Why is Q annon like catnip to old people ? \ stacker news ~conspiracy

Why is Q annon like catnip to old people ?

335 sats \ 38 comments \ @stack_harder 19 Sep conspiracy

why do so many older people end up going super deep into the conspiracies? whatever happened to age bringing wisdom?

is it a lifetime of trusting media that didn't teach them to vet sources on facebook? or equate a random blog with something like a newspaper?

is this because of facebook? or youtube? (i don't remember this being an issue with old people in, say, 2012)

and while I mention q-anon, my father-in-law is Russian, and he's fucking balls deep on all sorts of conspiracy stuff on youtube.

god bless his crusty ass, he believes in a super race of Atlantis that had near-cosmic weapons, that some ancient people could live forever in some near-mummified state and he also believes some Indian sham guru called Sai Baba who tricked people into thinking he was a saint with cheap magic tricks.

and this guy used to work in a nuclear power plant back in the day, he's not a 'stupid' person, in the formal sense.

what do you guys think?

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574 sats \ 3 replies \ @Malachi17 19 Sep

You have to have been alive for a certain length of time for most of what the Q posts say to make sense. Most younger people, say 20 and below, simply have no frame of reference since they haven't usually seen the corruption up close and personal. Rather, they are the generation who has been groomed to carry out the corruption.

531 sats \ 0 replies \ @voxmagdalenea 19 Sep

You are being very nice in your response. They might be the generation of boomers, but at least we are not a generation of groomers...lmao! Gen X are the people that blew this all open, not boomers honey. Go back to listening to Taylor Swift and watching sports. Nothing happening there! Its all fine, the world is perfect, no conspiracies to look at, everyone is fine!!! Your food is fine, the air is fine, your deodorant is fine! The musicians are fine, the politicians are fine, Starbucks is fine!!!! Trump is fine (waiting for it).......You have totally enough experience to understand life, its fine! The ABC agencies are fine, the military is fine!!!! Q is not tho! That is obviously a psyop! Its the only thing that IS a conspiracy! Such silliness.

31 sats \ 1 reply \ @random_ 19 Sep

#678965

31 sats \ 0 replies \ @Malachi17 19 Sep

Yep. The peace sign itself is controversial: https://www.crcbermuda.com/reference2/signs-and-symbols/peace-sign

58 sats \ 5 replies \ @chaoticalHeavy 19 Sep

whatever happened to age bringing wisdom?

Most old people are not wise. Age does not cause Wisdom.

10 sats \ 4 replies \ @voxmagdalenea 19 Sep

Did it ever occur to you that it is wisdom? I'm thinking not.

21 sats \ 3 replies \ @chaoticalHeavy 19 Sep

it is wisdom

OK - what is the "it" in this statement?

10 sats \ 0 replies \ @Bell_curve 19 Sep

I’m confused also

10 sats \ 1 reply \ @voxmagdalenea 19 Sep

If you have to ask...then how can you judge?

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @chaoticalHeavy 19 Sep

Pretty simple. I judge your misleading remark as a negative thing. Your inability to explain your remark is a problem. So I will mark you as "muted".

56 sats \ 1 reply \ @Undisciplined 19 Sep

I don't personally know anyone who's deep into Qanon, so I assume it's mostly a psyop.

That said, the reason something like QAnon would catch on is not particularly mysterious. We know that there is a child sex trafficking problem being covered up by the establishment. In lieu of reliable reporting, people are left to speculate amongst themselves.

49 sats \ 0 replies \ @kepford 19 Sep

Same here. Don't know anyone that even talks about Q any more. People used to talk but none of them seemed to buy it. Just thought it was interesting.

154 sats \ 1 reply \ @TheBTCManual 19 Sep

The boomers that tend to be doomers are often filled with a lifetime of regret, they don't want to take accountablity for their lives and themselves so they find comfort in some grand plan of lizard people eating babies are oppressing them, it gives them something to do and for the large part they're just harmless, can be annoying but harmless

I have an aunt that's on this trip, Q-anon, sovcit nonsense, talking about 5th amendment, like bitch we South African, our 5th has to do with national election procedures shut you mouthole talking about im not driving im travelling and quoting the magna carta as if it as some magical properties

There's a great vid on YouTube by Munecat that dives into it too

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @anon 19 Sep

lmao

95 sats \ 3 replies \ @kepford 19 Sep

There are volumes written on the attraction of conspiracy theories and the attraction to them. It isn't just older people either. Being "in the know" or "knowing something most people do not know" is pretty common. Its the same emotion that drives people to dive into many topic areas.

