this is the exact reason why exile, excommunication, shunning, disfellowshipping, and all the rest are so effective. and a big reason people go along with glaringly wrong bullshit
And the internet has given the folks with wrongness in their heart an out to find communities who will act as a bulwark against internal progress. No one around you likes you because you’re an asshole? Go on 8chan and get validated
It seems so obvious from the outside looking into these online echo chambers, that you wonder how anyone participating can’t see it.
The really hard part is identifying these sort of things in your own online spaces.
Comment sections were a mistake
I don’t fully agree with this sentiment. There have been plenty of times where comment sections have pointed out additional context/bad and/or missing information on articles that I wouldn’t have otherwise known about. But on the other hand, they also can lead to cultivating echo chambers, as already mentioned. I think the best way to combat this is to teach people how to better recognize internal biases/prejudices and circle jerking, AKA some form of critical thinking.
Oh for sure. I’m over simplifying for shock value. The real problem is our brains haven’t adjusted to being able to access communities further away than what’s on the other side of the nearest hill
Like social media, like AI, like air travel, like all things of this nature, comment sections are just a tool. The problem as always lies with our inability to figure out what tool is right for what situation and what job without an incredibly frustrating period of painful trial and error first, it seems.
I need an Instagram fork with the comments removed, I am too weak to avoid them on my own.
When I used Facebook briefly many years ago, I made extensive use of adblock to hide gross parts of the side with custom filters. I expect you can do the same with Instagram, if they still let you see it via a browser.
I was very recently banned for exactly that behavior. I wear that ban as a badge of honor and intend to never return
phpBB was a mistake.
Yes, but for lots of reasons.
The funny thing is that those spaces are themselves very heavy on enforcing dogma through fear of social rejection. For example when the Christchurch massacre happened, I decided to go see what /pol/ was saying, and there were actually a few comments expressing mild disapproval, in a “I hate muslims too but cheering at people being brutally murdered as they try to get away is too far” kind of way. These people were of course shouted down and insulted and their sympathy painted as weakness. That validation is conditional.
The less leeway people are given by their community to explore and express their genuine thoughts and feelings, the more inaccurate and fucked up the popular consensus is free to get.
Fascists know exactly what they’re doing. They study this shit. The study the environmental and mental conditions that led to the original fascist movement and they actively want that. The part I don’t get, the thing that scares the shit out of me, is why. They got scooped out, emptied out, by our culture of emptiness and are refilling themselves with violence and they view this as good. Instead of building community through love, they build it through hate. Best I can figure out is that its easier to hate than to love.
My thoughts on this are, humans are pattern propagation machines. If someone is infused with spite and misery to begin with, love which fails to acknowledge and process that spite comes off as hollow and meaningless. Seeing others express the same things you feel is cathartic and generates trust. There is a profound need for sharing in feelings like contempt, rage, and the desire to hurt others that isn’t fulfilled, and that gets exploited by people crafting those feelings to fit into their ideological narratives.
On the other hand, it can achieve the exact same thing for people who belong to an irl community that insists on being wrong, allowing them to find better information and a group to validate it. That’s certainly the vision people had of the internet back in the 90s. Too bad it hasn’t been anywhere near as ubiquitously a force of fact-checking as they envisioned back then, but I’d be willing to bet it’s been a stronger positive force than negative.
I mean. Yeah. That’s the thing. A lot of us have found solace online from our lived oppression. There is a degree to which when you realize there’s a core human need to connect that people fill going to some of the bad spaces online you start to realize that bad things happen in human history because we aren’t addressing the true problems. Its hard to say what to do once you realize that. I’m still grappling with that. But yeah… People turn to authoritarianism because they see the current thing isn’t working. My view is there’s too much top down authority. Their view is there’s not enough. Just… Something I’m processing
Yes, or lemmy.
