QAnon as Psyop to Make Conspiracy Realists Look Like Fools

submitted by chottohen from winterwatch.net

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[–]zyxzevn 10 insightful - 3 fun10 insightful - 2 fun11 insightful - 3 fun -  (22 children)

Some friends of mine fell right into the Qanon trap, because they just started discovering some of the real conspiracies.
But they did not understand that it was also tricking them with fake promises.

There are several of those "conspiracy" groups.
All divert away from what is really going on, and they attack the realistic investigations.

Sometimes the agents mix in with existing groups to exaggerate or divert things.
This is well-known in UFO groups, but "viruses do not exist" has been very popular lately.
The solution is to stay focused and not to attack each other.
And just start with the evidence and facts if you want to discuss something.

The most extreme are flat earth, and no-plane 9/11.
They start with very extreme assumptions,
and attack anyone who uses real-world science to get to the truth.
Even basic science and basic evidence is attacked or bent in weird ways.

Critical theory is also like that. More on a political level.
Where only feelings matter, even if people are psychotic.
And they put the blame of their psychosis on other people.

Note: feel free to go any rabbithole you want.
It is your choice, but not everyone elses.

[–]Alienhunter 5 insightful - 2 fun5 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 2 fun -  (2 children)

Pretty much the age old meta conspiracy theory where the government encourages conspiracy theories about space lizards from the moon or whatever as it's zero threat to them if people believe in such nonsense yet it's beneficial to be able to equate anything that might implicate them as being unhinged in the same vein. And there's no shortage of paranoid people who think everyone is out to get them that will parrot whatever crazy stuff they hear.

I think you're on the money with the critical theory comparison and emotional rather than rational arguments. It's perfectly reasonable to assume the government is withholding information about UFO. It's far less reasonable to believe the guy that claims to be a former government agent talking about his secret trip to the alien homeworld. Doesn't mean I won't listen to what he has to say, but 9/10 this sort of personal conspiracy confession is tied in with a high pressure sales pitch.

Frankly I think it's a good way to filter out the critical thinkers and rational actors and leave behind the emotionally manipulatable so you can do that to economically exploit them.

Currently Anti-Vax is one your see this with a lot but other alternative health schemes follow the same basic formula. Point out a fact that most people don't want to face, namely that you can't trust that doctors have your best interests in mind when money is involved, true enough, but then you start going after the anxious people by telling them all the horror stories that are difficult to falsify, even if they aren't statistically relevant, get them to do your marketing for you by spamming out emails to everyone since they are anxious they'll do it, causes social tension in their circles as people get sick of it which either isolates them or gets them attacked and ganged up on by the anxious types, eventual result is a group of very emotional anti-critical thinkers that you can scare into buying whatever kind of snake oil you need to flip.

Think the internet basically just got good at drawing these somewhat disparate groups together. And of course once that happens they share all the different kinds of snake oils with each other.

I think it's just an aspect of human society that most people aren't aware of. I see it in pretty much any kind of special interest circles, eventually the emotional actors will chase out the rational actors and try to make the space "woke" in some kind of degree. Be that liberal or conservative version of "woke".

I see this on train enthusiast groups a lot, you've got some utopian dreamers who are like "Why can't America have trains like Europe" and they get really mad at you for answering that question with things like "population density and travel times between major cities".

But yes even if we built a maglev train between LA and New York most people are still going to fly because it's faster, and probably cheaper.

[–]BISH 4 insightful - 2 fun4 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 2 fun -  (1 child)

Currently Anti-Vax is one your see this with a lot but other alternative health schemes follow the same basic formula.

Classic "died suddenly" coincidence theorists.

Grade school children with heart attacks and strokes in 2021 and onward.

Do us a favor and get all of your boosters. You'll die safe.

[–]Alienhunter 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

If I sat around on the internet all day I might be convinced that there's an epidemic of sudden death. But as far as I can see there isn't one.

[–]chottohen[S] 4 insightful - 2 fun4 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 2 fun -  (4 children)

I will admit that I too believed the theory for a few weeks before realizing it was way too good to be true. My favorite part was the image of helicopters landing at Langley right now.

