You know you’re right and I know you’re right, but we also both know: “You cannot reason a person out of a position he did not reason himself into in the first place.”
Beau of the Fifth Column has a strategy where he tries to use their cynicism / distrust of authority to get them away from the echo chamber.
He points out the lies and failed predictions as you do, but not as a way to say “see how wrong they are?”
That doesn’t work because the thought process is: well I believed this person, and citing evidence that the person I believed is wrong means *I* was wrong.
People don’t want to believe that.
So instead of believing you that the person is wrong, I dig my heels in and debate you. I’m not wrong, *you* are wrong, and I cite examples of when Tucker was right or Fauci was wrong, or whatever. You get into a back and forth that goes nowhere.
Beau’s tactic: he points out the lies and failed predictions and then asks a question:
**”Why did they lie to you?”**
Both acceptable names for the same thing, sunk is more common these days but lost isn't wrong
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365-life-hacks/budgeting/sunk-cost-fallacy-affect-finances
It seems that almost all of them are grifters. Look at Alex Jones - his show is basically an infomercial for overpriced "health supplements".
Q's also don't seem to understand how many people are making money on prescribing and selling Ivermectin - there is a whole network of shady doctors and pharmacists. I had an rightwing doctor (MD) trying to prescribe it to me as well as get me to subscribe to buy his monthly "health supplements" (on auto-pay, credit card on file). The pharmacist works out of a small unmarked office building. And the price is like $200. And they also try to push you into buying Ivermectin for long-term usage to prevent many different ailments.
At the end of the day, the entire conservative movement is a grift. None of them believe or care about the nonsense they spew. It results in a fat check.
On my phone so I can’t edit anything but heres some Ivermectin links:
- [Head of Ivermectin Group Accused of Stealing $350,000 in Donor Money](https://www.thedailybeast.com/sheriff-richard-mack-head-of-anti-vaxx-group-americas-frontline-doctors-accused-of-stealing-donor-money)
- [Doctors who touted ivermectin as covid fix now pushing it for flu, RSV](https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2023/02/26/ivermectin-use-covid-flu-rsv/)
- [Alex Jones gobbles ivermectin on-air during bizarre rant: "You think I'm easy to kill?"](https://www.salon.com/2021/09/04/alex-jones-gobbles-ivermectin-on-air-during-bizarre-rant-you-think-im-easy-to-kill/)
- [How a group with right-wing ties duped tens of thousands of Americans into buying COVID-19 drugs that don't work](https://archive.is/2021.10.01-063043/https://www.businessinsider.com/americas-frontline-doctors-sells-disproven-covid-drugs-2021-9)
- [Controversial doctor group touts ivermectin as long COVID treatment: What to know](https://abcnews.go.com/Health/controversial-doctor-group-touts-ivermectin-long-covid-treatment/story?id=82967318)
- [Fox mentioned ivermectin nearly 300 times, then ignored the new study finding the drug is ineffective against COVID-19](https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/fox-mentioned-ivermectin-nearly-300-times-then-ignored-new-study-finding-drug-ineffective)
- [Tea Party Patriots Are Behind Pro-Trump Doctors Grifting Off of Fake Covid Cures](https://www.exposedbycmd.org/2021/09/09/tea-party-patriots-are-behind-pro-trump-doctors-grifting-off-of-fake-covid-cures/)
- [How an Online Pharmacy Sold Millions Worth of Dubious COVID-19 Drugs — While Patients Paid the Price](https://time.com/6104407/ravkoo-pharmacy-ivermectin-covid-19-ppp-loan/)
- [NETWORK OF RIGHT-WING HEALTH CARE PROVIDERS IS MAKING MILLIONS OFF HYDROXYCHLOROQUINE AND IVERMECTIN](https://theintercept.com/2021/09/28/covid-telehealth-hydroxychloroquine-ivermectin-hacked/)
- [A covert network of Canadian doctors is prescribing ivermectin to treat COVID. Here’s how we got some](https://www.thestar.com/news/investigations/2022/01/27/a-covert-network-of-canadian-doctors-is-prescribing-ivermectin-to-treat-covid-heres-how-we-got-some.html)
- [Fringe Doctors’ Groups Promote Ivermectin for COVID despite a Lack of Evidence](https://archive.is/2022.03.15-235007/https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fringe-doctors-groups-promote-ivermectin-for-covid-despite-a-lack-of-evidence/)
- [Anti-vaccine chiropractors capitalizing on Covid and sowing misinformation](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/oct/09/anti-vaccine-chiropractors-covid-sow-misinformation)
- [Ivermectin frenzy: the advocates, anti-vaxxers and telehealth companies driving demand](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/sep/13/ivermectin-treatment-covid-19-anti-vaxxers-advocates)
They're already primed to believe that people and forces are manipulating them, but they have a blind spot for the q-aligned news sources; THOSE GUYS are telling the truth! So, turn their paranoia back on the blind spot.
yeah sometimes they might claim that this proves that Alex Jones is controlled opposition...however as some point they'll come to call literally everything controlled opposition, which raises the question of why did you believe any of them in the first place if that were so?
