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Whenever I hear these comments I wonder what the recommendation is to shrink the movement. Obviously open conversations did not stop the movement from growing.

benjohnson 6y ago
Prosecuting Epstine would have helped. Auditing the voting system would have helped. Just show the movement that there nothing to hide rather than yell at them and appear to cover up.
- treeman79 6y ago
  Also don’t change the rules right before the election.
  - TeaDrunk 6y ago
    The rules were changed months in advance. Due to this, suing only after a loss was heavily disfavored by the courts.
  - nawgz 6y ago
    No rules were changed right before the election, except perhaps by Trump who tried to rail against mail-in voting and destroyed the USPS in the process. This talking point - that mail-in votes were somehow less secure than previously - is such a post-hoc rationalization it makes me sick
- dag11 6y ago
  But it's never enough proof, the goal posts never stop moving. We can't keep playing the game forever, or we'd be paralyzed as a society. For example, there were two months of audits, recounts, and countless court cases. The skeptics wanted an additional "ten day audit" on top of this, which would have consequences for the transition. After that audit, how do we know they'd have been satisfied? Nothing in the past has demonstrated their ability to be satisfied.
- pjc50 6y ago
  There have been audits of the voting system. They didn't believe them, and they were reported falsely in the media they follow. It's a cult. It's like trying to convince them that aliens don't exist. (Epstein would have been prosecuted .. if he hadn't died in extremely mysterious circumstances. Now that's a situation where absence of evidence where evidence should be expected - the security cameras - drives paranoia.)
  - throwaway894345 6y ago
    The “cult” (if you insist) was once much smaller, so something must be driving this phenomenon, which means there is hope that we can stop or even reverse it. What makes people go from believing the media, science, etc to unwarranted skepticism? Specifically, what changed in the last couple of decades that might’ve yielded this result? My pet theory is that our institutions increasingly pivoted from truth-seeking to left-wing activism, so the right lost considerable incentive to play the game, and indeed some of the right is breaking away and finding their own institutions (and less savory than those that we’ve built up over decades and centuries).
    - glial 6y ago
      > something must be driving this phenomenon I’m going to go with a repeated exposure to propaganda designed to convince people that the election “WAS RIGGED” and sow distrust in our system of government. The left certainly has some questionable positions, but the “stop the steal” movement is not rooted in fact.
      - throwaway894345 6y ago
        The phenomenon in question is a sharp increase in the number of "post-truth" right-wingers--those people who can't be convinced by evidence alone that their position is wrong. This largely predates the most recent election and I would argue the rise began even in advance of Trump (although I think he was a coalescing figure which accelerated the phenomenon).
        6y ago
- amznthrwaway 6y ago
  That's naive nonsense. Epstein was in the process of being prosecuted when he died. The state has no credible mechanism to continue prosecution (along with a vigorous defense) once he's dead. There was no way to do what you wanted. Voting systems were audited, and all that happened was that Q people made up bullshit and moved the goalposts. None of the conspiratorial-minded right-wingers looked at the 60 lawsuits or the many recounts and took them as evidence that their cause was incorrect. They took it as proof that the truth was just even more oppressed. Facts don't work against bullshit. This is an important lesson that people like you need to learn. Wake the fuck up, you dumb son of a bitch.
- alpha_squared 6y ago
