TRUMP OPENLY EMBRACES, AMPLIFIES QAnon CONSPIRACY THEORIES

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Trump openly embraces, amplifies QAnon conspiracy theories
By DAVID KLEPPER and ALI SWENSON
today

After winking at QAnon for years, Donald Trump is overtly embracing the baseless conspiracy theory, even as the number of frightening real-world events linked to it grows.

On Tuesday, using his Truth Social platform, the Republican former president reposted an image of himself wearing a Q lapel pin overlaid with the words “The Storm is Coming.” In QAnon lore, the “storm” refers to Trump’s final victory, when supposedly he will regain power and his opponents will be tried, and potentially executed, on live television.

As Trump contemplates another run for the presidency and has become increasingly assertive in the Republican primary process during the midterm elections, his actions show that far from distancing himself from the political fringe, he is welcoming it.

He’s published dozens of recent Q-related posts, in contrast to 2020, when he claimed that while he didn’t know much about QAnon, he couldn’t disprove its conspiracy theory.

Pressed on QAnon theories that Trump allegedly is saving the nation from a satanic cult of child sex traffickers, he claimed ignorance but asked, “Is that supposed to be a bad thing?”

“If I can help save the world from problems, I’m willing to do it,” Trump said.

Trump’s recent postings have included images referring to himself as a martyr fighting criminals, psychopaths and the so-called deep state. In one now-deleted post from late August, he reposted a “q drop,” one of the cryptic message board postings that QAnon supporters claim come from an anonymous government worker with top secret clearance.

A Trump spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.

Even when his posts haven’t referred to the conspiracy theory directly, Trump has amplified users who do. An Associated Press analysis found that of nearly 75 accounts Trump has reposted on his Truth Social profile in the past month, more than a third of them have promoted QAnon by sharing the movement’s slogans, videos or imagery. About 1 in 10 include QAnon language or links in their profile bios.

Earlier this month, Trump chose a QAnon song to close out a rally in Pennsylvania. The same song appears in one of his recent campaign videos and is titled “WWG1WGA,” an acronym used as a rallying cry for Q adherents that stands for “Where we go one, we go all.”

Online, Q adherents basked in Trump’s attention.

“Yup, haters!” wrote one commenter on an anonymous QAnon message board. “Trump re-truthed Q memes. And he’ll do it again, more and more of them, over and OVER, until (asterisk)everyone(asterisk) finally gets it. Make fun of us all you want, whatever! Soon Q will be everywhere!”

“Trump Sending a Clear Message Patriots,” a QAnon-linked account on Truth Social wrote. “He Re-Truthed This for a Reason.”

The former president may be seeking solidarity with his most loyal supporters at a time when he faces escalating investigations and potential challengers within his own party, according to Mia Bloom, a professor at Georgia State University who has studied QAnon and recently wrote a book about the group.

“These are people who have elevated Trump to messiah-like status, where only he can stop this cabal,” Bloom told the AP on Thursday. “That’s why you see so many images (in online QAnon spaces) of Trump as Jesus.”

On Truth Social, QAnon-affiliated accounts hail Trump as a hero and savior and vilify President Joe Biden by comparing him to Adolf Hitler or the devil. When Trump shares the content, they congratulate each other. Some accounts proudly display how many times Trump has “re-truthed” them in their bios.

By using their own language to directly address QAnon supporters, Trump is telling them that they’ve been right all along and that he shares their secret mission, according to Janet McIntosh, an anthropologist at Brandeis University who has studied QAnon’s use of language and symbols.

It also allows Trump to endorse their beliefs and their hope for a violent uprising without expressly saying so, she said, citing his recent post about “the storm” as a particularly frightening example.

“The ‘storm is coming’ is shorthand for something really dark that he’s not saying out loud,” McIntosh said. “This is a way for him to point to violence without explicitly calling for it. He is the prince of plausible deniability.”

Bloom predicted that Trump may later attempt to market Q-related merchandise or perhaps ask QAnon followers to donate to his legal defense.

Regardless of motive, Bloom said, it’s a reckless move that feeds a dangerous movement.

A growing list of criminal episodes has been linked to people who had expressed support for the conspiracy theory, which U.S. intelligence officials have warned could trigger more violence.

QAnon supporters were among those who violently stormed the Capitol during the failed Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection.

In November 2020, two men drove to a vote-counting site in Philadelphia in a Hummer adorned with QAnon stickers and loaded with a rifle, 100 rounds of ammunition and other weapons. Prosecutors alleged they were trying to interfere with the election.

Last year, a California man who told authorities he had been enlightened by QAnon was accused of killing his two children because he believed they had serpent DNA.

Last month, a Colorado woman was found guilty of attempting to kidnap her son from foster care after her daughter said she began associating with QAnon supporters. Other adherents have been accused of environmental vandalism, firing paintballs at military reservists, abducting a child in France and even killing a New York City mob boss.

On Sunday, police fatally shot a Michigan man who they say had killed his wife and severely injured his daughter. A surviving daughter told The Detroit News that she believes her father was motivated by QAnon.

“I think that he was always prone to (mental issues), but it really brought him down when he was reading all those weird things on the internet,” she told the newspaper.