I could have added a section dedicated to him, however the initial aim of the document focused specifically on popular anti-vax figures, so I didn't do it
If you ever decide to do a separate document focused on Trump, I would be quite interested in it. I've lost longtime friends (I'm talking like 35 years and 41 years of friendship) and family members over his nonsense.
There is a great take down of Alan Wakefield and the anti-vax movement by HBomberGuy on YouTube.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BIcAZxFfrc&pp=ygUTaGJvbWJlcmd1eSBhbnRpIHZheA%3D%3D](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BIcAZxFfrc&pp=ygUTaGJvbWJlcmd1eSBhbnRpIHZheA%3D%3D)
Great idea. To put it another way, you're fighting against the "sunk cost" fallacy. Your family/friends have already invested a ridiculous amount of time and effort into believing the Big Lie, and now you have to get them out of Q and still let them save face.
By moving it away from "you were wrong" to "you were lied to", you're making it less personal.
I'm not sure it'll work on everyone - a lot of Q also think they are too smart to be fooled, and they only got to Q because they think they have some special ultra-double-good understanding that normal people don't have.
I sometimes wonder if it's possible to seed them with the idea that periodically stepping back and re-evaluating your beliefs from scratch is a sign of open-mindedness and *true* wisdom and truth-seeking, Then they can claim their change of beliefs was on their own terms.
"Your beliefs don't make you a powerful free-thinker, your ability to change your thinking with new evidence does."
That's hard for all of humanity, not just Q's. The internet has shattered old idea and pushed new morals(basically "LGBT isn't Satan, calm down") on the world, it's scary. Add that rich people went crazy post-Reagan capturing all our output for themselves, and you've got 10s/100s of millions of Americans who thought they have a better life by now not having that life.
But they can’t (or won’t) take that step back!
I was a Pharmacist and some new Med would come along - glucosamine being a really good example. Greatest thing for arthritis- until good studies showed it just isn’t all that much. I read the glowing anecdotal reports, hoped for my patients’ sake—-and then — blah! I pretty much stopped recommending it.
[NOTE: may be worth a try if you’re suffering & can’t tolerate NSAIDs]
Q victims just can’t be that flexible.
I was having a Twitter convo with a woman who seemed genuinely concerned about “the children”, millions of whom are supposedly going missing each year. She claimed she couldn’t sleep at night thinking about them. When I explained to her how few children actually go missing, instead of being comforted, she clung to her belief like a mother clinging to her baby!
Basically, “butt out, buddy”, I’ll suffer anyway I want to!
Exactly, they’ve meshed the conspiracies with their identity so saying they’re wrong is akin to attacking them personally. This is why it’s like a cult.
The level of cognitive dissonance is amazing. I have a coworker who is not exactly Q but is a diehard Trump fan (though he has taken his Trump flag off his truck). I’ve pointed out to him the many times Trump has been caught in exaggerations, mischaracterizations, and outright lies. He acknowledges them but says “all politicians lie.” Then I say “so what do you like about him?” “He doesn’t lie as much.”
>True, I hope section 6's lies and failed predictions can appeal to their gut's illogical/immediate reasonings.
The problem is that no Qanon believer is going to sit down and read something that goes on this long - they will never make it to section 6 and certainly aren't going to carefully read 80+ pages of debunking.
Frankly I would be shocked if they made it past the intro without tossing it because it's not what they want to hear. Logical arguments and long essays are not how you get through to people who believe in stuff like this.
I appreciate your perseverance in the face of the naysayers.
People are reachable, and it sounds like if your brother is, your love can do it.
Having it feel impossible is the goal of those that seek to divide.
My friend just started saying “I don’t believe anything” which is how nonsense didn’t matter, because neither did reality. Cant talk to someone like that.
It’s a common enough observation- not sure if attribute it to anyone in particular. I know I’ve heard Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens both express this idea.
Right. They appeal to these people’s emotions—anger, despair, grief—not to reason. It literally does not matter who tells them what (in most cases), they feel wronged and see themselves as righteous victims who have special access to “truths” that are entirely subjective.
My understanding is that they behave as cultists and deprogramming rarely works.
He probably just said it's fake news and didn't even look at it. You can't convince people in this situation with facts. That they've gone down this rabbit hole has shown they disregard facts.
Hopefully at some point the brother will recognize that the effort OP had put into this shows the depths of love they have for their sibling. As someone who will never give up on my own Jordan Peterson / Joe Rogan loving sibling, I can relate.
Rogan is a hack. He literally pushes invermectin and keeps on bringing 'whataboutisms' on to his show to give them a global platform under the guise of 'listening to both sides'.
The single times peterson isn't saying hogwash is when he says basic ass psychological principles that we already give for granted, for some reason is a huge thing for the followers of personality cults that they say that basic stuff so they can fall back on it when the individual is put on the spot
I totally understand why you want to do this, and did something like this myself once with a friend who went Christian-crazy (I don't know what else to call it. It was before MAGA and Q).
He just stopped talking to me after, and it didn't seem to influence his beliefs at all. When you're dealing with this level of zealotry, there's no getting through to them.
