The World Isn't Ending Tomorrow

 A guy I knew in high school posted a warning on Facebook, telling the world that President Trump is going to carry out a worldwide purge beginning Sunday night. There will be text messages sent from Air Force One, and an eight hour movie. There will be filmed confessions, and mass executions. Once it's over, the world will live in peace and harmony.

I worry that he believes this stuff. He has often predicted major developments in politics and justice, with an abysmal record of accuracy. No new evidence has come to prove that the Hillary Clinton campaign worked directly with Russians to create the "Russia Hoax" that the Trump campaign "colluded" with Russia, for example.

But he believes the Pizza Gate story. He is a Q-Anon follower. I have a hard time understanding why anyone with any intelligence would give such nonsense any time at all.

I know conspiracy theories have a long history. The Elders of Zion writings still have believers. Jews would have to be somehow superhuman to do the things they were accused of, but also weak enough to be persecuted for thousands of years all around the world. The stories are similar to the battle between demons and vampires as told in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and other such places, except that in those stories, the demons and vampires have real success a lot of the time, and manage to stay out of reach of the heroes trying to destroy them for centuries. Also, they live in places that ordinary humans can't find. Jews have never done that. They are just people with their own religious traditions and practices.

I've read the Bible, so I know that when Israel conquered the land they claimed, they were brutal to the natives, if the Bible is accurate. I think the Israelites were from the same area, so I don't know that invasion came into it, but I'm not sure. There doesn't seem to be any archeological support for Hebrews ever being in Egypt or wandering in the Sinai for forty years, but there is evidence of a Kingdom of Israel. But the conflict between Jews and Christians, and Jews and Muslims are very human stories. There are records of atrocities during the spread of all three. There is little in the history of any to suggest Divine guidance, as far as I can see. A religion spread at the point of a sword is not a gospel of peace.

The Q Anon conspiracy story claims that the world is run by people who are pedophiles who actually eat children and use components from their blood to stay eternally youthful. There are pedophiles in the world, but not a cabal of them running the governments and economies of all the countries of the world. The magical chemical they supposedly take from the blood of children is a breakdown product of epinephrine, and has some effect on activating blood clotting, but not much other biological activity, and getting from children is a waste of time. But how many Q Anon followers know enough chemistry to even understand the facts?

I saw a headline today that said the other radical groups involved in recent rallies and the assault on the Capital are getting annoyed with the idiocy of Q Anon followers. They want White Supremacy, thank you, and not nonsense guiding their efforts. Fortunately, all of them seem to have limited vision and understanding.