The same weekend a Pennsylvania man who had reposted QAnon content on Facebook was arrested after he allegedly charged into a Dairy Queen with a gun, saying he wanted to kill all Democrats and restore Trump to power.

Major social media platforms including YouTube, Facebook and Twitter have banned content associated with QAnon and have suspended or blocked accounts that seek to spread it. That’s forced much of the group’s activities onto platforms that have less moderation, including Telegram, Gab and Trump’s struggling platform, Truth Social.

#2
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Well DUH. 

A lot of the most politically active in his fanbase are Qanon cult members. 

Do you have references for these circumstances? Because Qanon is strictly nonviolent. Q was never about violence.

I'm not a part of the cult, but I did actually read what Q had to say because I like to have my own opinion on things, not let others die tate my opinion.

Q was nonviolent. His thing was information warfare and using social media to spread his message. So people who are violent are not really embracing his message, tbh.

But, thank you for not reciting mainstream media propaganda about his beliefs. I can't tell you how many times I inaccurately heard people say the "Qanon conspiracy theory" about pedophilia. Like, completely misunderstanding the entire structure of the drops and such.

Once again, not a member of that cult at all. But I think we need to actually understand cults and what they are really teaching so we can counter them with logic and reason and the facts.
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@Public-Choice
Well DUH. 

A lot of the most politically active in his fanbase are Qanon cult members. 

Do you have references for these circumstances?
  • How about the AP article in the OP?

Because Qanon is strictly nonviolent. Q was never about violence.
  • Needless to say, informed opinion disagrees
  • In the Summer of '21, the FBI's assessment of QAnon potential for violence was:
    • "We assess that some DVE [Violent Domestic Extremists] adherents of QAnon likely will begin to believe they can no longer “trust the plan” referenced in QAnon posts and that they have an obligation to change from serving as digital soldiers” towards engaging in real world violence - including harming perceived members of the cabal” such as Democrats and other political opposition instead of continually awaiting promised actions which have not occurred. Other QAnon adherents likely will disengage from the movement or reduce their involvement in the wake of the administration change. This disengagement may be spurred by the large mainstream social media deplatforming of QAnon content based on social media companies' own determinations that users have violated terms of service, and the failure of long-promised QAnon -linked events to materialize. Some DVEs have discussed how to radicalize new users to niche social media platforms following QAnon adherents' migration to these platforms after large scale removals of QAnon content from mainstream sites . Adherence to QAnon by some DVEs likely will be affected by factors such as the severity of the COVID- 19 pandemic, the level of societal polarization in the United States, social media companies' willingness to host QAnon -related content on their sites, and the frequency and content of pro -QAnon statements by public individuals who feature prominently in core QAnon narratives.
I'm not a part of the cult, but I did actually read what Q had to say because I like to have my own opinion on things, not let others die tate my opinion.
    • And yet your opinion is so consistent with those dictates

Q was nonviolent. His thing was information warfare and using social media to spread his message. So people who are violent are not really embracing his message, tbh.
  • QAnon originates with Michael Flynn, career US Military Intelligence and disgraced, convicted Russian and Turkish spy.  Bellingcat's analysis suggests that early Q was 3 or 4 people 4chan dudes that eventually just pared down to Paul Furber and then Jim and Ron Watkins when they stole Furber's tripcode in early 2018. 
  • QAnon is closely associated with perhaps dozens of violent incidences.
But, thank you for not reciting mainstream media propaganda about his beliefs. I can't tell you how many times I inaccurately heard people say the "Qanon conspiracy theory" about pedophilia. Like, completely misunderstanding the entire structure of the drops and such.
  • QAnon's first and most prominent belief system is copious unwarranted accusation of pedophilia against pretty much anybody who criticizes Trump.  Either ironic or pre-emptive since Trump was such a close friend, neighbor, night-club buddy of Jeff Epstein's for 15 years.
Once again, not a member of that cult at all. But I think we need to actually understand cults and what they are really teaching so we can counter them with logic and reason and the facts.
  • Do you believe Hillary Clinton is a pedophile?

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Major social media platforms including YouTube, Facebook and Twitter have banned content associated with QAnon and have suspended or blocked accounts that seek to spread it. That’s forced much of the group’s activities onto platforms that have less moderation, including Telegram, Gab and Trump’s struggling platform, Truth Social.
I see desperation, Trump is trying to deter the DOJ the only way he knows, through threat and intimidation.  He's trying to enlist the support of the most insane and violent part of his base because he believes the threat will slow the onslaught of his legal troubles.  

He doesn't just utilize the world of conspiracies, he sees the world that way, his thoughts and actions are conspiracy driven.
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In the Summer of '21, the FBI's assessment of QAnon potential for violence was:
Hi remember me? Yea I was the guy who would double check if the FBI said the sky was blue. The reasons were legion. Here is another:

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It's not like his embrace of the Qanon crowd was all that clandestine before, he has always been thier mesiah, this isn't for thier benefit at all, he thinks of it as a message sent to the rest of us, in his twisted conspiracy mind he's putting big pressure on the DOJ.  In reality, he's just building the DOJs case that he is guilty of inciting violence. 

