Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How do the pros get someone to leave a cult?

theguardian.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 145 posts

Re: How do the pros get someone to leave a cult?

#101

Post by unethical_ban »

lynx97 wrote: post #70
unethical_ban wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've thought about J6 a lot, and what bothers me isn't so much the violence, but the lies and pathetic worldview that drove it. The idea that violence is necessary if an election is stolen - if political forces actually manipulated the results of the democratic process - is not absurd to me, and is not inherently immoral. What made J6 wrong was not that it was violent, but that it was based on the obvious lies of a n…

If you are willing to support--or at least not be bothered by--violence in a democratic process, I guess we can not find any common ground to talk about.

Some commentary added in my prior comment due to HN throttling.

In short, equating a minority group that has a flag and some banter spoken on private, to a massive ongoing movement-in-power in the US to literally destroy the federal government and erode civil liberties... Is a wild take.

Re: How do the pros get someone to leave a cult?

#102

Post by stevemadere »

exasperaited wrote: post #89
pton_xd wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's mostly used as way to slur a disfavored group. I generally agree. The divide between religion and cult is just a distinction between what's deemed acceptable behavior by society. Obsessing over a person who died thousands of years ago? Totally "normal." Obsessing over a single living person? Totally a cult.

> The divide between religion and cult is just a distinction between what's deemed acceptable behavior by society. This is misconception. It's not about the extremism of the belief. It's about the mechanism of control. Take the "cults" of the moment: Qanon/MAGA, for example, operate like a personality cult in many identifiable ways, but are not actually cults, because you can leave without much difficulty if you set…

It's definitely a cult for elected officials who join (according to your discriminating criterion)

Re: How do the pros get someone to leave a cult?

#103

Post by komali2 »

adornKey wrote: post #37
komali2 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I've seen a lot of Antifa things. They're into anti-MAGA things, have some kind of uniforms and merch and are actually quite violent. In certain places they are very visible, and aggressive. They are a good fit for a discussion about cults. I agree with the authors of the article. By being nice to them I broke some of them a little bit out of their loop.

I'm anti-fascist. I have a sticker on my laptop, and have hosted a BLM protest. No flags, no hats, and maybe 1% of my friends are involved in the way I am. If there's an antifa cult, I want to know about it, bcause I wouldn't mind some more friends in the scene.

Again, can we please just be for real and stop playing a "both sides" game? There's a difference between dogmatism, and cultism.

Re: How do the pros get someone to leave a cult?

#104

Post by komali2 »

lynx97 wrote: post #38
komali2 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Ahem, you might as well just have described the trans movement. The flag, the drag, the self victimisation and combative behaviour...

This is confusing because transgenderism describes a psychological reality - you are born trans or not, the same as if you're born straight or not - whereas cult membership or political ideology aren't inherent, unchangeable parts of your self.

How are you managing to compare these unrelated things?

Re: How do the pros get someone to leave a cult?

#105

Post by komali2 »

internet_points wrote: post #2

So that works if it's possible to actually reach the person and the family agrees that they need help to get out. What if the family is part of the problem or is tricked? (I recently read https://elan.school/ about this unimaginably horrible Kids for Cash-like scheme/cult. The only thing I can think of to prevent such things would be to get parents, teachers, lawmakers and social workers to read those stories too.)

Dude you can't just drop a link like that without warning how deep the rabbit hole goes.

You posted this 5 hours ago. It's 2am here and I'm still reading from just a few minutes after you posted. This is a horrifying train wreck of a story, I can't look away. It's unbelievable these things went on for so long!

Re: How do the pros get someone to leave a cult?

#106

Post by ffsm8 »

dylan604 wrote: post #83
ffsm8 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's roughly one per 20 minutes? I think that's doable, it likely wasnt a traditional enema, they most likely just had to put some fluid in which consequently got absorbed by their column. Like 5 ml or so. Definitely mind boggling people are willing to do such, but it's within my expectations for people that fall to such obvious scams/cults.

>That's roughly one per 20 minutes? >I think that's doable, I'm thinking of this for someone working in an office situation. Depending on how long it takes to perform the enema, this is about the same schedule as smokers. So maybe it's not so far off?? Then again, I'm guessing you divided that by 24 hours rather than a work day. Once per 20 minutes would me no sleep which would have worse health effects

No, I dividend between 16 waking hours - it's a pretty easy calculation: 16x3=48, which is within the range of 40-60.

If the person did it every 15 minutes it'd be 64 times during waking hours, but I felt that "roughly 20 minutes" suffices for a time range of 16-20 minutes •́ ‿ , •̀

Re: How do the pros get someone to leave a cult?

#107

Post by TiredOfLife »

chinathrow wrote: post #79
rboyd wrote: post #67

wait a minute here.. HN: - asks you to self-assign a new name upon joining - has a leader - has a hierarchy (rating system) - esteemed texts which promise by adopting a strange method (Lisp) that you can achieve higher levels of wealth and self actualization should I be worried?

> should I be worried? No, you can (ok, I admit: try) to leave any time. /etc/hosts 127.0.0.1 news.ycombinator.com

Good old "how to stop smoking?" "just stop smoking"

Re: How do the pros get someone to leave a cult?

#108

Post by komali2 »

delichon wrote: post #51

cult (noun): A religion or religious sect generally considered to be extremist or false, with its followers often living in an unconventional manner under the guidance of an authoritarian, charismatic leader -- American Heritage Dictionary Without the "generally considered to be extremist or false" it would be quite hard to even identify a cult. It's mostly used as way to slur a disfavored group. It's an element of a…

I think most definitions of cults are too brief. To truly be a cult I reflect on the cults I've read about.

For example, cults have a tendency to make members feel safer as members of the cult, which can be done by making "outsiders" seem hostile and "insiders" seem safe: see for example Mormons and Jehovah's witnesses sending people out to bother people door to door, which results in them getting yelled at by non Mormons.

Cults often require one's entire social circle to be cult members. This comes with the threat of total social isolation from friends and loved ones if you fall out of the cult and are made incommunicado. Thus while I like to cheekily refer to religions as cults, most major religions these days don't fall into this category in this highly diversified world.

Re: How do the pros get someone to leave a cult?

#109

Post by 1vuio0pswjnm7 »

chinathrow wrote: post #79
rboyd wrote: post #67

wait a minute here.. HN: - asks you to self-assign a new name upon joining - has a leader - has a hierarchy (rating system) - esteemed texts which promise by adopting a strange method (Lisp) that you can achieve higher levels of wealth and self actualization should I be worried?

> should I be worried? No, you can (ok, I admit: try) to leave any time. /etc/hosts 127.0.0.1 news.ycombinator.com

What if there's a forward proxy listening on 127.0.0.1

I don't run mine on 127.0.0.1 but that address is a very popular default

Re: How do the pros get someone to leave a cult?

#110

Post by lazyeye »

lawn wrote: post #44
gwbas1c wrote: post #39

For those who are interested: I recently read the book "Combatting Cult Mind Control" by Steven Hassan, a professional who also helps people leave cults. His approach isn't as much of a "long game" as Ryan and Kelly's approach. One thing that Hassan explains is that MLMs are often very similar to cults, and he also explains the difference between cults and religion. Another book to read is The Running Grave by Robert…

Steven Hassan also wrote "The Cult of Trump: A Leading Cult Expert Explains How the President Uses Mind Control", which is very relevant today.

Either that or you lack the life experience, maturity and wisdom to accept that people can disagree with you without there being a conspiracy involved.
Post reply on HN