Instigator / Pro
18
1922
rating
117
debates
97.44%
won
Topic
#2532

QAnon is BULLSHIT

Status
Finished

The debate is finished. The distribution of the voting points and the winner are presented below.

Winner & statistics
Better arguments
9
0
Better sources
6
6
Better legibility
3
3
Better conduct
0
3

After 3 votes and with 6 points ahead, the winner is...

oromagi
Parameters
Publication date
Last updated date
Type
Standard
Number of rounds
4
Time for argument
Three days
Max argument characters
5,000
Voting period
One week
Point system
Multiple criterions
Voting system
Open
Contender / Con
12
1417
rating
158
debates
32.59%
won
Description

THBT: QAnon is BULLSHIT

DEFINITIONS:

QAnon is " a far-right conspiracy theory. It alleges that a cabal of Satan-worshiping pedophiles is running a global child sex-trafficking ring and plotting against President Donald Trump, who is battling against the cabal. The theory also commonly asserts that Trump is planning a day of reckoning known as "The Storm", when thousands of members of the cabal will be arrested....The theory is disseminated mainly by supporters of Trump, who refer to The Storm and The Great Awakening—QAnon's precepts and vocabulary are closely related to the religious concepts of millenarianism and apocalypticism, leading it to be sometimes construed as an emerging religious movement.
QAnon's adherents, while seeing Trump as a flawed Christian, also view him as a messiah sent by God."

According to "The Washington Post", the essence of the theory is that "there is a worldwide cabal of Satan-worshiping pedophiles who rule the world, essentially, and they control everything. They control politicians, and they control the media. They control Hollywood, and they cover up their existence, essentially. And they would have continued ruling the world, were it not for the election of President Donald Trump. Now, Donald Trump in this conspiracy theory knows all about this evil cabal's wrongdoing. But one of the reasons that Donald Trump was elected was to put an end to them, basically. And now we would be ignorant of this behind-the-scenes battle of Donald Trump and the U.S. military—that everyone backs him and the evil cabal—were it not for "Q." And what "Q" is is basically a poster on 4chan, who later moved to 8chan, who reveals details about this secret behind-the-scenes battle, and also secrets about what the cabal is doing and also the mass sort of upcoming arrest events through these posts. " Followers of QAnon also believe that there is an imminent event known as "The Storm", when thousands of members of the cabal will be arrested and possibly sent to Guantanamo Bay prison or to face military tribunals, and the U.S. military will brutally take over the country. The result will be salvation and utopia on earth.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QAnon

BULLSHIT is "commonly used to describe statements made by people more concerned with the response of the audience than in truth and accuracy, such as goal-oriented statements made in the field of politics or advertising. Harry Frankfurt of Princeton University characterizes bullshit as a form of falsehood distinct from lying. The liar, Frankfurt holds, knows and cares about the truth, but deliberately sets out to mislead instead of telling the truth. The "bullshitter", on the other hand, does not care about the truth and is only seeking to impress. "It is impossible for someone to lie unless he thinks he knows the truth. Producing bullshit requires no such conviction. A person who lies is thereby responding to the truth, and he is to that extent respectful of it. When an honest man speaks, he says only what he believes to be true; and for the liar, it is correspondingly indispensable that he considers his statements to be false. For the bullshitter, however, all these bets are off: he is neither on the side of the true nor on the side of the false. His eye is not on the facts at all, as the eyes of the honest man and of the liar are, except insofar as they may be pertinent to his interest in getting away with what he says. He does not care whether the things he says describe reality correctly. He just picks them out, or makes them up, to suit his purpose."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullshit

BURDEN of PROOF

Wikipedia advises:
"When two parties are in a discussion and one makes a claim that the other disputes, the one who makes the claim typically has a burden of proof to justify or substantiate that claim especially when it challenges a perceived status quo. This is also stated in Hitchens's razor, which declares that "what may be asserted without evidence, may be dismissed without evidence." Carl Sagan proposed a related criterion – "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" – which is known as the Sagan standard."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burden_of_proof_(philosophy)

Since CON's defense of QAnon amounts to an extraordinary claim absent any persuasive evidence, the Burden of Proof for this debate is entirely CON's.

CON must prove that QAnon's theory is generally true.

PRO is requesting sincere and friendly engagement on this subject.
No trolls or kritiks, please.

- RULES --
1. Forfeit=auto loss
2. Sources may be merely linked in debate as long as citations are listed in comments
3. No new arguments in R4
4. For all relevant terms, individuals should use commonplace understandings that fit within the rational context of this resolution and debate
5. No statements or documents originating from the office of Donald Trump may be cited as evidence.

