Carolina Springs fire?

[psy]

On the other hand, I viewed the attempt by my program to break our spirits, to make us complicitous in our own oppression, as the key program imperative, and I resisted as doggedly as I could.  I attribute my rejection of the program in large part to my Jewishness.

Well.  The jews played a different role in that dictatorship.  They were the scapegoat, the fake threat.  They were never a threat, and hitler knew that, but he also knew that people could be united and controlled by fear and hatred.  (they could care less if the jews expressed discontent in a situation where they could do nothing about it... control over communication was not necessary there.  They were all to be killed anyway.)  In this case, the scapegoat would be drugs, a deadinsaneinjail "threat" that "necessitates" absolute compliance to the group.

The people Hitler wished to control, were the majority of the german people (and the world).  That was his goal.  Those are the "program participants" and where the similarities arise.  Look into how kids were encouraged to report on their own parents, the secret police, the hitler youth.  That is where the key to the puzzle is...  That is where totalist the environment is.  That is what permitted such unquestioning loyalty to arise to the point where people were willing to commit genocide for the greater good (or, at the very least, look the other way and not want to know).

[Anonymous]

Your take on human nature reminds me of the movie "Dogsville." I think that you and that director have to be tied for first place in misanthropy.

I'm busy, so my response must be brief. For starters, teens are not, as you say, "the new nigger." Blacks and other "out groups" are arbitrarily created to enable the "in groups" to maximize their interests. Jane Goodall's work on pseudospeciation is a study of this in non-human primate groups. Your notion that teenagers are an "out group" and parents are the "in group" runs counter not only to normative warm and loving family dynamics -- the kind we all naturally aspire to -- it runs counter to evolutionary theory. according to which parents seek even to the point of self-sacrifice to ensure the spread and survival of their young.   

If you've got a better theory I can guarantee you a front-page spread in the New York Times. 

[Anonymous]

Your notion that teenagers are an "out group" and parents are the "in group" runs counter not only to normative warm and loving family dynamics -- the kind we all naturally aspire to -- it runs counter to evolutionary theory. according to which parents seek even to the point of self-sacrifice to ensure the spread and survival of their young.   

This, with caveats.

There are two parallel systems at work here. One is the natually occurring way that runs through most of civilization, which you just mentioned.

There is, however, an aberrant way; evolutionarily speaking, people who have children because the Bible told them to and treat them with contempt, only pausing long enough to inculcate them with the same thing, is in fact a reproductive strategy, one born of the religious insanity of the Middle East. In the very long term it is completely unsurvivable but since people of a similar stripe in this regard tend to flock together (e.g. programs, Joseph Smith's original Mormon movement, etc), we get enclaves of people who think this is okay.

The mistake Ginger, Psy, and a lot of other program survivors make is thinking that most of their society follows this abberant system.

For more information on this dichotomy, I recommend Dogemperor.

[Anonymous]

Are Jews, Christians, and Muslims more contemptuous of their young than peoples of other religions? I didn't know that. Is that what the Dogemperor says?

Religious (and racial) discrimination is not irrational. Let's say you are an employer and you must choose between three job applicants: a Jew, a Christian, and a Muslim. These three applicants are equally qualified and you have to choose one. Now, there might be a statistic that Jews are more likely to show up at work on time than Christians and Muslims. Based on this statistic, you will employ the Jew. The statistic might not be accurate with regard to the three specific applicants before you, but you don't know that. You have to choose. So you choose the Jew, because statistically the odds are in your favor. So, your discrimination is quite rational. You have acted in your own best interests, given you information. You have enhanced your survivability. You might check out, question, and even combat that statistic at some point. But until then, by discriminating against the Christian and the Muslim applicants you have acted in a most rational manner.

So where do I find the statistic that Jews or is it Christians or is it Muslims or is it all of the above feel contempt for their young?

[Froderik]

Someday the stories of survivors of Program's will be compared with what happened to the Jewish people in Germany.

Wow, ya'll are really chattin' it up with this holocaust comparison thing; people made that comparison here years ago...just .02 from an old-timer.

[Anonymous]

Please don't bring make-believe statistics into this. It makes you look like TheWho.

I'll simplify this. There are two general methods of obtaining power in society.

The first one is the direct one: You bring your tribe or other like-minded individuals and take over.

Jews, actually, follow this first type, with a pinch of its own "obtain high status in other societies" that leads to so many retarded conspiracy theories. (A history of Jews following the first type is the slaughterfest we call the Old Testament.) One cannot convert to Judaism; they explicitly avoid the second method when dealing with outsiders.

