I haven’t been feeling so well today, so I don’t know how my system will take this Jim Jefferies video about Q…a distraction from intestinal upset, or will it add a headache do the current mess?
Jeez, what a mob of loons.
Does anyone else feel like we need to respond to the dingleberries waving Q signs with the next letter in the alphabet?
You’ve got a conspiracy theory, well we’ve got a programming language!
Nope, I feel an overwhelming need to wave something bearing three letters at them.
QRM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q_code#Amateur_radio
So many of these conspiracy theories are practically self-refuting, in that, even putting aside the lack of evidence, they just make no sense at all. I’m supposed to believe that there’s a cabal of pedophiles so all-powerful that prosecutors don’t dare move against any of them — but don’t worry, because a ragtag group of military officers, and the supposedly-dead son of a president have teamed with a con artist real estate blowhard to take them down.
Step One of the plan involves getting the blowhard elected president — because, you know, the cabal is all-powerful except that it can’t win an election against this blowhard, or just give the guy a convenient heart attack.
Step Two in this careful, decades-in-the-works secret plan is to… drop a lot of obscurely coded hints about it so that random citizens will start writing obsessively on the internet about the plan. Sure, that seems like good operational security to me. It’s not like the cabal can watch YouTube or read Reddit.
Step Three is to issue secret indictments, round up all the conspirators, and have them tried in military courts. Because the evidence is so overwhelming against these pedophiles, but somehow we can’t trust a civilian jury trial to get it right.
If I actually believed that there was a conspiracy among military leaders to seize power, round up their opponents, and have them tried in military courts, I’d call that an illegal coup, not a righteous crusade for justice.
It’s really sad. It’s not enough for these people to say “I don’t like all these politicians.” They’re not satisfied with all of the perfectly legitimate criticisms one could make of the Clintons, the Bushes, etc. Nope, their political enemies have to be pedophiles, too. Oh, and baby-eaters.
This particular conspiracy theory has the same feel as the old Satanic ritual abuse conspiracy nonsense back in the 80s and 90s for any who remember that. It seems to me like people are trying to weaponize that panic into political ends.
I’m already looking forward to a few years from now when some enterprising young journalist writes a book on the Q-Anonsense phenomenon, its likely origins, its adherents, and its endlessly-recomplicated theories. In my mind, it will be a cross between Mackay’s Extraordinary Popular Delusions and Nagle’s Kill All Normies.
Given the Ratfucklican penchant for projection, and sudden obsession with supposed pedophilia and cannibism among their opponents, and the separation of thousands of immigrant children from their parents, many of whom seem to have “been lost”, I hope for once I’m being too cynical. -.-
Azkyroth #6, I was already there a few months ago….
Oh, come on. This is clearly a group of parodists – they make Sacha Baron Cohen look like an amateur. Anyone who believes that this is anything other than parody needs to get a sense of humor.
@Bob Michaelson:
Are you familiar with the original version of Poe’s Law?
Applies to many other extreme views and conspiracy theories as well… past a certain point, they cannot be parodied or satirized, because they are already so over the top.
Bob @8,
I really loved the part of the joke where people have shown up with guns to demand to free the children, or to release the “real” Inspector General’s report. Hilarious.
No doubt there’s a few provocateurs at work here in stirring up the crowd, but there are a lot of people taking this nonsense seriously. Potentially deadly serious.
There’s no idea too stupid that someone won’t believe it. The chemtrail conspiracy theory is a classic example. Or the people who actually believe videos posted on YouTube claiming stage magicians have demonic assistance in performing their illusions.
“There is no belief, however foolish, that will not gather its faithful adherents who will defend it to the death.” -Isaac Asimov
I’ve been saying for years that Roman Catholicism is just too ridiculous to believe. I guess all the people showing up at church every week are just comedians.
The absolute best part is when one of these idiots cites “Flat Earth” as a “fake” conspiracy theory, and the guy next to him loudly clears his throat, as if to say “Hey, I’m a flat Earther”. And everyone in the room just knows. It’s like they all are thinking, “Well he’s a crackpot, but I’m not”
That was perfection.