[–]Questionable 2 insightful - 3 fun2 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 3 fun -  (3 children)

helicopters landing at Langley

Did someone say "Helicopters"???

https://www.youtube.com/@truthandfreedomvideos/search?query=helicopter

Honestly, this shit ain't normal.

[–]chottohen[S] 3 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 2 fun -  (2 children)

It was in one of the first few notes from Q. Something like: The helicopters are landing any minute now at Langley. I wanted to believe.

[–]Questionable 4 insightful - 2 fun4 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 2 fun -  (1 child)

Understandable. But what I pointed you at, wasn't a psyop meant to make you think, but actual strange things taking place in D.C that simply don't make any sense in a conventional way.

[–]chottohen[S] 5 insightful - 3 fun5 insightful - 2 fun6 insightful - 3 fun -  (0 children)

It sounded like the draining of the swamp was begnning until it didn't.

[–]Dragonerne 4 insightful - 2 fun4 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 2 fun -  (11 children)

Have you ever looked into flat earth since you think it is so extreme?

I haven't been to space myself, but I guess I'll trust NASA images of the earth?

[–]BISH 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (8 children)

Flat earth is great for the control system, because it doesn't matter either way.

If it's 100% flat, then there's still no actionable info. Even if you find the edge... Then what?

It's a dead end theory that discredits the individual to 99% of the rest of the public. Maybe it's true, but it changes nothing.

It's strategically ideal for discrediting people within the control system.

[–]Youdundeeditnah 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Same could be said for the "viruses dont exist" conspiracy. it's great for the control system because it serves a two fold purpose. Itnot only makes the anyone who opposes covid madness look stupid/crazy to 99+% of the population it also distracts and creates in fighting among those that would otherwise be united against covid tyranny. just look at the comments section of a lot of the bigger alt-media channels and you'll constantly see this stupid debate crop up and people vehemently attacking people who dont buy it as shills. It's perfect for the establishment. simultaneously discredits and distracts anyone who opposes their agenda.

[–]BISH 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Same could be said for the "viruses dont exist" conspiracy.

If viruses don't exist, then that would change the way people live their lives. No masks. No tests. No jabs. No vaccine certificates. No vaccine passports. And on, and on.

Nothing in people's daily life is impacted, if the earth is flat. Nothing changes.

[–]weavilsatemyface 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

If viruses don't exist, then that would change the way people live their lives.

No it wouldn't. People don't change their behaviour one iota because of viruses. They may, or may not, change their behaviour because of disease but whether the disease is caused by "poisonous miasmas", viruses, bacteria, prions, viroids, rickettsiae, fungi, amoeba, protozoa, virusoids, helminths (parasitic worms) or something else makes no difference to the majority of them. The more ignorant don't even know or care whether the disease is infectious or not.

Infectious diseases exist. If viruses didn't exist, then there would have to be some other incredibly tiny disease-causing agent existing on the edge of life and non-life, capable of reproduction inside living cells but not outside of them, which can spread from one host to another. Perhaps we could call them "wiroses".

Nothing in people's daily life is impacted, if the earth is flat.

If the world was flat, somebody would have built a holiday resort at the edge, and charged people money to visit the edge.

If the earth were flat, it would impact the transmission of AM radio. It would radically and massively change the way long-distance sailors and pilots navigate. There would be no equator. Anyone with functioning eyes and brain can see the difference in sunrise and sunset as you move closer or further from the equator.

It would impact airline routes, and their profitability. Do you think that dozens of airlines would waste billions of dollars each year flying the long way just to keep up the appearance of a spherical earth? Madness.

The horizon is only about three miles away. On land that's not obvious because of hills and trees and buildings, but at the ocean shore, looking out to sea, it is damn obvious even to the naked eye.

No ocean sailor could ever fall for the flat earth fairy tale. And it is a fairy tale. The ancient Greeks worked out that the earth was round, and they only needed a couple of sticks to do it. No ocean-going civilisation ever thought the earth was flat. The "flat earth" bullshit comes 100% from the made-up cosmology of a desert tribe that wouldn't have known a boat if one fell from the sky and landed on their head.

