During the pandemic, some of the people I grew up with in Parker, Colorado, got sucked into QAnon and the Q-adjacent "Save the Children" movement.
QAnon groups have millions of members on Facebook, documents show
The preliminary results of an investigation by Facebook shed new light on the scope of activity and content from the QAnon community on the platform.
The Women Making Conspiracy Theories Beautiful
How the domestic aesthetics of Instagram repackage QAnon for the masses
The Conspiracy Theory About Wayfair Is Spreading Quickly Among Lifestyle Influencers On Instagram
The theory plays into the bigger QAnon conspiracy theory, which baselessly claims that the world is controlled by a secret cabal of pedophiles that President Trump is actively fighting against.
Facebook Removes 790 QAnon Groups to Fight Conspiracy Theory (Published 2020)
The social network also said it was restricting another 1,950 groups, 440 pages on Facebook and more than 10,000 accounts on Instagram related to the conspiracy group.
Conspiracy Brokers: Understanding the Monetization of YouTube Conspiracy Theories
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1145/3485447.3512142 WWW '22: Proceedings of the ACM Web Conference 2022, Virtual Event, Lyon, France, April 2022
How conspiracy theories conquered America
Things have changed a lot since January 6th, 2021.
How 9/11 Made Everyone a Conspiracy Theorist
Crackpot theories were once the stuff of shortwave radio, but September 11 unleashed the Age of Alex Jones.
Why Are There So Many Rationalist Cults?
There’s a lot to like about the Rationalist community, but they do have a certain tendency to spawn — shall we say — high demand groups. We sent a card-carrying Rat to investigate what’s really going on.
The UFO craze was created by government nepotism and incompetent journalism
Blame Harry Reid, Skinwalker Ranch, "dino-beavers," and The New York Times
The “Terrible Engine of Destruction” That Inspired Federal Science Funding
What can we learn about the relationship between science and the American public from the story of plagues of locusts in the 1870s?
What we know on Taylor Farms donations to pro-Trump groups
After Taylor Farms de Mexico’s lettuce was identified as a potential source for a multi-state cyclospora outbreak, the company’s political dealings and contributions came under scrutiny. Social media users looked into donations the company and its leadership made and drew assumptions about how those influenced the Trump administration’s outbreak response. Here are some of the […]
The Inside Story Of Leverage Research 1.0
Between 2011-2019, Leverage Research explored the deep psychology of Effective Altruism and Silicon Valley, then suddenly dissolved among rumors of "demons." What happened?
The Inside Story Of Leverage Research 1.0
Between 2011-2019, Leverage Research explored the deep psychology of Effective Altruism and Silicon Valley, then suddenly dissolved among rumors of "demons." What happened?
The Inside Story Of Leverage Research 1.0
Between 2011-2019, Leverage Research explored the deep psychology of Effective Altruism and Silicon Valley, then suddenly dissolved among rumors of "demons." What happened?
In case you weren't aware how the anonymous Hacker News moderators control the narrative in Silicon Valley. (Bluesky Communities can't come soon enough)
Jonathan Warden
Yeah that story got penalized. Orange is the front page ranking, black is the ranking it should have given the raw ranking formula with no penalties. HN moderators often apply penalties to news and political stories, even if they are very tech-adjacent. news.social-protocols.org/stats?id=49676085
Rationalist Cults
Articles on rationalist-adjacent cults: the Zizians, Leverage Research, and the darker outgrowths of the rationalist / LessWrong-derived / Aella polycule scene that is behind "AI Safety" in Silicon Valley. Working thesis: MIRI and CFAR read as high-control groups (cults) who believe in P(DOOM) and use sex (and power) maliciously — yet they are unfortunately the ones who have captured the framing of "AI Safety," which has little to do with actual safety.
The Effective Altruism Kids Aren’t Alright
My Experience with Leverage Research
What Policymakers and the Public Need to Know About the Cult of AI
banteg (@banteg)
The Techno-Religion at the Center of the A.I. Debate
SE Gyges (@segyges.bsky.social)
