Qanon, conspiracy theories, and the Fairness Doctrine

[Z Buck McFate]

I don't *think* I've seen a separate thread specifically for this topic. (I recently picked up a copy of The Cult Of Trump by Steven Hassan - an expert on cults and how to deprogram cult members - and I'll probably post about it here as I read it). And I added Fairness Doctrine to the title because there's definitely room for discussion about whether/how influential people (and the platforms that give them oxygen) should have to take accountability.

I found an interesting Reddit AMA by someone who believed in Qanon and then stopped believing. I'm an ex Q, AMA. Something that really stuck out to me is: “Conspiracy theory thinking hooks the brain because it feels like critical thinking.”

Something I've noticed about the people who do seem to believe is that they seem to genuinely believe they are the only ones 'thinking for themselves' - and the more they have faith in it, the more they project their own 'sheeple' tendencies on those who don't similarly believe. The more blind people are of their own tendencies - specifically, they 'see' tendencies in other people using Theory of Mind, oblivious of the extent to which their "insight" is born from experiencing the motivation themselves - the more they will project those tendencies on to others. IOW: the less someone is actually able to think for him/herself *and* the less they are capable of owning that as their own tendency, the more it will appear (to them) as "insight" into others, to make sense of their world. It's a directly proportional relationship, and it can be maddening to interact with because they don't hear much of anything. People who drop "orange man bad" or "TDS" at the drop of a hat to (in their mind) effectively 'discredit' *any* criticism of Trump are doing it; the faster they are to rely on the 'magical insight' of TDS/OMB to ignore criticism, wholly confident that the criticism is merely a product of confirmation bias and group thinking (etc) and the less they are able to consider there might be a good point they're missing, the more their own beliefs are the product of confirmation bias and group thinking (without them being able to see it). (And possibly the most grating part is that they seem to believe they're engaging in an exchange of ideas, when really they're using interaction with you to swat at their own phantoms - by constantly pointing out how YOU are supposedly swatting at your own phantoms - but anyway).

I'm not finished reading this Reddit thread yet (navigating Reddit threads is exhausting to me, I rarely have patience for reading huge swaths all at once), but something else I found interesting was the mention of "demonizing doubt." Doubt is healthy (and necessary for critical reflection), but it's often demonized in religion, and it was brought up to explain why those with a super dogmatic religious background are especially susceptible to conspiracy theories.

 

[Kingu Kurimuzon]

I think the core issue or problem with people prone to getting hooked on conspiracy theories is too much observation and not enough processing of all that various data they observe. Everything is a vast, interconnected web to them, but they don't take the time to verify or test the validity of all those supposed connections, because they're so set on wanting to believe it's all a confirmation of their sense that something isn't right. Often, I think that conspiracy theorists aren't wrong in their sense that something is "rotten in Denmark", but they simply fail to properly scrutinize the data and test the connections, so the conclusions they come to tend to be way off of the reality.

I also have noticed that as much as they pride themselves on being so-called critical thinkers, they are often quick to accept certain sources or assertions in faith, without actually giving them a good deal of analysis and critique to see if those assertions or conclusions actually hold up.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

I think the core issue or problem with people prone to getting hooked on conspiracy theories is too much observation and not enough processing of all that various data they observe. Everything is a vast, interconnected web to them, but they don't take the time to verify or test the validity of all those supposed connections, because they're so set on wanting to believe it's all a confirmation of their sense that something isn't right. Often, I think that conspiracy theorists aren't wrong in their sense that something is "rotten in Denmark", but they simply fail to properly scrutinize the data and test the connections, so the conclusions they come to tend to be way off of the reality.

I also have noticed that as much as they pride themselves on being so-called critical thinkers, they are often quick to accept certain sources or assertions in faith, without actually giving them a good deal of analysis and critique to see if those assertions or conclusions actually hold up.