I was very fascinated by conspiracy theories in my teens. I lost interest in my twenties due to more important things. I got busy. My guess is that older folks just have more time and go down rabbit holes.

The other thing I have noticed more since covid is that since the trust in "establishment voices" has cracked, and for good reason. People that used to believe the news and "respected voices" no longer do. But instead of just being skeptical in general, many fall for straight up scam artists that are using conspiracy to sell.

Honestly, after what has been exposed in the last few years I'm not surprised to see people fall for crack pot stuff. But you have to remember. What is a theory in your eyes might actually be fact. Facts you don't have access to. All conspiracy theories are theories until they are proven.

I was called a crackpot at work for saying the NSA and feds were sucking up all internet traffic after 9/11. Until Snowden exposed it to the world. There are many such examples we could probably all cite.

The media even promotes conspiracy theories. Remember the Trump Russia stuff? Most have forgotten that most of the stories from 2016 that were pushed until 2020 have been debunked.

Its hard to determine fact from fiction. Most people seem to lack the ability to use logic. Its why I try to tune out a lot of the noise.

61 sats \ 2 replies \ @Turdinthepunchbowl 19 Sep

"People that used to believe the news and "respected voices" no longer do. But instead of just being skeptical in general, many fall for straight up scam artists that are using conspiracy to sell."

Nailed it.

21 sats \ 1 reply \ @kepford 19 Sep

I should have said, they trade one set of lies for another.

63 sats \ 0 replies \ @Bell_curve 19 Sep

Believing the media is the worst form of deception

21 sats \ 0 replies \ @SimpleStacker 19 Sep

Probably it’s retired old people or stay at home moms. Too much time on their hands, spent reading online conspiracies

I say this as someone who is actually pretty sympathetic with the rightwing conspiracy theorists, but has observed my fellows fall for too many nothing burgers

21 sats \ 0 replies \ @rebel_nomad 19 Sep

Naive, wishful thinking is a real killer, but in most cases not in a totally rigged, temporary system like we have had these decades...

The next problem is that most have very little experience in building up, assessing and utilizing mental models, especially in concert when they might be mutually exclusive.

While even some of the wildest theories out might be good tautologies that explain everything within their purview very well they might still not fit in well with others, and will certainly lack the flexibility to merge into an even larger picture that explains even more.

Mental universes like this particular one of course can't even withstand the simplest probing and scrutiny, and they end up ballooning with even more fanciful explanations of any aspect that does not make sense at all when viewed from the outside.

Flat earth is really the prime example, but very easy to disprove of course. Hell, I've seen the bloody curvature crossing an ocean solo myself! That does not stop them, of course... ;-)

When it comes to the whole Q thing and basically anything in politics and especially hidden actions it all becomes way harder to handle because it is not about simple physics and logics, normally it belongs in the domain of human behaviour and psychology, which of course is far more complex and prone to exceptions, uncharted territory and outdated models because of tech.

What I do find fascinating is that so many relatively wild theories match and overlap very well these days, and often they are driven by people who seemingly has a lot to lose and not much to gain by sharing what the know or have experienced!

21 sats \ 0 replies \ @saunter 19 Sep

Not only old people. Many young people and many bitcoiners believe in conspiracies too.

10 sats \ 0 replies \ @voxmagdalenea 19 Sep

11 sats \ 0 replies \ @justin_shocknet 19 Sep

whatever happened to age bringing wisdom?

Wisdom is knowing there are things you cannot possibly know.

Conspiracy deniers are an egotistical bunch living in a fragile realty, their only source of comfort is to deny the existence of things beyond their comprehension.

lifetime of trusting media

Conspiracy deniers trust the media that created the term conspiracy theorists and insists there is no such conspiracy.

Conspiracy deniers believe the media when it tells them Q is a larp and everything that seems weird is really just a coincidence.

