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Re:If you sell a house these days, the buyer might be a pens... by woodruffw on Wednesday June 09, 2021 @01:36PM (#27450743)
"Crank subjects" are not subjects that are themselves fundamentally outlandish or unreal: they're subjects picked up by cranks and integrated into conspiratorial worldviews. Davos is a real summit that happens every year; it's also a crank subject because cranks integrate it into their NWO and similar theories.

Your own Wikipedia link says this neatly:

> According to The New York Times,[1 1] the BBC, The Guardian, Le Devoir and Radio Canada, "baseless" conspiracy theories spread by American far-right groups linked to QAnon surged at the onset of the Great Reset forum and increased in fervor as leaders such as U.S. President Joe Biden and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau[1 2] incorporated ideas based on a "reset" in their speeches.[1 3]

Re:If you sell a house these days, the buyer might be a pens... by CRConrad on Tuesday June 15, 2021 @07:04PM (#27522742)
> Davos is a real summit that happens every year; it's also a crank subject because cranks integrate it into their NWO and similar theories.

Well, I think they're only partly wrong: Of course Davos has always (since long before it was called the "WEF") felt like it's all about "the world order"... But it's made up of the rich and powerful -- so why would it want a new world order, when the old / current one is that the rich and powerful run the world?

Re:If you sell a house these days, the buyer might be a pens... by throwawaysea on Wednesday June 09, 2021 @07:11PM (#27454563)
I'm trying to understand what specifically makes a worldview conspiratorial for you. Are you disagreeing that the "Great Reset" involves implementing particular ideological views and political positions? Would you agree that people are allowed to disagree with those positions? And that those who disagree with those positions are allowed to call attention to powerful people pushing those positions? Personally I don't see any of those as being "cranky" or "conspiratorial" as much as just regular political engagement.

Regarding the quote from Wikipedia - I don't agree with how that portion of the article is written or sourced. It is debated on the Talk page, and is a reflection of a growing bias in Wikipedia (https://larrysanger.org/2020/05/wikipedia-is-badly-biased/). That section starts off by mentioning QAnon, then says Trump amplified QAnon, and never makes a connection between all of that and "Great Reset" (it's a sort of "guilt by association" argument). Additionally, it lists out a number of right-leaning TV personalities and claims they were pushing a conspiracy theory, but none of the source articles they reference show any false claim from those same people. From those sources, it looks like these people complained that the pandemic is being exploited as a political opportunity to introduce and push various left-leaning political positions. That seems not only very reasonable to me, but also easily provable.

From my perspective, I am seeing people take the very small number of people who are suggesting the pandemic was a planned crisis with certain political goals in mind, and using that to discredit others who are not claiming it was planned but just disagree with the political opportunism and the political goals.