Reading a Reddit AMA with a former Q believer and he had a really insightful thing to say: “Conspiracy theory thinking hooks the brain because it feels like critical thinking.”

That seems very true from what I’ve observed. The thread is here if you’re interested: https://t.co/3NsmL0pjHB
I also thought it was interesting what shook him out of it: a post from Q containing obviously false information about the field he worked in, computers. He realized the technobabble made no sense, so what else was wrong?
As for what got him in in the first place? He grew up a fundamentalist Christian and so was primed with stories about how only they knew THE TRUTH about things like evolution, the end times, etc, and the rest of the culture was just full of powerful lies. Perfect breeding ground
If you want to see a really good in-depth exploration of how someone falls down an internet rabbit hole into extremism (not Q, but related to it in that it’s about white supremacy and far right politics), I’d recommend the podcast Rabbit Hole, from Kevin Roose at the NYT
He found a guy who’d gone from an Obama voting vaguely liberal college student to a far right devotee and “race realist” (faux-scientific racism), then back out, all through YouTube. The guy opened his entire YT history to Roose, and they tracked the descent
Now, I don’t recommend these things just for the sake of “having compassion.” I have lots of compassion, maybe too much sometimes, but you can’t just offer sympathy and a cup of tea to people and have these virulent conspiracy theories disappear
I like to learn about this stuff so I can recognize warning signs of someone going down these paths, learn effective counter-messaging, and preferably figure out how to prevent it from happening in the first place
And as someone who’d like to have a kid, and knows that kid will be white, and someone who knows and loves other white kids and is involved in raising them: I do not want to raise a kid who is vulnerable to believing racist claptrap
And while sometimes I feel like “keep them off the internet forever” is the only true solution, I also know it’s not going to happen. So what must happen is a kind of bulletproof education in critical thinking. Which requires studying its failures

More from For later read

Hi @EdinburghUni @EHRC @EHRCChair @KishwerFalkner @RJHilsenrath @trussliz @GEOgovuk

The DIVERSITY INFORMATION section in yr job application mentions 'legal equality duties'. You then ask "What is your gender identity?" with options

Female
Male
Non-binary
Not-listed
Other

1/13


'Gender identity' is not a protected characteristic under the Equality Act 2010 and is not defined in the Act.

https://t.co/qisFhCiV1u

2/13


Sex is the protected characteristic and the only two possible options for sex are 'Female' and 'Male' as defined in the Act and consistent with biology - 'non-binary' and 'other' are not valid options.

https://t.co/CEJ0gkr6nF

'Gender identity' is not a synonym for sex.

3/13


You then ask "Does your gender identity match your sex registered at birth?"

4/13


Again, 'gender identity' is not a protected characteristic under the Equality Act 2010 and is not defined in the Act.

https://t.co/qisFhCiV1u

5/13
Daily Bookmarks to GAVNet 02/12/2021

Quantum causal loops

https://t.co/emX8OxKPl0

#loops #quantum

Large-scale commodity farming accelerating climate change in the Amazon

https://t.co/v3gA7OTP9E

#ClimateChange #forest #farm

Collapsed glaciers increase Third Pole uncertainties: Downstream lakes may merge within a decade

https://t.co/huAma56KeB

#glacier #lakes #ClimateChange

From trash to treasure: Silicon waste finds new use in Li-ion batteries

https://t.co/TkxKFDQMC6

#batteries #treasure #silicon #trash

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