I mention q-anon

There is no "q-anon", there is Q, and there are anons.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Bell_curve 19 Sep

Here is another conspiracy:

https://nypost.com/2024/08/16/us-news/congressman-blasts-fbi-for-releasing-thomas-matthew-crooks-body-for-cremation/

0 sats \ 2 replies \ @orangecheckemail_isthereany 19 Sep

For those to whom "conspiracy" or "conspiracy theory" is synonymous with "whacky idea that is obviously false" or "untrue by definition" I'd recommend going through the findings of the Church Committee. It was an investigation that got carried out in 1975 that opened the CIA's book at least in part. We don't know what they managed to hide successfully but what was revealed is quite significant. There's lots of conspiracy theories that are untrue, don't misunderstand me. But conspiracies are actually quite common in the history of human affairs.

A recent example from the saga kicking of this dacade: social media companies like facebook, google, twitter conspired with the USA federal government to censor speech contradicting the government sponsored narrative of the day. Conspiracies to censor dissident speech continues on other topics like the causes of the conflict in ukraine. And it doesn't end with censorship. There's also quite a bit of lawfare.

But again: history is full of conspiracies. Conspiracy is simply a particular form of humans working together. Of humans making agreements with eachother to coordinate their actions. This is very natural behaviour for humans.

It should also be noted that there's a predictable cycle the PR on these things goes through from "It's not happening. That's a conspiracy theory" to "It's happening and that's a good thing, even a necessary thing" That's what happened with talk about these various international groups like Bilderberg, Trilateral Commission, WEF, bohemian grove etc. For decades the existence of these sorts of groups was denied but now we're at the point where it's a good thing and we need global governance etc. Ignore as long as you can. Then deny it as long as you can. Then act as though you never denied it and spin a positive story about it. That doesn't seem like a very wholesome pattern to me and it may indicate the existence of a conspiracy.

I should also note finally that what could be called conspiracies can actually be acted out with all the best intentions and so-called noble lies. You see we've got to conspire because if we're open about what we want to do then the people won't accept it but the people don't know what's good for them so we've got to take matters into our own hands and conspire to save us all. This kind of use of evil means in pursuance of what are seen as good ends does happen sometimes. In my view these kinds of people more often than not pave the way to hell with good intentions when they act in that manner. Then there's also the capacity of humans for self-deception and maintaining self-serving lies. Know thyself. It is difficult.

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @drlh 20 Sep

Problem starts when conspiracy theories meets supernatural or higher power things, or are just misunderstood physical effects. For example the origin of chemtrails theory is that in vietnam war US used herbicides (3 times more concetrated than in agriculture use) as a chemical weapon, with some planes flying pretty down and spraying some 19000 square killometers. Thats true.

Then you see people talking about planes leaving condensation trail as spraying some shit and complaining about declining health or climate change. I don't know how they don't talk about cars spraying some shit, because they do and much.

Or the good old governments hiding aliens, while people have seen them flying abroad stealing cattle, and experimenting on humans. Those who contacted them when asked what they did they can't remember. When forced to remember false memories starts to form, and so false allegations (often involving some kind of sexual activity).

When superstitions overlap conspiracy theories in what it is better than witch hunting? Besides that nobody is trailed nowadays for supposed magical and psychic capabilities.

That doesn't mean conspiracies don't exist, but also in the new and old age beliefs critical thinking is so rarely practiced, no parody is implausible.

100 sats \ 0 replies \ @orangecheckemail_isthereany 20 Sep

I agree with some of what you say but I'll refocus a bit.

The chem trails one is a good example of one of these that is going through this PR pattern I mentioned. Used to be it isn't happening. Now there's some defending of it because we've got to reflect sunlight to prevent global warming. It's mostly at the academic and the start-up level that "chem-trails" are being talked about publicly these days and it's not called that of course. Stratospheric Aerosol Injection, cloud seeding, geo-engineering are some terms that are used. Since you mention Vietnam: Operation Popeye is actually one of those operations declassified thanks to the Church Committee IIRC. In any case that was a case of chem-trailing to initiate rainfall for tactical reasons. Silver-iodide and lead-iodide were used in that case IIRC.

I'm using the word chem-trails provocatively of course. But I think we owe it to these people to say "Yes you guys were onto to something. I still don't think it is what you said it is but there are things going on which I denied. Stuff was and is and is indeed planned to be sprayed in the atmosphere and it has happened multiple times in the past. I was ignorant about that and thanks for bringing that to my attention." That's probably a good way to engage "chem-trail people" to start a discussion. That's how I've generally done it.

