QAnon comes to visit

[GethN7]

I finally feel like I've thought about the issue enough to respond.

I didn't even notice that it was the politics thread, so I'll explain my last comment.  If Trump wins re-election, or barely loses re-election, I expect Trump's next presidency to start a crackdown of these sorts of things.  He's already done things like demand journalists be fired, and his attorneys have threatened to revoke the licenses of those who air information critical of the President.  Once he loses the restraints of running for election, and surrounding himself with sychophants like Bob Barr, things are going to get really bad really fast.

How likely is this?  Well, Nate Silver predicts a Trump victory in roughly 25% of the models.  This is not lopsided like a 75-25 election, this means that in one quarter of universes, Trump wins.  It's like rolling a d20, except that 1-5 all count as a critical failure.  And, since he's been spreading rumours that the election is rigged, 6-8 count as an ordinary failure, and give Trump a path to keep the White House.  And if I can extend the analogy using the Alternity RPG system, 9-13 count as a marginal success for Biden, that still leaves the country deeply divided.  Only on 14 and up does the outcome look good for America.  I don't want to roll that die.  It's freaking scary.

If you are at all left-leaning, you should make sure you have a current passport before the election.  You do not want to wait until they start implementing exit visas.

Outside of the political background for this discussion, things look a little worse.  So from my perspective, GethN7 comes in talking about some obscure French arthouse movie, demands that we all agree to ban it, and when we don't agree immediately, cites his morals as a way to get out of it.  Seriously, morals?  Is he just looking for an excuse to quit?  I get that he has a conservative mind, and the disgust part of his brain activated, and maybe he doesn't understand why it didn't immediately activate in our brains too.  But I had never heard of this film before, and didn't even have much time to consider what to do before he up and left.

This is what I like to call borrowing trouble.  Nobody made a page, nobody even talked about making a page, and he banned it and demanded immediate action from the rest of us, as if it was some kind of crisis?  Why?  I have no idea.  I know that there are people passing it off as a crisis now, and they're in QAnon, a group so lost in postmodernist conspiracy theory that everything is true.  And apparently QAnon has never heard of the fucking Streisand effect -- now millions of people who have never heard of the film might consider watching it.  Including the kinds of pedoes who shouldn't see it. Thanks a lot, assholes.

And all of this is happening when there's real goddamn crises happening right now?  I go outside, and the Sun looks to be about the same color and brightness as an orange Union 76 ball in the sky.  The fires are far away, but I haven't seen a clear sky in weeks, and the last time I did it was 120° around here.  Because everything is on fucking fire right now.  And as bad as it is, the motherfucking fire season is just beginning, right?  We're not even to the peak of the season yet, and there are millions and millions of acres burned.  And my President, damn his soul, is telling us to rake our fucking forests.  We are children of a dying planet, and we need to rake our forests?  Fucking seriously?

I need to go for a walk and calm down.  But hey, guess what?  Can't do it.  Air pollution is five times normal, I'll just get sick.  Just walk indoors somewhere?  Fucking wrong!  Because there's a pandemic going on, and two hundred thousand of my countrymen have died.  Just going to a mall is as risky as going to a war zone.  Gryphon's hometown, Millinocket, Maine, is a goddamn disease outbreak center, like that makes any goddamn sense.  So I can't go anywhere without risking my life, making myself sick.  Stuck inside with a stir crazy puppy and being a stir-crazy human.  Trying to wrap up a work project I'm months behind on, worried about my job.  Worried about my parents who both made visits to the hospital this month.

And here GethN7 comes with his fucking demands to ban discussion of a movie I haven't heard shit about.  People are dying, the world is dying, and you want to force an immediate decision on this?  What is wrong with you?  On what planet is this important?  I can tell you: it's not my goddamn planet.

So if you want to leave, fine.  If you can't have the maturity to act like a human being, just go fuck yourself.  Go fuck yourself in the ass, okay?

Brent, I really want to retain something resembling respect for you, but there is a reason I did a preventative measure. And no, I have NOTHING TO DO WITH QANON. Politics and conspiracy theories had nothing to do with what I did, it was wanting to prevent any possible trouble given the dubious legality of this media, at least until a court of law made it perfectly clear it was fine to view and discuss the contents of what we were viewing. If it wasn't a movie with actual child actors being sexualized, I agree, it would be stupid what I did, but given the extreme circumstances, I felt making a stand was necessary because it was not erring on the side of caution that got TV Tropes the reputation it earned for allowing in all sorts of questionable material, forgive me if I took it pretty seriously to avoid us getting tarred with that brush.

I don't care one way or the other about politics, I just want to keep my rap sheet and conscience clean, and given we might wind up troping something that likely is banned from the US eventually as child porn (and I do not want to run the risk of that legal question until it's been answered), I'd like it said we played it safe, or such was the idea until we could be sure.

Was I overly irrational and emotional at the time? Maybe so, I'll give you that. Did I use a cannon to swat a fly? Again, that may be true. Did I feel comfortable with us running any risks until the legal dust was settled? Not in the slightest.

At any rate, I'm out now, and that's fine by me, I'll just stay in my corner, it's no longer my responsibility to be involved in that on ATT Miraheze.


That said, and I want to make it perfectly clear, one last time:

I firmly believe, and I have always firmly believed, when you are in a legally dubious situation, you always play it safe until you make sure you are not playing with fire that could burn you later. That is a politically agnostic position based on trying to be prudent. I went about it in a hamfisted way admittedly, but I was trying to look out for everyone, not just me, by avoiding a possible legal issue until we could be sure it wasn't one.

I for one don't regret that was my motive and I still stand by it being something that was done out of caution in the best interests of ATT, Miraheze, and the users of both, insofar as our reach extended. I have calmed down, realized was overly emotional, and one of the reasons I surrendered my authority was because I was not willing to compromise on the above, but at the same time, realized we agreed to a majority consensus as a rule, and I broke it.

I do not want to be a moral, ethical, or legal hypocrite, so I surrendered any power and left to keep peace in the valley and keep my own conscience clean. I just pray this turns out for the best for all concerned now that I did that.