Originally published at: Two young women describe what it's like to have QAnon cult followers for parents | Boing Boing
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I’m trying to imagine what a “three-year supply of meat” looks like, and how they are storing it.
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One assumes deep freezers powered by generators fueled by non-reality.
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Frozen. Some people have huge freezers in their basement. Probably not a great idea for a crisis given the power they need.
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An extremely horrific scene from The Road comes to mind.
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The sad part is, QAnon is only a particularly toxic instance of a panoply of grifters and scammers who target older people. The older I get, the more vigilant I have to be on behalf of my elderly parents to stave off the constant stream of predators.
However, one doesn’t learn how important that is until one’s 40s. These women are still relatively young, and their cultist parents are likely still in their late 40s or early 50s (which makes me wonder how well they’re looking out for their own parents).
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The interview buries the lede, in my opinion. At one point one of the women explains that her mom was always into “the Illuminati” and other such things. Things like QAnon don’t come out of nowhere. They weaponize the mindset that all these people already had. It starts with something “silly” like moon landing denial, anti-vax, alternative medicine, flat earth, etc, then it boils over when something like QAnon comes along. We need to be teaching people critical thinking and how to evaluate the quality of evidence or we will never be rid of things like this.
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So . . . perpetual motion devices then?
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Logical. I was picturing cured sausages hanging in huge ropes throughout the house.
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If they are smart (ha ha) it’s canned. Spam will keep through he next ice age. Now whether it counts as “meat,” let alone food, is a matter of debate, but it will keep.
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In my field we refer to that as “crank magnetism.” It is virtually unheard of to have an antivaxxer who is not also lost in some other, or many other, conspiracy cults. A lot of them are really well educated, but so stupid…
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True, Jewish Space Lasers are just an lazy update of Orbital Mind Control Lasers from the 70s.
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Freeze-drying is also an option, though it’s expensive or requires expensive equipment and/or supplies.
If you’re less particular about the product, there’s also canned meat.
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Between conservatives starving public K-12 schools of funding and local school boards and administrators who hate the very idea of kids questioning authority, I have no hope that will happen.
“Credentialed” is the better term. Or “narrowly educated” at best (to take into account all the physicians and engineers and coders … god, the coders … who fall for this garbage).
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Amen. I tend to attribute a lot to Dunning Kreuger, but there is always a gnostic, “secret knowledge” vibe that I get. The “I am so much smarter than all other because I understand that the earth is flat” or whatever. Tough to dig people out of that, because it means surrendering their “special-ness.”
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Absolutely! We see this in the rationalist/skepticism community as well. It’s never just one nutty thing people believe in.
I avoid the word “stupid” in these contexts though, because people are really good at compartmentalizing things they want to believe (which I realize is what you’re saying also). Most people will write them off as “stupid”, and the subtext is that “I’m not stupid because I don’t believe in [insert conspiracy]“. What we need is for people to understand that we’re all wired this way and all have these flaws in our cognition. Humans are not wired for rational thought and we have to be taught how to do it. It’s not about “smart” or “stupid”. (Again forgive me for shooting the messenger here- I just wanted to key off that word “stupid”, since it leads to a lot of lazy judgement of conspiracy believers).
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Agreed. Linus Pauling is my northern star for that kinda stuff. Brilliant in his area, but completely loonie tunes outside of it. This is why I tend not to comment a lot in areas I am not pretty fluent in. But I lurk a lot!
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“But I don’t like Spam!”
“Sshh, dear, don’t cause a fuss. I’ll have your spam. I love it. I’m having spam spam spam spam spam spam spam beaked beans spam spam spam and spam!”
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I’ve been very fortunate in my life but the thing I am most grateful for is having rationale, caring, intelligent, compassionate parents.
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Many cans of diced chicken that kinda taste like canned tuna.
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