I'm also glad you mentioned cars. We all know there's additives in car fuel. And that lead used to be one of those and that it was a bad idea. There's additives in jet fuel also to keep it more stable. There's lots of jet fuel burned with so many planes flying daily and so many additives. Chem-trailing does happen on a pretty large scale just as a side-effect of safety precautions with regard to keeping jet fuel stable at high altitudes.

I generally like to steelman the side I'm arguing, and to argue with the best version of their argument I can think of. I've had to admit quite a bit of ground to the conspiracy guys in recent years. It does take some curiosity, good will and intellectual honesty.

Since you mention false memories. That reminds me of another one of the declassified CIA ops. MK-Ultra. There were a bunch of other MK programs too. Wouldn't surprise me if CIA experimented on this phenomenon this on unwitting suspects in the MK-Ultra operation or one of the other MK ones. Some pretty crazy stuff about these programs is declassified. I haven't read through all of it but their experiments involved tings like dosing unwitting subjects with LSD to give you a sense.

A critical thinker with basic knowledge of history and human nature will not exclude conspiracy. It can be uncomfortable to think about. It's an interesting question whether we should give benefit of doubt or do the opposite as a default setting. Some dangerous possibilities arise if politicians, government bureaucrats, media, academia and business people collude or conspire. It'd be pretty hard to stop them. We'd have to hope what are up to is a good thing. And hope is not a strategy. It's probably a good idea to err on the side of too much transparency, skepticism, critical thinking there.

I often see people bend over backwards to exclude any possibility of a conspiracy going on. That seems to be the automatic reflex of many people. No social media big tech is not conspiring with government to censor and ignore the first amendment. No big pharma was not colluding with government to change laws and recommendations. No big food is not colluding with government to change the food guidelines and subsidies. No the arms manufacturers are not colluding with government to instigate wars or prolong them when diplomacy would be best for the common good. All these things happen for the best and noblest of reasons even though the revolving door phenomenon between industry and government is in plain view for all to see. Of course Bill Gates is a Philanthropist and not a megalomaniacal monopolist even though he increased his net work though his philanthropic work. Etc. I actually like my journalists to be skeptical and to not be afraid to call out conspiracies or theorize about them.

There is utility and even some rationality in acting as though there was or could be conspiracy everywhere. It will cause the person to research and question differently in a way that conspiracy will be discovered in cases where it never would have been discovered if the suspicious attitude were not there, much less if the opposite is there. Of course there is the possibility of seeing conspiracy where there isn't any. I do think that's most often a safer situation than not seeing conspiracy where there actually is one. I am grateful these conspiratorial thinkers are out there. I think they serve an important role. I don't think ridiculing them is a good idea. I think we should engage with them from an attitude of curiosity. We might learn a thing or two from some of them.

I should have mentioned more concrete cases in the previous comment. I'll add some here in addition to the ones already mentioned. CIA has a rich history since WW2 of "spreading democracy" or "protecting" it via funding protest movements and instigating overthrows / coup d'etats. Lindsey O'Rourke's book "Covert Regime Change" documents some of these. The most relevant recent example of this is Ukraine in 2014. People will call that a conspiracy theory but as it happens that is conspiracy fact and the perpetrators, like Victoria Nuland admit to it (just like the CIA itself admitted it was engaged in and orchestrated all these conspiracies in previous decades, in that case they were forced to open the books through legal procedures during the Church Committee). These are not up for debate. That's not "Russian disinformation". Soon the constitution of the USA will be called "Russian disinformation" and the USA founding fathers plants of the Kremlin... So ridiculous yet so many believe the talking heads on the tube. Operation Mockingbird is an interesting one of these declassified CIA operations to look at in this context. Of course such things could never ever be going on today... Let's not even consider that as a possibility, right?

I like to refocus the discussion to these sorts of real conspiracies. Just because there's whacky conspiracies many of which wouldn't even matter much even if they were true does not mean you should focus on those exclusively. That's why I felt the need to write these comments: to refocus discussion to admitted conspiracies (e.g. admitted by the perpetrators in the case of the 2014 maidan coup) and those with a higher level of plausibility and importance.

If you'd like me to elaborate on any of these things I'd be happy to try. I've got a cursory knowledge on many of these things but it's not that deep. If you're gonna research it yourself it's probably a good idea to use search engines like yandex and startpage in addition to whatever one you're using. Definitely don't use google alone.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @CruncherDefi 19 Sep

whatever happened to age bringing wisdom

This might have been true centuries ago where human-brain was the most common storage device (so if you lived longer, you obtained more memories and knowledge).