  Part of the problem is that people feel things are true and you can't debate or logicise that away. You can't argue against a feeling because it's deeply personal and you can't invalidate feelings. The most you can offer is another perspective and hope they're willing to consider it. Short of having them convince themselves, you can't really change people's minds when they feel something is true.
- jeromegv 6y ago
  Those voting systems were audited and that made absolutely no difference. Once the conspiracy theories were being debunked in court, they just kept coming with new ones.
- TeaDrunk 6y ago
  The voting system was audited, repeatedly. Biden even gained votes because the auditing system discovered that some votes weren't being counted. It was brought to multiple courts repeatedly and the only thing done was that elector witnesses were allowed to be slightly closer to the people counting.
- geofft 6y ago
  Epstein was a thing for them to latch onto. If he were prosecuted, it would be something or someone else. (Soros? Gates? Hillary Clinton? Jeremiah Wright? etc.) Or, alternatively, there's no convincing argument that had Epstein never been born, the Qanon movement would have been noticeably smaller or weaker. If your claim is that it would have helped to deliver justice in every single case of injustice, promptly and transparently, then yes, that certainly makes for a better society and certainly everyone agrees with that goal but it's also never going to be 100% completed. And if you remember 2004, there were serious allegations of unaudited changes to the voting system as well as coverups and hiding of important information (like what we knew about Iraq's weapons program or lack thereof), but the movement of people who objected to both of them did not storm anything. So there's something else different here.
- TigeriusKirk 6y ago
  It has to start with admitting the systems are imperfect and unchecked misconduct is possible even if it's not actually happening. The insistence that our systems infallible is not at all helpful because anyone can see that's not true. Once we get to admitting unchecked misconduct is possible in the current systems, we can make some progress to reducing those possibilities. Right now we're resisting that path, and that's just not sustainable.
- ardy42 6y ago
  > Prosecuting Epstine would have helped. Auditing the voting system would have helped. Both of those things happened. The prosecutors indicted Epstein, but he killed himself before the trial could proceed. The voting system has been audited many times this cycle. > Just show the movement that there nothing to hide rather than yell at them and appear to cover up. The real issue is "the movement" doesn't like the true result. It doesn't matter to them how fair the process is, they'll reject it unless they get what they want.
throwaway0a5e 6y ago
These people need to see with their own two eyes that the things they think are true are not true. There is probably no bringing back some of the people who have gone really far down that road if corporations and government act with transparency and consistency going forward I think it will bring many people back and prevent more from doing down that road.
- beckingz 6y ago
  These people can stay crazy longer than the country can last. For instance, if some people reevaluate their beliefs and come to a more generally accepted understanding of truth in the near future, the capital will still have been rioted.
  - djtriptych 6y ago
    I agree. The idea that we can quell this mob with truth, evidence, and reason should have been long ago abandoned.
throwaway894345 6y ago
Personally I think these movements are the natural result of pivoting our epistemological institutions from truth-seeking to progressive political advocacy. The right in particular has less reason to recognize these institutions as “truth authorities” as even when the right has a good point (e.g., when the right asks, “how do we know that racism and not crime rates belies police shooting disparities?”) , they can rely on these institutions to ignore or misrepresent them. So some of them decide to go shopping around for their own epistemological institutions which will support them in a similar (albeit cruder and more overt) way to how universities, media, etc back progressives and progressive viewpoints. The way out of this, IMHO, is to reverse course—to restore integrity to the media and generally to show the right that there is a good faith process through which their legitimate ideas can succeed and be rewarded. Trying to force an ideological hegemony isn’t going very well, however cathartic it may be or however right we are about our points and policy issues.
