People attached to conspiracy theories can often come across as odd or weird. I'd describe the Q anon sufferers as more scary than anything milder. There's so little grip on reality and such a dire path before them and the documentary does a decent job of showing that.
I say sufferers rather than any other adjective as that is what they are. Their own brains have corrupted their logic process. The brain instinctively looks for and identifies patterns, but in abstract concepts like politics, fixed and unarguable facts are hard to find, so the brain looks for narratives instead, stories that can tie together various ideas and facts in a way that seems to make sense. Spotting a pattern and using that pattern as a framework within which to store new information, like learning a new skill, or a new language is the way we learn. When you're learning a new skill, discarding irrelevant information and organizing the relevant stuff within that framework is good. But in ideologies, it means any information that doesn't fit the ideological narrative is literally discarded, and won't be remembered. That's why religions tell stories, the story makes a pattern within which everything makes sense and they get people to believe without facts This same process affects those such as Q anon believers. It becomes their religion and as such becomes above criticism which is why you can't argue facts with conspiracy theorists because they'll just ignore you at best. They're not just being stubborn, their brains are literally structurally incapable of processing what they perceive as pattern-anomalous data. And is why some ideologues get so upset when you offer facts that don't match their pattern, it's like you're assaulting them and this reaction is absolutely visible in the documentary.
Being partisan, whether in religion, conspiracy or politics isn't just a matter of taste or values, it's actually a cognitive, neurological condition that we all suffer from to some degree. And it explains why some people's ideologies can change, because sometimes a new pattern is identified that overrides the old one. And it explains why the most intelligent people are often the most partisan and least objective, because pattern recognition is a function of higher intelligence. Unfortunately identifying bad patterns is not.
It's a brave thing to challenge peoples beliefs and I commend the maker for trying. As I said though it's an impossible task. If you want to save someone from such a rabbit hole you need to challenge them on the thought process that led them there and get them to see they've been fed a pattern designed entirely to control them. The evil cabal they are so vehemently against are actually the ones who created the pattern they latched on to.
I say sufferers rather than any other adjective as that is what they are. Their own brains have corrupted their logic process. The brain instinctively looks for and identifies patterns, but in abstract concepts like politics, fixed and unarguable facts are hard to find, so the brain looks for narratives instead, stories that can tie together various ideas and facts in a way that seems to make sense. Spotting a pattern and using that pattern as a framework within which to store new information, like learning a new skill, or a new language is the way we learn. When you're learning a new skill, discarding irrelevant information and organizing the relevant stuff within that framework is good. But in ideologies, it means any information that doesn't fit the ideological narrative is literally discarded, and won't be remembered. That's why religions tell stories, the story makes a pattern within which everything makes sense and they get people to believe without facts This same process affects those such as Q anon believers. It becomes their religion and as such becomes above criticism which is why you can't argue facts with conspiracy theorists because they'll just ignore you at best. They're not just being stubborn, their brains are literally structurally incapable of processing what they perceive as pattern-anomalous data. And is why some ideologues get so upset when you offer facts that don't match their pattern, it's like you're assaulting them and this reaction is absolutely visible in the documentary.
Being partisan, whether in religion, conspiracy or politics isn't just a matter of taste or values, it's actually a cognitive, neurological condition that we all suffer from to some degree. And it explains why some people's ideologies can change, because sometimes a new pattern is identified that overrides the old one. And it explains why the most intelligent people are often the most partisan and least objective, because pattern recognition is a function of higher intelligence. Unfortunately identifying bad patterns is not.
It's a brave thing to challenge peoples beliefs and I commend the maker for trying. As I said though it's an impossible task. If you want to save someone from such a rabbit hole you need to challenge them on the thought process that led them there and get them to see they've been fed a pattern designed entirely to control them. The evil cabal they are so vehemently against are actually the ones who created the pattern they latched on to.