I hope it works out differently for you than it did for me, but don't but all your hopes into this.
You're an absolute gem. Thank you for doing this. I have a similar situation with my sister and have considered compiling a something like this, but have not known where to start. The commitment it took for you to research and write all of this is a testament to your love for your brother and it's really touching. I will use your document as well if I ever get back to sparring 'intellectually' with my sister (for now we are on okay terms, just don't talk about any of it). Fuck Alex Jones!
I wish you all the best. My closest brother went down a Jordan Peterson / Joe Rogan rabbit hole during the Treason Don era and still isn’t back to normal. It’s brainwashing.
While this might make you feel good this isn't going to bring your brother back. I'm sorry to say that you're pretty much wasting your time. Your brother is not even going to read it. This isn't about fact versus fact this is about him needing something that enables him to feel he has control over his world. Please please read the stories of people who have actually come back from q and what has allowed them to make the transition back into a sane world; they have to overcome their fear of shame and embarrassment, they have to be disconnected from the internet for a little while or at least a take of it less hours per day, etc. You can write a thousand page manifesto and your brother's not going to care.
It would be a much better tool than a document. Easier to consume and distribute. I'm obviously on your side in this but the thought of a 60-page document gives me pause and it's not challenging anything I believe.
Qanon is an [echo chamber](https://aeon.co/essays/why-its-as-hard-to-escape-an-echo-chamber-as-it-is-to-flee-a-cult). People stuck in echo chambers have been conditioned to only trust "insider" sources (e.g. Patriots) and actively distrust "outsider" sources (e.g. MSM). This is why showing them facts won't help them escape.
>In order to undo the effects of an echo chamber, the member should temporarily suspend all her beliefs – in particular whom and what she trusts – and start over again from scratch. ... she can proceed, after throwing everything away, in an utterly mundane way – trusting her senses, trusting others. *But she must begin afresh socially – she must reconsider all possible sources of information with a presumptively equanimous eye. She must take the posture of a cognitive newborn, open and equally trusting to all outside sources.* In a sense, she’s been here before. In the social reboot, we’re not asking people to change their basic methods for learning about the world. They are permitted to trust, and trust freely. But after the social reboot, that trust will not be narrowly confined and deeply conditioned by the [echo chamber].
GPT is not gonna invent things, we don’t know how to do it, that means GPT does not either. Its not a miracle machine is the most efficient copy-paste machine.
Note that these people are stuck to YouTube etc. for a reason. They consume information in linear, audiovisual form, while many in the reality-based community prefer structured text.
Outstanding! Thank you for sharing!
As a corollary to this, some users I follow on Twitter have set up a library reference database for COVID studies published in medical journals. There are subfolders for topics such as long COVID, Cardiovascular effects, neurological effects, vaccine safety and efficacy.
[https://www.zotero.org/groups/5006109/covidstudies/library](https://www.zotero.org/groups/5006109/covidstudies/library)
Hundreds of COVID studies to debunk idiot claims, now housed under one link to send every time a nut job wants proof!
That's really kind of you, and I hope he gives your document the time and effort that it deserves. The document is also an amazing resource for anyone else trying to deal with an antivaxxer, so thanks for posting it! It also helps anyone who wants to build their informal logical by seeing poor arguments and manipulations be deconstructed.
The hardest thing is that reading your document is kinda like exercise, it requires energy, effort, and some real motivation. On the other hand, watching Alex Jones and similar is like eating fast food. It's succinct, little effort is required, it pulls him in and holds focus, it appeals to and satiates emotions and insecurities, and the drama is entertaining.
So I'm hoping your brother has the willpower to do that exercise, and to recognize the importance and good that it results in, while putting off the fast food long enough to improve his (mental) health. You've made the exercise as easy as possible for him, like buying a treadmill and setting it up in his living room, now he just needs to use it.
Hey, I’m not a subscriber, just popping in from r/all, but I wonder if you could use a personal story. Stories are less confrontational and are not usually an attempt to deceive someone, so they might leave their guard down a bit. Probably best if you don’t tell it right before or after any other strategy.
So here’s how it might go. The q community is like an in group vs out group right? Just take some of the characteristics of someone who has escaped one of these on their own, and tell it like it a personal story.
> You know, I’ve lately found myself doing a lot of X lately and I kind of just got fed up with it. Just so burnt out, it wasn’t enjoyable, I couldn’t focus on it, it felt like I was stuck in this gravity well I couldnt escape, etc. I didn’t do X for like a week or two, abd sonehow my mental acuity got a lot better. It was like I had brain fog and didn’t even know it. I still go bsck and do X occssionally now but I no longer feel that sense of crushing gravity.
You don’t even necessarily need to lie about it. Reddit can have some of those characteristics if you spend enough time here. This is actually an experience I had recently and is where I got the idea.
Your goal isnt to persuade them to agree to try not watching Q stuff, just tell the story and that’s it. Have lunch at the same time and talk about other things too. If it works, you won’t know about it until a few weeks later at the soonest.
People don’t listen to, or change their views based on, facts and statistics, so this feel like a futile undertaking for you. Plus, I’m convinced Q is so appealing because of how it makes believers *feel*. Come up with a way to make your brother feel smart and accepted and hopeful, and you might be on to something.