Round 1
Pro
#1
THBT: QAnon is BULLSHIT

BURDEN of PROOF

CON must prove that QAnon's theories are generally true.

Specifically,

I.  SATAN WORSHIPING PEDOPHILES RULE the WORLD

  • This theory predates QAnon by some 40 years originating in the 1980's with the discredited autobiography Michelle Remembers, the author of which provided lectures depicting ritual child abuse which proved highly influential in law enforcement and evangelical Christian circles.  
    • The sensational McMartin preschool trial 1983-90 popularized the fictional details of ritual abuse.  Although the longest and most expensive criminal case in US history resulted in no convictions, the published details served as a template for hundreds of unfounded accusations for years after.
      • In spite of decades of accusations, no pedophilia linked to ritual Satan worship has ever been factually established.
II.  TRUMP'S COLLUSION with RUSSIA was in FACT a RUSE to ENLIST MEULLER'S AID in INVESTIGATING DEMOCRATIC PEDOPHILES

III.  BARACK OBAMA, HILLARY CLINTON, and GEORGE SOROS are ORGANIZING a COUP to REMOVE TRUMP from POWER

  • No evidence exists that any of these personalities are assembling an armed force
  • All three personalities are strongly associated with promotion of democratic and peaceful transitions of power for all governments
IV.  GERMAN CHANCELLOR  ANGELA MERKEL is ADOLPH HITLER'S GRAND-DAUGHTER

  • Merkel's heritage is well established and was subject to a biographer's investigation in 2015
V.  CONGRESSWOMAN DEBBIE WASSERMAN-SCHULTZ HIRED MS-13 to MURDER SETH RICH

  • Rich's murder remains unsolved but FOX News tried to link the death to Wikileaks's possession of hacked DNC emails
  • The Mueller Report definitively credits Russian Intelligence with hacking the DNC and dissemination to Wikileaks who in turn coordinated publication with Trump's agent Roger Stone.
VI.  NORTH KOREAN PSYCHOCRAT KIM JONG-UN was INSTALLED by the US CIA

  • As son of the preceding dictator and grandson of North Korea's founder, Kim was the natural and established successor to absolute power- no foreign intervention is necessary to explain the transition
VII.  TRUMP and US MILITARY WILL ASSUME CONTROL of GOVT and ARREST 1,000'S of PROMINENT DEMOCRATS on NOV 3, 2017

  • This did not happen
VIII.  TRUMP'S DEMOCRATIC ENEMIES WILL COMMIT SUICIDE EN MASSE on FEB 10, 2018

  • This did not happen
IX.  DRINKING INDUSTRIAL BLEACH CURES CORONAVIRUS 

  • The medicinal value of MMS has been a popular claim in pseudo-medicine since 2006, frequently debunked by most international regulatory agencies and interested scientists
CONCLUSION

  • Almost all QAnon claims are disproven, unprovable, or too vague to fact-check
  • PRO argues that QAnon's claims are more properly thought of as bullshit (as opposed to lies or self-delusion) because so many claims are so obviously preposterous
  • The truth or falsehood of any claim is irrelevant to the desired effects which experts theorize may be to:
    • insulate believers within the fellowship of QAnon and isolate believers from the rational influences of friends and family
    • create an internet community willing to disseminate disinformation and act on suggestion entirely apart from any finding of fact or rational cause
    • flood the political discourse with more misinformation than can be effectively countered by rational actors
    • elevate and promote Trump's own policies of disinformation by creating a heroic mythology sealed away from the checks and balances of the fourth estate
  • PRO looks forward to CON's R1
SOURCES


Con
#2
I am trying out a slightly different debating style for fun. 

Merci, Oromagi! Je vous souhaite bonne chance.

BURDEN of PROOF

Though stated in the description, and in the opening round, Oromagi directly contradicts his premise with his definition of "Bullshit" (pardon my language). From his source: "commonly used to describe statements made by people more concerned with the response of the audience than in truth and accuracy, such as goal-oriented statements made in the field of politics or advertising. Harry Frankfurt of Princeton University characterizes bullshit as a form of falsehood distinct from lying.

The liar, Frankfurt holds, knows and cares about the truth, but deliberately sets out to mislead instead of telling the truth.
The "bullshitter", on the other hand, does not care about the truth and is only seeking to impress.

"It is impossible for someone to lie unless he thinks he knows the truth. Producing bullshit requires no such conviction.

A person who lies is thereby responding to the truth, and he is to that extent respectful of it.

When an honest man speaks, he says only what he believes to be true; and for the liar, it is correspondingly indispensable that he considers his statements to be false.

For the bullshitter, however, all these bets are off: he is neither on the side of the true nor on the side of the false. His eye is not on the facts at all, as the eyes of the honest man and of the liar are, except insofar as they may be pertinent to his interest in getting away with what he says.