The most annoying thing about conspiracy theorists is that they call everyone else a sheeple while acting exactly like a sheeple. They're usually engaging in the conspiracy theories to protect some particular belief, like for instance, the idea that most Americans actually like Donald Trump. (hence why it was a LANDSLIDE but it was STOLEN from him)... perhaps with 9/11 truthers (keep in mind that I've met A LOT that were liberal), it was something about American invulnerability or maybe the fact that foreigners might actually do something bad, or maybe to explain the war in Iraq (which doesn't explain why they had all of the hijackers be from other countries, but these things don't actually have to be coherent).

I wonder if enneagram sixes are more likely to be into this as a consequence; of course I also think there as a certain amount of intellectual laziness in addition to the desire to protect certain beliefs and smooth out cognitive dissonance.

 

[Lark]

I don't *think* I've seen a separate thread specifically for this topic. (I recently picked up a copy of The Cult Of Trump by Steven Hassan - an expert on cults and how to deprogram cult members - and I'll probably post about it here as I read it). And I added Fairness Doctrine to the title because there's definitely room for discussion about whether/how influential people (and the platforms that give them oxygen) should have to take accountability.

I found an interesting Reddit AMA by someone who believed in Qanon and then stopped believing. I'm an ex Q, AMA. Something that really stuck out to me is: “Conspiracy theory thinking hooks the brain because it feels like critical thinking.”

Something I've noticed about the people who do seem to believe is that they seem to genuinely believe they are the only ones 'thinking for themselves' - and the more they have faith in it, the more they project their own 'sheeple' tendencies on those who don't similarly believe. The more blind people are of their own tendencies - specifically, they 'see' tendencies in other people using Theory of Mind, oblivious of the extent to which their "insight" is born from experiencing the motivation themselves - the more they will project those tendencies on to others. IOW: the less someone is actually able to think for him/herself *and* the less they are capable of owning that as their own tendency, the more it will appear (to them) as "insight" into others, to make sense of their world. It's a directly proportional relationship, and it can be maddening to interact with because they don't hear much of anything. People who drop "orange man bad" or "TDS" at the drop of a hat to (in their mind) effectively 'discredit' *any* criticism of Trump are doing it; the faster they are to rely on the 'magical insight' of TDS/OMB to ignore criticism, wholly confident that the criticism is merely a product of confirmation bias and group thinking (etc) and the less they are able to consider there might be a good point they're missing, the more their own beliefs are the product of confirmation bias and group thinking (without them being able to see it). (And possibly the most grating part is that they seem to believe they're engaging in an exchange of ideas, when really they're using interaction with you to swat at their own phantoms - by constantly pointing out how YOU are supposedly swatting at your own phantoms - but anyway).

I'm not finished reading this Reddit thread yet (navigating Reddit threads is exhausting to me, I rarely have patience for reading huge swaths all at once), but something else I found interesting was the mention of "demonizing doubt." Doubt is healthy (and necessary for critical reflection), but it's often demonized in religion, and it was brought up to explain why those with a super dogmatic religious background are especially susceptible to conspiracy theories.

To be honest, I think this is all the bastard child of evangelism. I really do.

 

[Kingu Kurimuzon]

To be honest, I think this is all the bastard child of evangelism. I really do.

I think evangelism certainly made a lot of ripe ground to allow these conspiracy theories to fertilize. Sometimes I wonder though if some people are just more genetically predisposed to accepting things in faith. A faith gene.

 

[Z Buck McFate]

I think the core issue or problem with people prone to getting hooked on conspiracy theories is too much observation and not enough processing of all that various data they observe. Everything is a vast, interconnected web to them, but they don't take the time to verify or test the validity of all those supposed connections, because they're so set on wanting to believe it's all a confirmation of their sense that something isn't right. Often, I think that conspiracy theorists aren't wrong in their sense that something is "rotten in Denmark", but they simply fail to properly scrutinize the data and test the connections, so the conclusions they come to tend to be way off of the reality.

I also have noticed that as much as they pride themselves on being so-called critical thinkers, they are often quick to accept certain sources or assertions in faith, without actually giving them a good deal of analysis and critique to see if those assertions or conclusions actually hold up.

This is kinda what I was getting at. They don't know how to critically evaluate or test the validity - and they operate from a point of view that believes no one else does either, they can't recognize others putting actual critical evaluation into dialogue because "actual critical evaluation" is a meaningless phrase in their universe that people use to railroad others.

