"Evangelicals" is large group of people with a lot of different backgrounds. As with all groups let us take this with a grain of salt. I do know a dozen evangelicals that know about Qanon but I know far more that don't have a clue what Qanon is.
It's pretty sad how underdeveloped the BS detectors of a lot of people are. I find it hard to understand how people can fall for QAnon but then I also find it hard to understand how anybody can be swayed by campaign speeches or political advertising but obviously these things work.
The thing about bullshit detectors is, they tend to work well for most people towards things they don't feel strongly about or things they're opposed to. It's when it comes to things that validates a person's already held beliefs that the bullshit detectors tend to get inaccurate as it were. At least from what i've noticed with people anyway.
It's difficult to have a good ear for BS if you don't come from an environment where reliable institutions have the most influence. Today an educated person believes a lot of facts that are but bullshit in day-to-day experience: that the sun and earth are orbs in a vacuum held by gravity, that quantum phenomena exists, etc..
These are things that are difficult to verify but that we take by faith from reliable institutions (the more inquisitive and those with the privilege to be able to do so would have independently verified a couple of these claims and taken the rest on faith). And there are also many seemingly reliable institutions that mix up falsehoods and unsubstantiated claims among the more readily verifiable.
I've generally heard the randomly, unbacked quote: "Up to a third of the population is easily swayed by any kind of persuasion/marketing".
I don't know the exact percentage but it is certainly non-zero. Given that many elections in recent memory are won by margins of <10%, it doesn't matter if the majority has a BS detector since that majority isn't the target of "mechanized persuasion" aka A/B testing based advertising.
> It's pretty sad how underdeveloped the BS detectors of a lot of people are
Sometimes they're not just underdeveloped, but completely and voluntarily turned off. Those who believe in bullshit conspiracies and as a result find themselves surrounded by other people believing the same absurdities are the hardest to convince. They might have been depressed loners before, and no matter how absurd their beliefs are, they introduced them into some form of society, and more importantly gave them a purpose in life.
Case in point, a friend of mine who believes every conspiracy his facebook friends throw at him. One day we were arguing about chemtrails, and after heavy reasoning and proof showing that it's all a lie from my part, he had nothing more to reply, so he went with "well, ok, then I want to believe in chemtrails, is that clear?".
It might be that they need a bullshit story to feel them unite, then stronger, which would be like gold for conspiracies creators. QAnon very likely feeds on that.
The foundational principle of Christianity (in America at least, in my experience) is believe something with no evidence it is true. They call it "faith". I was raised in small town Oregon and Texas going to Christian private schools and church for years, and that "faith" thing is absolutely their central belief. I remember clearly once when I was 9 finding the whole thing deeply illogical. Later in life I got a PhD in math, partly motivated by wanting to better heal my brain from how I was raised.
I'm not at all surprised Christians fall for Trump's lies and Qanon.
It's only a sidenote in the article but I'm kind of interested in the part where facebook are taking qanon pages down. Which ones and with what justification?
in my experience QAnon is the political arm of 4Chan.
certainly its roots a and strength is/was 4chan based.
The fact that people who's social and even fiscal success is based in the circles of the evangelicals, are finding themselves very comfortable in the QAnon world just seems like a natural fit.
But it stretches much further than that. I know people that are Deep QAnon consumers that are non religious, living in very secular countries and have logic based (read IT), white collar type jobs.
Don't let yourself forget that gullible and willfully misled comes from all shapes and sizes and from all sectors in society.
i see misinformation from BLM etc every single day on twitter. how come now one cares about this misinformation or gets upset or writes articles about it?
[+] [-] soupbowl|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cvhashim|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] spaetzleesser|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] grawprog|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jhanschoo|5 years ago|reply
These are things that are difficult to verify but that we take by faith from reliable institutions (the more inquisitive and those with the privilege to be able to do so would have independently verified a couple of these claims and taken the rest on faith). And there are also many seemingly reliable institutions that mix up falsehoods and unsubstantiated claims among the more readily verifiable.
[+] [-] alexpotato|5 years ago|reply
I don't know the exact percentage but it is certainly non-zero. Given that many elections in recent memory are won by margins of <10%, it doesn't matter if the majority has a BS detector since that majority isn't the target of "mechanized persuasion" aka A/B testing based advertising.
[+] [-] squarefoot|5 years ago|reply
Sometimes they're not just underdeveloped, but completely and voluntarily turned off. Those who believe in bullshit conspiracies and as a result find themselves surrounded by other people believing the same absurdities are the hardest to convince. They might have been depressed loners before, and no matter how absurd their beliefs are, they introduced them into some form of society, and more importantly gave them a purpose in life.
Case in point, a friend of mine who believes every conspiracy his facebook friends throw at him. One day we were arguing about chemtrails, and after heavy reasoning and proof showing that it's all a lie from my part, he had nothing more to reply, so he went with "well, ok, then I want to believe in chemtrails, is that clear?". It might be that they need a bullshit story to feel them unite, then stronger, which would be like gold for conspiracies creators. QAnon very likely feeds on that.
[+] [-] williamstein|5 years ago|reply
I'm not at all surprised Christians fall for Trump's lies and Qanon.
[+] [-] ur-whale|5 years ago|reply
[EDIT]: meant to say "they wouldn't be into religion"
[+] [-] im3w1l|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] timbit42|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ykevinator|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] smitty1e|5 years ago|reply
There is a need to discuss restoring confidence in institutions.
[+] [-] andrewclunn|5 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] wow_no|5 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] senectus1|5 years ago|reply
certainly its roots a and strength is/was 4chan based.
The fact that people who's social and even fiscal success is based in the circles of the evangelicals, are finding themselves very comfortable in the QAnon world just seems like a natural fit.
But it stretches much further than that. I know people that are Deep QAnon consumers that are non religious, living in very secular countries and have logic based (read IT), white collar type jobs.
Don't let yourself forget that gullible and willfully misled comes from all shapes and sizes and from all sectors in society.
[+] [-] mcgt|5 years ago|reply
This is a spurious claim to make. Do you have any evidence of this? 4chan and 8kun have different owners who both hate each other.
Spreading gossip about problems as big as this does nothing good.
[+] [-] ffggvv|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rbecker|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] plugger|5 years ago|reply