: Conspiracy theories, apophenia, and ascribing order to chaos

Postby Mongrel » Fri Nov 20, 2020 11:00 pm

"Ovid" is Latin for a sheep. COVID starts with a C, which also means "see" in ancient language. 19 was know as the "Number of Surrender" in ancient times.

C-OVID 19 = "See A Sheep Surrender"
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Re: Conspiracy theories, apophenia, and ascribing order to chaos

Postby mharr » Sat Nov 21, 2020 7:25 am

We live in a world of millions of conspiracy junkies who've never read a word penned by R. A. Wilson or Hunter Thompson, good odds they've never even heard those names.

Let that sink in for a minute.

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Re: Conspiracy theories, apophenia, and ascribing order to chaos

Postby JD » Sat Nov 21, 2020 3:18 pm

You know what else people did in ancient times? wore masks

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Re: Conspiracy theories, apophenia, and ascribing order to chaos

Postby Mongrel » Sat Nov 21, 2020 3:44 pm

You know, NDG is all to often something of a dipshit, but this is great.

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Re: Conspiracy theories, apophenia, and ascribing order to chaos

Postby Thad » Mon Nov 23, 2020 1:57 pm

mharr wrote:We live in a world of millions of conspiracy junkies who've never read a word penned by R. A. Wilson or Hunter Thompson, good odds they've never even heard those names.

Let that sink in for a minute.

I was talking about this the other day. RAW had too much tolerance for woo (at least during his '60s/'70s heyday; I know later in life he described himself as being in "a different reality tunnel" than when he'd, say, alluded to getting telepathic messages from Sirius), but the 23 Enigma is an excellent tool for understanding apophenia, provided you understand the point isn't "23 is significant because secret societies have planted subliminal messages everywhere," it's "23 is significant because your mind is making it significant; once you read this you'll start seeing patterns everywhere, but that's you doing it, it's the power of the human mind at work."

(It is, of course, somewhat complicated by the sheer number of 23 references that are deliberate but are there because of the book, because it's a reference. The lyrics to "Fat" have both a 23 and a 42 in them. That's not because Weird Al is a member of the Illuminati, it's because he's a science fiction nerd.)

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Re: Conspiracy theories, apophenia, and ascribing order to chaos

Postby IGNORE ME » Mon Nov 23, 2020 3:06 pm

Which leads to the next problem: When enough people start to buy into an idea, they tend to set about making it true.

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Re: Conspiracy theories, apophenia, and ascribing order to chaos

Postby LaserBeing » Mon Nov 23, 2020 8:01 pm

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Re: Conspiracy theories, apophenia, and ascribing order to chaos

Postby Mongrel » Mon Nov 23, 2020 8:29 pm

God, I love that book.

Ma gavte la nata, is particularly apropos to this thread.

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But sometimes Belbo, when he became really angry, lost his composure. Since loss of composure was the one thing he could not tolerate in others, his own was wholly internal - and regional. He would purse his lips, raise his eyes, then look down, tilt his head to the left, and say in a soft voice: "Ma gavte la nata." For anyone who didn't know that Piedmontese expression, he would occasionally explain: "Ma gavte la nata. Take out the cork." You say it to one who is full of himself, the idea being that what causes him to swell and strut is the pressure of a cork stuck in his behind. Remove it, and phsssssh, he returns to the human condition.
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Re: Conspiracy theories, apophenia, and ascribing order to chaos

Postby Mongrel » Tue Nov 24, 2020 12:48 am



Man, I want in on some of those MIND CONTROL SPELLS.
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Re: Conspiracy theories, apophenia, and ascribing order to chaos

Postby Mongrel » Sun Nov 29, 2020 7:18 pm

Big Guys: A Short Thread.

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Re: Conspiracy theories, apophenia, and ascribing order to chaos

Postby zaratustra » Sun Nov 29, 2020 8:32 pm

The worst thing is, while most of the world is explainable by humans being really fucking greedy and selfish, there's like a dozen actual conspiracy-level problems on earth that just... get skimmed over?

I mean look at Epstein and the Panama Papers. Who is petitioning the government to get *those* looked at?

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Re: Conspiracy theories, apophenia, and ascribing order to chaos

Postby Mongrel » Sun Nov 29, 2020 10:14 pm

zaratustra wrote:The worst thing is, while most of the world is explainable by humans being really fucking greedy and selfish, there's like a dozen actual conspiracy-level problems on earth that just... get skimmed over?

I mean look at Epstein and the Panama Papers. Who is petitioning the government to get *those* looked at?

Or the pedo ring that Margaret Thatcher covered up.
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