, . 
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Hi remember me? Yea I was the guy who would double check if the FBI said the sky was blue. The reasons were legion. Here is another:
Sure but you're so allergic to facts and reason that you won't even engage in debates.  It's not as if  there's some reason to give your opinion any weight.
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It's not like his embrace of the Qanon crowd was all that clandestine before, he has always been thier mesiah,
Right.  I think QAnon was essentially purpose-built by Flynn for Trump - hard to say how intentionally but given Flynn's training, probably very intentionally.
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Hi remember me? Yea I was the guy who would double check if the FBI said the sky was blue. The reasons were legion. Here is another:
Sure but you're so allergic to facts and reason that you won't even engage in debates.
I'm in the middle of a debate on the Biden corruption scandal.


It's not as if  there's some reason to give your opinion any weight.
Always about authority with you isn't it. It's an epistemological disease that they pound into you.
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I'm in the middle of a debate on the Biden corruption scandal.
Not on this site, you ain't


Always about authority with you isn't it. It's an epistemological disease that they pound into you.
After all, who needs knowledge when you can just churn out opinion, right?

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It's not like his embrace of the Qanon crowd was all that clandestine before, he has always been thier mesiah,
Right.  I think QAnon was essentially purpose-built by Flynn for Trump - hard to say how intentionally but given Flynn's training, probably very intentionally.
Yes, that sounds right to me.

I've always thoughtr Trump was behind it, ultimately Q was another psuedonym like John Miller, but never thought about Flynn as implementing it .  
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I'm in the middle of a debate on the Biden corruption scandal.
Not on this site, you ain't
Always about authority with you isn't it. It's an epistemological disease that they pound into you.
After all, who needs knowledge when you can just churn out opinion, right?
The sole means of attaining true knowledge is reason, that is objective observations + logical inference.

If you need knowledge you need logic. Authority and logic do not interface except through the medium of trust.

A dozen informal fallacies are variants of the fallacy of authority based epistemology.

Why is ad populum fallacious? Because it's about authority, the presumption is that the majority is an authority and truth or falsehood depends on their authority.

Why is ad hom fallacious? Because it's about authority, the presumption is that the man is an authority and you want to de-legitimize him:


It's not as if  there's some reason to give your opinion any weight.
That's what you perceive when I say something, an authority vying for your faith.

You don't see arguments, you see authorities. You can probably list fallacies but you do not understand why they are fallacies. You think fallacies are a sacred list from an authority, that is why when I first came to this site the first comment you had was to suggest that I had to submit to some notion of burden of proof you found on wikipedia.

All fallacies were derived. The mechanics of burden of proof are derived. From non-contradiction, ad absurdum is the root.
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I'm in the middle of a debate on the Biden corruption scandal.
Not on this site, you ain't
  • That's a good example because that is no kind of debate. Multiple posters take the time to explain that there's no evidence to support your assertions, that you are merely parroting Trump/Russian disinformation without any kind of real research.  You don't refute, you don't come up with new arguments, you just stupidly keep repeating the same unwarranted speculations you've been instructed to repeat.  It's lie watching Mike the headless chicken, convinced he is winning a cockfight.  At least if you did a real debate, at the end somebody would take the time to explain your headless state to you.
Always about authority with you isn't it. It's an epistemological disease that they pound into you.
After all, who needs knowledge when you can just churn out opinion, right?
The sole means of attaining true knowledge is reason, that is objective observations + logical inference.
  • obv false.  There are many types and source of knowledge.  
If you need knowledge you need logic.
  • seldom true
Authority and logic do not interface except through the medium of trust.
  • obv false.  Logic does not give a shit about authority or trust.
A dozen informal fallacies are variants of the fallacy of authority based epistemology.
  • We've long established you have little comprehension of fallacies, formal or informal.  There is no such thing as a fallacy of authority-based epistemology.   To claim that all knowledge from expertise or testimony is fallacious is mentally ill.  You could not learn the English language without relying on knowledge from expertise and authority.  Most criminal convictions rely on knowledge from expertise and testimony, are all criminal convictions therefore fallacious?
Why is ad populum fallacious? Because it's about authority, the presumption is that the majority is an authority and truth or falsehood depends on their authority.
  • Sure that doesn't mean the majority is always wrong or must be mistrusted as source of wisdom.
Why is ad hom fallacious? Because it's about authority, the presumption is that the man is an authority and you want to de-legitimize him:
  • Sure but sometimes a authority's character is very relevant to the topic.   You can't just disregard the fact that Trump is the most prolific liar in ever documented by history when considering Trump's testimony, for example.  The probability of Trump lying needs to continuously factored in.

That's what you perceive when I say something, an authority vying for your faith.
  • No.  I don't do faith.   But I've seen enough of your arguments to know you'd sooner burn reality to the ground than admit you're wrong.

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White Americans are learning from the blacks to organize into groups so they can represent specific  interests and hopefully people will accept that white lives matter too. White trailer trash is stereo typing whites and is no longer mainstream.
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Needless to say, informed opinion disagrees
Have you actually read anything by Q? Or do you just love government documents. You pretend the FBI never lies. Just ask Waco cult members or MLK's family if the FBI lies...

And yet your opinion is so consistent with those dictates
Well, let's see. I agree with BLM that there is structural racism against black people in police departments. I agree with Socialists that the rich are using their wealth to enslave people. I agree with liberals that President Trump was racist against muslims. I agree with Libertarians that gun rights are necessary and that the Federal Government sponsors a portion of mass shootings to take away guns. And, yes, I agree with Qanon that a lot in power are pedophiles and they definitely run a sex trafficking ring.

