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America has a weird relationship with cults where they’re terrified of small cults (or organizations they think are cults) but completely normalized massive cults that hurt many more people (eg: LDS Church, Jehovah’s Witnesses, the Amish, Scientology, most Megachurches)

To anybody asking if the Amish are a cult, the answer is yes, very much so.

They’re a high control group that isolate you from society. The cult decides how you dress, how you behave, who you marry and how. They control what you know, blocking all information from the outside world. They control how you feel and what you’re allowed to think with threats of both social and supernatural harm. They’re a cult.

The best method to determine if a group is a cult, in my opinion, is Steven Hassan’s (cult expert and former cult member himself) BITE model.

BITE stands for Behavior Control, Information Control, Thought Control, and Emotional Control.

The more points a group “scores” on the model, the more of a cult it is.

I think this model is the best one for several reasons:

It’s more nuanced than “cult” or “not cult” and doesn’t make false equivalences between groups

It’s versatile, applying to groups big and small, and cults of all kinds, religious, political, financial, etc.

It focuses on what’s important, which is what the cult does to its members, and those members’ experiences, and not on irrelevant details like how uncommon their doctrines are or whether they have a charismatic leader

This is a great example of Thought Control used by cults whenever they’re confronted with criticism.

saxifraga-x-urbium

#you might notice that there are a lot of similarities between cult techniques and those of abusive partners#and that is an important thing to be aware of

yah that goes in the post

The creator of the BITE Model considers abusive relationships to be two-person cults.

forgotn1

It’s important to note that almost every sect of evangelical christianity in the US today fails the BITE Model.

alp-crispy

This was the post that lead to breaking my JW mindset. Been a while since I seen it.

I’m glad I could help in your deconstruction, if only a little bit. I wish you all the luck in your journey moving forward.

derinthescarletpescatarian

It’s tricky with parenting, because parents have to control their children’s lives to start with, since newborns are incapable of taking care of themselves.

A healthy parent will gradually relinquish control as their child grows and becomes more capable. And even while they’re in charge, they will treat their child with honesty and transparency and respect. They’ll prepare their child for independence, giving them the tools they need to live their own life.

A culty, abusive parent will go far beyond the level of control that their role requires. They will use manipulation and undue influence, taking advantage of their child’s naivete and malleable mind for the parent’s own benefit and agenda. They will continue to exercise this control well into their child’s adulthood, possibly their whole life.

feminismoaqui

Japan’s longest-running rape crisis center has been declared ineligible to receive public funding following statements made by the facility’

"Japan’s longest-running rape crisis center has been declared ineligible to receive public funding following statements made by the facility’s director which were deemed by government officials to be discriminatory against males who identify as transgender.

Tokyo’s Rape Crisis Center was founded in 1983 by six women, half of whom were survivors of sexual assault. Michiko Orita, one of the founders, first confirmed the punitive measure during a meeting held last year in May organized by women’s rights campaign group Save Women’s Spaces, which was primarily concerned with the potential ramifications should gender identity policies be adopted in the nation."

marbleguard

wildflowerdraught

In retrospect, it's hilarious that Stratt made everybody on the vat speak English in deference to Grace being monolingual

Because with how quickly Grace was able to pick up Eridian, even with literally NOTHING about it being familiar the way a human language would be, they probably could have chosen Mandarin as the universal language on Stratt's Vat and he would have just. Learned it.

curvedroygbiv

she didn't want him wasting brain space on anything other than the task at hand. more room for science and problem solving.

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space-mouse

i'm rereading the murderbot diaries and murderbot's utter conviction that it and gurathin are bitter enemies is still so funny. buddy. gurathin got over this months ago. he's just a quiet guy.

theaicollective

one-sided antagonism is so delicious. murderbot diaries i also very much enjoy how surreal it must be for gurathin / to know that the heavily armed rogue secunit holds a grudge against him / and also know that all it will ever choose to do about this is make frowny faces and flip him the bird. / (tags via space-mouse)

asimovsideburns

Gurathin, like three books from now: hey we’re friends right

Murderbot: no. we fucking hate each other.

Gurathin: awesome check this out it’s gonna make you so fucking mad

MB: I don’t like you

Gurathin, knowing MB calls its best friend “asshole research transport”: Uh-huh.

rhysintherain

Murderbot: I don't like Gurathin, and he doesn't like me

Gurathin, not even looking up from the article he's reading: careful buddy, if you piss me off I might look at you really hard

Murderbot: I have guns in my arms!

Gurathin: yeah, but if you shoot me who are you gonna call when you need help solving a murder or getting out of an awkward social gathering?

A lot of people’s idea of “California” is just Los Angeles and also I think specifically the rich parts of Los Angeles

pile-of-worms

As a European, my idea of “California” is honestly just. Warm America. With beach? I think?

