Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id GAA12389 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Mon, 21 Jan 2002 06:37:55 GMT Message-Id: <5.1.0.14.0.20020120231230.03523c70@pop.cogeco.ca> X-Sender: hkhenson@pop.cogeco.ca X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Version 5.1 Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2002 01:35:22 -0500 To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk From: Keith Henson <hkhenson@cogeco.ca> Subject: Re: Scientology 1/2 In-Reply-To: <013301c1a207$8820b440$b186b2d1@teddace> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
At 03:09 PM 20/01/02 -0800, "Dace" <edace@earthlink.net>
wrote:
>
>Keith,
>
> > > It takes two to tango. It's not as if there's an evil cult gobbling up
> > > innocent victims.
>
> > Well, actually, there *is* an evil cult gobbling up victims, innocent and
> > non alike.
>
>It's not so much that the cult gobbles up victims but that the new
>recruits, for whatever unconscious reason, voluntarily submit themselves
>to the evil.
Ah! But that's the rub. It is not voluntary when you are not told about
it. Ben Ladin pulled a fraud on all but the pilots of the 9/11 attacks
because only the pilots were told they were going on a suicide mission. You
can say they were volunteers, but not for what they got.
Likewise, people who enter scientology are not told that they will slowly
indoctrinated into believing they are infested with the spirits of
thousands of murdered space aliens. Nor are the told that even the earlier
phase of going "clear" the end point is "I mock up my reactive mind." I.e.
they don't really have the thing they just spent $50k "clearing."
It amounts to a bait-and-switch fraud, backed up by huge efforts to silence
those who would speak out about the fraud and gag orders on those who
settle court battles.
>No one is enslaved by the cult. None of the members of the cult can be
>considered innocent. Even those born into it are no longer innocent once
>they reach adulthood.
These are awfully dogmatic statements. Do you know about the RPF?
As for the rest of what you say, the mater is complex and related to this:
http://www.determinism.com/quotes2.shtml
Marvin Minsky
Everything, including that which happens in our brains, depends on these
and only on these: A set of fixed, deterministic laws. A purely random set
of accidents.
http://world.std.com/~twc/determin.htm
Even though determinism presently disturbs us, as science progresses we
might eventually get used to the idea of being very complex, but
non-mysterious organic mechanisms, or "meat machines," as artificial
intelligence guru Marvin Minsky, Stephen Pinker’s colleague at M.I.T., so
unpoetically puts it. We'll see, following Wilson and Wright, that we are
still gripped by morality and that the law doesn't lose its teeth. Nor,
just because we admit that we haven't built our motives and character from
the ground up, will we become any less unique, or creative, or committed in
what we do. Cravings, ambitions, and altruistic concerns will still have
their way with us.
However, we might become a little less egocentric in taking credit for our
accomplishments, and a little more wary of piling on blame for "failures of
will." By dropping the idea that people essentially create themselves,
we'll likely pay more attention to fostering the social and economic
conditions which bring out the best in us. And to the extent that the
notion of uncaused free will fuels the desire for retribution, support for
the death penalty and other needlessly harsh punishments should diminish.
Of course there’s no telling exactly how things might change, were we to
accept the fact that it’s not just genes that determine us, but our
surroundings as well. But if we find ourselves regretting the loss of what
now seems an illusory freedom, we are more than compensated by knowing that
to have what we want – even poetry – we need not be more than we actually are.
>There's no such thing as brainwashing. Each of us is an agent in our own
>deception.
I don't know how you can say the first even if the second is true. Do you
know about the Stockholm Syndrome? Can you see the utility of
capture-bonding to our genes in tribal times? Would it help if you were
shown that a shot of a hormone into your brain will dissolve your current
attachments and cause you to form new bonds to people without even being
captured?
> > And if this does not concern you from the damage done to people
> > and their families, consider if from the standpoint of supporting these
> > people on the dole when they get old and are "offloaded" by the cult.
>
>Of course it concerns me. The question is how to oppose it
>effectively. If you engage in the same kind of tactics to oppose the cult
>that the cult utilized against you, you're just going to get yourself in
>trouble. Keep in mind that what you're opposing is a collective form of
>Narcissistic Personality Disorder. Clinical narcissists are notorious for
>driving to people nuts. When the otherwise sane person goes ballistic
>against the insufferable narcissist, the narcissist can turn around and
>say, "Look, this guy is crazy. Somebody protect me from this
>madman." General opinion then turns against you.
Your suggestions, especially if you are willing to try implementing them,
would be appreciated.
> > > Those who do the training aren't so much controlling the minds of the
> > > new recruits as unconsciously passing on the toxic memes already
> > > established in their own minds.
>
> > I am sorry, but I don't really see the difference you do between being
> > controlled by a meme and being controlled by other people (who are
> > generally controlled by a meme or memes).
>
>The difference is that in the first case you're dealing with impersonal
>evil. We prefer making it personal so that we can vent our anger against
>an individual.
I can't think of anyone in scientology I have something personal with. I
am no more angry with them personally than I am at people with
tuberculous. Not that I don't use psychological methods against them on
purpose. We encourage the leader of scientology take ever more irrational
actions. Eventually they run out of people, money, or the government steps
in to clean up the mess.
>Like when you bit the arm of that guy who was trying to enforce a
>restraining order against you. Sometimes we need to express our rage, but
>you can't bite impersonal, memetically-driven evil.
That was reflex, Edwin Richardson jumped me from behind as I was walking
back to my car. He stuck his arm over my mouth and nose making it
impossible to breath. A few seconds later he was in a situation where I
could have hurt him badly. I didn't.
Edwin was one of the two PI thugs who forced me into the roadway in the
summer of 2000 and after the cops made it clear what the limits were walked
many a weary mile with me while picketing after that. I once stayed with
the two PIs an extra 20 minutes so they could read something I had brought
for them because if I had left the papers would have been taken away from them.
> > I think Hubbard started out with nothing but contempt for his
> > followers (you can see it in the abusive names he used such as "selling
> > them a bridge). Later he was a victim of the guru trap and started
> > believing he was infested with thousands of murdered space alien spirits.
>
>Hubbard may have been cynical in some ways, but the core delusion-- that
>he was the savior of humanity-- was in place long before Dianetics and
>Scientology. He conceived the delusion, and then it took on its own life
>in the form of the organization. This self-perpetuating delusion no
>longer needs the person who gave birth to it. The umbilical cord has long
>since been cut. As long as the money keeps circulating through its veins,
>the autodelusion lives on.
I suggest you post this last paragraph on a.r.s (anon if you wish) and see
how the people who know the history of dianetics and scientology respond.
Keith Henson
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