It’s interesting that being completely shunned and outside of community though makes you either immune to the group think and therefore able to recognize and see the glaring oppositions of reality or lets you completely fall into madness with no recourse to pull yourself out of it.
we’re not as evolved as we like to think we are. ultimately we’re driven by the primate brain’s relentless urge to be part of a group (ANY group, apparently), on top of the more primal survival/mating dance instincts
Survival dance sounds interesting ;) But yes, humans are herd animals really. We figured out we’re stronger together and set some common rules, and we don’t want to be left outside so we conform.
Irony is, we’re also predators - and crucially our own is not excluded from predation. (in the nature sense not the sex offender sense)
(in the nature sense not the… child sense)
wanna see something scary? go here and type in your address
Oh yeah, I meant to express I was painting a comparison with animals and nature, not pedophelia.
Also, my address won’t show on that site :)
Religious shunning / disfellowshipping is immoral and should be banned by law. It’s disgusting. I don’t understand how it still is such a big issue. Jehovah’s Witnesses for example are breaking up families daily. It causes much suicide unfortunately. Evil practice. Done in “the name of god” - I should point out that it is unscriptural, so not actually a biblical teaching. Just a good way to control the flock…
You’re right that it’s wrong, but ostracism doesn’t strike me as something that can be outlawed—not just because it’s one of our fundamental primitive social behaviors, but because of logistics. I’m curious how you envision it working? That is, you could probably forbid a church from declaring excommunication in a formal fashion, but could you actually stop its members from shunning someone? It would raise a lot more questions, like what if one member of the church is revealed to have abused another? Does the church still have to welcome them back?
Well my experience is with Jehovah’s witnesses. In that religion some of the top reasons for being officially shunned (forever loosing your family and friends) are: *Reaching adulthood and deciding to leave the religion. *Premarital sex, including making out, even mild things that many would not include in sex. Even if you then get married. *Smoking cigarettes. *Being Gay. *Openly disagreeing with a doctrine. (To name a few) So there are many JW parents who cut off and do not talk to their children, because reaching the age of 16-18 the children get a girl/boyfriend and leave. The parents are forbidden to talk to their own children. (Don’t be quick to judge the parents, they are victims also here) Then there are the ones that upon reaching the age of 25-30 they genuinely realize that the religion is man-made and not for them, so they leave. They loose there parents and friends. Then for the poor souls that work it out when they are in their 50s+ they loose their children as the religion tells the children that God wants them to shun their parents for leaving. The family members do not want to shun each other, but they do, because it is brainwashed into them. Many commit suicide. All of this just mentioned has nothing to do with biblical sin. I believe that the law should not allow a religion to tell family members to shun each other (in the name of God) when a family member leaves the religion. It should be the personal decision of the family members. This is a MAJOR problem in the JW religion. The reason it continues is because it is all hidden from the media and public. JW is a very secretive religion.
If (on the rare occasion) a member was to abuse another, then the church could expel the guilty party from the church building. But should not have the right to tell that person’s family to cut them off in their personal lives. That is too far. In the JW religion it’s rare for this to be the reason though.
why do you think they’re pushing so hard to force jesusism into public schools? so the kids who toe the jesus line can bully the kids who don’t. they’ll police themselves and inform on their neighbors. christian fanatics LOVE that particular thumbscrew to keep people compliant and obedient. and don’t let anyone tell you that a single goddamn thing will be done to stop bullying–it already doesn’t happen.
This is what held me back for a long time, and I have to say, the fear is well founded. It has definitely driven a wedge between me and my community. The breakthrough is realizing that’s okay.
I had to institute a no-politics rule with certain family members during the pan. It’s saved relationships.
I have zero friends who are intolerant or hateful or shitty to others. If I found out someone I hadn’t spoken to in a long time had become like the right wing nuts in my family I’d first try to talk to them about why that happened with hope of saving them, but if not: get out of my life.
