Consider the case of Edgar Welch, father of two[1]. On one fateful day in 2016, Edgar drove to Washington DC to save children who were being exploited at the Comet Ping Pong pizzeria. Who wouldn't try to save innocent children from an abusive situation when authorities refuse to act? Anyone who is a parent with a sense of duty, that is who. And yet for Edgar, his actions which made perfect sense, given what he believed to be true, turned out to be not only unwarranted but dangerous to patrons at the restaurant.

The only difference about Edgar, who up until then was just an average community member in an average community, was that he believed something that wasn't actually true. Even Edgar realized that his beliefs were misplaced, once it was clear there was no way the restaurant could have been participating in the activity he believed was going on there.

Your comment talks about groups, but I was talking about individuals. And the original comment was how could individuals at Jonestown kill their own children?

My assertion, and Edgar is but one example, all of Jim Jones' congregation is another, is that if you can make an individual believe something, you can cause them to act against their own self interest, even to the point of murder. This is true even when that person is otherwise free of mental illness or emotional disorders.

I don't see the over simplification aspect. Manipulating people through there beliefs is something hypnotists do every day, whether it is to quit smoking or to cluck like a chicken at a Las Vegas show it is a well understood part of human nature.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/05/business/media/comet-ping...

Because it’s really not about people it’s about aspects of people.

Let’s say Sam is a Packers fan. Now Bob is a member of the Packers football team so on Sunday their part of the same in group.

But, on Election Day Sam is a Dem and Bob a Republican so the must fight.

But their both Americans who are part of the army reserve, so they are brothers in arms willing to risk their lives for each other.

But, they are part of different faiths, and ...

So, this vilification is about context. The football team you need to beat today, may need to beat some other team next week to get you into the playoffs etc etc.

In your example with Sam and Bob, I see two people who are in different groups and can have identical (or highly coherent) belief systems.

If you want to split Sam and Bob up so that they won't be friends any more and they will hate each other, you do that by twisting their beliefs.

First one might suggest that members of Sam's faith, while in the military, were kept from the riskest parts of combat because the military. Then you convince Bob that anyone who plays football is just asking for CTE and that any friend you have is going to turn into a raging monster one of these days, and then you convince Sam, that Bob and others in his religous sect are perverting American politics to keep people like Sam from achieving similar level of success. And you convince Bob that it is Sam "and people like him" who are responsible for the cost of getting a new car or the reason jobs have left the area.

The next thing you know, Sam and Bob hate each other.

My point is that this can be done by carefully setting up what Sam and Bob believe, regardless of what groups they belong to. There are examples all around us today of families that have gone from groups of like minded people to separate camps, lifelong friends that one can no longer talk to.

This is Propaganda, this is Brain Washing, this is the corruption of a group through alternative belief systems.

And its the topic at hand, "Surviving Jonestown".