[–]Dragonerne 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

What if we live on a flat plane and our plane is endless? With lots of land, lots of other civilisations, lots of resources, but they told you that you're on a ball in space, so you're looking up to explore the world instead of south to explore what is beyond antarktis?

What if they constructed this mind prison system to contain you and your children here forever.

[–]weavilsatemyface 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

What if we live on a flat plane and our plane is endless?

What if leprechauns really exist, and all you need to do to become richer than Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos combined is find one and force him to give you his stash of gold?

Nice fairy tale dude, but if the world was an endless plane, not only does every single country in the known world have to be in on the conspiracy to hide that, but so does every single country in the endless infinite flat plane. Otherwise they would be the ones exploring north, and since there are an infinite number of them, they would have more people and more resources than us. They would over-run us in a week.

[–]Dragonerne 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

They wouldn't have to be in on it at all. They could be fooled like you. If you were in power, you wouldn't go explore antarctica and if you did, you might get epstein'ed or replaced or derailed or in other ways prevented from doing that.

You are just naive

[–]weavilsatemyface 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Whatever you're smoking, you need to cut back.

If you were in power, you wouldn't go explore antarctica

Ah right, just like people don't explore Antarctica now, and people don't do tourist flights over it. And not just people and governments from the countries we know about, but the trillions of other countries in the endless infinite flat plan that we don't know about. Why should they be in on the conspiracy? What's in it for them? You think that the losers in our part of the endless earth have any power over them? You're dreaming.

Never in the history of mankind has any society discovered a frontier and said "What we need to do is cover up this frontier so nobody goes there". Always they immediately try to exploit it for land or make money from it. When Columbus discovered the Americas, the Spanish didn't cover it up, it started a race to conquer the Americas.

If the world was flat, and there were new lands south of Antarctica, the Americans would be invading them to look for oil and "keep democracy safe from terrorism".

[–]Dragonerne 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

You're still blue pilled

[–]chadwickofwv 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Go sailing. You will realise the earth is a sphere if you pay any attention at all. Speaking of which, sailors 3000 years ago knew the earth was a sphere. It was just the church and land locked fools who believed otherwise.

[–]Dragonerne 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

You can't see curvature while sailing? What are you talking about

[–]BISH 2 insightful - 4 fun2 insightful - 3 fun3 insightful - 4 fun -  (0 children)

"That sounds like what Q says..."

[–]Youdundeeditnah 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

The "viruses do not exist" psyop has been incredibly effective since covid. It blows me away that it works. People who were intuitive enough to see through the covid lie just go on to fall for another obvious (to me anyway) deception. It should have been super obvious when it showed up out of pretty much no where after covid started. Another big tell to me is the fact that the big pushers of this theory never got banned from youtube and other platforms. The Bailey's, Kaufman, Cowan et all never got deplatformed and are still allowed to spew their nonsense on all the major platforms. To me that's a glaring red flag and shows that they are either agents of the cabal or simply useful idiots.

I gave the theory a very fair shake. I watched plenty of videos and read a lot of articles arguing the theory, as I always try to be opened minded. It's also a very clever trap because the theory starts off with a very legtimate and sound idea that is not even really controversial, ie that whether you get sick or not has a lot to do with your diet, environment and mental state but then it devolves into this insanity of "viruses dont exist at all" What's worse is the people espousing these ideas fail to provide plausible evidence based alternative explanations for phenomenon we've all experienced directly such as becoming ill when around others who are ill. They almost always answer the question with a question, dodge the question or revert back to some nonsense about how viruses have never been isolated blah blah blah.

[–]JasonCarswellPlatinum Foil Fedora 4 insightful - 4 fun4 insightful - 3 fun5 insightful - 4 fun -  (1 child)

Why make everything a fucking riddle when you can just be clear and say it?

Timesuck distraction. Like much of SaidIt.