When you read everything, you take the good and leave the (often boatloads) of bad. I believe every ideology, no matter how stupid or illogical, still has at least one thing right. But oftentimes they have most things wrong. Qanon is no exception here. They are right on some key things, but so completely wrong on most others.

QAnon originates with Michael Flynn,
False. Multiple forensic linguists have released reports that found that Paul Furber and Ron Watkins were both Q. [1] [2] Believe me, I was just as surprised to find out it wasn't the 4chan founder, because he almost certainly fit the bill for someone who would do something like Q.

QAnon is closely associated with perhaps dozens of violent incidences.
I'm still waiting for sources for these "dozen incidences." Also, there are quite literally MILLIONS of Qanon members. They have their own .win community and Similar Webs data shows it receives between 1-2 million visits a month. [3] If even 1,000 of these people are violent, we are only looking at 0.0625% of the KNOWN movement. Let alone the unknown members. Therefore, my statement stands that the movement, as a whole, is nonviolent.

Q published a short manual on information warfare. I didn't get to read it because it was completely taken off the internet before I had the chance, but from massive block quotes of it I found scattered around the internet about a year or so ago it was all about informing the public though nonviolent means, mainly weaponizing social media and using virality as a key method for propagandizing (he called it informing) the public.

This is no different than MLK's ideology or Ghandi's ideology. So people who were violent as a response to MLK's death are not part of the true MLK movement any more than people who are violent following the Qanon movement. That is my point. I find it hard to believe a movement founded in nonviolence is now a violent movement. Like any other movement or cult founded in nonviolence.

Do you believe Hillary Clinton is a pedophile?
I think it's possible, but there isn't any credible evidence of it that I know of. I do, however, think there is credible evidence she is an absolutely vile, nasty, elitist person who had fits of violent rage. [4] [5] 

And depending on your take of the Podesta emails, she could even be a satanist. But I can't personally say I've tried to verify that, so I can't say I agree to it.

SOURCES:


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White Americans are learning from the blacks to organize into groups so they can represent specific  interests and hopefully people will accept that white lives matter too. White trailer trash is stereo typing whites and is no longer mainstream.

Trump is your typical white trash talker gone orange with over exposure. Trump’s uses his big mouth to compensate for his small hands and uses his money to compensate for his small weiner. But after 6 bankruptcies all he has is his small hands.
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m in the middle of a debate on the Biden corruption scandal.
Not on this site, you ain't
That's a good example because that is no kind of debate.
And why should I give that opinion any weight?


At least if you did a real debate, at the end somebody would take the time to explain your headless state to you.
Heh, so that's not a real debate because I'm in a headless state but if I did a "real" debate someone would explain my headless state, but it wouldn't be a real debate due to my headless state...

Your no-true-scotsman fell apart quickly.


Always about authority with you isn't it. It's an epistemological disease that they pound into you.
After all, who needs knowledge when you can just churn out opinion, right?
The sole means of attaining true knowledge is reason, that is objective observations + logical inference.
obv false.  There are many types and source of knowledge.  
I cannot make an argument proving that argument is the only source of knowledge; that would be circular. Logic (non-contradiction) is an axiom. The premise of a shared singular reality is an axiom.

Anyone who agrees with you that this is obviously false is beyond the realm of reason and reasoning. No further dialogue is fruitful.


If you need knowledge you need logic.
seldom true
The faithful have this delusion yes.


Authority and logic do not interface except through the medium of trust.
obv false.  Logic does not give a shit about authority or trust.
Then all your appeals to authority would be truly dead on arrival.


A dozen informal fallacies are variants of the fallacy of authority based epistemology.
We've long established you have little comprehension of fallacies, formal or informal.
I don't share faith in your establishment.


There is no such thing as a fallacy of authority-based epistemology.
.... the irony of you talking about "little comprehension", have you have see an organized religion?


To claim that all knowledge from expertise or testimony is fallacious
Assertions are never fallacious on their own, only purported arguments.


is mentally ill.
If mental illness had an objective measure such as the harm it does society and the individual few would have caused more than faith because faith allows for the maintenance of delusions on a massive scale; a critical component of practical collectivism.


You could not learn the English language without relying on knowledge from expertise and authority.
You could have thought of a better example, a language is a medium of communication. A person needs to trust no authority when he observes that a language is being used as a medium of communication first hand.

A better example would be someone claiming to be from a distant land offering to teach you the language of that land. He could be lying or insane and you would have no direct evidence to reveal it.


Most criminal convictions rely on knowledge from expertise and testimony, are all criminal convictions therefore fallacious?
As I have explained to you three times, appealing to authority is not fallacious as long as it is understood that it is an inductive argument the strength of which rests entirely on the degree of trust in the authority.

The fallacy is believing that it could ever match a deductive argument or that you can, by force of will, inject trust for an authority into others.

If someone does not cede the authority in your argument, your argument is dead; period. The only way to establish that the authority was right is to argue the conclusions directly at which point you don't need an authority any more. If you can't argue the conclusions directly that's it, you should walk away because anything after that is preaching faith.

