Qanon was correct in the same way your conspiracy theorist uncle was right about MKULTRA. There’s a quick summary that can give a pretty big overlap of them and reality, but that’s not why these people believe this, and the more details, context, or scope you add the less they align.
Qanon is an intellectual descendant of the satanic panic, and the framing it uses is very much in that line of thinking. It’s framing it as political enemies raping young children as part of a dark ritual that involves blood libel.
The Epstein situation in contrast is that the rich, powerful, and influential run in overlapping social circles and within them there are people whose role is to facilitate connections (Peter Thiel actually facilitates a similar role). These people may also facilitate other connections like drugs (there’s so much drugs in the Epstein stories) and pimping. The pimping for the elite, at least by one of these people, also seemed to disproportionately traffic adolescents and many of the rich, powerful, and influential clients, friends, and connections of this man seemed to either partake in his underage victims or knowingly look the other way in order to maintain these beneficial connections.
Both of these are very bad things involving the rich and powerful engaging in pedophilia, but the former is utterly fantastical and originates in a panic with no evidence and itself lacks evidence, while the latter is a realistic situation that has a lot of evidence for it
It’s quite interesting. My great grandmother apparently used to talk about the Roman Catholics abusing children and mothers in the Magdalene Laundries and people saw her as a crazy conspiracy theorist.
Squid Game in a way is also a story about the rich elite participating in sickening immoral activities
That’s the thing, some conspiracy theories are going to be true, most aren’t, and some will bear a passing resemblance to the truth.
The main tool at our disposal here is skepticism. Are the claims being made plausible? Are the motivations realistic? Is there evidence from reputable sources? Am I approaching this with a critical mindset? Am I focused on the explicit claims, or am I allowing people to “yes and” this? Am I letting my emotions or preconceived biases and prejudices cloud my judgment?
So Qanon was partially right? Just named the wrong people
Qanon was correct in the same way your conspiracy theorist uncle was right about MKULTRA. There’s a quick summary that can give a pretty big overlap of them and reality, but that’s not why these people believe this, and the more details, context, or scope you add the less they align.
Qanon is an intellectual descendant of the satanic panic, and the framing it uses is very much in that line of thinking. It’s framing it as political enemies raping young children as part of a dark ritual that involves blood libel.
The Epstein situation in contrast is that the rich, powerful, and influential run in overlapping social circles and within them there are people whose role is to facilitate connections (Peter Thiel actually facilitates a similar role). These people may also facilitate other connections like drugs (there’s so much drugs in the Epstein stories) and pimping. The pimping for the elite, at least by one of these people, also seemed to disproportionately traffic adolescents and many of the rich, powerful, and influential clients, friends, and connections of this man seemed to either partake in his underage victims or knowingly look the other way in order to maintain these beneficial connections.
Both of these are very bad things involving the rich and powerful engaging in pedophilia, but the former is utterly fantastical and originates in a panic with no evidence and itself lacks evidence, while the latter is a realistic situation that has a lot of evidence for it
It’s quite interesting. My great grandmother apparently used to talk about the Roman Catholics abusing children and mothers in the Magdalene Laundries and people saw her as a crazy conspiracy theorist.
Squid Game in a way is also a story about the rich elite participating in sickening immoral activities
That’s the thing, some conspiracy theories are going to be true, most aren’t, and some will bear a passing resemblance to the truth.
The main tool at our disposal here is skepticism. Are the claims being made plausible? Are the motivations realistic? Is there evidence from reputable sources? Am I approaching this with a critical mindset? Am I focused on the explicit claims, or am I allowing people to “yes and” this? Am I letting my emotions or preconceived biases and prejudices cloud my judgment?