I mean, I really do think there's a direct relationship: people least capable of actual critical evaluation are the ones who are first to accuse others of it (and systematically so) as means to dismiss what the others are saying. I think TDS and "orange man bad" are prime examples - people who use these heuristic devices seem to genuinely believe they've arrived at a conclusion (dismissing criticism of Trump) through critical evaluation, but heuristic devices are short cuts that alleviate the cognitive load/free up mental resources for other things and (in the process) leave us prone to cognitive biases. Those who are the least aware they systematically do this can't give others credit for interrupting these heuristic short-cuts to actually critically evaluate because they aren't aware it's an available alternative.

To be honest, I think this is all the bastard child of evangelism. I really do.

It certainly is a barely recognizable form of Christianity.

 

[Peter Deadpan]

I automatically think that anyone who uses pop terms like "sheeple" and "cheeto" is exhibiting "sheeple" behavior themselves. It's flawlessly ironic.

Weirdly, I think this is more common on the Ti-Fe axis. It's an attempt to flex that Ti independent thinking while remaining Fe relevant.

Stoppit. You look so silly. It's the equivalent of a kindergartener calling someone a poopoo head.

 

[Z Buck McFate]

I've read a few things about the Fairness Doctrine, and I still don't especially see how it prevented the likes of Rush Limbaugh (who rose to fame after the Fairness Doctrine was cancelled). But that may be because, the way things are today, people with completely different takes on reality can show up and present their views and everyone leaves that experience (presenter and audience alike) believing exactly what their respective presenter dictates. Pretty much. It might get slightly updated, but listening to opposing presenters doesn't have any dialogical value. Maybe it's because the two sides have become so absolutely different that it would take an incredibly in-depth comparison/break-down of the realities, which current news sources aren't anywhere near adept at achieving.

Anyway.

WaPo: Everything you need to know about the Fairness Doctrine in one post

On Monday, FCC chairman Julius Genachowski announced the elimination of 83 regulations, including one of the agency’s most famous: the Fairness Doctrine. What is the Fairness Doctrine, and why is it gone?

What it was: The Fairness Doctrine, as initially laid out in the report, ”In the Matter of Editorializing by Broadcast Licensees,” required that TV and radio stations holding FCC-issued broadcast licenses to (a) devote some of their programming to controversial issues of public importance and (b) allow the airing of opposing views on those issues. This meant that programs on politics were required to include opposing opinions on the topic under discussion. Broadcasters had an active duty to determine the spectrum of views on a given issue and include those people best suited to representing those views in their programming.

Additionally, the rule mandated that broadcasters alert anyone subject to a personal attack in their programming and give them a chance to respond, and required any broadcasters who endorse political candidates to invite other candidates to respond. However, the Fairness Doctrine is different from the Equal Time rule, which is still in force and requires equal time be given to legally qualified political candidates.

How it came about: In the Radio Act of 1927, Congress dictated that the FCC (and its predecessor, the Federal Radio Commission) should only issue broadcast licenses when doing so serves the public interest. In 1949, the FCC interpreted this more strictly to mean that licensees should include discussions of matters of public importance in their broadcasts, and that they should do so in a fair manner. It issued “In the Matter of Editorializing by Broadcast Licensees,” which announced the Fairness Doctrine, and began enforcing it.

How it was ended: The Fairness Doctrine sustained a number of challenges over the years. A lawsuit challenging the doctrine on First Amendment grounds, Red Lion Broadcasting Co., Inc. v. Federal Communications Commission , reached the Supreme Court in 1969. The Court ruled unanimously that while broadcasters have First Amendment speech rights, the fact that the spectrum is owned by the government and merely leased to broadcasters gives the FCC the right to regulate news content. However, First Amendment jurisprudence after Red Lion started to allow more speech rights to broadcasters, and put the constitutionality of the Fairness Doctrine in question.