[–]chottohen[S] 2 insightful - 3 fun2 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 3 fun -  (0 children)

KISS: Keep It Short & Simple

[–]cunninglingus 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (10 children)

https://youtu.be/Fkk9DI-8el4?t=26

QAnon is obviously part of the language of the far right:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/348675626_The_Gospel_According_to_Q_Understanding_the_QAnon_Conspiracy_from_the_Perspective_of_Canonical_Information

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/348675626_The_Gospel_According_to_Q_Understanding_the_QAnon_Conspiracy_from_the_Perspective_of_Canonical_Information/figures?lo=1

And it's part of what the populist movement that elected Trump was about. QAnon is part of the soul of the far right, their uses of evangelical churches to get voters, their appeal to boomers, their anti-science politics, the anti-vax politics, their politicization of everything, their racism, their anti-democratic movement, their interest in destroying government agencies so that corporations can take over, and so much more. There is absolutely NO argument or evidence that supports the claim that anything QAnon-related came from the 'left'.

In fact, QAnon is a means of 'broadening the envelope' for the far right movement, to expand their movement across a broader part of the US demographic, by spreading their lies. Many on the 'right' know that QAnon might not be accurate but don't care, because they want to support politics of the right more generally, even if they 'hold their noses and vote'. Another important result is that many in the US have seen those lies so often that they don't know if they are lies. Even comments in this thread admit they used to believe in QAnon. Did that help the 'left'. Absolutely NOT. It began partially as an anti-Hilary message and expanded to many other lies that helped elect Trump (who spread 50,000+ lies in 4 years), and helped Repugs win the mid-term elections, and still benefits the 'right' by a LARGE margin. QAnon is NOT a psyop by the left, not by any stretch of the imagination. That's like saying the 'left' are trying to kill themselves.

What you might be seeing more recently and in the future is the 'left' reminding voters that the 'right' is the party of QAnon. I hope this will happen more often. The 'left' is rarely as effectively active and on message as the 'right'. This is partially because the 'left' is a complicated group, have been in the majority (the electorate, not the elected), and many on the 'left' have no proper idea how dangerous the 'right' is, and that they are in the process of destroying everything that gave rise to the American dream for boomers. The 'right' are much more focused on their mission, which is double-speak, whereby voters get one message and politicians do whatever the corporate bribes require them to do (and some on the 'left' do this as well, which is part of the problem). One need only mention anti-abortion laws to the 'right' in order to get votes, for example. Jesus take the wheel.

[–]Dragonerne 10 insightful - 3 fun10 insightful - 2 fun11 insightful - 3 fun -  (9 children)

You're wrong. QAnon is a psyop and was never popular nor did it boost numbers nor did it do anything. It just hijacked already popular theories and lumped them together with nonsense.

[–]cunninglingus 5 insightful - 2 fun5 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 2 fun -  (8 children)

You're wrong.

was never popular

I didn't claim this. Far right conspiratards are not popular - generally within the US - but QAnon is popular within the far right consipirard audience.

nor did it boost numbers nor did it do anything.

Numerous studies show that Cambridge Analytica, Russian hackers, US evengelical groups, Trump, gravy seals, and many Republicans were sharing the Qtard consipracies among them (and I heard this from close Repuglican associates who claimed to know the same QAnon material from ex-CIA folks). So, yes, QAnon helped boost Repug voting numbers. Perhaps you were too young to notice in 2015-20.

It just hijacked already popular theories

Now you're admitting that their theories were popular, by association with early theories. But this too is problematic. For example, the pizza shop basement sex trafficking ring run by Hilary was QAnon from the outset, and not at all popular among Repugs until QAnon made the claims.

[–]Dragonerne 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (5 children)

but QAnon is popular within the far right consipirard audience.

I AM THAT AUDIENCE and no it was never popular anywhere.

Now you're admitting that their theories were popular, by association with early theories. But this too is problematic. For example, the pizza shop basement sex trafficking ring run by Hilary was QAnon from the outset, and not at all popular among Repugs until QAnon made the claims.

No, that's what you don't get and this is how you're being mislead. Most of the conspiracies within QAnon are real conspiracies that the far right DO often believe in BUT, and that's the crucial point for you to get here, not the QAnon version of it. QAnon is a psyop. It works as a vaccine to discredit far right conspiracies such as pizzagate and many more.