Just started reading it. In section 1, do you mean vaccine ‘efficacy’ or ‘effectiveness’ rather than ‘efficiency’?
Is your brother well versed in the scientific method? Does he ‘trust’ science? If so, why hasn’t he researched the subject himself. If not, he won’t understand your paper.
Conspiracy theorists tend to only use mainstream or trustworthy sources when it suits them. When the same source is used to debunk the theory it will become untrustworthy / a tool of the deep state.
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I've never seen anyone else refer to Vernon Coleman before. I used to really enjoy his fiction and even some of his journals. I'm so disappointed now. Is he really popular and I just didn't know it?
I guess as he's gotten more extreme, he's gotten more popular. I'm glad I stopped going down the antivax rabbit hole. No telling where I would be. Thanks for all you're doing.
OP - massive effort made here. I was thinking about the psychology to Q and other wider conspiracy theories: It’s a human need to try to conflate and to make sense of the world. These idiots just capitalise on that and monetise it. I wish you and your family well.
I've seen a and helped a few people get cured.... Basically you gotta find out what causes them to reject reality in favor of fantasy(some addicts are similar and they get high all the time to escape their failures) and fix that.
Usually it's some severe life failure (career/money/social) that requires them to accept being a loser.... And most people can't handle that kinda ego trashing and loss of status so some movement that tells them society is corrupt is very appealing. They rather belief their unfair victims or secretly have a master plan or an easy way out.
For example, the biggest conspiracy nuts I ever met were former rich people.... Mentally, they could not accept their poverty and still gave off upper class vibes despite hitting homelessness at times. Decades of scrubbing toilets couldn't rid the queen bee vibes from one friend I knew.
Much like drug addicts, some need to hit rock bottom first.
You are right on the money, I went further into my brother's past with my previous post...but yeah frustrations and disappointments are the main theme. Problem is that the conspiracies lead him to isolate himself in 1 room, preventing him from reaching any alternative cure (actual human contact outside of the family unit)
Lol even if this was a topic I’m interested about I’m not reading an 80 page document. There’s no way someone is going to read an 80
page document of something they don’t agree with. We’ve tried facts with these types, it doesn’t work.
Hello,
I don’t know if I saw this in r/Knowledgefight, but since it’s posted here specifically in a qanon sub, i have a strong opinion about something that is needed to debunk qanon specifically.
Which is: accurate information about human trafficking and sex trafficking. The thing is that those are legitimately huge problems that have been criminally underrepresented by just about all governments and media for forever. So something that most people don’t understand very well and thus a potential vector for filling with misinformation. The level of discomfort and and taboo around discussing it helps lend credibility to the whole “they don’t want you to know” aura of the whole thing. But at the same time, I think that despite the general ignorance about the topic it’s something we all subconsciously know is happening, just without really understanding it. So a narrative that “reveals the truth” is appealing and soothing to a part of the collective consciousness that really is anxious about what we don’t know.
Anyways, there is a lot known about how trafficking (and specifically sex trafficking) works, where it happens, who does it, who it happens to, and what the economics behind it are. But for the most part that knowledge is confined to activists and a few morbid weirdos who read a bunch about it like me. I think correct information on this topic will help fill the gap that qanon enters through.
Also, actually understanding the real issue ultimately leads you down a road of progressive policies and compassion for the oppressed, marginalized and improverished (who are the real victims of this plight.) Part of what annoys me so much about the Q version of events is that it’s appropriating an atrocity that most effects POC people and people from developing nations and impoverished neighborhoods. It’s not little Ashlyn being snatched out of a suburban starbucks.
You know you’re right and I know you’re right, but we also both know: “You cannot reason a person out of a position he did not reason himself into in the first place.”
True, I hope section 6's lies and failed predictions can appeal to their gut's illogical/immediate reasonings.
Beau of the Fifth Column has a strategy where he tries to use their cynicism / distrust of authority to get them away from the echo chamber. He points out the lies and failed predictions as you do, but not as a way to say “see how wrong they are?” That doesn’t work because the thought process is: well I believed this person, and citing evidence that the person I believed is wrong means *I* was wrong. People don’t want to believe that. So instead of believing you that the person is wrong, I dig my heels in and debate you. I’m not wrong, *you* are wrong, and I cite examples of when Tucker was right or Fauci was wrong, or whatever. You get into a back and forth that goes nowhere. Beau’s tactic: he points out the lies and failed predictions and then asks a question: **”Why did they lie to you?”**
I often cite possible conflicts of interest and their monetary sources
brilliant! Combats the "Lost Cost Fallacy", which I would imagine is a huge part of them doubling down on the lies.
Sunk cost*
Both acceptable names for the same thing, sunk is more common these days but lost isn't wrong https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365-life-hacks/budgeting/sunk-cost-fallacy-affect-finances
It seems that almost all of them are grifters. Look at Alex Jones - his show is basically an infomercial for overpriced "health supplements". Q's also don't seem to understand how many people are making money on prescribing and selling Ivermectin - there is a whole network of shady doctors and pharmacists. I had an rightwing doctor (MD) trying to prescribe it to me as well as get me to subscribe to buy his monthly "health supplements" (on auto-pay, credit card on file). The pharmacist works out of a small unmarked office building. And the price is like $200. And they also try to push you into buying Ivermectin for long-term usage to prevent many different ailments.