He does not care whether the things he says describe reality correctly. He just picks them out, or makes them up, to suit his purpose."

Ironically, Oromagi's argument with concern with the way he phrased the premise, is actually "Bullshit". Because he thinks that whatever isn't bullshit, must be the truth. But if someone can be convinced that QAnon is a lie, then QAnon is a lie, not "bullshit" in the way he defined it. In order for Oromagi to win, he must prove that all QAnon theorists (and QAnon's founding theories) are seeking to merely impress and cannot be swayed in one way or other.

But conspiracy theorists have chance yet. Molto bene, but how is this done? you ask dubiously. There are many reasons for conspiracy theorists in general, such as lack of education, desire to feel special, the powerlessness, and the need for certainty. The additional ideas of peer pressure and making friends suggests other reasons that conspiracy theorists feel they have to ground themselves in QAnon. There has even been the Conformity experiment, where we purposefully told persons a lie, in order for them to feel they had to also go along with a flow. But I doubt the idea that "the shortest line is the longest" is "Bullshit", because they know the truth, and tell the person about it after the experiment is over. They only did it for the experiment. Similarly, it is difficult to say for sure whether QAnon is just a bunch of people trolling (similar to "earth is on a turtle" meme exaggerating flat-earthers' beliefs). Even if people did not know the truth, the conformity to their friends suggests that they merely value the social connection more than a serious consideration of ideas. Failing to commit experiments to prove something does not mean it is by default "bullshit".

It's entirely plausible to persuade a QAnonist, assuming they aren't doing it for a meme. Perhaps they have lost trust in the government itself, and the bigger picture breaks down, causing them to tease Trump and exaggerate details about how Trump is a satanist and has done completely unreasonable things. I feel like in order to make such accusations, they must at least partially acknowledge some truths, especially with Trump's unsatisfactory response with Coronavirus, failures in other policies, and a poor personality overall. There are basically zero conspiracies about Ghandi, FDR, people who save the world, because they are so well received.

So in a way, QAnon is just c'est la vie, it's a way to live, a complaint and a stab at Trump's poor political standing. The fact that people can group up together and angrily say Trump is a satanist, makes me feel, they are just temporarily enraged and a good talking would convince them otherwise. So the group overall is not founded on completely lost theories (ex. "Ghandi wants to nuke us because of Civ 5" or some even more absurd idea with zero foundation). Otherwise, why would QAnon exist concerning merely Trump, and not Obama, George W. Bush, etc.? 

Conclusion: QAnon is a lie, a meme, or an exaggerated satirical statement insulting trump. Any way, it is not "Bullshit", where believers refuse to listen to the truth.
Round 2
Pro
#3
THBT: QAnon is BULLSHIT