You are believing the media version of reality instead of asking ME or others like me who the media is describing lol. I know all those conspiracies and followed them before QAnon was propped up in the media and we laughed at it because we knew what it was from the start.

[–]cunninglingus 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

You cannot understand QAnon as an independent group of theories. It's irrefrangibly, ineluctably, inexpugnably within the misinformation engine of the political 'right' and 'alt-right. Anyone referencing their conspiracy theories are automatically referencing their system of theories that include QAnon in some form or another. That's the whole point of the misinformation campaign: to gain followers who eventually forget the significance of - or agree with - the lies that indoctrinated them as believers of right wing candidates.

[–]Dragonerne 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

You clearly don't get it

[–]Tarrock 4 insightful - 2 fun4 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

My theory has always been that it was started by a random guy having some fun, was then co-opted by Ron Watkins to get traffic to his site, then the media and government caught on and started pushing it since it keeps the right docile and useless. The media backed off it when pizzagate happened, but the government kept pushing it behind the scenes.

[–][deleted] 2 insightful - 3 fun2 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 3 fun -  (3 children)

All conspiracy theories are meant to deflect away from the Freemasons

[–]chottohen[S] 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (1 child)

But some of them are true, right? Right?

[–][deleted] 4 insightful - 2 fun4 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

it's all freemasons

[–]weavilsatemyface 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

All conspiracy theories are meant to deflect away from the Freemasons

I see what you did there 😁

[–]jet199 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (3 children)

I think the thing with Q is that most of the people who followed it weren't habitual conspiracy theorists.

It was more like a meme or a viral SM trend.

[–]cunninglingus 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

It was more like a meme or a viral SM trend.

It was not a meme, but indeed a social media trend. We know now that Russian hackers, at Trump's request, hacked DNC emails, after which pro-Trump groups spread the PIzzagate theory, which is the foundation of QAnon theories:

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

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

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

This is why anyone claiming QAnon is NOT an anti-DNC campaign is promoting disinformation.

[–]JasonCarswellPlatinum Foil Fedora 1 insightful - 2 fun1 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 2 fun -  (1 child)

Why cite corrupted Wikipedia?

[–]handbananasrevenge 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

It’s much more effective to let people discredit themselves.

[–]SoCo 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

One trick I see people constantly fall for, is focusing on motivation. When an event happens and you are purposely kept in the dark, but you suspect something sinister is going on. They making finding information hard, especially with their ability to censor and effectively rewrite history on the internet. This is frustrating and sticking to rational fact-based information is difficult work.

They try to throw you off on red herring with an easy solution. It appears like so many others are on the bandwagon of the same track, so they must be on to something...

The solution is to focus on motivations. You can easily find information that might lead you to believe what kind of person someone is and what their motivations might be in a situation...

It keeps you guessing and focusing hard on propaganda characterizations of events, rather than the facts. It works very often.

Did Dr. Flauwsy and Gates want to depopulate the world and sell vaccines, did they want to poison people? Who cares stop being Mrs Kleo...focus on facts, actions, and actual words with context. While you are wondering why they did something, you are missing what they did. It is a classic misdirection red-hearing as well. They even boasted abut this technique with the "pied piper" talk years ago.

Stop falling for the re-packaged normy trap:

We've all seen the characters played on The Apprentice and WWE, we all know Trump is crooked and motivated by greed, and corporate business men have similar motivations, so maybe he cheated his taxes...

Now that they've used that normy trick on judges successfully, and have subverted his Constitutional rights to dragnet his whole taxes without evidence.....they've found a huge nothingberger and should be ashamed. They've at most came up with his company giving out large holiday bonuses and actually claiming it on taxes....but behind the scenes the check was cut from the wrong company that person worked for which was technically wrong in a common mistake way. Got him...now do we have the public tricked enough to drop the hammer and use the RICO charge...not yet. Keep digging, we got his every personal item, note, prostate exam result, and attorney letter...