This morning's post by @Undisciplined in the tough questions for Libertarians series got me thinking about this article, which I read a while ago. It's about how the lines about what's real have blurred; it's about how to one degree or other, we're all curating our own private worlds, and the consequences that play out when those worlds crash into other worlds.
Perhaps this helps to explain why fact-checking seems so pitiably unequal to our moment. Yes, unlike a genuine game, QAnon followers assert claims about the real world, and so they could, in theory, be verified and falsified. It isn’t all confirmation bias — surprise is still possible: The Pizzagate believer who in 2016 brought a rifle to a D.C. pizza place to rescue child sex slaves from a ring believed to involve Hillary Clinton was genuinely shocked that the building didn’t have a basement. But ARGs can keep going because there are a myriad of possible solutions to puzzles in the game world. Debunking only ever eliminates one small set of narratives, while keeping the master narrative, or the idea of it, intact. For QAnon, or contemporary witchcraft, or #TheResistance, or Infowars, or the idea that all elements of American life are structured by white supremacy, one deleted narrative barely puts a dent in what people are drawn to: the underlying world picture, the big story.
If you liked this morning's question, or this topic more generally, you may dig this article. It's one that has stuck with me for a while.
The best way to keep a prisoner from escaping is to make sure he never knows he's in prison