Criminal convictions based on testimony rest may rest on a jury or judges trust in the witness. If however a sound argument is brought forth that the testimony was false all inductive arguments (including an appeal to authority) fall.


Why is ad populum fallacious? Because it's about authority, the presumption is that the majority is an authority and truth or falsehood depends on their authority.
Sure that doesn't mean the majority is always wrong or must be mistrusted as source of wisdom.
*whoosh* <- the sound of you dodging


That's what you perceive when I say something, an authority vying for your faith.
No.  I don't do faith.
I've seen enough of your statements to know that is wrong.


#18
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For Tump to appeal to Qanon supporters is a good indication marginalized fringe white trash votes can help a 6 times bankrupt tax fraud,  twice impeached president to be re-elected.
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And why should I give that opinion any weight?
please yourself

At least if you did a real debate, at the end somebody would take the time to explain your headless state to you.
There's none so blind as those who will not see

Anyone who agrees with you that this is obviously false is beyond the realm of reason and reasoning. 
extremist talk



Authority and logic do not interface except through the medium of trust.
obv false.  Logic does not give a shit about authority or trust.
Then all your appeals to authority would be truly dead on arrival.


A dozen informal fallacies are variants of the fallacy of authority based epistemology.
We've long established you have little comprehension of fallacies, formal or informal.
I don't share faith in your establishment.


There is no such thing as a fallacy of authority-based epistemology.
.... the irony of you talking about "little comprehension", have you have see an organized religion?


To claim that all knowledge from expertise or testimony is fallacious
Assertions are never fallacious on their own, only purported arguments.


is mentally ill.
If mental illness had an objective measure such as the harm it does society and the individual few would have caused more than faith because faith allows for the maintenance of delusions on a massive scale; a critical component of practical collectivism.

You could have thought of a better example, a language is a medium of communication. A person needs to trust no authority when he observes that a language is being used as a medium of communication first hand.  A better example would be someone claiming to be from a distant land offering to teach you the language of that land. He could be lying or insane and you would have no direct evidence to reveal it.
  • Nonsense.  When your mother points at herself and says "mama" that is non-deductive information from authority.  If you don't trust that authority you never to learn to speak
appealing to authority is not fallacious as long as it is understood that it is an inductive argument the strength of which rests entirely on the degree of trust in the authority.
  • a significant backtrack by you.  Yes, by a long history of high dependability, I trust FBI analysis, AP News,  NY Times, sources that have a large stake in their dependability and who's profit is tied to that dependability and  I learn to distrust motivated rogues like Christian bloggers who have no stake in dependability and  who's profit is tied to maximizing interest.
The fallacy is believing that it could ever match a deductive argument or that you can, by force of will, inject trust for an authority into others.
  • I rank knowledge according to the confidence in veracity instilled by consistency in repetition.  Deduction is just as prone to self-deception as experience or perception.
If someone does not cede the authority in your argument, your argument is dead; period.
  • Fanatical and silly.  You can't legitimately reject evidence on the mere basis of stubbornness any more than you can accept  evidence on the mere basis of assertion. .  Relying on the knowledge of trusted reporters is far more persuasive than some troll's stupid rejection.
If however a sound argument is brought forth that the testimony was false all inductive arguments (including an appeal to authority) fall.
  • and vice versa, more often.

*whoosh* <- the sound of you dodging
  • Dodging what, I wonder?  Consensus and conventional wisdom are extremely useful sources of knowledge for the open minded.

No.  I don't do faith.
I've seen enough of your statements to know that is wrong.
  • Right.  You're going to tell me what I think. 


#20
ADreamOfLiberty
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@oromagi
appealing to authority is not fallacious as long as it is understood that it is an inductive argument the strength of which rests entirely on the degree of trust in the authority.
a significant backtrack by you.
False.


*whoosh* <- the sound of you dodging
Dodging what, I wonder?  Consensus and conventional wisdom are extremely useful sources of knowledge for the open minded.
Why is ad populum a fallacy?
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#21
oromagi
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@ADreamOfLiberty

a significant backtrack by you.
False.

  • Yesterday it was' all argument from authority is fallacious.'  Today, it is 'depends on how much you trust that authority.'
    • You may take as given I trust the sources I cite, just as I take it as a given you will deny any source that refutes your bias.
*whoosh* <- the sound of you dodging
Dodging what, I wonder?  Consensus and conventional wisdom are extremely useful sources of knowledge for the open minded.
Why is ad populum a fallacy?
  • I agreed with you and you called it a dodge.

#22
Greyparrot
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30 percent of Democrats embrace the conspiracy theory Biden openly embraces claiming that there is no inflation. 

Blueanon is one sneaky cult.
#23
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Inflation numbers are broadcast almost daily. Biden is doing everything to bring inflation down.
#24
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@oromagi
a significant backtrack by you.
False.
Yesterday it was' all argument from authority is fallacious.'  Today, it is 'depends on how much you trust that authority.'
Looks like I'm in for an enormous embarrassment just as soon as you post this quote (in full context) with link.


You may take as given I trust the sources I cite, just as I take it as a given you will deny any source that refutes your bias.
Indeed, you theory of other minds is definitely beyond the toddler level; but there are a few more crucial observations you need to make.

