duck monster posted:

I went on bit of a drunken troll the other day hunting down Qs on twitter and replying "Bidden is now president. God won!" (And also RTing old posts about #BidenWillNeverBePresident ) but next morning deleted it all cos it dawned on me some of these folks are not doing well emotionally, and as much as I despise Q, I'm not a oval office.

gay picnic defence posted:

What approach is going to have the best shot at rehabilitating these people? Assuming they won't voluntarily attend deprogramming sessions.

Froghammer posted:

Empathy and understanding, honestly. Belief in conspiracy theories is a symptom of stress and anxiety, coupled with humans' deep-seated fear of embarrassment and shame. Deprogramming is very possible, but it involves honest conversation and slowly unraveling their worldview ("Okay, you don't trust the mainstream media. Why do you trust some guy on YouTube? He's just as financially motivated as CNN or whatever")

indiscriminately posted:

Just because something feels good doesn't mean it is good. Like, what you're talking about here is some of the same self-centered indulgence that you disdain in these pathetic people. Are you not better, and smarter, than they are?.

Lib and let die posted:

Don't waste your time. This is the guy that ardently defends the US imposing sanctions on foreign nations and starving the poor citizens of those nations in USPol.

Civilized Fishbot posted:

You don't sound like a oval office, you sound like a loser. Nobody should ever be proud of posting on the internet; you're wrestling with pigs in the mud.

Froghammer posted:

The grifters aren't honest, your scared aunt that's terrified of how complicated the world is and is longing for simple answers probably is

indiscriminately posted:

Same variety of specious, superficial rationalization you'd hear from a QAnon. You may be convincing yourself but that's as far as it goes.

Froghammer posted:

How the gently caress do you not have redtext yet

EDIT: bemused, smug acceptance of the status quo and refusal to view other people as people smacks of 2009ish Internet culture. It's 2021. Empathy is cool now. Please grow and evolve

indiscriminately posted:

If you are a good person, to what degree is that your own doing? How much are you allowed to pat yourself on the back for your goodness? Seems to me not very much. You didn't choose the family and geography you were born into, you didn't choose your inherent gifts or your health, you don't even choose your thought process, really. Your good actions are mostly (completely) the result of circumstance. It took me a few decades to understand this but once I did it became much easier to empathize with people who suck.

edit: vvvv Yes yes, the beatings will continue until morale improves. Quite the enterprise you have planned.

Otteration posted:

Nuanced and alternate takes within the spectrum also exist. Infinite punishment for infinite assholes gave us wwii after wwi, after all.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin_Blockade

indiscriminately posted:

How about we debate less about which people we can and can't sympathize or empathize with and instead direct our outrage ("overwhelming condemnation and opprobrium") at the corporations and platforms and demagogues that actually are responsible for producing this reality.

Ola posted:

I genuinely believed the US government had alien prisoners at Area 51 when I was 13. I only sort of believed it after watching X-Files, but after being exposed to group psychology when talking about it my school mates, I was convinced. We ascribed no end of malice to the US government, merely stealing an election would be peanuts. But it obviously didn't have any deep reasoning behind it. We didn't first have a thorough understanding of the nation state, democratic governance and astrobiology, then deliberately abandon that knowledge to achieve mayhem. We didn't have that knowledge to begin with and jumped into an exciting fantasy caused by ignorance fertilized with fiction. There was no bloodshed. Any subsequent knowledge we gained moved us further from that fiction. It's not weird that dumb people believe dumb things, even if those things seem shocking to you who know better.

I certainly have more sympathy for any victims, but it doesn't take much knowledge of history to understand that preventing bloodshed isn't very well achieved by starting bloodshed or by harshly ostracizing large parts of your society. There are plenty of people who will go to prison of course and there are plenty of people who at least should lose their careers for fanning the flames. Hopefully plenty of real nazis and proud boys are properly exposed so they are easier to keep tabs on in the future.

But you don't have to be their friend, you don't have to hug them. The justice system can deal with those who need to be dealt with. The bigger picture is to keep on trying to build a society where this is less likely to happen, not ostracize and oppress because that makes it more likely to happen. And we need to find a good way to deal with malicious propagandists online.

Ola posted:

Short term, obviously put to trial and imprison everyone that has committed a crime and whatever action possible to the republicans that fanned the flames. Long term, universal health care and better access to higher education. Political action against grifting and other institutionalized corruption. Stricter laws for what the president can do in the future. Harsher penalties for violent threats, harsher consequences for social media companies that carry such threats.

quote:

But are all improvised societies better than the American one? The swell of white supremacy is really bad, but lots of other societies known for social harshness have them as well, and are worse in other areas .

quote:

When you say "dragging them", "continuing the beatings", what do those metaphors actually entail? Say someone goes to prison for taking part in the insurrection. After a while they get out. Then what? I would have no qualms about cutting them out of my life, even if it was a relative. But if I owned a store, should I deny them access? Vandalize their car, hurt them physically?

indiscriminately posted:

Yeah, some are. That doesn't mean all of them are, or even most of them are. Also, immigrants can be belligerent toward other immigrants.