As some guy who grew up in a Mormon community…this shit sucks and I don’t hear from anyone anymore after making it clear where I stood. (Really fucking weird how many of my uniformed family that trained to fight USSR is now pro Moscow but ok)
But, that’s kind of the point and how they get ya, a lot of these wannabe revolutionaries are just looking for a friend group. We need more board game cafes and places to make proper friends
Honestly the board game cafes and such don’t work. People don’t want to make new friends.
If I found out someone I hadn’t spoken to in a long time had become like the right wing nuts in my family I’d first try to talk to them about why that happened with hope of saving them, but if not: get out of my life.
I had to institute a no-politics rule with certain family members
Typical moderate: full of principles until they require sacrifice.
Some call it hypocrisy, others call it “survival instinct”
I call it the great stumbling block in our stride towards freedom.
I love my mother, so you can fuck right off.
I hate that stupid bitch
If you sit at a table with 11 Nazis, there are 12 Nazis at the table.
Yeah that’s genuinely a tough one. If my family were a part of the cult (thankfully they’re not) I don’t think I’d be able to cut them out outright. They’re misguided, brainwashed, but maybe those words are just my excuses to downplay the horrors they condone/believe, that they’re just my way of justifying keeping them in my life.
And then when I try to picture a nazi family back in Nazi germany, and the one member of that family realizing the horror of it all, instinctually I want them to cut ties or fight against their family, not turn a blind eye simply because they’re related. That feels gross, until suddenly I try to imagine myself in the same situation, with my loved ones, and suddenly it’s infinitely harder.
I hate this, and am forever grateful that I don’t personally have to deal with it. My heart goes out to those with family members that have been sucked in.
My dad bought into this horseshit and I’ve all but cut him out of my life entirely. Him being an asshole to me didn’t make it any harder to do so.
I am glad my immediate family, and the family I had a relationship, with didn’t fall for this shit. Though I didn’t worry that they might. The parts of my family that did were already the parts I avoided, because they have a long history of other similar behaviors, over other shit.
deleted by creator
Coward.
Internet shithead.
Wow so enlightening, thank you very much for joining the conversation!
Ever run analytics on your post history? You’re not doing so well on literacy or hostility. Best of luck.
I don’t presume to know your situation or the people you’ve dealt with so I’ll be charitable and imagine you cut your losses and quit similar situations in good faith, but you and I are both ignorant about the lives of others. It seems to me like the behavior you label an abandonment of principle leaves the door open to future redemption of a loved one. That’s worth fighting for. On that ground, I think you should stop sharing this opinion even if it’s true for you. If they don’t want to damn their own mother to a propoganda echo chamber full of malice then I’m rooting for them.
Don’t share your truth because it’s not true for everyone.
No.
Ok coward
Here’s the thing: you’re right to feel that way depending on your surroundings. I work in construction in Texas (and kinda look the part) and it is astonishing how many people are willing to buy into bullshit, and expect you to do the same, because that’s what everyone else does. Finding another family that isn’t gargling right wing propaganda, “god-fearing”, or just one brand of asshole is so difficult around here.
Since our children were born we have been increasingly intolerant of all that nonsense. This has unfortunately led to our support system dwindling away because we aren’t willing to compromise on the morale standards we want our kids exposed to.
Me - be white and wear my veteran’s hat for no reason other than it’s one of the few out there that’s actually comfortable to wear.
Random conservatives - racism mode go!
I usually make one attempt to highlight their stuff, see if they’re self aware at all, and then excuse myself from the conversation. Otherwise they always, and I mean every time, accuse me of stolen valor when they figure out I’m not a conservative.
Yeah apparently being white and having a beard with a hint of unfortunate RBF is enough to signal racist around here. The toughest part is when it’s coming from your professional superiors.
Yes, white male here. I can’t tell you how many times I end up alone with some stranger, who looks at me, and decides “yeah, this guy is cool with me being openly racist”. Don’t have a beard, no tatts, nothing on my person that would indicate any political/social position, so I guess being a white dude is enough.
This was my impression visiting Texas a few months ago (went for the eclipse and visited Houston, Austin, and Dallas).