- pjc50 6y ago
  > when the right asks, “how do we know that racism and not crime rates belies police shooting disparities?” This question isn't asked in good faith. Besides, it's actually irrelevant; those deaths are statistics. What was demanded was prosecutions of specific police for specific shootings of specific, named people such as Breonna Taylor. It's up to the white community to decide if police shootings of white people are too frequent, not frequent enough, or whatever. That is irrelevant to the BLM question.
  - travisoneill1 6y ago
    Prosecutions aren't something that should be done by mob demand. In the case of Breona Taylor the police were returning fire. You can question whether they should have served that warrant, but you will never in a million years convict someone of murder when they were returning fire.
    - joshuamorton 6y ago
      > but you will never in a million years convict someone of murder when they were returning fire. If you break into my home with a gun, I shoot at you and miss, and you shoot me and kill me, you would absolutely be convicted of murder or manslaughter. The defense, in this case, relies on two claims: 1. The intruders were police officers (this doesn't, or shouldn't, give them carte blanche to shoot people) 2. The police announced themselves as police before entering, which is in dispute. Further, the opportunity to bring manslaughter charges was never provided. The prosecutor declined to present murder or manslaughter to the Grand Jury.
tehjoker 6y ago
Well, having the government actually help people, work transparently, and prosecute corruption would do wonders for quelling conspiracies.
exabrial 6y ago
I'll throw one in: requirement that all electronic voting systems have 100% of source code available to review by anyone, with the exception of private keys or symmetric keys, which would only be available in extremely limited circumstances. To be clear, I'm in the "the 2020 election was fine" camp. I just think this is something a government "by the people" should be doing anyway.
lkxijlewlf 6y ago
That would be difficult. I personally believe Q is an organization of trolls. They exploit/prey upon people's desire to be a part of something larger than themselves. I wouldn't be surprised if there's merely a couple handfuls of people all trying to outdo each other developing these conspiracies that keep to the Q lore/universe while spreading like fire. I don't think these people actually believe any of these conspiracies. They simply want to come up with ways to make other people believe what they want them to and act out on those beliefs.
- thakoppno 6y ago
  Is it surprising to anyone that Q hasn’t been unmasked at this point? Presumably there’s an FBI investigation into it and it seems unfathomable to me that intelligence agencies can’t figure out who is behind it.
  - djtriptych 6y ago
    What makes you think a single person or organized group is behind it? It's just a loose collection of unsubstantiated conspiracies.
belorn 6y ago
There are research on the topic of how to deescalate conflict among groups, along lines of race, religion and nationality. Minimize the displaying of symbols, especially those that symbolize difference in values. Treat people equally. Same laws, same rules, same methods of handling people. When there is an absolute need for borders, make the border distinct and obvious. Symbolic actions of understanding can often be more important than practical actions.
idrios 6y ago
I don't know a solution but lately I've been struggling with the concept of freedom of speech. With absolute free speech, taken to the extreme, you get the mess the US has right now. Without, also taken to the extreme, you get state-controlled media like what's in China. Recently I read a comment that free speech only works if the speech is honest, and that resonated with me. So whatever the solution is, possibly start from there?

