If you stand apart you will be preyed upon by those that do not.
We are not designed or evolved or whatever to prowl alone, because it will always be in our nature to come together and some will exploit this. And so while you stand alone they will bring all their machinations to consume your very being.
Would you really be that strong to stand alone against all those that would look to exploit you.
Re:You're in a Cult
by somenameforme on Monday November 21, 2022 @04:21AM
(#33690559)
I think this is something else because reality tends to be the exact opposite. Instead it's small groups of well organized radicals using their organization to impact everybody else disproportionately. To stick with safe examples, look at the KKK. A quick search indicates they hit their peak popularity in the 1920s with some 4 million claimed members, which would be ~3% of society. But of course they had an outsized impact on America. So you end up with a scenario where 3% of people were dominating the zeitgeist of 97% through intimidation.
And there's no particularly clear way to combat this. The internet has only made this worse. Now ever smaller groups can coordinate extremely effectively and instantaneously, while also simultaneously working to create the perception of far greater numbers than actually possessed.
This line stood out to me and seems very apt in these days. For ex, how it's now normal to go after people's jobs directly via social media pressure tactics or business's revenue (and subsequently their employees jobs) via Visa/mastercard/paypal/ad buyers/etc, merely for stepping out of line from mainstream opinions... as Wikileaks and many others experienced.
Making society more resilient to cult-like behaviour is always a good thing. Even when these tactics might benefit your pet beliefs, it's rarely worth the trade-offs and usually backfires.
When the system you promote exclusively benefits a particular ideology or exclusive set of organizations that's usually a good indicator it's cultish.