Especially in Houston, it seemed that the propaganda was everywhere. Never mind being a city that could very much use some light-rail and instead is just a massive web of super wide highways (that still get congested). Seeing a Billboard announcing the Epoch Times as “the number 1 most trusted news”, a half a mile before a Joel Osteen megachurch, really made me realize how much these ideas spreading so much are a product of their environment.
Man, it makes me sad that there are people who feel this way. My friends and family all support research and facts and are willing to accept any that challenges their preconceptions. To anyone stuck with friends and family that doesn’t support them or is willing to accept reality, my heart goes out to you.
I think the hard part is, almost no one realizes that they felt that way until they are finally on the outside.
I remember a really interesting article I read a few years ago that indicated the best way to change someone’s viewpoint was to welcome them into your community or group without requiring a change of mind first.
Turns out our social and emotional needs will trump our rational or logical side almost every time.
So you’re 100% right. What people need is a caring group of family and friends who encourage each other to question themselves in an effort to learn and grow.
My friends and family all support research and facts and are willing to accept any that challenges their preconceptions.
So you might say that this is a trait that is considered essential for being a good member of your social group?
I would say so. I would also say it’s an important part of being an intelligent, rational individual, personally.
It sounds like your group wouldn’t readily welcome a member who wasn’t an intelligent, rational individual. I wonder, if a current member experienced a crisis that led them to a kind of blind, irrational faith, would they still be equally welcome?
Probably not, but I would definitely try to understand what led them to that faith.
I fear this is the wrong take on this issue. The rule communities should follow should not be “make sure to get the facts right so that you don’t excommunicate those who get the facts right”. It should be “don’t excommunicate people who get the facts wrong, because you never know if you got them right yourself and if you punish dissidents too hard you’ll never be able to shift toward the correct world view”.
I didn’t say we should excommunicate anyone who doesn’t get facts right, I simply said it was sad that people thought like this at all. I think we should all learn to change our preconceptions when presented with evidence against them and that we should help others to do the same.
Can I join your family then… 🙃
Sure, we’ll invite you to thanksgiving
Jehovah’s Witnesses. The ones that do leave never get to see or speak to their family and friends ever again.
Fun fact, you can let people be wrong.
This is something I learned when my father started to forget everything… And I mean everything.
I was surprised he knew his own name sometimes. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not disparaging him, these were facts. Everything is in past tense because he’s now six feet under. I’m neither happy nor sad about it. I sometimes miss him, but I had a very vague idea of the suffering he endured in the last few years of his life; I’m happy that his suffering has ended, but I’m sorry that was the only conclusion he was going to get from his condition.
Back to the point at hand, when he was starting to forget, it was often more harmful and confusing to try to correct him. He wouldn’t understand, and he would end up confused, then he would forget why he’s confused, and the cycle would start again because he would ask the same questions about things that were not real. Either those things never existed, and were just a product of his brain slowing deteriorating, or they were from so far in his history that he wasn’t making sense.
It was far far less problematic for him if I accepted whatever he told me as his reality, and put myself into that reality, rather than trying to drag him back to this reality. He was clearly confused, mistaken, and sometimes outright wrong in what he was saying, maybe it was based on something he learned in school that was later debunked or something, but it was really common.
For his sake, I stopped bringing him to our reality. I don’t need to remind him 10x a day that his wife left him, so any questions regarding where she is or when she’ll be home, I deflected; “she’s gone out”/“I don’t know when she’ll return” I tried not to lie to him, just give him enough information to answer his questions, but not enough to rock the boat of his fragile reality. In reality, she’s gone out (to live with her new husband), and I don’t know when she’ll return (probably never).
A few years prior, he considered his ex wife to be dead to him. There was a religious component on that, I’m not going to go into it, but he had very strong feelings about it that seemed to go away.
