https://twitter.com/TwitterSafety/status/1285726277719199746?s=20
I’ve followed the QAnon on and off but never obsessively. I occasionally check the extensive coverage on Neon Revolt but I would never say I was on board with it as a whole. Similar with many current goings-on, there are commentators I respect who take it seriously and those who think it is an extremely elaborate LARP. Call me a coward but I am not confident to come to an opinion either way. There just isn’t enough information for me to commit.
Then Twitter went and posted a series tweets starting with the one quoted above.
Pretty much ever since I’ve been on the Internet, it has been full of strange opinions and conspiracy theories. Early on, I became very interested in them and used to read a few sites daily like my grandfather would the paper. Gradually this stopped as my knowledge increased and it became increasingly hard to square the many circles that were out there. To put it simply, I couldn’t believe that we lived on a flat-earth controlled by lizard-men from outer space. Though my interest never crossed to these extremes, there are still plenty of other contradictions. After a while, I became quite skeptical of most of it and for most of my life until a few years ago, been more accepting of more mainstream historical and social analysis though certainly with my own bias.
The problem with conspiracy theories is that they are inevitably based on incomplete information. Indeed, most academic disciplines could be to an extent. They also tend to be the subject of interest to intelligent but kooky people which makes them harder for the average man to take seriously. This doesn’t mean that there is no truth to them though. In reading a lot of them, there are parts based on lesser known historical facts only wrapped up in elaborate commentary that doesn’t have equal historical support. An example would be the JFK assassination which has multiple theories outside of the mainstream narrative including it being a mob hit or a Soviet assassination. It is possible for both to be true but not likely.
That conspiracy theories are based on incomplete information, doesn’t make them wrong though. As Vox Day (who I hastily add has influenced my thinking), has said is that whatever the truth is, it isn’t the mainstream one. I think this is perfectly reasonable. As an example, consider the moon landing. There is a kind of false dichotomy between “it happened” and “it didn’t happen” but there are plenty of other possibilities. It could have happened but they screwed up the recording and had to hastily have Hollywood put together something for television. It could have happened pretty much as said but without mentioning something discovered while there or the covering up of deaths and accidents leading up to it.
Now with regards to QAnon, there are elements that ring true to me but at the same time, a lot of it also comes off as quite a stretch. The meme about Trump playing 4D Chess is not unfair rhetoric to unleash on the ever optimistic QAnons. This brings in another problem with conspiracy theories since they tend to assume that everything is happening according to a plan. That whatever malevolent forces control the world have everything happen according to their plan. They often don’t allow for multiple factions and for things going not to plan or very wrong. They also don’t tend to allow for unprecedented events by all simply being taken advantage of. These are all generalisations but they have been something I’ve observed.
Q has been wrong about things from what I’ve seen but this doesn’t mean that it is entirely wrong. It is possible that simply by revealing something that is to happen, it then doesn’t happen. There are also a legion of other circumstances that could make otherwise good information turn out to be wrong. Q has also been right on a number of things. It seems a little unfair given how spectacularly wrong mainstream commentators often are, that an anonymous poster must always be right to be credible. I can claim with full humility that I’ve made better political observations in this unpaid hobby of mine than many “respected” mainstream journalists. I could even point to a couple of posts that turned out to be right.
Outside of Q there have also been a number of stranger discoveries particularly over the last few years including one related to pizza. The event that seems to have prompted Twitter to act was a Hollywood actress who I had never previously heard of deleting 60,000 tweets and claiming harassment. I looked at some of these tweets and they were incredibly odd and she didn’t give any explanation that made sense. Any of them uttered to the average person would have generated strange looks if not a visit to a police station. What is of further concern is they are very similar to what has been dug up on other profiles and in leaked emails. In short, there is some very strange stuff going around. Nobody dismissing these discoveries has given a plausible explanation for any of this stuff and I don’t think their are good explanations. Jokes, they are not.
Couple this with the now almost weekly news of suicides, arrests and disappearances of public figures and one must be forgiven for at least observing that something very strange is going on. The public at large has been well-conditioned to avoid thinking about these things but the apparent suicide of Jeffrey Epstein was too much for almost everyone.
I am operating here on incomplete information and I don’t claim to have a good knowledge of what is going on. This doesn’t make me or anyone else wrong to question the mainstream narrative we are supposed to accept though. I have been given no reason especially given the incoherent exhortations of politicians, journalists and other “experts” over the last few months to take seriously anything they say.
The fact that Twitter saw fit to act in such a draconian manner to something we’re told is nothing more than a LARP by a small group of unhinged Trump supporters tells me they have happened on at least something that is true enough to be a danger to at least one group with a lot of power. I pray that and know that the truth will come out some day.