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Are any other online publishers doing that? It's not even that I'm going to print it out or anything, but clearly it shows that their priority is readership, not ad conversions.
> Her expert testimony was no longer accepted after the report of the APA taskforce on Deceptive and Indirect Methods of Persuasion and Control, of which she was chair, was rejected by the Board of Social and Ethical Responsibility for Psychology (BSERP) of the American Psychological Association. Thereafter, courts shifted to accepting the position held by the great majority of scholars studying new religious movements, moving away from the perspective of Singer and others sympathetic to her brainwashing thesis.[11] This had significant consequences later on, since it meant that brainwashing could no longer be used a defence for the practice of deprogramming.[11]
(Singer, incidentally, made a lot of money from being an expert witness peddling her debunked theories.)
Some relevant excerpts of less credulous research: http://lesswrong.com/lw/imu/notes_on_brainwashing_cults/
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I would never grant such lever of trust to anyone. Hell i don't trust myself so there's no way in hell I'll grant someone else that level of trust.
Doesn't matter; there are well known and effective ways of hacking the trust channels as well.
It doesn't take long to make people see that we trust people to help us all the time, often with big, important things, often without thinking about it. Once someone is open to the idea of help in general, it's not a huge leap to show them that the organization is there to help them, and that it's okay to accept the help. Challenging someone's views on control is sometimes required as well, done in a similar manner.
A follow-up tactic is to find someone's "ruin". Everyone's got something they will trigger on. Health, depression, family, money, career, whatever. It's usually very easy to get people to volunteer this, sometimes you can just do a cold read of someone and know right away without even talking about it, it's the same thing a fortune teller does. So, you offer to help them with their ruin.
There's nothing magical about it, and it works on everyone if skillfully applied, even if they have their guard up in advance and have heard all kinds of awful things about you. You aren't forcing people to do anything, you're not being dishonest or tricking them. Everything is above-board. The hard sell comes later, when a deeper level trust has been established over time.
I'm unaware of Marshall Applewhite having a terminal illness when he convinced 38 of his followers to commit suicide.
He feared he might have cancer but an autopsy revealed he didn't have it, and I'm unaware of any evidence that says that was a motivating factor in the suicides.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_Applewhite
Medical examiners determined that his fears of cancer had been unfounded, but that he suffered from coronary atherosclerosis.
Most people his age (65) suffer from coronary atherosclerosis and it's not considered a "terminal illness" like pancreatic cancer would be.
http://www.webmd.com/heart-disease/atherosclerosis-and-coron...
After age 40, about 50% of men and one-third of women can expect to eventually have coronary artery disease.
I remember this article when if first came out. Of all the weirdness outlined, one item, which wasn't even part of the main story and added as a bit of color detail, stated: "Sullivan first worked with Singer in the early Nineties. One case involved a woman posing as a psychologist, who had persuaded several of her male clients to undergo sex-reassignment surgery. (The men later alleged that they had been brainwashed…
"Get it wrong, and we call it a cult. Get it right, in the right time and the right place, and maybe, for the next few millennia, people won't have to go to work on your birthday." - Dr. Robert Sapolsky http://youtu.be/4WwAQqWUkpI
Yeah, that is a very resounding quote but it does not take into account that there have been few incentives to remain a Cristian and people have, despite not being "pressed". Unless you think millions of people can be brainwashed by priests and pastors. And it is remarkable how "Science" was born in those countries where they do not work on that date.
I remember this article when if first came out. Of all the weirdness outlined, one item, which wasn't even part of the main story and added as a bit of color detail, stated: "Sullivan first worked with Singer in the early Nineties. One case involved a woman posing as a psychologist, who had persuaded several of her male clients to undergo sex-reassignment surgery. (The men later alleged that they had been brainwashed…
I'd be quite skeptical that she was ever able to successfully trick anyone into undergoing SRS. For one thing, it's fairly expensive. Secondly, no reputable surgeon would perform the procedure without verifying that the psychologist who wrote a letter was actually a licensed practitioner. Third, the WPATH Standards of Care specify that SRS should only be performed on patients who have two letters of approval from two…
This is a long article with a lot of items to discuss, but my take is that its "easy" to "brainwash" people because a lot of what's being offered is actually good, but, of course, used cynically and for social control. The Hare Krishna kid didn't know it before, but he now realizes that meditation helps with his social anxiety. Except now, he's in bed with the Krishna's, instead of finding a personal and secular path…
Indeed.
>I don't see too many gen-x'ers and gen-y's dying to get up early to go to church to be sermonized by the ravings of 1st century zealots. I don't see how that's remotely in their interests.
Here you hint at a problem: when you take away religion you leave a vacuum. What fills that vacuum? In our society, today, by default it is filled with "the pursuit of wealth". Gordon Gecko was a fictional villain in 1987 cinema. Jordan Belfort is a real hero in 2013 cinema. People sense the emptiness of greed, and our nascent popular skepticism prevents them from filling the vacuum. Who can read this riddle?
Clearly, we need something to fill the vacuum that religion leaves that is also compatible with our skepticism. What replaces it is not necessarily a religion, but it serves the same purpose: morality and self-restraint. Secular humanism is clearly not enough.
This is a long article with a lot of items to discuss, but my take is that its "easy" to "brainwash" people because a lot of what's being offered is actually good, but, of course, used cynically and for social control. The Hare Krishna kid didn't know it before, but he now realizes that meditation helps with his social anxiety. Except now, he's in bed with the Krishna's, instead of finding a personal and secular path…
>a lot of what's being offered is actually good...meditation...society Indeed. >I don't see too many gen-x'ers and gen-y's dying to get up early to go to church to be sermonized by the ravings of 1st century zealots. I don't see how that's remotely in their interests. Here you hint at a problem: when you take away religion you leave a vacuum. What fills that vacuum? In our society, today, by default it is filled with…
... and hope.
Note the lack of hope among so many skeptics. Start talking to them about the future and you quickly discover that not only is life meaningless and success essentially random, but human civilization is doomed to extinction due to ecological overshoot soon so who cares...
This lack of hope can be a self-fulfilling prophecy. It causes people to disengage and stop investing in the future.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'd be quite skeptical that she was ever able to successfully trick anyone into undergoing SRS. For one thing, it's fairly expensive. Secondly, no reputable surgeon would perform the procedure without verifying that the psychologist who wrote a letter was actually a licensed practitioner. Third, the WPATH Standards of Care specify that SRS should only be performed on patients who have two letters of approval from two…
I'd want some verification before taking that tidbit as fact, for sure. The way it's written, it sounds like an urban legend.