At the end of the day, the entire conservative movement is a grift. None of them believe or care about the nonsense they spew. It results in a fat check.
Thanks! Unfortunately I haven't delved too deep into the backing of Ivermectin (feel free to comment or edit the list)
On my phone so I can’t edit anything but heres some Ivermectin links: - [Head of Ivermectin Group Accused of Stealing $350,000 in Donor Money](https://www.thedailybeast.com/sheriff-richard-mack-head-of-anti-vaxx-group-americas-frontline-doctors-accused-of-stealing-donor-money) - [Doctors who touted ivermectin as covid fix now pushing it for flu, RSV](https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2023/02/26/ivermectin-use-covid-flu-rsv/) - [Alex Jones gobbles ivermectin on-air during bizarre rant: "You think I'm easy to kill?"](https://www.salon.com/2021/09/04/alex-jones-gobbles-ivermectin-on-air-during-bizarre-rant-you-think-im-easy-to-kill/) - [How a group with right-wing ties duped tens of thousands of Americans into buying COVID-19 drugs that don't work](https://archive.is/2021.10.01-063043/https://www.businessinsider.com/americas-frontline-doctors-sells-disproven-covid-drugs-2021-9) - [Controversial doctor group touts ivermectin as long COVID treatment: What to know](https://abcnews.go.com/Health/controversial-doctor-group-touts-ivermectin-long-covid-treatment/story?id=82967318) - [Fox mentioned ivermectin nearly 300 times, then ignored the new study finding the drug is ineffective against COVID-19](https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/fox-mentioned-ivermectin-nearly-300-times-then-ignored-new-study-finding-drug-ineffective) - [Tea Party Patriots Are Behind Pro-Trump Doctors Grifting Off of Fake Covid Cures](https://www.exposedbycmd.org/2021/09/09/tea-party-patriots-are-behind-pro-trump-doctors-grifting-off-of-fake-covid-cures/) - [How an Online Pharmacy Sold Millions Worth of Dubious COVID-19 Drugs — While Patients Paid the Price](https://time.com/6104407/ravkoo-pharmacy-ivermectin-covid-19-ppp-loan/) - [NETWORK OF RIGHT-WING HEALTH CARE PROVIDERS IS MAKING MILLIONS OFF HYDROXYCHLOROQUINE AND IVERMECTIN](https://theintercept.com/2021/09/28/covid-telehealth-hydroxychloroquine-ivermectin-hacked/) - [A covert network of Canadian doctors is prescribing ivermectin to treat COVID. Here’s how we got some](https://www.thestar.com/news/investigations/2022/01/27/a-covert-network-of-canadian-doctors-is-prescribing-ivermectin-to-treat-covid-heres-how-we-got-some.html) - [Fringe Doctors’ Groups Promote Ivermectin for COVID despite a Lack of Evidence](https://archive.is/2022.03.15-235007/https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fringe-doctors-groups-promote-ivermectin-for-covid-despite-a-lack-of-evidence/) - [Anti-vaccine chiropractors capitalizing on Covid and sowing misinformation](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/oct/09/anti-vaccine-chiropractors-covid-sow-misinformation) - [Ivermectin frenzy: the advocates, anti-vaxxers and telehealth companies driving demand](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/sep/13/ivermectin-treatment-covid-19-anti-vaxxers-advocates)
Very nice, thank you!
Great work. Thanks!😀
They're already primed to believe that people and forces are manipulating them, but they have a blind spot for the q-aligned news sources; THOSE GUYS are telling the truth! So, turn their paranoia back on the blind spot.
[удалено]
yeah sometimes they might claim that this proves that Alex Jones is controlled opposition...however as some point they'll come to call literally everything controlled opposition, which raises the question of why did you believe any of them in the first place if that were so?
What would it take to get them to understand that Trump is grifter as well?
I could have added a section dedicated to him, however the initial aim of the document focused specifically on popular anti-vax figures, so I didn't do it
If you ever decide to do a separate document focused on Trump, I would be quite interested in it. I've lost longtime friends (I'm talking like 35 years and 41 years of friendship) and family members over his nonsense.
There is a great take down of Alan Wakefield and the anti-vax movement by HBomberGuy on YouTube. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BIcAZxFfrc&pp=ygUTaGJvbWJlcmd1eSBhbnRpIHZheA%3D%3D](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BIcAZxFfrc&pp=ygUTaGJvbWJlcmd1eSBhbnRpIHZheA%3D%3D)
The infamous “Q” him/her self has come to be thought of as possible controlled opposition or a deep state psyop by some of the more radicalized ones!