benjohnson 6y ago

Prosecuting Epstine would have helped. Auditing the voting system would have helped. Just show the movement that there nothing to hide rather than yell at them and appear to cover up.

treeman79 6y ago
Also don’t change the rules right before the election.
- TeaDrunk 6y ago
  The rules were changed months in advance. Due to this, suing only after a loss was heavily disfavored by the courts.
- nawgz 6y ago
  No rules were changed right before the election, except perhaps by Trump who tried to rail against mail-in voting and destroyed the USPS in the process. This talking point - that mail-in votes were somehow less secure than previously - is such a post-hoc rationalization it makes me sick
dag11 6y ago
But it's never enough proof, the goal posts never stop moving. We can't keep playing the game forever, or we'd be paralyzed as a society. For example, there were two months of audits, recounts, and countless court cases. The skeptics wanted an additional "ten day audit" on top of this, which would have consequences for the transition. After that audit, how do we know they'd have been satisfied? Nothing in the past has demonstrated their ability to be satisfied.
pjc50 6y ago
There have been audits of the voting system. They didn't believe them, and they were reported falsely in the media they follow. It's a cult. It's like trying to convince them that aliens don't exist. (Epstein would have been prosecuted .. if he hadn't died in extremely mysterious circumstances. Now that's a situation where absence of evidence where evidence should be expected - the security cameras - drives paranoia.)
- throwaway894345 6y ago
  The “cult” (if you insist) was once much smaller, so something must be driving this phenomenon, which means there is hope that we can stop or even reverse it. What makes people go from believing the media, science, etc to unwarranted skepticism? Specifically, what changed in the last couple of decades that might’ve yielded this result? My pet theory is that our institutions increasingly pivoted from truth-seeking to left-wing activism, so the right lost considerable incentive to play the game, and indeed some of the right is breaking away and finding their own institutions (and less savory than those that we’ve built up over decades and centuries).
  - glial 6y ago
    > something must be driving this phenomenon I’m going to go with a repeated exposure to propaganda designed to convince people that the election “WAS RIGGED” and sow distrust in our system of government. The left certainly has some questionable positions, but the “stop the steal” movement is not rooted in fact.
    - throwaway894345 6y ago
      The phenomenon in question is a sharp increase in the number of "post-truth" right-wingers--those people who can't be convinced by evidence alone that their position is wrong. This largely predates the most recent election and I would argue the rise began even in advance of Trump (although I think he was a coalescing figure which accelerated the phenomenon).
      - 6y ago
amznthrwaway 6y ago
That's naive nonsense. Epstein was in the process of being prosecuted when he died. The state has no credible mechanism to continue prosecution (along with a vigorous defense) once he's dead. There was no way to do what you wanted. Voting systems were audited, and all that happened was that Q people made up bullshit and moved the goalposts. None of the conspiratorial-minded right-wingers looked at the 60 lawsuits or the many recounts and took them as evidence that their cause was incorrect. They took it as proof that the truth was just even more oppressed. Facts don't work against bullshit. This is an important lesson that people like you need to learn. Wake the fuck up, you dumb son of a bitch.
alpha_squared 6y ago
Part of the problem is that people feel things are true and you can't debate or logicise that away. You can't argue against a feeling because it's deeply personal and you can't invalidate feelings. The most you can offer is another perspective and hope they're willing to consider it. Short of having them convince themselves, you can't really change people's minds when they feel something is true.
jeromegv 6y ago
Those voting systems were audited and that made absolutely no difference. Once the conspiracy theories were being debunked in court, they just kept coming with new ones.
TeaDrunk 6y ago
The voting system was audited, repeatedly. Biden even gained votes because the auditing system discovered that some votes weren't being counted. It was brought to multiple courts repeatedly and the only thing done was that elector witnesses were allowed to be slightly closer to the people counting.
geofft 6y ago
Epstein was a thing for them to latch onto. If he were prosecuted, it would be something or someone else. (Soros? Gates? Hillary Clinton? Jeremiah Wright? etc.) Or, alternatively, there's no convincing argument that had Epstein never been born, the Qanon movement would have been noticeably smaller or weaker. If your claim is that it would have helped to deliver justice in every single case of injustice, promptly and transparently, then yes, that certainly makes for a better society and certainly everyone agrees with that goal but it's also never going to be 100% completed. And if you remember 2004, there were serious allegations of unaudited changes to the voting system as well as coverups and hiding of important information (like what we knew about Iraq's weapons program or lack thereof), but the movement of people who objected to both of them did not storm anything. So there's something else different here.
TigeriusKirk 6y ago
It has to start with admitting the systems are imperfect and unchecked misconduct is possible even if it's not actually happening. The insistence that our systems infallible is not at all helpful because anyone can see that's not true. Once we get to admitting unchecked misconduct is possible in the current systems, we can make some progress to reducing those possibilities. Right now we're resisting that path, and that's just not sustainable.
ardy42 6y ago
> Prosecuting Epstine would have helped. Auditing the voting system would have helped. Both of those things happened. The prosecutors indicted Epstein, but he killed himself before the trial could proceed. The voting system has been audited many times this cycle. > Just show the movement that there nothing to hide rather than yell at them and appear to cover up. The real issue is "the movement" doesn't like the true result. It doesn't matter to them how fair the process is, they'll reject it unless they get what they want.

throwaway0a5e 6y ago

These people need to see with their own two eyes that the things they think are true are not true. There is probably no bringing back some of the people who have gone really far down that road if corporations and government act with transparency and consistency going forward I think it will bring many people back and prevent more from doing down that road.

beckingz 6y ago
These people can stay crazy longer than the country can last. For instance, if some people reevaluate their beliefs and come to a more generally accepted understanding of truth in the near future, the capital will still have been rioted.
- djtriptych 6y ago
  I agree. The idea that we can quell this mob with truth, evidence, and reason should have been long ago abandoned.