In response, the FCC began to reconsider the rule in the mid-80s, and ultimately revoked it in 1987, after Congress passed a resolution instructing the commission to study the issue. The decision has been credited with the explosion of conservative talk radio in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s. While the FCC has not enforced the rule in nearly a quarter century, it remains technically on the books. As a part of the Obama administration’s broader efforts to overhaul federal regulation, the FCC is finally scrapping the rule once and for all.
​

[MENTION=8936]highlander[/MENTION] posted an interesting similar piece on what the UK currently has in place, I'll try to find it.

We need *something*. Free speech is important, but it seems like there really should be a way to reign in propaganda - like if someone can't prove what they reported is true, there should be clear legal consequences. Right now there aren't any (unless the party slandered wants to sue, but that's not the same thing).

 

[Z Buck McFate]

I automatically think that anyone who uses pop terms like "sheeple" and "cheeto" is exhibiting "sheeple" behavior themselves. It's flawlessly ironic.

Weirdly, I think this is more common on the Ti-Fe axis. It's an attempt to flex that Ti independent thinking while remaining Fe relevant.

Stoppit. You look so silly. It's the equivalent of a kindergartener calling someone a poopoo head.

Totally agree about "sheeple". It smacks of "the lady doth protest too much." But "poo poo head" is pure pejorative gold. That's a hill I will die on.

 

[Z Buck McFate]

 

[Kingu Kurimuzon]

Watched him on jeopardy.

 

[ceecee]

• I think the core issue or problem with people prone to getting hooked on conspiracy theories is too much observation and not enough processing of all that various data they observe. Everything is a vast, interconnected web to them, but they don't take the time to verify or test the validity of all those supposed connections, because they're so set on wanting to believe it's all a confirmation of their sense that something isn't right. Often, I think that conspiracy theorists aren't wrong in their sense that something is "rotten in Denmark", but they simply fail to properly scrutinize the data and test the connections, so the conclusions they come to tend to be way off of the reality. I also have noticed that as much as they pride themselves on being so-called critical thinkers, they are often quick to accept certain sources or assertions in faith, without actually giving them a good deal of analysis and critique to see if those assertions or conclusions actually hold up.

  I think, especially in the beginning, QAnon was like the Blues Clues of conspiracy theories. The believers could participate. That generated incidents, such as Comet Pizza - I'm here to find the child trafficking, blood drinking Democrats!!

 

[Red Herring]

On Holocaust Rememberance Day, a short reminder that QAnon is little more than a modern rehash of the century old blood libel myth.

 

[Z Buck McFate]

Watched him on jeopardy.

I think he's kind of a mixed bag. I've not read his book The Death of Expertise, but I agree with everything I've otherwise heard him say about it. And I do think he makes good points here and there. But the rest of his comments evoke "Okay, boomer" judgement in me. (Same goes for David Brooks).

 

[Z Buck McFate]

An interesting piece (if especially for it being so out of character) for Scientific American: The ‘Shared Psychosis’ of Donald Trump and His Loyalists

What attracts people to Trump? What is their animus or driving force?

The reasons are multiple and varied, but in my recent public-service book, Profile of a Nation, I have outlined two major emotional drives: narcissistic symbiosis and shared psychosis. Narcissistic symbiosis refers to the developmental wounds that make the leader-follower relationship magnetically attractive. The leader, hungry for adulation to compensate for an inner lack of self-worth, projects grandiose omnipotence—while the followers, rendered needy by societal stress or developmental injury, yearn for a parental figure. When such wounded individuals are given positions of power, they arouse similar pathology in the population that creates a “lock and key” relationship.

“Shared psychosis”—which is also called “folie à millions” [“madness for millions”] when occurring at the national level or “induced delusions”—refers to the infectiousness of severe symptoms that goes beyond ordinary group psychology. When a highly symptomatic individual is placed in an influential position, the person’s symptoms can spread through the population through emotional bonds, heightening existing pathologies and inducing delusions, paranoia and propensity for violence—even in previously healthy individuals. The treatment is removal of exposure.

[...]

Where does the hatred some of his supporters display come from? And what can we do to promote healing?

