People will always seek to understand the world and find meaning. it’s not something you can dismiss as irrelevant. If the concern is pseudoscience, the answer isn’t rejection but discernment. Buddhist philosophy and cognitive science, for instance, offer frameworks that are both rigorous and open to examination. Worth considering before reducing the conversation to absolutes.
Individual level, educate yourself and learn compassion:
https://youarenotsosmart.com/2022/06/27/yanss-236-how-minds-change/
https://www.streetepistemology.com/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Read_a_Book because we have a lot of people who really think they know more about things than they do, based purely on social media posts and sensationalized news. “bAn ALl ReLIGIOnS” is such a highschool tier take that speaks to incredibly poor understanding of human culture, society, philosophy and psychology. Religion is just organized and political spirituality. And we need things that spirituality can offer, and materialism (capitalism) has nearly robbed us of it. And spiritual does NOT have to fucking mean believing in some skydaddy, it can just mean being able to STOP and be with all of life, as it is, within any given moment. You can frame it with the awe of quantum fucking mechanics if you want. Go watch Carl Sagan at the very least. Christianity had one fucking job and they couldn’t have failed more catastrophically… But I digress… Though understanding the difference between RELIGION and SPIRITUALITY (and what NEEDS spirituality fulfills) would go a long way in guarding against cults.
A lot of the time dealing with cults or cult-like communities requires you to do things that go against your every impulse.
Respect your own boundaries but keep a door open provided your boundaries are respected.
Do not belittle the people in the cult. Do not demonize. I CANNOT emphasize that part enough. If you can’t stop yourself, you best avoid these situations because you will only make it worse.
Actively seek to understand what the person is getting out of the cult (usually it’s basic social acceptance - which is exactly why vilifying cult members only works in the cult’s favor - see MAGA). If they believe they are getting some spiritual need fulfilled, you better have really good understanding of what that need is before you try to talk about it. Read the relevant philosophy and so on. There are no ideas in the world that can’t be twisted into a cult rhetoric.
Cults chiefly work by predating on people who feel like they aren’t HEARD or SEEN by others. Their experiences are dismissed or straight up ridiculed. This seems to be an impossible pill for some people to swallow and they seem to legitimately think that calling people idiots will surely make them feel bad and get back in the route of sanity Spoilers: it just makes them run right into the welcoming arms of the cult’s spokespeople who shower them with (seemingly) unconditional love and validation.
Once the cult is their only social circle, it’s basically impossible to extract them. Unless you are willing to see them COMPASSIONATELY as basic humans whose behavior is ultimately dictated by very basic needs for human connection, you will have no hope of reaching them.
Most people make the mistake of thinking that if they can just communicate some very smart and clever narrative to the people in the cult, they will be able to change their minds. But what that tends to accomplish is that you just put the person on the defensive. It’s actually even worse if you manage to get through to their intellectual faculty because then you have effectively demolished some faith-based thing that they have but you are offering nothing in return. Instead all they have now is feeling like they are an idiot and YOU know it. But they can still run back to the cult and stick around on principle. So all you did was make them dig their heels in, because now they KNOW all the rest of the world is able to prove that they are stupid and nobody wants to feel that. Basically in the cult they will have all their social contacts, support network, possibly even their financial security. Few people are going to choose feeling stupid, alone and destitute over that.
Unfortunately most people will jump at the chance to tell another person that their beliefs are stupid. And even more so they will jump at the chance to tell another person that they are morally inferior.
Can you add https://crazypeople.online/ to instances please?
Or can I add it somehow?
Or is it some hive of scum and villainy everyone loathes? I don’t follow instance drama too closely but I’m starting to realize there’s quite a bit of it.
If Fairphone doesn’t faceplant by then, it’ll be my next phone in a few years.
I’m just holding out minor hope that people finally get with the program and realize the value of reputable news organizations and plain old grapevine again. Leave internet for nerds.
I like it too. Been using it just for general life organizing stuff - kinda like goblin.tools but I like that I can just type to it normally instead of having to use an interface. Took some fiddling with the agents and files and things like that to get it to function as I like - but I can get it to function as I like which puts it above Gemini for me. I would kinda like voice activation and audio output though so I don’t have to have my eyes on the screen at all times.
Here’s the money shot: https://youtu.be/LZ259Jx8MQY?t=1240
I wish they had used a better mic but that was like giving my soul a really good scratch.
Alto’s Adventure. One of those simple is powerful games. Though it can get really frustrating as there definitely are situations where the game just decides that actually, you’re done.
Joke is that I’m actually the techy woman.
It doesn’t really feel any better once you know that it’s an empty pleasantry they don’t really care to have an answer to.
I personally hold a Consciousness-Only View, something like nondual Buddhism, and would say that your questions are on the right track but you’re understandably trying to reconcile them with the consensus opinion of a materialistic world. Which leads to a nihilistic “this is all a simulation” line of thinking that still runs into the wall of duality - you’re still putting an external force out there, acting upon you. As long as you believe that there are goal posts, you can move them indefinitely. It’s a simulation within a simulation within a simulation and depending on your inclination, you can put a really depressing spin on it (“I’m being tormented”).
But if you aren’t actually experiencing life from a nondual angle (as you don’t seem to be), the philosophy doesn’t mean much. And to experience life with the freedom that comes from not experiencing yourself to be only the things you think you are takes a lot of practice - meditation etc. with a secure and healthy community around you. Unless you get lucky.
Up to you what you want to do with this all though. I only saw the little glimpse of your life that you divulged in the comments and as such I’d say, focus on what is most immediate to you. Get food. Take care of your body. Try to find a real-life community. Occasionally poke at your thoughts about what you VALUE and drill down - do you value the thing you said or do you value what you believe you will get with the thing you said? Make choices in life that help you live more according to your values. Stop spending excessive amounts of time online, especially if all the stories cause you anxiety.
Or you can just join a Buddhist monastery or something. You’ll be taken care of and your identity as a second child or an immigrant inherently doesn’t matter, but of course you’ll be giving up a lot.
If there is ever any conceivable way to act as if one has the morally higher ground, 99.9% of people will use it with an Ad Hominem attack to avoid dealing with the actual point of an argument. ESPECIALLY on the internet. No matter what political, academic or just plain nerdy configuration of people you have, no matter what topic they are discussing. If anyone ever catches even the faintest whiff of a position that they think is morally inferior, they will unfailingly disregard any logic, context and relating in favor of demonizing the opponent. Because there is no sugar sweeter to the human mind than thinking themselves morally superior.
Look into Non-violent Communication https://www.cnvc.org/
And also this https://pastebin.com/ZHhS044M
Both require very, very stern honesty with oneself and understanding the difference between FEELINGS and NARRATIVES about feelings. You both need to commit to this, and NOT police each other - when one of you sees the other fail, it’s on them to translate, not to guilt trip.
(and yes, learning this will initially lead to very stiff and awkward speech, you’ll get over it)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galerina these.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galerina_marginata specifically, myrkkynääpikkä in Finland)
Man I wish I could gather these but in my region it has a really similar, dangerously poisonous mimic. I don’t trust myself to tell them apart :(
Feel free to criticize nonduality, which is my spiritual view. If you are sufficiently familiar with Buddhism (Zen or Dzogchen), you should have enough information to go on.