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Bell_curve 19 Sep

#691043

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Turdinthepunchbowl 19 Sep

Perhaps I'll get dragged here for this, but It's honestly not just old people, but frankly many on the political right seem to embrace many conspiracy theories. Left isn't immune either, but observationally I think we can agree the "right" seems to peddle more conspiracy theories, and not only Q, but they all seems to have some interconnectedness with people believing multiple and weaving stories to make them fit together. I suppose as you get older and wealthier, you tend to become more "conservative". Its a weird venn diagram of people believing in Q, flat earth, vaxx, etc. I'm talking about the group on the political right that is caught up in culture war issues, instead of economic and fiscal issues.

It all comes down to a lack of critical thinking, misunderstanding the burden of proof and being able to recognize bias. The person/people making the outlandish claim are the ones that need to provide proof, it's not on me to prove people aren't eating pets, it's on those claiming people are eating pets. Saying "do your own research" is not proof lol, and even one half baked example is not "proof". The reason it's so prevalent is that an entire media and propaganda apparatus (Fox News, CNN, etc) exists to push fear and blow up individual scenarios into larger issues than they are, because fear causes emotion, and emotion disrupts critical thinking. It's advertising/marketing 101. Generations of people have now grown up in a confirmation bias echo chamber and bubble, where they peddle only things they already are susceptible to believe because they didn't know how to properly question nor do they understand how burden of proof works. I suppose it boils down to education, and accepting some stranger on 4Chan, or Twitters statements, without scepticism, as facts over peer reviewed research and Occam's Razor.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @jerrybature 19 Sep

Most conspiracy theories resonate well with the oldies.

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @flat24 19 Sep

Something I have understood over the years is that people are gullible or not, and regardless of their level of academic instruction. Just by looking at religions you can understand this, evangelicals, Jehovah's Witnesses, Catholics, Jesuits, Mormons, Christians, evangelical Christians and I am sure there are other branches, they are people who hate each other, they do not get along with each other, they criticize each other and in the end it is assumed that they all worship the same invisible being. My thought on this is that human beings have always needed to believe in something more than just what they can see. In ancient times, people believed in and worshipped the forces of nature, among other deities related to all kinds of things. At a certain point in history, they evidently sought to change that and centralize religion, and that was the point when people began to be controlled through religion, telling you what to do and say, how to dress, and above all who to worship or from whom to expect favors, favors that don't come unless you dedicate your life to paying homage to the imposed doctrine. And so, others then shaped the game in their own way and the rest of the derived religions emerged.

All of this leaves us in the present century, where even though information flows freely in some places, there are still others where that information is censored or modified at will to influence in one way or another. Many people choose to believe in other things, I for example choose to believe that religion and divine creation is a farce and that our origin is something more mysterious and that the information about the true origin of the planet and the first human civilizations was erased so that another story could be told. And in the end each person decides to believe in what seems best to them, some out of disbelief, others out of conviction, and others because the pieces fit together and they see the world from another perspective.

10 sats \ 0 replies \ @voxmagdalenea 19 Sep

I remember the times before chemtrails....

0 sats \ 4 replies \ @023ad18700 19 Sep

Q was made for that age group to bring out more fear in their everyday lives

11 sats \ 3 replies \ @justin_shocknet 19 Sep

The Q posts are non-stop whitepills.

Rorschach test.

Patriots in control.

0 sats \ 2 replies \ @itsrealfake 19 Sep

That may be the thing though. It encourages the Q believer to just sit back and not do anything. The good guys are in control.

Less like catnip, more like (h)opium.

68 sats \ 1 reply \ @justin_shocknet 19 Sep

People that just don't want to do anything will interpret it that way. On the contrary, Q was very clear it was about the people as a force multiplier:

Sometimes you cannot tell people the truth. You must show them. Only then, at the precipice, will people find the will to change to participate. We, the People, have been betrayed for a very long time. WILL YOU STAND?

To participate really hits when you think about the difference vs. 8 years ago when the op went public, people were too scared then to be effective... people were fooled into thinking they were outnumbered. They just bitched about it to whoever they felt safe talking to...

Now for example you emboldened moms in every school council meeting tearing that apparatus down, public pressure over election integrity in every district in the country.

Very different discourse because the op is working.

17 sats \ 0 replies \ @itsrealfake 19 Sep

fair points. thanks for the response.