Now you can take your toys and go play in a corner, or you can understand that your mind doesn't work so differently from others. If they immediately look for reasons to distrust authorities that contradict their belief system can you really blame them? Do you do any different?

If you think you are any different you are dangerously deluded. You did it in post #5. You ignored the link and started trying to de-legitimize me, poison the well because the well water was threatening to your narrative.

What's the next step after you understand you are the same? What can bridge the gap of preferred narratives? Why is it that some people believe one thing while you believe another? How do you know you're right and the other person is wrong?

All of these questions should have been answered before you went looking for a debate. Instead you roll around hoping that if your vocabulary and rhetoric is elegant enough you would never have to do anything but dismiss anyone who doesn't share your preferred set of authorities.

A people who share the same set of trusted authorities is a fairly good definition of a religious community by the way, that's why OG objectivism smelled like a cult despite never once suggesting a supernatural anything and never advancing as an article of faith that Rand's authority was absolute. Simply the fact that everyone in the community shared that belief in her authority and could hardly tolerate someone who didn't produced the exact same dynamics.


[ADOL] Why is ad populum fallacious? Because it's about authority, the presumption is that the majority is an authority and truth or falsehood depends on their authority.
[oromagi] Sure that doesn't mean the majority is always wrong or must be mistrusted as source of wisdom.
[ADOL] *whoosh* <- the sound of you dodging
[oromagi] Dodging what, I wonder?  Consensus and conventional wisdom are extremely useful sources of knowledge for the open minded.
[ADOL] Why is ad populum a fallacy?
[oromagi] I agreed with you and you called it a dodge.
You can agree with me and dodge at the same time, which is what you did. Deflecting to a different context, in this case a related observation.

Argument establishes a conclusion from premises. A failed argument does not establish the conclusion is wrong.

Ad populum is a fallacy because it does not establish the truth. People can be wrong. One person, many people. Ad populum is a listed fallacy because history proves so many times that the majority is not reliable.

You dodged by saying "yea but sometimes they're right", irrelevant to the claimed inference. Ad hom, ad populum are fallacies of authority. You cling to the faintest band in the established pattern of unreliability of authority in the commonly listed fallacies.

Appeal to priesthood should quickly be added to fallacy lists so that people who cannot derive fallacies themselves, like a child rote learning times tables, will stop digging themselves deeper.
#25
Shila
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The Republican conspiracy is Trump. They believe Trump can single-handedly destroy the institutions Americans rely on and even the Constitution.
What is even more sinister is Trump will not be around after the damage is done considering his advanced age.
What will be Trump’s legacy if Qanon is picked to finish it?
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#26
oromagi
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@Public-Choice

Have you actually read anything by Q?
  • Yes.  There's little enough of it.
Or do you just love government documents.
  • I do love government documents, yes.
You pretend the FBI never lies.
  • I don't.  I've known a few FBI agents over the years and I don't mind saying they're a bunch of right-wing fascists. Hoover was a very Trump-like autocrat.  Like most cops,  FBI agents are generally well trained and reliable reporters of facts.  Like most cops, FBI agents would sooner destroy themselves through perjury than report any criminal conduct by a fellow agent.  
Just ask Waco cult members
  • I think it is quite possible that the ATF shot first and covered their asses.  I think it is quite likely that the FBI used pyrotechnics in spite of Reno's orders and covered their asses.  The fault for the dead cops, the dead Branch Davidians and especially the dead children lies 100% with the Branch Davidians.  No citizen has a right to use force to prevent arrest, even an unfair unrest.  No citizen has a right to hold children hostage to prevent arrest. even an unfair arrest.  Every death could have been prevented if Branch Davidians had chosen to obey the law at any point over 50 days.  Any FBI misconduct seems accountable to fog or war or CYA.  Many hostage situations end badly and I think it's hard to fault the good faith efforts of police in violent, uncertain situations.
or MLK's family if the FBI lies...
  • The FBI definitely led the charge on systemic racism in America. I think there's still a lot of racism in policing generally.  I don't accept that racism means that all police testimony and analysis can't be trusted.  Even so, I don't think that means the FBI deliberately distorts their factual reporting, even if that evidence might be rife with inherent bias.  What I like about govt reports generally and FBI reports specifically is that they are subject to a lot of scrutiny and challenge and testing.  Government data is not truth from on high but its pretty easy to find all the memos and studies that points out all the potential problems with the data.  I like data that survives that kind of constant testing.
  • Seems like the FBI is more likely to be biased in favor of QAnon than against.  I don't think there's much reason to distrust their general analysis of QAnon.
Federal Government sponsors a portion of mass shootings to take away guns.
  • I call that mentally ill.  Even on the most superficial basis I just can't see how such an Op could be pulled off or civil servant co-opted to participate in mass evil like that.  Its just entirely inconsistent and out of touch with who really does government and why.  I've never seen one shred of evidence that suggests  any validity to such a claim.
And, yes, I agree with Qanon that a lot in power are pedophiles and they definitely run a sex trafficking ring.
  • I mean, hooking up rich and powerful men with prostitutes including  some underage girls and then using those contacts for blackmail is a very commonplace tactic in organized crime.  I think there's pretty clear evidence that Jeffrey Epstein and Roger Stone were running ops like that at various points.  The Ritz-Carlton in Moscow is famous for running Ops like that.  Do I think a lot of powerful men have discretely, independently paid for sex with sixteen year old girls?  Yeah, that seems likely
  • But do I think that there's some kind of cabal of govt men and women gang-raping pre-pubescent children in public venues for years as QAnon asserts?  No, man.  That's fucking nuts.  That doesn't even fly on basic logistics or normal human behavior.  Public figures with locked down schedules, surrounded by staff and security details all meet up with a bunch of mysteriously unaccompanied  minors in the basement of some pizza place?
I believe every ideology, no matter how stupid or illogical, still has at least one thing right.
  • That doesn't make much sense.  I don't see why any ideology must necessarily get even one thing right.  Some people are wrong about everything. 
 Paul Furber and Ron Watkins were both Q.
  • Yeah, but in the summer of '16 Flynn was tweeting abut Hillary is a pedophile for months before anybody was repeating that shit.  Then, on the day of the election, Flynn's son and partner is the first person to publish the original fake news story that the FBI found child porn on Hillary's laptop and she was about to get arrested.  The same week Flynn reverses his position on Erdogan (Flynn now admits he did took more than half a million dollars from Erdogan in payment) and writes an Op-ed  calling for the extradition of Fethullah Gulen, Turkish newspapers are all running the "Hillary is a pedophile" story before most media in the US is even noticing  a handful of whackjobs  theorizing on 4chan.   By Dec 4th, Flynn's son gets fired from team trump because some shooter  following 4chan shows up at Comet Pizza, looking for Hillary's captives. Clearly, team Trump thought Flynn was doing more with FBIAnon then just spectating.  Here's a guy who as deep in Military intelligence as it gets, working for Trump, Russia and Turkey and lying to everybody about it, the guy who coined the phrase "lock her up" and he's right there with first four or five guys on the original subreddit doing FBIAnon.  That's circumstantial evidence and it doesn't make Flynn the voice of Q but its hard to believe an Op that experienced and connected to Trump isn't the guy making certain the show is run to Trump's benefit.
I'm still waiting for sources for these "dozen incidences."
Also, there are quite literally MILLIONS of Qanon members. f even 1,000 of these people are violent, we are only looking at 0.0625% of the KNOWN movement. Therefore as a whole, is nonviolent.
  • Is that really any way to reason?