In Profile of a Nation, I outline the many causes that create his followership. But there is important psychological injury that arises from relative—not absolute—socioeconomic deprivation. Yes, there is great injury, anger and redirectable energy for hatred, which Trump harnessed and stoked for his manipulation and use. The emotional bonds he has created facilitate shared psychosis at a massive scale. It is a natural consequence of the conditions we have set up. For healing, I usually recommend three steps: (1) Removal of the offending agent (the influential person with severe symptoms). (2) Dismantling systems of thought control—common in advertising but now also heavily adopted by politics. And (3) fixing the socioeconomic conditions that give rise to poor collective mental health in the first place.

[...]

What do you think will happen to his supporters?

If we handle the situation appropriately, there will be a lot of disillusionment and trauma. And this is all right—they are healthy reactions to an abnormal situation. We must provide emotional support for healing, and this includes societal support, such as sources of belonging and dignity. Cult members and victims of abuse are often emotionally bonded to the relationship, unable to see the harm that is being done to them. After a while, the magnitude of the deception conspires with their own psychological protections against pain and disappointment. This causes them to avoid seeing the truth. And the situation with Trump supporters is very similar. The danger is that another pathological figure will come around and entice them with a false “solution” that is really a harnessing of this resistance.

Do you have any advice for people who do not support Trump but have supporters of him or “mini-Trumps” in their lives?

This is often very difficult because the relationship between Trump and his supporters is an abusive one, as an author of the 2017 book I edited, The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump, presciently pointed out. When the mind is hijacked for the benefit of the abuser, it becomes no longer a matter of presenting facts or appealing to logic. Removing Trump from power and influence will be healing in itself. But, I advise, first, not to confront [his supporters’] beliefs, for it will only rouse resistance. Second, persuasion should not be the goal but change of the circumstance that led to their faulty beliefs. Third, one should maintain one’s own bearing and mental health, because people who harbor delusional narratives tend to bulldoze over reality in their attempt to deny that their own narrative is false.
​

 

[Vendrah]

I don't *think* I've seen a separate thread specifically for this topic. (I recently picked up a copy of The Cult Of Trump by Steven Hassan - an expert on cults and how to deprogram cult members - and I'll probably post about it here as I read it). And I added Fairness Doctrine to the title because there's definitely room for discussion about whether/how influential people (and the platforms that give them oxygen) should have to take accountability.

I found an interesting Reddit AMA by someone who believed in Qanon and then stopped believing. I'm an ex Q, AMA. Something that really stuck out to me is: “Conspiracy theory thinking hooks the brain because it feels like critical thinking.”

Something I've noticed about the people who do seem to believe is that they seem to genuinely believe they are the only ones 'thinking for themselves' - and the more they have faith in it, the more they project their own 'sheeple' tendencies on those who don't similarly believe. The more blind people are of their own tendencies - specifically, they 'see' tendencies in other people using Theory of Mind, oblivious of the extent to which their "insight" is born from experiencing the motivation themselves - the more they will project those tendencies on to others. IOW: the less someone is actually able to think for him/herself *and* the less they are capable of owning that as their own tendency, the more it will appear (to them) as "insight" into others, to make sense of their world. It's a directly proportional relationship, and it can be maddening to interact with because they don't hear much of anything. People who drop "orange man bad" or "TDS" at the drop of a hat to (in their mind) effectively 'discredit' *any* criticism of Trump are doing it; the faster they are to rely on the 'magical insight' of TDS/OMB to ignore criticism, wholly confident that the criticism is merely a product of confirmation bias and group thinking (etc) and the less they are able to consider there might be a good point they're missing, the more their own beliefs are the product of confirmation bias and group thinking (without them being able to see it). (And possibly the most grating part is that they seem to believe they're engaging in an exchange of ideas, when really they're using interaction with you to swat at their own phantoms - by constantly pointing out how YOU are supposedly swatting at your own phantoms - but anyway).

I'm not finished reading this Reddit thread yet (navigating Reddit threads is exhausting to me, I rarely have patience for reading huge swaths all at once), but something else I found interesting was the mention of "demonizing doubt." Doubt is healthy (and necessary for critical reflection), but it's often demonized in religion, and it was brought up to explain why those with a super dogmatic religious background are especially susceptible to conspiracy theories.