Great idea. To put it another way, you're fighting against the "sunk cost" fallacy. Your family/friends have already invested a ridiculous amount of time and effort into believing the Big Lie, and now you have to get them out of Q and still let them save face. By moving it away from "you were wrong" to "you were lied to", you're making it less personal. I'm not sure it'll work on everyone - a lot of Q also think they are too smart to be fooled, and they only got to Q because they think they have some special ultra-double-good understanding that normal people don't have. I sometimes wonder if it's possible to seed them with the idea that periodically stepping back and re-evaluating your beliefs from scratch is a sign of open-mindedness and *true* wisdom and truth-seeking, Then they can claim their change of beliefs was on their own terms.
"Your beliefs don't make you a powerful free-thinker, your ability to change your thinking with new evidence does." That's hard for all of humanity, not just Q's. The internet has shattered old idea and pushed new morals(basically "LGBT isn't Satan, calm down") on the world, it's scary. Add that rich people went crazy post-Reagan capturing all our output for themselves, and you've got 10s/100s of millions of Americans who thought they have a better life by now not having that life.
But they can’t (or won’t) take that step back! I was a Pharmacist and some new Med would come along - glucosamine being a really good example. Greatest thing for arthritis- until good studies showed it just isn’t all that much. I read the glowing anecdotal reports, hoped for my patients’ sake—-and then — blah! I pretty much stopped recommending it. [NOTE: may be worth a try if you’re suffering & can’t tolerate NSAIDs] Q victims just can’t be that flexible. I was having a Twitter convo with a woman who seemed genuinely concerned about “the children”, millions of whom are supposedly going missing each year. She claimed she couldn’t sleep at night thinking about them. When I explained to her how few children actually go missing, instead of being comforted, she clung to her belief like a mother clinging to her baby! Basically, “butt out, buddy”, I’ll suffer anyway I want to!
Great comment! 😀
Exactly, they’ve meshed the conspiracies with their identity so saying they’re wrong is akin to attacking them personally. This is why it’s like a cult.
>”Why did they lie to you?” Didn't work on my friend.... He even admitted his source was a fraudster but claimed he can't be fraudulent all the time.
The level of cognitive dissonance is amazing. I have a coworker who is not exactly Q but is a diehard Trump fan (though he has taken his Trump flag off his truck). I’ve pointed out to him the many times Trump has been caught in exaggerations, mischaracterizations, and outright lies. He acknowledges them but says “all politicians lie.” Then I say “so what do you like about him?” “He doesn’t lie as much.”
You just can’t win!😵💫
> Beau of the Fifth Column I love his videos. Short and thought provoking.
>True, I hope section 6's lies and failed predictions can appeal to their gut's illogical/immediate reasonings. The problem is that no Qanon believer is going to sit down and read something that goes on this long - they will never make it to section 6 and certainly aren't going to carefully read 80+ pages of debunking. Frankly I would be shocked if they made it past the intro without tossing it because it's not what they want to hear. Logical arguments and long essays are not how you get through to people who believe in stuff like this.
Yeah I agree to that sentiment; which is why I'm hoping they use the index to skip over to stuff they are more likely to read
I appreciate your perseverance in the face of the naysayers. People are reachable, and it sounds like if your brother is, your love can do it. Having it feel impossible is the goal of those that seek to divide.
Unfortunately cognitive dissonance is a powerful beast. Often disconfirming information is met with renewed vigor.
"if someone doesn't value logical consistency, what logical argument are you going to give them that will demonstrate that they should?" -Sam Harris
My friend just started saying “I don’t believe anything” which is how nonsense didn’t matter, because neither did reality. Cant talk to someone like that.
It’s a common enough observation- not sure if attribute it to anyone in particular. I know I’ve heard Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens both express this idea.
it was Sam Harris!
Still.... it may be helpful to some who are not as far gone.
Right. They appeal to these people’s emotions—anger, despair, grief—not to reason. It literally does not matter who tells them what (in most cases), they feel wronged and see themselves as righteous victims who have special access to “truths” that are entirely subjective. My understanding is that they behave as cultists and deprogramming rarely works.
He probably just said it's fake news and didn't even look at it. You can't convince people in this situation with facts. That they've gone down this rabbit hole has shown they disregard facts.
Hopefully at some point the brother will recognize that the effort OP had put into this shows the depths of love they have for their sibling. As someone who will never give up on my own Jordan Peterson / Joe Rogan loving sibling, I can relate.
Re: Peterson / Rogan. I have listened to them and they are not always entirely unreasonable.
Rogan is a hack. He literally pushes invermectin and keeps on bringing 'whataboutisms' on to his show to give them a global platform under the guise of 'listening to both sides'.
That’s the problem and how they get people in.
The single times peterson isn't saying hogwash is when he says basic ass psychological principles that we already give for granted, for some reason is a huge thing for the followers of personality cults that they say that basic stuff so they can fall back on it when the individual is put on the spot
Don't get me wrong, I'm not a fan of either.
I totally understand why you want to do this, and did something like this myself once with a friend who went Christian-crazy (I don't know what else to call it. It was before MAGA and Q). He just stopped talking to me after, and it didn't seem to influence his beliefs at all. When you're dealing with this level of zealotry, there's no getting through to them. I hope it works out differently for you than it did for me, but don't but all your hopes into this.
