UKC

As if there weren’t enough conspiracy theories here already... 

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/sep/18/qanon-conspiracy-theory-gai...

The worst part is the way they’re linking up at street level. More here-

https://www.hopenothate.org.uk/2020/08/28/the-uks-emerging-conspiracy-theor...

God I hope not.

It really is very disturbing, even if Pizzagate itself was rather amusing.

I spotted this on White Edge on Friday 18 September. It wasn't there on Wednesday.

Aside from for the pizza company especially when the gravy seal sprang into action.

 People seem to want to believe in something, the christian church was good for a while. Now it it seems all the new age crap has taken over, lizards etc.

Unfortunately those susceptible to those ideas seem to be susceptible to anything, except reality. 

I have a relative, a successful architect who's also a crystal "healer" homeopath and believer in chem trails etc. Despite their apparent intelligence they are incredibly gullible to any and all of this stupidity

This nonsense is absolutely disgusting, I really wouldn't be surprised if some of the people involved in organising these protests go home and violently/ emotionally abuse their families without a second of thought.

If politicians gave a flying fig about abused children they would ensure that proper support services were provided for survivors of abuse (who sadly are very likely to go on to abuse other people themselves if they don't recover).

Someone around the Eastern side of the Peak & West side of Sheffield has been enthusiastically adding bits of gaffa tape to speed limit signs to change the zero into a Q for some time now.  I've wondered if that might be related to some sort of conspiracy theory malarky, but as it's probably just a single individual's weird hobby I don't suppose we'll ever know unless that person 'fesses up and makes a declaration of what they're on about.

Maybe that's the answer: Present a new conspiracy theory, full of spooky cause-effect and coincidence 'truths', then sell it via the facebook grapevine as though it were something 'they' don't want us to know about!

That's more or less the plot of Eco's 'Foucault's Pendulum'. The problem is, people start taking it seriously, with unpleasant consequences!

Maybe my post wasn't clear: the "spooky cause-effect and coincidence 'truths'" would be our best explanations of observable reality, a.k.a. science. Maybe it just needs repackaging for an illiterate and gullible age!

And as for Foucault's Pendulum, I managed to get about 100 pages in before dismissing it as a great heap of pseudo-intellectual self gratification

I see what you mean! I thought Foucault's Pendulum was rather funny, as well as being something of a head-f*ck. And he's really taking the p*ss out of a lot of the more portentous and po-faced post-modern novels. 

No, it can't be true - as we have been told by Brexiteers here on this forum, no one believes what they are told by whispering social media campaigns so how can there be any Quanon in the UK at all?

The proof of this is how little effect there was on the genuine democratic result in 2016!

It is insulting to believe that people can be misinformed.  QED

Agree entirely. What Eco did in that book was important and funny.

I’ve noticed a lot more of this social media, it’s pernicious in its method, I’m pretty sure there must be a PHD being run in Russia on how to create social discourse 😕.

I've occasionally taken time To do  a bit of light skirmishing with people who I respect who look like their flirting with the rabbit hole, unfortunately once they go down all is lost they Are intellectual vegetables.

I recently pulled someone up for re posting about the 450,000 missing children a year in the U.K. with various Q anon hashtags, a brief explanation on the misuse of statistics with links to the ONS statistics on it, and a pointed remark about how his conspiracy theory was distracting from the real issue of child poverty, austerity in social services etc. This once leftish leaning person ended the debate accusing me of supporting peadophile Rings 😕

A truly depressing social media engagement 

and from what I can gather a lot of the street protests against covid measures had their roots in Qanon posts, Truly depressing potential for the future of modern medicine  with the way it’s brought in and amplified the anti vaxxers movement. Can’t wait for them to jump on antibiotics just to leave our children a lovely legacy of stupid.

I took a look at QAnon a couple of months ago, and even tried a spoof QAnon post on here; based on the single amused response, I can report that UKC doesn't currently seem to be a Q hotbed. But you never know...

I was interested in links between QAnon and American politics. Inevitably the Donald is keen to pick up votes from the lunatic fringe, and has said that if people believe he will save the world, "is that supposed to be a bad thing?"

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/08/23/qanon-trump-cruelty-suppo...

Other politicians are creating a far right bandwagon for themselves:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/sep/18/republican-qanon-congress-m...

It might just be the Guardian milking the OMGness, but really, QAnon in Congress!!

Other than that, the main take-away for me is that a big driver is social media economics; influencers can make money incorporating QAnon material into their streams.

There's an interesting discussion of QAnon in this article - which seeks to distinguish between conspiracy theory and conspiracy panic.

Can you tell the difference ?

https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/09/16/conspiracy-panic/

QAnon

Quanon

Quano

Guano

I've just spotted a Satanic Luciferian connection!!!

He must be a blast at parties then

Sure if the intellectual capacity limit of the party is knock knock jokes. I think his career was stellar and his eventual public reach as wide as any academic.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umberto_Eco

Just been on holiday in NE Scotland.  Lots of 'the earth is flat' graffiti and some very odd posters about.

Yep is everywhere isn't it? I'm a bit of  a US fringe politics nerd so even back in lockdown saw the 0 to Q thing and wondered if it was QAnon related. It was mainly done on 40 signs as well, not others, so I did think could it represent 4 Chan as well? Maybe just my frazzled brain after years of looking at political graffiti and extremist blogs and the like.

