RoboChrist 9000 posted:

New England Puritan colonists believed they were living in the end times, that the Pope was the Antichrist and France and Spain and all the Catholics his infernal tools.


The Satanic Panic and QAnon and more are really just continuations or revivals of a strand of Protestant insanity that has been in America since literally before we were a nation.

twistedmentat posted:

Yea, its funny when you look at actual history, the myth of the Puritans leaving Europe because they were persecuted was more because no one wanted these people around because they were a bunch of jerks who got in everyone's business, shoving their bibles in peoples faces and screaming about how everything was sin. When Oliver Cromwell ruled England, he canceled Christmas and forced everyone to open their shops on Christmas Day. To which the locals would force them to close. Why would they want these people around?

There was enough religious strife in Europe at the time they didn't need these zealots stirring up more.

goddamnedtwisto posted:

They left because they were being denied their religious freedom (to gently caress up anyone who didn't share their religion). Fortunately that's not a strain of thought that has continued into modern-day American life.

twistedmentat posted:

Yea, and the publication of that book by the guy who was loving his primary patient/witness.

Corsair Pool Boy posted:

Any word on why Jr. hasn't reemerged yet? Are they waiting for Pence to do something to reveal his true allegiances or...

MadJackal posted:

Here's a book recommendation for those itt who like to gawk at non-reality based thinking.

Fall; or, Dodge in Hell is a novel by Neal Stephenson. It's technically a sequel to another book, but it just reuses the same characters and their descendents and advances the clock by 20 years. You can skip Reamde and not miss a step.

Fall's first half explores an America which is divided into reality-oriented Blue Zones and a vast "Facebooked" Ameristan. Ameristan is populated by poor hicks getting a 24/7 stream of automated memes to their AR glasses which are described as beyond conspiracy theory, into individualized, bot-created memes and fantasy that is essentially incomprehensible to an outsider.

I won't spoil the triggering event, but Stevenson creates a domestic pseudo-Benghazi event, after which Ameristan refuses to believe an entire town in the US still exists.

This is the single best book I've read that taps into this weird reality we live in where a good percentage of the population believes our current president is secretly leading a mass execution of political enemies who happen to be Satanists addicted to a fictional drug harvested from murdered children.

MadJackal posted:

It's technically a sequel to ... Reamde

pseudorandom name posted:

this is a 900 page book that spends most of its time in simulated fantasy garbage and most of the rest of the time fellating libertarian billionaires.

pseudorandom name posted:

Counterpoint: this is a 900 page book that spends most of its time in simulated fantasy garbage and most of the rest of the time fellating libertarian billionaires. There is one chapter dedicated to the Moab hoax and one chapter dedicated to Ameristan and they are both completely irrelevant to the plot. The Ameristan chapter in particular is insultingly condescendingly stupid and really makes it clear that Neal Stephenson has been a lolbertarian idiot all along.

Best Korea posted:

This was a few pages back but Japan and the US are eerily alike:

Both countries believe themselves to be superior to the rest of the world, and this is re-enforced by religion (read up on Shintoism sometime, it basically makes Japan the master race and the only country that matters).
Both countries are rich but have poor neighbors, who's poverty they both have a hand in.
Both countries are weirdly puritanical when it comes to sex, which expresses itself in bizarre ways (specifically incest porn).
Both spent decades amassing soft power via pop culture and an association with technological innovation, and its quickly fading away thanks to the internet and Korea/China.
Both had massive recessions and de-industralization, (America's started in the 70s, Japan's around 1990), and the government response was to keep going further right economically.
These recessions resulted in generations of young people who can't afford to move out of their parents' homes, get married or have children, nor do they have the sort of job security their parents had, so the birth rate is dropping and many drop out of society all together due to the pressure. In both cases, young people are blamed instead of the economy.
Both are incredibly xenophobic - Its almost impossible to immigrate to Japan, and if you read the comments under news articles about crimes half the commenters will claim the person was Korean, similar to Americans claiming that the perpetrator must have been black because there's no picture or they have a funny name.
Everyone in both countries is vaguely aware their entertainment industry is messed up, with people who talk or don't go along with it being blacklisted (google "Johnny Kitagawa lawsuit" for Japan's best example).
Both suffered a humiliating defeat in a war that the general public didn't really understand in the first place and never got over it.
And in Japan's case, after the war, the country was taken over for awhile by America, then the same people were put back in charge with the understand America would ruin them if they stepped out of line. I've also seen people point out how weird it is that a lot of post-war PMs have been Christian when they only make up something like 1% of the population.

I could go one forever, but it makes a lot of sense that Qanon or something like it would catch on there.

Edit: Also in the last few years, Japan has had a lot of incidents where men frustrated with their lives attacked groups of people (or idols), and I wouldn't be surprised if the arson at Kyoto Animation is a frustrated NEET who blames anime for his inability to get a wife and hold a job.

zoux posted:

My dude you've described like most of every developed nation on earth

zoux posted:

Doctor Spaceman posted:

Reamde was what made me stop reading Stephenson.

I would blow Dane Cook posted:

Hasn't the Q tripcode changed over the years?

I would blow Dane Cook posted:

Hasn't the Q tripcode changed over the years?

I would blow Dane Cook posted:

Hasn't the Q tripcode changed over the years?

I would blow Dane Cook posted:

Hasn't the Q tripcode changed over the years?

Owlofcreamcheese posted:

Yes, and posting style with it. There is barely a premise it’s even the same person. It’s changed dramatically what sort of things are posted with each code change.

Corsair Pool Boy posted:

This is the critical thing to know. "Q" has very very obviously changed several times in addition to always being wrong about everything. And yes, you could be Q, but your best chance was probably the month Q went without any drops at all, you could have just slipped in, made a few batshit and failed predictions, and boom you control a network of deranged boomers and bored irony drenched teenagers .

guestimate posted:

I'm surprised a shitload of attempts at this haven't been done just for the lols

Why not?

guestimate posted:

I'm surprised a shitload of attempts at this haven't been done just for the lols

Why not?