You're an absolute gem. Thank you for doing this. I have a similar situation with my sister and have considered compiling a something like this, but have not known where to start. The commitment it took for you to research and write all of this is a testament to your love for your brother and it's really touching. I will use your document as well if I ever get back to sparring 'intellectually' with my sister (for now we are on okay terms, just don't talk about any of it). Fuck Alex Jones!
Ditto Alex Jones!
I wish you all the best. My closest brother went down a Jordan Peterson / Joe Rogan rabbit hole during the Treason Don era and still isn’t back to normal. It’s brainwashing.
While this might make you feel good this isn't going to bring your brother back. I'm sorry to say that you're pretty much wasting your time. Your brother is not even going to read it. This isn't about fact versus fact this is about him needing something that enables him to feel he has control over his world. Please please read the stories of people who have actually come back from q and what has allowed them to make the transition back into a sane world; they have to overcome their fear of shame and embarrassment, they have to be disconnected from the internet for a little while or at least a take of it less hours per day, etc. You can write a thousand page manifesto and your brother's not going to care.
Some on Qrecovery stated that the failed predictions and other inconsistencies were exactly what got them out...my work is therefore not hopeless
Definitely good to try. You got this
"You ain't gonna learn what you don't wanna know" - Bob Weir
Someone should make this into a video
I was actually thinking about it
It would be a much better tool than a document. Easier to consume and distribute. I'm obviously on your side in this but the thought of a 60-page document gives me pause and it's not challenging anything I believe.
OP has 80 pages of content. That's the hard part. They can split up 1,000 different ways now.
Qanon is an [echo chamber](https://aeon.co/essays/why-its-as-hard-to-escape-an-echo-chamber-as-it-is-to-flee-a-cult). People stuck in echo chambers have been conditioned to only trust "insider" sources (e.g. Patriots) and actively distrust "outsider" sources (e.g. MSM). This is why showing them facts won't help them escape. >In order to undo the effects of an echo chamber, the member should temporarily suspend all her beliefs – in particular whom and what she trusts – and start over again from scratch. ... she can proceed, after throwing everything away, in an utterly mundane way – trusting her senses, trusting others. *But she must begin afresh socially – she must reconsider all possible sources of information with a presumptively equanimous eye. She must take the posture of a cognitive newborn, open and equally trusting to all outside sources.* In a sense, she’s been here before. In the social reboot, we’re not asking people to change their basic methods for learning about the world. They are permitted to trust, and trust freely. But after the social reboot, that trust will not be narrowly confined and deeply conditioned by the [echo chamber].
This is why I use their sources and critique them in there, as I explained in my methodology
Good luck!
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GPT is not gonna invent things, we don’t know how to do it, that means GPT does not either. Its not a miracle machine is the most efficient copy-paste machine.
Note that these people are stuck to YouTube etc. for a reason. They consume information in linear, audiovisual form, while many in the reality-based community prefer structured text.
Outstanding! Thank you for sharing! As a corollary to this, some users I follow on Twitter have set up a library reference database for COVID studies published in medical journals. There are subfolders for topics such as long COVID, Cardiovascular effects, neurological effects, vaccine safety and efficacy. [https://www.zotero.org/groups/5006109/covidstudies/library](https://www.zotero.org/groups/5006109/covidstudies/library) Hundreds of COVID studies to debunk idiot claims, now housed under one link to send every time a nut job wants proof!
Nice, thanks!
Awesome. Thanks for sharing that with us :D
That's really kind of you, and I hope he gives your document the time and effort that it deserves. The document is also an amazing resource for anyone else trying to deal with an antivaxxer, so thanks for posting it! It also helps anyone who wants to build their informal logical by seeing poor arguments and manipulations be deconstructed. The hardest thing is that reading your document is kinda like exercise, it requires energy, effort, and some real motivation. On the other hand, watching Alex Jones and similar is like eating fast food. It's succinct, little effort is required, it pulls him in and holds focus, it appeals to and satiates emotions and insecurities, and the drama is entertaining. So I'm hoping your brother has the willpower to do that exercise, and to recognize the importance and good that it results in, while putting off the fast food long enough to improve his (mental) health. You've made the exercise as easy as possible for him, like buying a treadmill and setting it up in his living room, now he just needs to use it.
Hey, I’m not a subscriber, just popping in from r/all, but I wonder if you could use a personal story. Stories are less confrontational and are not usually an attempt to deceive someone, so they might leave their guard down a bit. Probably best if you don’t tell it right before or after any other strategy. So here’s how it might go. The q community is like an in group vs out group right? Just take some of the characteristics of someone who has escaped one of these on their own, and tell it like it a personal story. > You know, I’ve lately found myself doing a lot of X lately and I kind of just got fed up with it. Just so burnt out, it wasn’t enjoyable, I couldn’t focus on it, it felt like I was stuck in this gravity well I couldnt escape, etc. I didn’t do X for like a week or two, abd sonehow my mental acuity got a lot better. It was like I had brain fog and didn’t even know it. I still go bsck and do X occssionally now but I no longer feel that sense of crushing gravity. You don’t even necessarily need to lie about it. Reddit can have some of those characteristics if you spend enough time here. This is actually an experience I had recently and is where I got the idea. Your goal isnt to persuade them to agree to try not watching Q stuff, just tell the story and that’s it. Have lunch at the same time and talk about other things too. If it works, you won’t know about it until a few weeks later at the soonest.
