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A million people 'believing' QAnon sounds like faulty extrapolation from Lizardman's Constant. https://slatestarcodex.com/2013/04/12/noisy-poll-results-and-rep

A million people 'believing' QAnon sounds like faulty extrapolation from Lizardman's Constant. https://slatestarcodex.com/2013/04/12/noisy-poll-results-and-reptilian-muslim-climatologists-from-mars/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2013/04/12/noisy-poll-results-and...

gridlockd 7y ago
I doubt that. Lizardpeople are absurd, even by the standards of your average conspiracy theorist. QAnon isn't. The basic premise - some 4chan shitposter happens to have Q-clearance - is entirely plausible. The fact that anyone can post anything as QAnon also gives plausible deniability for any claim that turns out false, while any claim vague enough to turn out true is taken as evidence. Conspiracy thinking is extremely widespread and many conspiracy theories are widely believed, such as the JFK assassination, the fake moon landing, or "vaccines cause autism".
- Kaiyou 7y ago
  What is the non-conspiracy explanation for the magic bullet involved in the JFK assassination? I only know the conspiracy theory that claims that the CIA accidentally shot JFK and then covered their tracks. And then the other conspiracy theory, where that wasn't an accident.
  - gridlockd 7y ago
    > What is the non-conspiracy explanation for the magic bullet involved in the JFK assassination? I only know the conspiracy theory that claims that the CIA accidentally shot JFK and then covered their tracks. It's entirely possible that a secret service agent accidentally shot Kennedy, and they're on the record of saying so. "We don't know" is not really a conspiracy theory. "We don't know, therefore X must have done it" is a conspiracy theory. Conspiracy thinking is the tendency to make these connections.
    - StellarTabi 7y ago
      At this point it's no longer conspiracy theories, it's just conspiracy shower thoughts.
    - Kaiyou 7y ago
      Last time I looked at this, the magic bullet was the official stance. When did the narrative change?

gridlockd 7y ago

I doubt that. Lizardpeople are absurd, even by the standards of your average conspiracy theorist. QAnon isn't. The basic premise - some 4chan shitposter happens to have Q-clearance - is entirely plausible. The fact that anyone can post anything as QAnon also gives plausible deniability for any claim that turns out false, while any claim vague enough to turn out true is taken as evidence. Conspiracy thinking is extremely widespread and many conspiracy theories are widely believed, such as the JFK assassination, the fake moon landing, or "vaccines cause autism".

Kaiyou 7y ago
What is the non-conspiracy explanation for the magic bullet involved in the JFK assassination? I only know the conspiracy theory that claims that the CIA accidentally shot JFK and then covered their tracks. And then the other conspiracy theory, where that wasn't an accident.
- gridlockd 7y ago
  > What is the non-conspiracy explanation for the magic bullet involved in the JFK assassination? I only know the conspiracy theory that claims that the CIA accidentally shot JFK and then covered their tracks. It's entirely possible that a secret service agent accidentally shot Kennedy, and they're on the record of saying so. "We don't know" is not really a conspiracy theory. "We don't know, therefore X must have done it" is a conspiracy theory. Conspiracy thinking is the tendency to make these connections.
  - StellarTabi 7y ago
    At this point it's no longer conspiracy theories, it's just conspiracy shower thoughts.
  - Kaiyou 7y ago
    Last time I looked at this, the magic bullet was the official stance. When did the narrative change?