It was so severe that she actually visited him when he was sent into a care facility (my brother and I simply didn’t have the time, training, or skillset to continue to care for him). When she visited, she was his “wife”. All him about it after, and he wouldn’t even realize that she had been by. It was so genuine that the staff called and asked about it, saying his “wife” was just there. I quickly corrected them (I was his POA).
Letting people be wrong is basically a superpower. You can have a completely crazy conversation with someone, and walk away with a better understanding of who they are. Along pointed questions and watching their brain try to figure it out in real time. I usually go for stuff surrounding why they believe what they believe in a non-threatening way. Try to make them really think about why they believe what they do. Some people just invent information to justify their position and it doesn’t stand up to any scrutiny. I usually don’t scrutinize, I play nice, but it’s an interesting exercise.
My favorite justification is “tradition”. Ok, but why is it tradition? Is it just that “we’ve always done this, so that’s what we do” or was it done one way in the past four a good reason, which no longer applies? My favorite story about tradition, which I have no idea if it’s real or not, is that when preparing a ham for some celebration (maybe Thanksgiving or Christmas or something), they cut the end off of the ham before cooking it, and someone questioned why. Well, there’s four generations in the house, let’s ask grandma/great grandma. The answer to why this tradition started? Because her husband always bought the biggest ham he could, and she never had cookware large enough for it to fit into. The fact is, some traditions based on a need that no longer exists, or they may be to fix a problem that no longer exists.
If you can successfully provoke them to think and question their reasons for believing what they do, you might just get them to open their own eyes.
Simply put, you cannot fix them. By arguing against what they believe to be true, you’re forcing them to justify their belief, in doing so, they convince themselves of their belief, which does more damage. Psychology is weird man.
But we can’t even process reality as it is. Our brains can’t handle it and hallucinate the gaps. Someone who might think their opinions are based on reality might base it on a lie that their brain made up subconsciously. Hence why eyewitness statements are not treated as a cold hard fact.
I used to feel like this. not anymore.
I may have lost some friends, but I gained new ones. win-win imo
church
My faith in Christianity was actually fading, and I started to research it. Doing so actually strengthened it and led me to being baptised lmao.
I’m no longer religious, but I find that religion has some sense in its own right. Provided it’s not shoved down people’s throats.
Depends what you mean as “shoved down people’s throats” do you mean normal evangelism via freedom of speech or Christian nationalism, like the Louisiana 10 commandments cringe
You’re getting downvoted because so many Americans experience normal evangelism as people literally thumping a Bible while threatening them with hell and damnation. And evangelists (the religious sect, not the act) are largely responsible for the repeal of women’s rights in the US. They’re currently trying to make women unable to travel without government permission.
So it’s kind of a loaded word.
The religious sect are evangelicals, not evangelists.
A sincere Christian evangelist doesn’t want you to go to Hell - The thing is, we completely believe in it and we are warning you about what we believe is inevitable. The most hateful thing we could do is not warn you about it.
Yeah that’s a pretty thin hair when Americans read about evangelicals protesting soldier funerals.
Or like it was at college where they literally ran around the public areas looking to interrupt any same sex PDA.
I know there are people who recruit respectfully and inclusively. I’ve met them. But we all have more exposure to the other kind.
I understand what you mean, and I am sorry that you have to put up with these horrendous individuals.
Matthew 7:21-23 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many deeds of power in your name?’ Then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; go away from me, you evildoers.’
To be honest, even proselytisation can come off as being condescending. A Christian is basically telling to the person “my religion is better than yours. You are a sinful person and you will be cast into the fires of hell. It will not happen to you if you accept Jesus as lord and saviour!” And it is not like evangelisation is done out of pure power of persuasive words and good teachings from the bible alone. Aside from threat of eternal damnation, many missionnaries tend to incentivise people by offering food or help, in exchange for the locals to listen to proselytisation.