The logo is the one from R, the statistical language. What did I miss?
Luc
The only sign I’d hold up next to them is:
U I T E S T U P I D
There’s a shot in the first minute that was familiar from this piece from NBC News based on their investigation: How three conspiracy theorists took ‘Q’ and sparked Qanon. NBC doesn’t mention JFK Jr. Perhaps some of these people are the same folks.
I’ve been interested in conspiracy theories before. Especially before the Internet was widely accessible. But when really researching them, almost all are totally wacky. There is sometimes a nugget of truth to some of them, but only very rarely. I wondered about the “chemtrail” thing I heard about in the 90’s, but, then, when I actually researched it, it was all baloney. I’m sort of glad Chrome thinks chemtrail is spelled wrong, by the way.
I don’t understand how people can laugh at this video. I was just sad, wondering how these people got to this place where they think it makes sense and if they’re hurting others with their lunacy. Or how they’ve been hurt (if they have) which helped them to start believing some of this stuff.
Pathetic, low hanging fruit PZ. Let Jeffries continue to cover this one. Keep kicking Peterson in the nuts. And give us more of that sweet science.
mowmow:
So judgemental, so revealing.
Did you suppose PZ writes this blog for his readers, rather than for himself?
In case you are in any doubt, I refer you to https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/rules/
—
And just to be on-topic, the particular video featured is geoblocked. Obviously, it’s still available if one cares to look.
(And yes, I would have thought they were LARPing, except for what PZ noted @13. It’s certainly neither more stupid nor more incoherent)
Screechymonkey
“I’m supposed to believe that there’s a cabal of pedophiles so all-powerful that prosecutors don’t dare move against any of them”
There is — it’s called the Catholic church.
Four villages are missing their idiots
WMDKitty @21, true the overall sense, but not in the particular.
e.g. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-07-03/archbishop-philip-wilson-sentenced-concealing-child-abuse/9883610
(Yeah, I know. Only a “slap on the wrist”, but still)
@wzrd1 writes:
How can I know without knowing the frequency? I need to know the frequency first. What’s the frequency, Kenneth?
Who is to blame for all the problems in the world? It is obviously the conspiracy theorists.
zaphodbeeblebrox: “Four villages are missing their idiots.”
No. These guys are idiots for the global village.
#24: “Believing those people being interviewed believe Michelle Obama has a penis makes you more stupid than they are pretenting to be.” Spot on.
Then there is the very last question that Jim Jefferies asks them, “Do any of you think that anything you have heard today is crazy,” to which they all reply in unison “Yes!”
So, a comedy group, and a good comedy group at that. Maybe even a group that is pranking Trumpists
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanhatesthis/its-looking-extremely-likely-that-qanon-is-probably-a
though there isn’t enough evidence to be sure, as yet.
Nope. Whether those individuals believe all the crap the were spouting or not, there was nothing remotely funny about it. This type of garbage has already led to an armed believer invading a pizza restaurant. It could very easily lead to such unbalanced individuals killing people, if it hasn’t already.
It’s simply not worth it to dismiss any irrational conspiracy theory behavior go as a “poe”, “parody” or any other synonymous phenomena, the damage that our species can let these things do is not worth it. No matter how unimportant seeming ROAST THAT SHIT!
At the moment our species greatest challenge is finding a series of agreed upon ways of thinking and acting that deals with irrational connections that exist in politics. Even the little ones are worth it for practice.
@Bob Michaelson 8
If it’s clearly anything you will be able to point out the characteristics associated with such. Otherwise as a person who lived through the satanic ritual abuse scare of the 80’s I’m not going to underestimate my fellow human’s ability to not only connect things irrationally when it benefits them, but to spread it as a meme.
Until you have some evidence to go with your disbelief I’m not interested.
@mowmow 19
And precisely why is this low hanging fruit? With Pizzagate, satanic ritual abuse scares and similar how is this simple easy fare not worth discussing? No, really, I demand to know.
@cysyajads mf 24
And why aren’t transphobic people attacking Michelle Obama worth attacking? Seriously, at the moment you are the one not worth listening to.