The second method of obtaining power is to make others believe you deserve power. The Egyptians followed this directly: "Pharaoh is God." Christianity came along and said "Christ is God, even after he is dead." It's nice to believe, which is why it spreads. "I don't need to worry what happens when I die, because I have Christ." Who can disprove it?

Someone cognized: "I can make these people do anything I want if I make them believe in it! I don't even need to say it's me, because I can use the dead Christ!" The success of these efforts combined into what we know as early Catholicism.

Eventually some fuckwit named Mohammed came along and said "Oh yeah, well I don't need a dead Jew on a stick for this, I can do it too!"

And of course both religions pretty much require people to pass it along. How long would a religion last that didn't care, or had "NOBODY must be introduced to this" as one of its tenets?

Christianity and Islam are the same shit, just differently flavored, passing down the ages like syphilis, eventually losing most of its direct nastiness like every other disease in human history,

In prescientific society it worked, but today we have people who know what this disease is. Some of them antipreach. Some of them go around and intentionally inoculate every child they can find. Why do you think there's such a fucking row about evolution in schools? The heavily infected are having their worlds rocked. They can't take the idea of evidence pushing out forced-belief; it'd destroy their lives.

Now let's take it on a family level. Things can be different here; a warlord can refuse to harm his children, a Jew can force his own children to follow the path. Yet the same types apply.

Normally, with even the most aggressive first-typers, the abuse is directly linked to physical size. "I'll make you do what I want because I am bigger than you." When the kid grows up and can outfight the parent, this is accepted, and passed on to the next generation.

With the truly adamant second-typers, though, they pass it on directly, using whatever they have available (physical violence, threats, etc): "The parent is God, no matter what." Lon Woodbury pretty much comes right out and says this.

It's easy to see where the contempt comes from. Their own children have resistance to this disease and no longer believe them. Is it any wonder, then, that they fall back on what they grew up with and what has been passed down through generations: "I will make you believe this, by force!" Enough of this and it tends to loop back on itself, control of one's own family becoming a cult of its own. Hence, programs, to give them a forced dose of the disease.

[psy]

Your take on human nature reminds me of the movie "Dogsville." I think that you and that director have to be tied for first place in misanthropy.

I'm busy, so my response must be brief. For starters, teens are not, as you say, "the new nigger." Blacks and other "out groups" are arbitrarily created to enable the "in groups" to maximize their interests.

Let's look at the history here.  Examine the doctrine Synanon preached that leaked down into the system we have today.  Synanon preached that "druggies" were inherantly, genetically, diseased, and that it was for the greater good of mankind that they would be isolated in Synanon and sterilized (so the druggies would die off and not pass on their diseased genes).  His own followers became the satan figure, with him as God, the savior of not just his followers, but of mankind from the disease of the "druggie".

Problem with synanon is that when the IRS cut the head off that cult, it's followers spread to the four corners of the United States, spreading this dogma (and the same disdain pervades to this day, as do Chuck Dederich's methods of dealing with the druggie question".  They never figured out that it was all a scam to make Chuck Dederich rich, and so a "religion" is born.  But where I disagree with ghost is that such an enviornment of totalism does not have to be religiously justified.  An ideal is enough, with a charismatic, sociopathic leader.  Ideas, and people, can be portrayed as god (i.e. loyalty to the party above all!).

Jane Goodall's work on pseudospeciation is a study of this in non-human primate groups. Your notion that teenagers are an "out group" and parents are the "in group" runs counter not only to normative warm and loving family dynamics -- the kind we all naturally aspire to -- it runs counter to evolutionary theory. according to which parents seek even to the point of self-sacrifice to ensure the spread and survival of their young.   

If you've got a better theory I can guarantee you a front-page spread in the New York Times. 

Oh.  I'm not saying that parent's don't do what they feel is in the best interest for their kids (that is what is flexible).  I'm just saying that there are sociopaths who prey on the parents good will, eventually convincing them that it's in their child's best interest to be, for example, abandoned on the streets.  Most of the parents, i'm sure, instinctively fight against what they are being told to do, but at the same time rationalize that it is necessary (with the help of the program).  Most people who do horrible things believe they are doing the right thing, or that which is necessary for the greater good.

[psy]

@Ghost:

Whether it's a religious dictatorship (power justifed by god), or a secular dictatorship (power justified by some other greater good, such as a political ideal) does not matter much to me.  When a totalist system arises, justified by whatever means, it invariably necessitates certain practices to maintain the operation of the system.