By 1922, the Ku Klux Klan had 4 million members but only lynch 57 people that year.  Fewer than one in a thousand Klan members were actually murdering blacks, therefore the Klan was a whole was a non-violent movement.

Q published a short manual on information warfare.
If the movement is non-violent why are they calling it information warfare?

This is no different than MLK's ideology or Ghandi's ideology. So people who were violent as a response to MLK's death are not part of the true MLK movement any more than people who are violent following the Qanon movement. That is my point. I find it hard to believe a movement founded in nonviolence is now a violent movement. Like any other movement or cult founded in nonviolence.
  • the core QAnon theory is that a cabal of Satanic, cannibalistic sexual abusers of children operating a global child sex trafficking ring conspired against former U.S. President Donald Trump during his term in office
  • KIng: ". Nonviolence recognises that evildoers are also victims and are not evil people. The nonviolent resister seeks to defeat evil, not people"

  • QAnon seeks power for one man by inventing the most outrageous lies possible about his political opponents and demanding their destruction as fake retribution.
  • Gandhi and King sought to convert and persuade unjust political policy and failing persuasion, sought to change policy by radical non-participation in unjust political systems.

  • Gandhi and King would not recognize any moral worth in QAnon.  Gandhi and KIng would resist QAnon as the inherently unjust tool one aspiring dictator.
Do you believe Hillary Clinton is a pedophile?
I think it's possible, but there isn't any credible evidence of it that I know of.
  • Since there's no evidence, why believe it is possible?  Why 
I do, however, think there is credible evidence she is an absolutely vile, nasty, elitist person who had fits of violent rage. 
  • The Secret Service was quick to point out that Gary Bryne had little access inside the White House
    • "The closest contact that Byrne could have had, according to [Secret Service association president Jan] Gilhooly and others, is seeing the president or the first lady pass in the hallway — far from the intimate access he would have needed to catch Bill Clinton in the act or see Hillary Clinton fly into the cursing rages he now writes have convinced him that she doesn't have the "integrity and temperament" to be president
    • The former supervisor of the presidential protective division said that at best Byrne is working from office rumors that he's cinematically written himself into."
  • Once it became clear that stories told in the book directly contradicted Byrne own sworn testimony under oath- that is, either the book was lying or he was a felony perjurer, even FOX News refused to book Byrne as a guest anymore
  • Byrne is now an unemployed blogger 
And depending on your take of the Podesta emails, she could even be a satanist. But I can't personally say I've tried to verify that, so I can't say I agree to it.
  • By "depending on your take" you mean depending on whether you're willing buy into a world where Oprah Winfrey raped Justin Bieber and that every time Podesta emails the DNC about "cheese pizza" it is secret code for "child pornography."
    • As a student of American history I note that accusations of Satanism are a very reliable marker for bullshit.  There are extroverts who claim adherence to Satanic ritual as a way of provoking fake outrage from the gullible.  I don't think there's any evidence for some sincere underground practice of Satanism.  It seems pretty common that accusations of pedophilia are accompanied by accusations of Satanism and from the Salem Witch trials to the Memphis Three, every single one of those has proved to be total bullshit.
    • We know Russian Intelligence hacked and published Podesta's emails, hoping to provoke a scandal.  When Podesta's emails turned out to be pure vanilla, basically verifying that the public DNC largely comports with the private DNC (which can never be said in any detail about the GOP).  Doesn't it make far more sense that after going through all the expense and trouble of breaking into the heart of the Democratic Party, Trump, Flynn, GRU, Q, whatever you want to call them tried to turn a goose egg into profit by inventing a secret code that turns ordinary emails into insane devil-worshipping cabalistic orgies?
      • Anybody with a tiny bit of skeptical thinking should probably assume that every claim of Satanism just means "unjustified slander invented for the gullible"
The Daily Mail is banned as a linkable source of evidence on Wikipedia.  Jimmy Wales says that the Daily Mail has "“mastered the art of running stories that aren’t true." 