TulliusCicero posted:

The GOP is a terrorist organization at this point and should be treated accordingly

BiggerBoat posted:

Not really no but I don't understand gay Republicans at all either.

I'm bi, which is neither here nor there I suppose, but back when I'd get out more and frequent certain social circles, it always astonished me to see how much anti Obama sentiment there was in the gay community, particularly among lesbians. It's anecdotal so it might not mean much but I remember catching a fair amount of poo poo for my tiny Obama button in mostly gay hangouts.

It's tempting to say it has something to do with income levels but most of these people were as broke as I was if not more so. My ex wife's best friend was a lesbian whose partner played in an all girl band so we got out a lot in that crowd and socialized with a lot of gay women. I couldn't chalk it up to racism either given the demographics of my hangouts and the neighborhood I lived in. I've also known a couple of very well off gay men where I guess tax brackets might be a thing for them but I still don't see how that weighs out against belonging to or voting for a party or a subscribing to an ideology that thinks you are a subhuman monster spawned from Satan.

Then again, I don't even think most of the fire and brimstone southern GOP really believes that poo poo either. It's just useful to pretend they do.

There's also a TON of closeted "tough guy redneck" type gay men. I live in NE FL (so basically southern GA), which is a pretty red voting area and a lot of those huntin/fishin/shootin/pick up truck drivin fellas are gay as gently caress but not real comfortable with it so I guess self hate enters into it at some point? Back in the craigslist days and on gay dating sites I've met and seen my share of them, many of whom were married and getting into stuff on the down low, so maybe there's a shame element that makes them pretend and sort of over compensate so they blend in with their neighbors (?)

None of that explains Q though.

Not sure. I dunno. I can't speak for every non straight republican voter and this is the Q thread anyway so I'm way off topic but just telling you what I've seen on the ground and in my same sex travels. It confuses me also.

Ola posted:

Is that a fencing scar? That's a proper nazi.

letthereberock posted:

Does flat earth-ism generally coincide with other awful conspiracy theories? Because if it doesn’t, in 2021 I kind of want to give them a pass. It’s a sign of how the past four years has changed me that I’m kinda fine with “the Earth is a disk” as long as it’s not “the Earth is a disk, therefore we must make Trump President for life and execute all gay people”

E-Tank posted:

Every single pilot is in on the conspiracy. If you hire one they will simply fly you around in circles to give the illusion that you're going around the world. Yes, they actually believe this. You cannot get a pilots license without swearing to secrecy that the world is flat. And they enforce this. . . *somehow*.

Lib and let die posted:

We should sanction Alex Jones so his kids starve. That'll teach 'em!

Lib and let die posted:

Oh, heavens no. That's DarkCrawler's bag. Dude loves defending sanctions.

VitalSigns posted:

The stuff spread by her enemies make her sound awesome though ("no puny man dick could satisfy her gargantuan she-ra vagina, only the hugest horse cock for her pleasure!"), while all the stuff she was proud of was horrible (started a bunch of wars, murdered piles of people, enslaved tens of thousands, was indifferent to the serfs, generally was evil and greedy and lovely)

goddamnedtwisto posted:

Charles the Bald, Ethelread the Unready, and Edward Longshanks all up in heaven angrily demanding to have a word.

axolotl farmer posted:

Antifa Turkeesian posted:

What’s the context, as the origin of 4chan?

Phobophilia posted:

Q people, like Trump, freaking love movies and pop culture, they're the kind of hogs who would guzzle all the slop served to them by others. I mean the WWG1WGA slogan came from a completely forgettable Ridley Scott film that only boomers think fondly of. They desperately crave the approval of Hollywood stars and celebrities, people who have made It. It's just that most of them are Coastal Elites who don't share most of their social values, and the only ones they get are the D-list Sorbo-tier losers.

Pussy Quipped posted:

Saw this on Twitter and god drat

https://twitter.com/mattshuham/status/1394666856171122692?s=21

Neo_Crimson posted:

Aren't most Q people pretty well-off suburbanites?

VitalSigns posted:

Those people are all literal demons

600,000 dead in Iraq alone

RatHat posted:

It's quite scary to think what Heaven's Gate could've accomplished with the modern internet/social media.

BigglesSWE posted:

YHWH is a jealous God which is an interesting admission in Exodus.

If he’s jealous, why not a dick, is my point.

indiscriminately posted:

Reads to me like you're giving yourself permission for hatred.

Kurzon posted:

Ethnocentrism is a natural human behavior that appears in all cultures everywhere. That means it has a biological basis.

Kurzon posted:

Why not? Some people are more susceptible to anger or lust.

IPlayVideoGames posted:

https://mobile.twitter.com/debdrens/status/1417472760096428033

And these are the types of people who complain about how they are alone on holidays because their families have cut off all contact with them for some wild reason. Sickening.