{"id":31906,"date":"2021-01-15T19:39:55","date_gmt":"2021-01-16T01:39:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/?p=31906"},"modified":"2021-01-15T19:39:55","modified_gmt":"2021-01-16T01:39:55","slug":"word-of-the-day-640","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/2021\/01\/15\/word-of-the-day-640\/","title":{"rendered":"Word Of The Day"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Apophenia<\/em>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Berkowitz compared the experience of becoming involved with QAnon with that of someone playing \u201cexperience fictions.\u201d Some of these games have been elaborate efforts to bridge the gap between fiction and reality. Participants may receive mysterious packages in the mail. Or get a panicked late night phone call. They may be directed to a seemingly innocuous web site that turns out to have hidden information if you look at it <em>just right<\/em>. These games can also happen in person in the form of escape rooms or other participatory events.<\/p>\n<p>In discussing these games, Berkowitz touches on the idea of \u201cApophenia,\u201d \u2014\u00a0the tendency of human beings to find patterns, even where they don\u2019t exist. Give people a handful of random information, and they <em>will<\/em> find a pattern, even if they have to create elaborate rules to make that pattern fit.\u00a0It\u2019s sort of the broader version of the way people will find faces in the patterns of wallpaper or the leaves of a tree.<\/p>\n<p>In game design, apophenia is a problem, because it can cause people to plunge off in the wrong direction, losing the thread that the game designer meant them to find. In QAnon \u2026\u00a0it\u2019s all there is. The sporadic bits of \u201cinformation\u201d issued from Q or other supposed sources at the heart of the conspiracy don\u2019t have to make sense. They don\u2019t have to go anywhere. Through apophenia, someone is sure to create an apparent set of connections. Then, through a community process that rewards the most elaborate, most obscure, most twisted interpretations, the theory adds new layers of complexity.\u00a0<em>[&#8220;<a class=\"designation-staff\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dailykos.com\/stories\/2021\/1\/14\/2009108\/-QAnon-was-at-the-center-of-the-Capitol-assault-and-could-get-worse-after-Trump-is-gone\">QAnon was at the center of the Capitol assault, and could get worse after Trump is gone<\/a>,&#8221; Mark Sumner, <strong>The Daily Kos<\/strong>]<br \/>\n<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Apophenia: Berkowitz compared the experience of becoming involved with QAnon with that of someone playing \u201cexperience fictions.\u201d Some of these games have been elaborate efforts to bridge the gap between fiction and reality. Participants may receive mysterious packages in the mail. Or get a panicked late night phone call. They \u2026 <a class=\"continue-reading-link\" href=\"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/2021\/01\/15\/word-of-the-day-640\/\"> Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr; <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31906","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31906","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31906"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31906\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31907,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31906\/revisions\/31907"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31906"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31906"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31906"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}