mediabias/factcheck rates the Daily Mail as a "questionable source exhibits one or more of the following: extreme bias, consistent promotion of propaganda/conspiracies, poor or no sourcing to credible information, a complete lack of transparency, and/or is fake news. Fake News is the deliberate attempt to publish hoaxes and/or disinformation for profit or influence. Sources listed in the Questionable Category may be very untrustworthy and should be fact-checked on a per-article basis. Please note sources on this list are not considered fake news unless specifically written in the reasoning section for that source

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#27
oromagi
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@ADreamOfLiberty
Looks like I'm in for an enormous embarrassment just as soon as you post this quote (in full context) with link.

The truth value of the assertion does not depend on the asserter.

vs

appealing to authority is not fallacious as long as it is understood that it is an inductive argument the strength of which rests entirely on the degree of trust in the authority.

backtrack

appealing to authority is a fallacy no less than appealing to popularity or appealing to force. They are all proxies of various kinds, proxies for the best argument and proxies don't beat the real deal. In almost any other context using the fuzzy logic of proxies could be forgiven, but not in debate. Debate is the one time to set aside as much fuzzy logic as can be set aside given the subject.

[and yet you are terrified of debate]

vs.

appealing to authority is not fallacious as long as it is understood that it is an inductive argument the strength of which rests entirely on the degree of trust in the authority.

It's like relying on a weather forecast for the current moment instead of looking out the window. Raindrops falling on your head beat a theory that there wouldn't be any precipitation

[strawman because nobody goes to a weather FORECAST for the current weather but also a swamp dweller who relies on his senses to predict hurricanes dies in the flood]

vs.

appealing to authority is not fallacious as long as it is understood that it is an inductive argument the strength of which rests entirely on the degree of trust in the authority.
 
etc






#28
Shila
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The Republican conspiracy is Trump. They believe Trump can single-handedly destroy the institutions Americans rely on and even the Constitution.
What is even more sinister is Trump will not be around after the damage is done considering his advanced age.
What will be Trump’s legacy if Qanon is picked to finish it?
American democracy is under pressure and might break.
Civil war is imminent. The Republicans won the first civil war. But the northern states have turned democrat. Advantage goes to Democrats.

#29
ADreamOfLiberty
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@oromagi
Looks like I'm in for an enormous embarrassment just as soon as you post this quote (in full context) with link.

The truth value of the assertion does not depend on the asserter.

vs

appealing to authority is not fallacious as long as it is understood that it is an inductive argument the strength of which rests entirely on the degree of trust in the authority.

backtrack
Consistent

appealing to authority is a fallacy no less than appealing to popularity or appealing to force. They are all proxies of various kinds, proxies for the best argument and proxies don't beat the real deal. In almost any other context using the fuzzy logic of proxies could be forgiven, but not in debate. Debate is the one time to set aside as much fuzzy logic as can be set aside given the subject.


vs.

appealing to authority is not fallacious as long as it is understood that it is an inductive argument the strength of which rests entirely on the degree of trust in the authority.

It's like relying on a weather forecast for the current moment instead of looking out the window. Raindrops falling on your head beat a theory that there wouldn't be any precipitation
Consistent, notice how in this very thread you attempted to imbue the populum with authority: #13
Sure that doesn't mean the majority is always wrong or must be mistrusted as source of wisdom.
No less a fallacy. You still refuse to understand.


It's like relying on a weather forecast for the current moment instead of looking out the window. Raindrops falling on your head beat a theory that there wouldn't be any precipitation

[strawman because nobody goes to a weather FORECAST for the current weather but also a swamp dweller who relies on his senses to predict hurricanes dies in the flood]
An analogy is not a strawman. "Nobody" does it because it is an obvious error, it is an instance of the category of error: bring an inductive argument to deductive fight. If the category was as obvious nobody would do it, but people do. People, it appears, like you.


[and yet you are terrified of debate]
Yet I debate all the time. If you or anyone else is terrified of debating me without some kind of formalized fallacy clouding the scene, I suggest you are afraid of the truth.
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#30
oromagi
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@ADreamOfLiberty
Yet I debate all the time
A debate is an argument formalized by rules and limits ending with a vote or other formalized decision.  What you are doing is preaching into a well, in love with the echo.