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sphagnumAll my life I've had a fascination with sects and cults. It is so interesting to see people enthralled to these structures, throwing their lives out of the window, doing and believing ostensively completely obviously absurd and self defeating things. For reasons, I've had the possibility of watching relatively close people getting into cults and out again, and can tell you that the phenomenon is much more rich in detail than you might actually believe. Beginning with the fact that cults do not necessarily start as such.
In one instance, I was part of the original group, which was fairly nice and relaxed for quite a while. Then things started to get weird and those who so saw it left, too, and the rump of the original group became very culty. I can't really put my finger on what caused it, but if I'd venture a guess, it all started when some people insisted in taking it more seriously than the others, and in making a point of showing off their seriousness and chastising those who allegedly didn't. This set up a radicalization spiral that had me and others leaving, including the original founder of the group. It was pretty strange for some time before it disbanded, after burning through some money and people defecting because they ended up not being able to stand each other.
That was at some point in the 90s. Back then, running a cult took effort and resources. For starters you needed people to show up, the right people, even, and so recruiting them (or having them being dragged into the cult) wasn't easy. You needed real estate. A place to meet. Print materials. I think you know by now where this is going.
Today we live in a world where strange radical cults abound. Sure, the Covidians are right now the top group, but anywhere you look you find new ones. The Woke seem to be pretty cultlike, some sections of the LGBT community are obviously cult like. Interestingly, groups opposing these groups tend to become cultlike too. Oh and we have extinction rebellion, clearly cultlike. When I was trying to organize resistance I met another bunch of cultlike structures that I hadn't heard from ever before.
So here is my hypothesis: Social Media has made the formation of cults thousands of times easier than ever before. It is easier to find people, they find the cults easier, you don't have to meet in person and neither do you have to print books or even pamphlets. The AI of Twitter and Facebook assists in keeping people seeing each other all the time and in filtering news appropriate for keeping their tunnel vision going. You don't have to talk about anything else than about how seriously you take the matter, and a fight about someone not cleaning the kitchen will not erupt ever.
This is only a hypothesis, of course. But if it is correct, we are in for a very interesting few years ahead of us.
In one instance, I was part of the original group, which was fairly nice and relaxed for quite a while. Then things started to get weird and those who so saw it left, too, and the rump of the original group became very culty. I can't really put my finger on what caused it, but if I'd venture a guess, it all started when some people insisted in taking it more seriously than the others, and in making a point of showing off their seriousness and chastising those who allegedly didn't. This set up a radicalization spiral that had me and others leaving, including the original founder of the group. It was pretty strange for some time before it disbanded, after burning through some money and people defecting because they ended up not being able to stand each other.
That was at some point in the 90s. Back then, running a cult took effort and resources. For starters you needed people to show up, the right people, even, and so recruiting them (or having them being dragged into the cult) wasn't easy. You needed real estate. A place to meet. Print materials. I think you know by now where this is going.
Today we live in a world where strange radical cults abound. Sure, the Covidians are right now the top group, but anywhere you look you find new ones. The Woke seem to be pretty cultlike, some sections of the LGBT community are obviously cult like. Interestingly, groups opposing these groups tend to become cultlike too. Oh and we have extinction rebellion, clearly cultlike. When I was trying to organize resistance I met another bunch of cultlike structures that I hadn't heard from ever before.
So here is my hypothesis: Social Media has made the formation of cults thousands of times easier than ever before. It is easier to find people, they find the cults easier, you don't have to meet in person and neither do you have to print books or even pamphlets. The AI of Twitter and Facebook assists in keeping people seeing each other all the time and in filtering news appropriate for keeping their tunnel vision going. You don't have to talk about anything else than about how seriously you take the matter, and a fight about someone not cleaning the kitchen will not erupt ever.
This is only a hypothesis, of course. But if it is correct, we are in for a very interesting few years ahead of us.
no subject
Date: 2021-09-13 12:50 am (UTC)The AIs used to influence people's behavior like this are trained using sortition. (The technical term for this is "stochastic algorithm.") If one admits that one can use sortition as a means of contacting metaphysical beings—and as a diviner, I certainly do—then it seems reasonable to assume that these algorithms may have been biased by metaphysical beings. If "a tree is known by its fruits," then it seems likely that those beings would have to be demonic.