Thread by @QOrigins

EVERYONE asks this when they encounter Q-related content.

The thing is, it's not really a question of *intellectual belief*. It's about group dynamics -- if the price of *unbelief* is being booted out of a group that gives your life meaning, you'll do what it takes to stay in.

https://twitter.com/AnnieMcMillen/status/1364052525163364356

And there are lots of historical examples -- plenty of groups have embraced ideas that are *starkly* offensive to reason, and morality, and decency.

Stalin and his inner circle either believed or claimed to believe that Ukrainians were deliberately starving their kids...

as part of a plot to resist Soviet power.

Also, starving THEMSELVES for the same reason.

And this became the more or less official line of the Soviet security services.

This claim is stark raving mad. It's deeply offensive. It's repugnant. But to deny it was to risk your life.

So people went along -- largely, I would imagine, out of fear. But for some, out of conviction.

The element of *mortal fear* makes this a bad parallel to Q; I used it bc it's the example that clicked for *me* -- the example that showed me there's really no bottom, no limit.

But at some point in your life, YOU'VE probably seen -- or been part of -- a group that wrapped itself around an idea and formed very strong community norms around it, &punished dissenters harshly.

Even if it was just a high-school clique, you've *seen* it. Q's the same thing.