throwaway894345 6y ago

Personally I think these movements are the natural result of pivoting our epistemological institutions from truth-seeking to progressive political advocacy. The right in particular has less reason to recognize these institutions as “truth authorities” as even when the right has a good point (e.g., when the right asks, “how do we know that racism and not crime rates belies police shooting disparities?”) , they can rely on these institutions to ignore or misrepresent them. So some of them decide to go shopping around for their own epistemological institutions which will support them in a similar (albeit cruder and more overt) way to how universities, media, etc back progressives and progressive viewpoints. The way out of this, IMHO, is to reverse course—to restore integrity to the media and generally to show the right that there is a good faith process through which their legitimate ideas can succeed and be rewarded. Trying to force an ideological hegemony isn’t going very well, however cathartic it may be or however right we are about our points and policy issues.

pjc50 6y ago
> when the right asks, “how do we know that racism and not crime rates belies police shooting disparities?” This question isn't asked in good faith. Besides, it's actually irrelevant; those deaths are statistics. What was demanded was prosecutions of specific police for specific shootings of specific, named people such as Breonna Taylor. It's up to the white community to decide if police shootings of white people are too frequent, not frequent enough, or whatever. That is irrelevant to the BLM question.
- travisoneill1 6y ago
  Prosecutions aren't something that should be done by mob demand. In the case of Breona Taylor the police were returning fire. You can question whether they should have served that warrant, but you will never in a million years convict someone of murder when they were returning fire.
  - joshuamorton 6y ago
    > but you will never in a million years convict someone of murder when they were returning fire. If you break into my home with a gun, I shoot at you and miss, and you shoot me and kill me, you would absolutely be convicted of murder or manslaughter. The defense, in this case, relies on two claims: 1. The intruders were police officers (this doesn't, or shouldn't, give them carte blanche to shoot people) 2. The police announced themselves as police before entering, which is in dispute. Further, the opportunity to bring manslaughter charges was never provided. The prosecutor declined to present murder or manslaughter to the Grand Jury.

tehjoker 6y ago

Well, having the government actually help people, work transparently, and prosecute corruption would do wonders for quelling conspiracies.

exabrial 6y ago

I'll throw one in: requirement that all electronic voting systems have 100% of source code available to review by anyone, with the exception of private keys or symmetric keys, which would only be available in extremely limited circumstances. To be clear, I'm in the "the 2020 election was fine" camp. I just think this is something a government "by the people" should be doing anyway.

lkxijlewlf 6y ago

That would be difficult. I personally believe Q is an organization of trolls. They exploit/prey upon people's desire to be a part of something larger than themselves. I wouldn't be surprised if there's merely a couple handfuls of people all trying to outdo each other developing these conspiracies that keep to the Q lore/universe while spreading like fire. I don't think these people actually believe any of these conspiracies. They simply want to come up with ways to make other people believe what they want them to and act out on those beliefs.

thakoppno 6y ago
Is it surprising to anyone that Q hasn’t been unmasked at this point? Presumably there’s an FBI investigation into it and it seems unfathomable to me that intelligence agencies can’t figure out who is behind it.
- djtriptych 6y ago
  What makes you think a single person or organized group is behind it? It's just a loose collection of unsubstantiated conspiracies.

belorn 6y ago

There are research on the topic of how to deescalate conflict among groups, along lines of race, religion and nationality. Minimize the displaying of symbols, especially those that symbolize difference in values. Treat people equally. Same laws, same rules, same methods of handling people. When there is an absolute need for borders, make the border distinct and obvious. Symbolic actions of understanding can often be more important than practical actions.

idrios 6y ago

I don't know a solution but lately I've been struggling with the concept of freedom of speech. With absolute free speech, taken to the extreme, you get the mess the US has right now. Without, also taken to the extreme, you get state-controlled media like what's in China. Recently I read a comment that free speech only works if the speech is honest, and that resonated with me. So whatever the solution is, possibly start from there?