To understand what Humanists think about QAnon we need to examine the assumptions that guide different ones of us in the formation of our beliefs.
* Epistemology: how do we learn about something
* Revealation: knowledge about something is revealed to us by someone
*What constitutes Evidence? Is it revealed or does it come from careful observation?
* Do the 91 indictments against Donald Trump prove that there is a cabal of Democrats unfairly instigating these charges?
* Do your theories influence what you consider to be evidence? If you believe the above statement, then your theory about a cabal influences your idea that the indictments are rigged.
* But where do your theories come from?
* Have your theories been revealed to you or do you have evidence for them?
* If your epistemology influences your search for evidence, does all of this constitute circular reasoning where evidence would then influence your epistemology? Perhaps, there could be a reciprocal relationship between the two that changes either one or both overtime for some people revealation would not change overtime just because you learned something new, although the new information might change your belief in what was previously revealed to you. Thus, you owe it to yourself to learn as much as you can about the source of the revealations as possible.
* For some people scientific observation might lead to the belief that an epistemology of revealation is not helpful or even the opposite that science is wrong.
* If one chooses to follow the epistemology of empirical investigation, as Humanists do, an individual quickly learns that knowing all that is accepted as knowledge by science in our times is impossible.
* So when exposed to new information one may be very well versed in that topic and thus have a good idea of what is true and what is not.
* More likely is the case where one does not know much, if anything at all, about the topic. In this case one would be very careful about pronouncements that seem to come from revealation and forego an opinion until one gathered considerable evidence before forming and opinion.
* In the process of gathering evidence there will likely be some indirect evidence that would help generate a probabilistic opinion. That is an opinion that is not taken as truth but is simply more likely than another opinion.
* Thus, a mature Humanist forms opinions of various probabilities of truth based upon critical thinking and the search for evidence.
by CBS News
1) What do you think of John, the man interviewed the most by reporter Adam Yamaguchi?
2) This man claims to believe that there is a cabal of Democrats who are pedophiles. Do you have any thoughts about why he might have such a belief?
3) John has a theory about the hierarchical organization of the cabal. What gives him any insight into the existence of a cabal and how it supposedly works?
1) John seems to be a perfectly normal, well-meaning person.
2) The idea that Democrats would be the pedophiles has been made understandable by the average person on the right from decades of false accusations coming from organizations dominated by the super rich.
3) In reality John has no idea what messages are coming from upper level management in the hundreds of business, government, and academic organizations he assumes to be part of the cabal. However, he is so convinced of the truth of a cabal that he just fills in the gaps of his conjecture with his own imagination. As he does this he likely is considering these speculations as evidence of the conspiracy. A Humanist would ask, how is it possible that thousands, or even imagined hundreds of thousands, have kept actions of the cabal secrete for so long? How could there be more than a few people in the entire country who would actually regularly abuse, bleed, murder and eat children? John is not thinking!
1) With the needs for cannibalism by so many, why aren’t there more missing children than there are?
2) Q has made it known that the chemical adrenochrome is ingested by supposed pedophiles like Hillary Clinton (shown on the fake Time magazine cover in the video). Supposedly they do this in order to use the adrenochrome in the children’s blood to give the drinker longer life. The diagram at the end of Part II implicates Google in this situation because they named their browser “Chrome”. Why can’t you see that connection?
3) Why are there so many women in these protests to save the children?
4) The last speaker suggests that people are more susceptible to conspiracy theories when they have major concerns about the quality of their lives. What is the fear that drives people to accept ideas like QAnon?
1) The abused and murdered children seem to number in the hundreds, and for some Anons likely in the thousands or even hundreds of thousands. Children are reported missing each year, so where are all the abused children coming from? Why eat them when they could produce more blood. Is the answer that they are bled to death and the eating them would be a way to dispose of the bodies. Yet, this procedure would demand even higher numbers of abused children.
2) A simple Internet search would show that adrenochrome does not extend life expectancy. Also, implicating Google in these supposed crimes because they named their browser Chrome is simply insane, a condition that often arises in cults.
3) My guess is that women are on average a bit more concerned about children than men.
4) I suspect that there are two underlying fears that effect most people with many people on the right having both fears. There is the fear of falling in status which is abundant when economic inequality is very high, as it has been since the 1980s in the United States. The other fear is that liberals are out of control in changing the world, for example acceptance of gay marriage and decrease in racial discrimination. There are status issues in this second fear as well. For example, if minorities increase in numbers relative to whites than whites may no longer feel superior.
The speaker referring to the Anons says we should study “Not what they believe but the things that they are afraid off.”
But aren’t the Anons also afraid of the things they believe,such as sexually abused children? They had economic and culture war fears that made it easier to believe the absurdities of Q, but then those absurdities made them even more afraid and many of them made up additional absurd ideas that frighten them even more.
1) Guy running for Congress said the shut-downs of schools, businesses, and churches for Covid were done without scientific evidence. Is he correct?
2) Has the rise of QAnon led to something like Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein’s monster?
Note that the Tea Party was taken over essentially from its beginnings by the Koch brothers and fed lies.
1) But doesn't the slightest awareness of air borne diseases suggest that we must isolate for a while? Also, these recommendations were made by M.D.s and epidemiologists. Why does he think he is more knowledgeable about these issues than such people?
2) The upper class kept feeding not the monster but the monsters long after it was obvious that social media, talk radio, Fox News and other contributors had begun creating QAnon type monsters they would not be able to control.
*will demand credible evidence for the beliefs held by Anons.
*understand that revelations periodically “dropped” by an unknown person are not evidence for anything.
* find well-meaning persons who allow themselves to believe unsubstantiated allegations and are vulnerable to a myriad of unscrupulous manipulators.
* understand that Anons often presume they are pursuing a noble cause when in fact they are working against their own best interests and the best interests of most of the rest of the population.
* understand that the evidence for a healthy and rewarding life suggests that looking after the whole-sum needs of other people, even when these people are errant is the duty of a Humanist.
* find that violence is the last tool to use in conflict as it will create unexpected future violence.
Revealation is not self-correcting but systematic observation is self-correcting. Whether in the realm of politics or religions revealation can lead to a form of social insanity like QAnon.