BURDEN of PROOF

CON must prove that QAnon's theories are generally true

  • CON has elected to ignore the terms of this debate as accepted, including CON's burden to prove QAnon claims true
    • Consequently, CON has dropped all 9 of PRO's examples of QAnon bullshit
    • Instead, CON has attempted a weak kritik entirely dependent on CON's misunderstanding of the definition.
Ironically, Oromagi's argument with concern with the way he phrased the premise  is actually "Bullshit" Because he thinks that whatever isn't bullshit, must be the truth 
  • False.  As clearly stated in the definition, BULLSHIT is distinguished by a lack of concern for what is true, unlike the outright lie, which knows but deliberately avoids the truth.
    • When Peter denies Jesus on the night of Jesus' arrest, Peter is lying but not bullshitting
      • Matt 26:73-Matt 26:75 
        • "And after a while came unto him they that stood by, and said to Peter, Surely thou also art one of them; for thy speech betrayeth thee. Then began he to curse and to swear, saying, I know not the man. And immediately the cock crew. And Peter remembered the word of Jesus, which said unto him, Before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice. And he went out, and wept bitterly."
          • Peter weeps because he knows the truth but he lies to protect himself from arrest and feels the coward for it
        • That is not bullshit but it also not true.
    • PRO has shown that PRO does not think, that "whatever isn't bullshit must be the truth."
      • CON is disproved.
But if someone can be convinced that QAnon is a lie, then QAnon is a lie, not "bullshit" in the way he defined it.
  • Quite wrong.  CON misunderstands the definition of BULLSHIT, in spite of cut & pasting the definition in R1
  • BULLSHIT
    • "is made by people more concerned with the response of the audience than in truth and accuracy"
    • "The "bullshitter"....does not care about the truth and is only seeking to impress"
    • "The bullshitter... is neither on the side of the true nor on the side of the false. His eye is not on the facts at all..... He does not care whether the things he says describe reality correctly. He just picks them out, or makes them up, to suit his purpose"
      • CON fails to note that BULLSHIT is  definitively made bullshit by the claimant and not by how the bullshit is received or interpreted.
      • When Marc Antony claims:
        • "I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him."
          • Antony is bullshitting- he does not care whether the dead Caesar is praised or buried.  Antony is a politician positioning his faction for a power grab.
            • Antony's objective is to turn the people of Rome against Brutus and his fellow Optimates.  Whether his countrymen believe that Antony is praising Caesar is entirely irrelevant, so long as Brutus' honor is made questionable in the eyes of Rome.
    • CON would argue that if some Romans can be convinced that Antony is, in fact, lying when he claims he's not there to praise Caesar, then Antony is not bullshitting- but this argument misunderstands  BULLSHIT.
      • Whether the bullshit is believed or not does not change the distinction of bullshit from lies or truth- that distinction is made by the bullshitter's intent.
    • CON is disproved: QAnon is made bullshit by Q whether anybody believes QAnon or not.
In order for Oromagi to win he must prove that all QAnon theorists (and QAnon's founding theories) are seeking to merely impress and cannot be swayed in one way or other
  • QAnon theorists have no impact when justifying the adjective BULLSHIT.
    • If everybody or nobody believes QAnon, QAnon is still bullshit.
    • We can know that Q doesn't care whether or how QAnon is believed because
      • Q makes many predictions that never come true
        • Thousands of Democrats will be arrested on Nov 3, 2017
        • A car bomb will explode in London on Feb 16, 2018
        • John McCain will resign from the Senate
        • etc
          • When these predictions fail to manifest, Q claims that disinformation is necessary. 
          • Q does not deny that he lies, demonstrating little concern for his honesty, just so long as followers come back for more.
      • As more specific detail is warranted, Q gets more vague, dropping hints and secret codes
        • By analyzing Q's keyboard heatmap, Security expert Mark Burnett concluded that Q's secret codes are random alternations a standard keyboard.
          • Therefore, the point is not successful decryption but to create a body of false interpretations based on nothing real- classic BULLSHIT
    • CON is disproved: QAnon theorists are irrelevant to proving BULLSHIT
CONCLUSION

  • CON dropped all 9 of PRO's arguments, violated the agreed terms of this terms of this debate and mounted a weak kritik based on a faulty reading of our definition for the word BULLSHIT
    • All 3 points of CON's weak kritik are false
  • PRO looks forward to CON's R2
SOURCES




    Con
    #4
    I'm impressed. I didn't thoroughly think whether I could prove it was a willful lie, as Q didn't even bother trying assert that he was telling the truth (as scammers will often try as a tactic, thus showing they are a liar rather than bullshit, as they care if you believe in them or not). Well played. I concede.
    Round 3
    Pro
    #5
    I concede.
    • Thanks, Seldiora!  I gratefully accept your concession.

    Con
    #6
    ded
    Round 4
    Pro
    #7
    THBT: QAnon est des CONNERIES

    FIN:

    • CON a gracieusement concédé cet argument
      • PRO accepte avec gratitude la concession de CON
    VOTER:
      • PRO demande aux ELECTEURS d'attribuer
        • 3 points à PRO pour la concession de CON et
        • 1 point à CON pour une excellente CONDUITE
      MERCI:
        • à seldiora d'avoir accepté ce débat et
        • aux ELECTEURS pour leur aimable considération
          • S'il vous plait, votez pour PRO!


        Con
        #8
        Today's a sad sad day
        And he's up at the bay
        A mysterious time to go away
        Won't you sa-ay

        I  lost two rounds
        Openin' myself to his pounds
        Easily could lose
        As he snooze(s)

        Heyyyyyyy
        Sir Local-wide
        I'm 9spaceking
        Elade
        New York
        California City
        China Town

        makin' beings scream cling bling
        Nothin' is gonna gonna stop me
        top dog yo leadin' the microphone
        Zappin' poppin' off his sockets 
        Shoot him off a rocket
        Mark my words
        haha let's not darken it

        Today's a sad sad day
        And he's up at the bay
        A mysterious time to go away
        Won't you sa-ay?

        I  lost two rounds, and the debate
        Openin' myself to his pounds, poor fate
        Easily could lose, as if drinking booze
        As he snooze(s), oofy oof

        Today's a sad sad day (sad sad day)
        And he's up at the bay
        A mysterious time to go away
        Won't you sa-ay?

        I  lost two rounds
        Openin' myself to his pounds
        Easily could lose
        As he snooze(s)

        (slow)
        Poor 9sk..forfeited dos rounds
        Opening up for getting zound.
        Learn your lessons my friend and don't lose
        So now we nod our heads off and then snooze....