Believing those people being interviewed believe Michelle Obama has a penis makes you more stupid than they are pretenting to be.
Why? Seriously! I’ve seen my parents pass this shit on. They will connect any negative feeling phenomena that they think will make people feel negatively about either Obama. This is something that needs attacked.
@mailliw 26
It’s more like the way of thinking that conspiracy theorists encourage is what needs blame and shame.
@Bob Michaelson 28
Fuck link dropping. Quote the parts that support you. I don’t have time for lazy fucks.
@30 first of all, invest in a chill pill. Nobody here deserves to be spoken to in such a way. And second of all, it’s low hanging fruit because Jim Jeffries is reporting on it. He’s not an investigator or a journalist, he’s a shitty comedian who assembled a group of people who are either trolls or lunatics in order to scare up some laughs for his terrible show. There is little of merit in this interview other than easy comedy and outrage, the very essence of low hanging fruit. I wasn’t saying there aren’t genuine concerns related to the dangers of hateful conspiracy theories to be aware of, I was saying that Jeffries convening this panel of goobers we know nothing about was not a productive endeavor.
[OT]
mowmow (to PZ) @19:
Just for you: The Jordan Peterson All-Meat Diet
(And, for someof you hey, sure, probably just mucking about. Surely they it ain’t for real, right? Only comedic trolling)
mowmow:
Hm Do you believe nobody actually really, truly believes such stupidities?
But sure, the particular people are plausibly part of the act, I don’t care to research that.
Point being, such beliefs really are out there. For real, though it’s hard to accept.
(Again, just like Catholicism)
—
PS FYI, Brony ain’t neurotypical. Not that it excuses the ostensible rudeness…
PS
That’s a probabilistic inference, and you’ve asserted “we know nothing about” the specific instance at hand. So, I think your ostensible certitude is unwarranted.
(You’re not aware of any comedian ever who straight-facedly exposed loonies by interviewing them?)
@33-35 I pointed out that Jeffries sucks and his interview was lowbrow, not exposing anything other than some theories of people we know nothing about, which is due to him not actually investigating, but rather producing a funny bit bound to please an audience who would find this shit hilariously edible.
I don’t know how you inferred that I don’t think this could be real, or that a comedian can’t expose truth. I didn’t say those things, and nothing I wrote could be honestly generalized to mean those things.
mowmow:
Ah. OK. I shall attempt to clarify, thus:
Given you wrote “I was saying that Jeffries convening this panel of goobers we know nothing about was not a productive endeavor.”, I think the only way you could claim that it definitely is not productive is if either [1] or [2] (or both, obs) are true, since otherwise it’s publicly mocking a pernicious belief and raising awareness and possibly even inoculating.
That’s how.
PS
Sure is a nicer way of putting it than “Pathetic, low hanging fruit PZ.”, being neither personal nor judgemental, yet informative. But still an unwarranted degree of certitude, IMO.
(To your credit, you did elucidate the basis for your rebuke)
@37-38 I think you’ve made an inaccurate generalization of what I said. I don’t deny a or b can be the case in any comedic expose the world over. I do say in this report neither of those things are evident, and were likely not even the purpose of the skit. This based on Jeffries’ comedy style and the dearth of information in the interview about these people other than some of their more charming opinions. It plays out like an episode of Jerry Springer, which I also don’t consider productive reporting.
Also pathetic, low hanging fruit refers to the piece, not PZ. Why would you think I was being personal or judgemental of PZ based on my comments regarding the video? That doesn’t make much sense.
@mowmow 32
Oh boo hoo, I put emotion in there with my substance. That’s a solid no on the chill pill request, especially when you didn’t do a lick of work at describing the “such a way”. One can’t do what hasn’t been outlined.
I don’t care what you think is low hanging fruit, especially since “comedy and outrage” is the most detailed you get. That’s utterly insufficient to determine anything but you feeling about a thing that remains undescribed. The fact that it’s the specific example and not the general you are critisizing changes nothing.
Opinion rejected.