About the typology of this thing on the Jung side... This pattern of behaviour should be secular, if not millenniar.
Jung had a say about this (replace "the formula" with dogma):

in practice, the formula obtains so great an ascendancy that, beside it, every other standpoint and possibility recedes into the background. It replaces all the more general, less defined, hence the more modest and truthful, views of life. It even takes the place of that general view of life which we call religion. Thus the formula becomes a religion, although in essentials it has not the smallest connection with anything religious. Therewith it also gains the essentially religious character of absoluteness. It becomes, as it were, an intellectual superstition. But now all those psychological tendencies that suffer under its repression become grouped together in the unconscious, and form a counter-position, giving rise to paroxysms of doubt. As a defence against doubt, the conscious attitude grows fanatical. For fanaticism, after all, is merely overcompensated doubt. Ultimately this development leads to an exaggerated defence of the conscious position, and to the gradual formation of an absolutely antithetic unconscious position; for example, an extreme irrationality develops, in opposition to the conscious rationalism, or it becomes highly archaic and superstitious, in opposition to a conscious standpoint imbued with modern science. This fatal opposition is the source of those narrow-minded and ridiculous views, familiar to the historians of science, into which many praiseworthy pioneers have ultimately blundered.

Which might surprise some of you is that this is still on the types books and it is on the Te description, even though most people out there seems to attribute conspiracy with Ne (while Ne is sort of the opposite of it, actually). However I do believe that goes way beyond Te-doms and seems to affect any type.

What Jung says is that this high fanatic dogmatism generates an overcompensated doubt - he explains it like the overcompensated doubt comes from unconscious even though it is very visible. I can frame it in another way - the highly rigid dogmatism, with such rigidity, might never really survive in the real world, so it needs an overcompensated doubt - so the tactic becomes, like, "what is in the formula is to be followed with full faith and zero doubts" AND "what is outside the formula is to be put in doubt with as much as doubt as possible", so, inside the intellectual formula, the person becomes completely dogmatic: Zero doubts. Who speaks inside the formula speaks the truth, always. Who speaks outside the formula, instead, are always doubted, they are likely to be dead wrong, they are meant to be doubt. Those who speaks against the formula, are always lying. This is how overcompensated doubts works, so the person might show up with a skeptical presentation - suddenly, a critic.

So, basically, people have a dogma that tells them what is the truth and what is not, and although Jung did lacks it looks like that there are some few leaders who can actually control what their followers take as true and as false by simply controlling the dogma (or maybe almost becoming the dogma themselves); Everything outside the dogma, which are many things, they have a critical attitude that is a fake critical attitude.

I had created this long thread 2 months ago and actually almost everything on this post is a part of it, explaining properly how Te can get heavy into conspiracies:

Overcompensated doubt: Jung and conspiracies & dogmatism

Its a shame that Jung never ever draws a solution to this problem. Once the people pick their dogma, taking them out of it is quite hard. I have parents with this, and Jung did help me understand them a bit, but it did not help pointing a way to take them out of this.

PS: A truly criticism would be more look like skepticism. Real doubt, rather than overcompensated doubt, does not contains high certainties, so in a simple example of a flat earther, when the flat earther says "The earth is flat" and starts to have critics about Nasa, other observations, etc... That is overcompensated doubt, while real doubt is something like "Nasa could be lying, and there is some chance that earth is flat; Earth is likely round/flat", an affirmation without certainty. So, in the elections case, overcompensated doubt is "I am a critical of the votings, look, I highly doubt the system and all that stuff" (...) "the election was definitely rigged, Trump did had it", something like that but with less clarity, while real doubt is something like "there might be fraud on the election system and on the voting; Miscounts could change the outcome of the election and there is some chances that Trump could had won". And yeah, just replacing the mainstream media with Qanon or whatsapp circles does only change where the dogmatism comes from.