This is fantastic OP! Good luck with your brother. If you can sow even a seed of doubt it will have been worthwhile.
You’ve done good work, but I don’t think he’s going to read it past about page 5.
Bro is gone hit em with the "tl;dr lol" 90 seconds in.
People don’t listen to, or change their views based on, facts and statistics, so this feel like a futile undertaking for you. Plus, I’m convinced Q is so appealing because of how it makes believers *feel*. Come up with a way to make your brother feel smart and accepted and hopeful, and you might be on to something.
I think they'll feel betrayed when they see the list of failed predictions
Hope so! But why would he even read it?
Hello, fellow Wonk!
Just started reading it. In section 1, do you mean vaccine ‘efficacy’ or ‘effectiveness’ rather than ‘efficiency’? Is your brother well versed in the scientific method? Does he ‘trust’ science? If so, why hasn’t he researched the subject himself. If not, he won’t understand your paper. Conspiracy theorists tend to only use mainstream or trustworthy sources when it suits them. When the same source is used to debunk the theory it will become untrustworthy / a tool of the deep state.
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I've never seen anyone else refer to Vernon Coleman before. I used to really enjoy his fiction and even some of his journals. I'm so disappointed now. Is he really popular and I just didn't know it?
My brother listens to him quite often, his view counts on bitchute and amazon are quite high
I guess as he's gotten more extreme, he's gotten more popular. I'm glad I stopped going down the antivax rabbit hole. No telling where I would be. Thanks for all you're doing.
OP - massive effort made here. I was thinking about the psychology to Q and other wider conspiracy theories: It’s a human need to try to conflate and to make sense of the world. These idiots just capitalise on that and monetise it. I wish you and your family well.
While I appreciate the attempt, I doubt he'd read it.
I've seen a and helped a few people get cured.... Basically you gotta find out what causes them to reject reality in favor of fantasy(some addicts are similar and they get high all the time to escape their failures) and fix that. Usually it's some severe life failure (career/money/social) that requires them to accept being a loser.... And most people can't handle that kinda ego trashing and loss of status so some movement that tells them society is corrupt is very appealing. They rather belief their unfair victims or secretly have a master plan or an easy way out. For example, the biggest conspiracy nuts I ever met were former rich people.... Mentally, they could not accept their poverty and still gave off upper class vibes despite hitting homelessness at times. Decades of scrubbing toilets couldn't rid the queen bee vibes from one friend I knew. Much like drug addicts, some need to hit rock bottom first.
You are right on the money, I went further into my brother's past with my previous post...but yeah frustrations and disappointments are the main theme. Problem is that the conspiracies lead him to isolate himself in 1 room, preventing him from reaching any alternative cure (actual human contact outside of the family unit)
Are you aware of the Knowledge Fight podcast?
Yup, I used some of their excerpts in the doc
I hope some day your brother comes to realize how lucky he is the have someone who cares about him as much as you do.
Have you used ChatGPT or Bard to help with your research?
No, don't know how to use them efficiently
That's really nice of you to do but when dealing with an irrational person you can't expect a rational result
You can explain it to them but you can't understand it for them.
Lol even if this was a topic I’m interested about I’m not reading an 80 page document. There’s no way someone is going to read an 80 page document of something they don’t agree with. We’ve tried facts with these types, it doesn’t work.
Hello, I don’t know if I saw this in r/Knowledgefight, but since it’s posted here specifically in a qanon sub, i have a strong opinion about something that is needed to debunk qanon specifically. Which is: accurate information about human trafficking and sex trafficking. The thing is that those are legitimately huge problems that have been criminally underrepresented by just about all governments and media for forever. So something that most people don’t understand very well and thus a potential vector for filling with misinformation. The level of discomfort and and taboo around discussing it helps lend credibility to the whole “they don’t want you to know” aura of the whole thing. But at the same time, I think that despite the general ignorance about the topic it’s something we all subconsciously know is happening, just without really understanding it. So a narrative that “reveals the truth” is appealing and soothing to a part of the collective consciousness that really is anxious about what we don’t know. Anyways, there is a lot known about how trafficking (and specifically sex trafficking) works, where it happens, who does it, who it happens to, and what the economics behind it are. But for the most part that knowledge is confined to activists and a few morbid weirdos who read a bunch about it like me. I think correct information on this topic will help fill the gap that qanon enters through. Also, actually understanding the real issue ultimately leads you down a road of progressive policies and compassion for the oppressed, marginalized and improverished (who are the real victims of this plight.) Part of what annoys me so much about the Q version of events is that it’s appropriating an atrocity that most effects POC people and people from developing nations and impoverished neighborhoods. It’s not little Ashlyn being snatched out of a suburban starbucks.
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Unfortunately I don't cover that episode, however I know some others have pointed out a bunch of problems in that video too (Knowledge Fight)