There’s cold rainforests and snowy mountains there

All California.

silyaspider

I like to refer to California as "West Iowa" since that's the description that is likely to be counterintuitive or irritating to the largest number of people. And it's at least as accurate as any other single description—flat croplands are, at least, more representative of the state as a whole than LA is.

As someone from a conservative agriculture heavy part of the state I find that description to be hilariously accurate.

was-once-somewhere-else

I just saw a video title on YouTube that said something like “Why is glass transparent?” And that’s an interesting question and I’m sure it’s great that the video exists but my first thought was like “Because glass is terrible, obviously.” Because it’s unwieldy and let’s out warmth and needs to be heated to hundreds of degrees to be shaped and turns into hundreds of tiny daggers if you drop it. Why the hell would we bother with that if it didn’t have some magical quality like being totally transparent despite being solid? Glass is transparent because if it weren’t, we’d use something else.

was-once-somewhere-else

looking through my “me” tag and this is apparently what I was thinking 3 years ago

totally-a-wizard

If you’re still curious we did not start working glass for its transparency. It was most likely started as a sanitary concern. Glass is easy to clean with soap and water, once it’s cleaned out you can use it again for anything and no germs or flavor from the previous meal or drink will remain.

Other materials at the time, namely clay, would absorb flavors and germs meaning that if you ate beef off a clay plate your next meal with that plate could have beef flavor and microbes common on cow meat on it. That would leak out seemingly at random no less. Heck imagine a sick person coughing into their soup bowl and then months later their germs hiding in the clay would pop out to infect whole new people.

Also the earliest human use of glass we know of is for its sharpness. Pre-historic people would use volcanic glass as sharp knives for food preparation. Also beads. Pretty much any new substance humans get their hands on for most of our history we immediately try to make into beads.

The fact that it could become see through was a side benefit.

was-once-somewhere-else

this is amazing and I’m really glad I reblogged that old bullshit post because I got to learn this

thefemaleterrorist

ugly males wearing lipstick and a wig claim to be women and get on here to say women aren’t oppressed based on their sex like why some yall let them get away with the audacity because so called allyship it’s beyond me

benyw

The more they say shit like this the more women their cause will lose. And once they've lost the young, nieve women, they've lost the whole thing.

nansheonearth

Tbh they're just going to regroup and try new tactics.

marbleguard

harriet tubman is mentioned here and there in the typical american history education but it seems like no one learns her full story. because she is literally 3500000x times more interesting and insanely badass than is ever typically mentioned. I had PBS on doing chores one day when a documentary on her life came on and i wound up putting everything down to watch it because i could not fucking believe what i was hearing. not joking i think she might be one of the most amazing people who have ever lived

edowayeye

Oh my god i know right?! I love her so much. I feel the same way about sorjurner truth!

nansheonearth

I think it's also important to note that she did all of these amazing things while living with epilepsy. We really should really have statues of her everywhere.

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capricorn-season

benyw

'Woman' and 'girl' are the only words we have that denote that we are the female half of the human species. They are the words that literally humanise female humans - specifically.

docholligay

Possibly my spiciest take is that it's actually good to have people you respect and like that have some dogshit takes.

I think part of what is making young people lonelier, in discussing why they're increasingly isolated, is that they're so afraid of meeting someone who doesn't hold their same beliefs, and instead of being just core beliefs it is kinda ancillary shit.

It's actually okay to disagree even on social topics! Even on some political ones! But I mean, online you can start with "i love this mutual but they have a really bad/uninformed opinion about x media"

I know this is IMMEDIATELY going to be taken in bad faith, and yes babygirl, you are so right, I DO want you to go make best friends with both the KKK grand wizard AND your nearest nazi leader.

But seriously, as someone who has spent two decades doing community organization: finding ways to connect with different people is so so so important. There are people i follow here who ate 80% smart and their brain falls out of their head 20% of the time and that is GOOD FOR MY MENTAL ECOSYSTEM AND GOOD FOR LEARNING HOW TO BE A PERSON

LET'S ALL GO PISS ON THE POOR

mikkeneko

notaplaceofhonour

It’s also good to assume you probably are the friend whose brain falls out 20% of the time.

We all have blind spots, assumptions, and dogshit take from time to time. They can’t all be winners.

coworker: it's good to see that centrifuge getting some use; most people don't like it because it's so sensitive me: *has been devising nobel prize-worthy balance configurations for every single load* haha yeah i guess i've just been lucky with it so far :)

the feelings i'm experiencing about this are akin to when a pet comes up to greet you and its owner is like "omg i never see them go up to strangers like that they're usually so shy"

developing a horse girl-like bond with the centrifuge