Another report on the ‘supernatural belief system’ here-

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/20/the-qanon-conspiracy?CMP=Shar...

Well, that's just sh*t.

I wouldn't have said it's mostly 40 signs, if you're right I hadn't noticed.  I see as many 50s as 40s I think.  He (She?  Nah, it's a 'he'!)  has visited the ludicrous temporary 30 signs at the lumpy bit on the Snake road where a culvert has been continuously collapsing for years.*

Such an easy thing to do though, it's even possible that one person started it and somebody else just randomly joined in, in a 'copycat' kind of way.  I mean it's utterly pointless, but people are weird, and it's very low-risk in that it's quick and easy, and even the person were to get caught in the act I doubt it even qualifies as criminal damage - just peel the tape off again and the sign is good as new.

On the fringe US politics thing, I was a bit shocked to see a huge detached house out on its own not far from Midhope that had a Trump flag flying on a flagpole in the garden.  I have no way of knowing but assumed it was some contrarian dickhead who thought it was funny as opposed to an actual Trump supporter.  (I occasionally work with someone like that - he has fairly mainstream moderate right wing views but often pretends to be extremely right wing because he thinks its funny when people get upset by the things he says.)

I've no idea if that flag is still flying - I've not been out that way lately.  (I was cycling past quite regularly in the Spring of 2019 doing a Bradfield-Langsett-Strines circuit in training for an 'adventure race', but I'm not cycling at all at the moment.)

* - The ludicrous 30 signs are A-frame free standing ones, standing at the base of the permanent '30' signs that were put in a few years ago, and then left there but covered up when roadworks were completed and the road was temporarily smooth enough to lift the 30 limit on that short section.  When the road inevitably collapsed again and DCC decided to re-impose that 30 limit they either forgot that permanent signs were already in place ready to just be un-covered again or a sub-contractor just didn't give a shit.

I know the bit you mean with the permanent temporary 30. You can park in the lay-by IIRC, then walk along and up one of the cloughs onto Kinder. Perhaps I was just over thinking it but I'm sure down my way, going into the Peak from Owler Bar, it's mainly the 40 signs! 

Some moron has graffitied the oxymoron "research flat earth" all along the A1 in Cambridgeshire.  

This article also looks at the right-wing connection and highlights the association with New Age thinking:

https://bylinetimes.com/2020/09/21/how-can-liberal-democracy-respond-to-the...

The most disturbing part is the comparison between the New Age-neoNazi connection now and the connections that existed in the '20s and '30s:

"Jules Evans, a fellow at the Centre for the History of the Emotions, documents how the New Age movement overlapped with far-right politics in Germany during the 1920s and 1930s. Not only did astrological organisations endorse Adolf Hitler, but the Nazis supported alternative medicine, homeopathy, natural healing and anti-vaccination conspiracy theories."

I was in a Ford dealership at the weekend, helping my dad sell his car. The sales person that we dealt with had a black QAnon-branded "The Storm Is Here" baseball cap on top of the computer case on the floor at the side of his desk.

Just a data point but it surprised me. Worrying.

You sure it was QAnon branded? And not just promotional material for the Ford Ranger Storm...?

Anyone spouting that kind of shit should be sectioned or put under stewardship. They cannot be trusted to run their own life without endangering others.

CB

As I'm sure you're aware Qanon started on 4chan. A site that has a considerable history of trolling and / or doing it for the lol's.

The 'anonymous' hacking groups sprang from there, very much on the left of the spectrum. Then the alt right started to post there due to the lack of moderation. It remains to be seen if they were there before the demise of 8chan, which had an awful lot of openly nazi groups, or migrated over. Coupled with some 4ch posters use of racial slurs and other offensive memes, they must have thought they had found a new home.

4Chan invented, or at least, popularised 'swatting'. Which, only occasionally, gets people killed. They also took online bullying, trolling and doxing to new heights.

Its curious that the Q's justify many things as a reaction to child porn. 4Chan used to have users that published similar, for the shock value.

I think 'post truth' is an interesting label that can be applied to these Q groups. It's beyond a conspiracy, to the point where in some cases it's almost a religion.

Yep - like I said that's why I thought the 0s to Qs seemed to be happening mainly on 40 limit signs.

Not that I am a regular or anything, but I thought 4chan but now also 8chan were defunct and "Q" has moved on to yet another anonymous chat channel site?

Its got rebranded to 8kun after it got relaunched after being shut down and, unless the owner moves it that is highly likely to remain the location since the sensible odds are him being the mysterious secret agent.

There are various sites which give a "friendly" view of Q with the most popular one being shut down recently. Apparently there were quite a few q fans ending up going to 8kun and not being overly pleased about what they found there.

I took a picture of it when the guy wandered off to copy some documents. Black baseball cap with Q ANON in large white capitals, with ten stars below, and above it in smaller capitals THE STORM IS HERE. The O in ANON had a kind of face in it with long rabbit type ears. 

Nothing to do with cars.

Wishful thinking on my part then...

Not surprising, it would be hard to slap on a piece of tape if you’re going faster than that.

Across the Highlands, 'flat earth' graffiti is being modified to 'PEATY EARTH'.   

The whole Qanon thing is the real world equivalent of the zombie apocalypse. They're not the living dead but just thick c9nts. You can blow their brains out or hit them on the head with a baseball bat and it makes no difference to their intellectual capacity and they  just keep on coming.