Look at it from our perspective, though. We fully believe in Hell, and that everyone is sinful and deserving of it. And nobody can escape it without living a life of genuine repentance to God, trusting alone in the sacrifice that He made for us. The most hateful thing we can do is not warn you about it, but just watch you waltz your own way down to your destruction. Now, yes, there are many hypocrites who aren’t really evangelising at all and only do it to feed their ego, and God will deal with them justly, but for me and many others, we don’t want you to go to Hell. We want you, when your body gives up, to be in Heaven, where there is no more suffering or pain. When I tell people about Jesus and the Gospel - it’s not to further an agenda. It’s out of love and genuine care. And if it means spending resources on feeding people so they’d listen, then it’s worth it. Just like how some places gave out rewards to people who got a COVID-19 vaccine, we wanted to reward someone for doing something that’s for their own good.
If we were absolutely convinced that we had the method to eternal life - and that method is very much free - wouldn’t it be selfish for us to keep it to ourselves and not tell others?
You can offer it but thrusting immortality on those who think death gives meaning to their life is just another form of abuse.
It’s not kindness to demand things of others you can only guide them like a flock and hope they make the right choices.
Respect others right to free will. You accept the no and hope and wait they change their mind by leaving your door open. This is what the devour get wrong.
Except that it’s not 2000 years ago anymore. Literally everyone knows about Christianity, hell and Jesus already. You’re not coming with some obscure new secret.
If they don’t believe it’s because they don’t want to, so please do leave them alone.
If they look interested instead, then yes of course help them out.
But going to them first and starting telling them how their soul will burn in hell for eternity is definitely not a nice thing to do to anyone. Nobody asked your opinion there.
If me and my group of 200 people believe that there is an evil invisible monster that will curse the soul of everyone unless they come to our church and listen to our priest once a week, would you like all 200 of them to come to you and tell you the same story all over again and again until you give up and go? No, I don’t think you’d like that.
It’s just a matter of respecting each other faith (or lack of) and personal freedom.
Fair enough except hell isn’t real. The Talmud/Old Testament doesn’t even mention it.
The Talmud isn’t the same as the Old Testament at all, it belongs to a completely different religion.
The Old Testament mentions hell quite a lot. Such as Daniel 12:2 and Psalm 139:8.
I can think of an example of “shoved down people’s throats” being born into a Jehovah’s witnesses family. 18 years of forced indoctrination. No choice whatsoever. Very damaging.
Oh gosh, the Jehovah’s Witnesses are an abusive cult. I’m so sorry that you had to go through that. It’s annoying trying to reach their members as well as they are taught to immediately stop talking to anyone questioning the Watchtower. I was talking to a pioneer once, revealed that I was Christian and then a guy who seemed to be a minder gave me a “tract” and told me that it was time for him to shut up shop for the night. It was very very strange.
Yes if you say that you are a Christian it’s actually going to put them into a threat mode. Because you are not in their religion, you are in a “false religion” and you may “trick” them away from their religion. So they will talk at you, and if you reason back then will give up. JWs only talk to people who they believe that they have a good chance of converting. If you start we win a conversation with a JW he/she will just give up and spend their efforts elsewhere. It is extremely annoying, especially if it’s your JW family members that you are trying to reason with. It’s amazing the power of daily brainwashing…
If you reason with them about anything they will tell you to check their website
Me and veganism relationships
The interesting thing is I can’t tell if you’re talking about yourself as vegan, others who are vegan, or veganism as a concept.
Nah it’s not you, it’s me phrasing my thoughts so no one understands shit
Oh it will happen too. But it’s worth it.
Dear everybody: Your heart is a irrational, stubborn, reactionary idiot. It makes some valid points, but it should always be weighed against what your brain has to say. And that’s assuming your brain isn’t also being an idiot at the time. Man us humans are stupid.
I listen exclusively to my tibula
That’s fair.
People are bad with reality.
If a friend or familiar is not okay talking about a subject, or clashes horribly with you in the topic, just give the silence hint and find something else to talk about. But if this keeps hapening or he/she doesn’t take the hint my suggestion is to soft ghost the person to avoid leaving a bad taste.
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