I want someone to save me from the people who want to save me from myself.
The Man Who Saves You from Yourself (2013)
111–120 of 143 posts
Re: The Man Who Saves You from Yourself (2013)
#112Just a question for those of you here who've been around the block a few times; have you ever run across a company that acted like a cult? That espoused a messianic vision? That fostered an aura of infallibility around its leaders?
Just kidding. Apple, Google, Oracle and other tech companies are nothing like a cult. Not at all. In no way. It was rude of me to even suggest that might be a shadow of a possibility.
Re: The Man Who Saves You from Yourself (2013)
#113So here is a question : What is the difference between a cult and an established religion ? Is it the size of the following ? Is it the time of origin, i.e. recent vs long ago ? Is it the number of followers ? Or is it some combination of the above, or something else altogether ?
A cult is usually about a single charismatic leader. Religions don't really have this - Catholicism has the pope, I guess, but he's not the glory boy of the religion.
Re: The Man Who Saves You from Yourself (2013)
#114Earlier quoted context omitted.
Worth remembering though that there are many cultish aspects to the mainstream, e.g. political movements fight tooth and nail to influence what young children are taught at school.
> there are many cultish aspects to the mainstream Quite literally, given how many aspects of 'cults' went mainstream. Environmentalism, meditation...
...anti-intellectualism, NASCAR...
Re: The Man Who Saves You from Yourself (2013)
#115This ends at a climatic moment prompting you to spend 40$ to continue reading. Fuck everything about this dishonest baiting. It's a shame because I enjoyed reading this up to that point. Don't waste your time with this cliffhanger.
I was invited to support the publication, or click a button to continue reading. Clicking 'continue reading' revealed the rest of the article with no further prompts.
Oops! The texts were overlaid on top of each other for me and hard to decipher. I assumed the worst while I should have had trust. Thanks for the correction!
Re: The Man Who Saves You from Yourself (2013)
#116This is a very sensationalized article. It seems to be based almost entirely on Singer's acolytes, people with severe conflicts of interest, and long-outdated information, and doesn't reflect the current understanding of 'cults'. Some starting points. On the value of the opinion of "the doyenne of cult scholarship", an issue that the OP seems to never mention despite constant invocations and quotes of Singer https://…
Great lesswrong link.
It seems to indicate that people doing things in cults is a bit like spam, huge dropout rate but the people you wind up with will do lots of silly things.
The purpose of the initiation and nonsense is almost to weed out people who are not extremely controllable.
So it's not really brainwashing as much as gullible finding.
Re: The Man Who Saves You from Yourself (2013)
#117Re: The Man Who Saves You from Yourself (2013)
#118Re: The Man Who Saves You from Yourself (2013)
#119Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
> it does not take into account that there have been few incentives to remain a Cristian and people have, despite not being "pressed". Yeah, cult followers, once brainwashed are typically very resistant. Besides social pressure to be Christian is often massive , especially the USA. > Unless you think millions of people can be brainwashed by priests and pastors. You seriously believe they can't? Hey, wanna buy a bridg…
> it was born despite religion
I was born out of metaphysics, which, at that time, was primarily a spiritual and esoteric religious pursuit.
I think you mean "it was born despite exoteric religion".
Re: The Man Who Saves You from Yourself (2013)
#120Earlier quoted context omitted.
... The Iraq war ...
... Anything social group that you don't agree with ...
... and which offers illusory salvation (a safer, democratic Iraq, reduced terrorist threat) from spurious ills (WMD, Al Qaeda support by Saddam) delivered by a charismatic leader with access to a divine hotline (Blair, too!) and engages you by blatant falsehood, psychological manipulation and peer pressure ...