PS2: People from the community of typology has the cognitive function stack formula, some won't drop it regardless of the arguments I or Reckful or somebody else gives, so it is not as if this place is immune to this. But most of you had stop showing up outside this section for quite some time now...

 

[Aquarelle]

I'm pretty sure one of my cousins is into the QAnon stuff. it breaks my heart that she's allowed herself to be taken in by that lunacy. But it's not exactly unexpected; that side of the family is VERY religious (women don't cut their hair, wear pants, etc), and the blind faith without critical thinking that is part and parcel with that kind of religion clearly makes one susceptible to believing all sorts of things.

 

[FemMecha]

• I think, especially in the beginning, QAnon was like the Blues Clues of conspiracy theories. The believers could participate. That generated incidents, such as Comet Pizza - I'm here to find the child trafficking, blood drinking Democrats!!

This is classic and spot on.

 

[Z Buck McFate]

Just finished watching the Heaven's Gate documentary on HBO, and it's pretty wrenching. (The cult whose members almost all died by mass suicide). One woman lost both of her parents to it. They left her with grandparents when she was a teenager (I think? I watched the first several episodes over a week ago, but I think that's what happened) to pursue the cult. Her mother died in the original mass suicide (with 38 other members), and then her dad died by suicide a few years later still entirely believing in the cult and believing he'd join her/them. There were at least three cult members who died by suicide after the first group 'left', believing they'd join up with their "classmates".

Janja Lalich (has studied/written about cults for 30 years) : "There are two lessons of the Heaven's Gate story. One is to not be so judgmental. It's easy to think 'those are crazy people, I'd never do that' - ehhh, not so fast. But I suppose the more important lesson is to be careful. We tend to look for these easy answers, and I think it's important to remember that nobody has all the answers. And once you turn that over to someone, you put yourself at great risk."

I also watched The Vow (about NXIVM), last month - that and Scientology are just a bit easier to understand, how people get trapped, because (1) leaving means you get completely cut off from everyone you've formed an emotional attachment to (and there are exercises they do to cultivate super strong emotional attachments, and it's absolutely forbidden to communicate with people who have left), and (2) they cultivate 'dirt' as leverage (they know all about your skeletons - in NXIVM they actually *make* you create skeletons for them to hold over you - and they threaten to make those public if you leave, so that you'll be rejected by anyone outside the cult too). But with Heaven's Gate, they were allowed to come and go of their own free will, visit with family, etc - there were no skeletons being held as leverage- and they'd still end up going back. All it takes is a confident, charismatic megalomaniac whose ego needs to dictate a reality to a willing audience. (Where there's extortion/blackmail, at least there's a fragment of one's conscious mind at odds with staying, surely).

It brings to mind a pretty good book I read a few years ago: If You Meet the Buddha On the Road, Kill Him! Or the Lojong Slogan: Of the two witnesses, hold the principal one. I wonder if it's even possible to teach this kind of resilience in school. (If especially because a great many parents would probably be opposed to it - not from clearly bad intentions, but just from feeling some kind of entitlement to dictate a specific reality to their children and not wanting some outside source teaching their child to question it). I recently read some blog post (not in this forum) about how the entire U.S. public school system has been inculcating children into 'radical left agendas' - but the whole lengthy post was basically about how mixing one's kids with public school kids makes it hard to indoctrinate your own very specific set of beliefs into them. (If I can find it, I'll link it here).

 

[Z Buck McFate]

I'm pretty sure one of my cousins is into the QAnon stuff. it breaks my heart that she's allowed herself to be taken in by that lunacy. But it's not exactly unexpected; that side of the family is VERY religious (women don't cut their hair, wear pants, etc), and the blind faith without critical thinking that is part and parcel with that kind of religion clearly makes one susceptible to believing all sorts of things.

A guy I worked with for several years seemed pretty deep in it too, and it is heart-breaking. He's a really good guy (and super, super religious) who has become somewhat hostile and angry. Just suddenly last year, he was all about "WAKE UP!!" posts with YouTube videos, freaking out when they were pulled (because it was "proof" the conspiracy runs deep). One of the nicest, most fun people I've ever worked with.