Dogemperor blames everything on religion.  Solzhenitsyn blamed it all on Socialism / Atheism.  Jews put the blame for the holocaust on antisemitism.  I put the blame on the leader of the group who uses these tools and the totalist common traites between all these systems to obtain and maintain their power (control over communication, obsessive demands for confession, doctrine over person, etc...)  When such systems exist, regardless of whether it on a societal scale, such as in a dictatorship, or whether on a smaller scale, as in a cult, or even an asusive relatinoship, they necessitate certain practices to maintain the operation of the system, and the leader's control over his group.

I am NOT saying that a modern, truly free, democratic society fits the criteria for totalism... far from it.  What I am saying is that when a charismatic leader sets himself up as having the one true way to lead mankind, or to deal with a certain problem such as druggies, or some other scapegoat, people are often easily misled and sucked into it.

Religion is not the problem.  The problem is certain power-hunger, or power-drunk people setting themselves up as God or the only way to God (or some god like higher ideal).  (religions can exist without leaders... there is such a thing as non-organized religion, or even organized religions that are not extreme and whose followers can come and go, and who's doctrine does not preach "it's us or hell")  That is where the border crosses from religion into cult, and from there necessitates certain practices that seem to arise natrually in such circumstances in order for the leader to maintain his power and control.

I feel that educating society to understand the commonalities between all totalist systems, such things are less likely to occur.

[Anonymous]

Please don't bring make-believe statistics into this. It makes you look like TheWho.

I'll simplify this. There are two general methods of obtaining power in society.

The first one is the direct one: You bring your tribe or other like-minded individuals and take over.

Jews, actually, follow this first type, with a pinch of its own "obtain high status in other societies" that leads to so many retarded conspiracy theories. (A history of Jews following the first type is the slaughterfest we call the Old Testament.) One cannot convert to Judaism; they explicitly avoid the second method when dealing with outsiders.

The second method of obtaining power is to make others believe you deserve power. The Egyptians followed this directly: "Pharaoh is God." Christianity came along and said "Christ is God, even after he is dead." It's nice to believe, which is why it spreads. "I don't need to worry what happens when I die, because I have Christ." Who can disprove it?

Someone cognized: "I can make these people do anything I want if I make them believe in it! I don't even need to say it's me, because I can use the dead Christ!" The success of these efforts combined into what we know as early Catholicism.

Eventually some fuckwit named Mohammed came along and said "Oh yeah, well I don't need a dead Jew on a stick for this, I can do it too!"

And of course both religions pretty much require people to pass it along. How long would a religion last that didn't care, or had "NOBODY must be introduced to this" as one of its tenets?

Christianity and Islam are the same shit, just differently flavored, passing down the ages like syphilis, eventually losing most of its direct nastiness like every other disease in human history,

In prescientific society it worked, but today we have people who know what this disease is. Some of them antipreach. Some of them go around and intentionally inoculate every child they can find. Why do you think there's such a fucking row about evolution in schools? The heavily infected are having their worlds rocked. They can't take the idea of evidence pushing out forced-belief; it'd destroy their lives.

Now let's take it on a family level. Things can be different here; a warlord can refuse to harm his children, a Jew can force his own children to follow the path. Yet the same types apply.

Normally, with even the most aggressive first-typers, the abuse is directly linked to physical size. "I'll make you do what I want because I am bigger than you." When the kid grows up and can outfight the parent, this is accepted, and passed on to the next generation.

With the truly adamant second-typers, though, they pass it on directly, using whatever they have available (physical violence, threats, etc): "The parent is God, no matter what." Lon Woodbury pretty much comes right out and says this.

It's easy to see where the contempt comes from. Their own children have resistance to this disease and no longer believe them. Is it any wonder, then, that they fall back on what they grew up with and what has been passed down through generations: "I will make you believe this, by force!" Enough of this and it tends to loop back on itself, control of one's own family becoming a cult of its own. Hence, programs, to give them a forced dose of the disease.

I'm not asking you for "make-believe statistics." I'm asking you for real ones. You're clueless about religions, Ghost. You're claims are laughable. Do you expect me to believe your crackpot theories just because you do? Who do you think you are? God?!?

[TheWho]

Please don't bring make-believe statistics into this. It makes you look like TheWho.

TheWho’s stats stood the test of time here.  No one was able to poke a hole in them or point out a flaw, people were just angry with them because they told a different story, that’s all it was.  He provided links to his sources.
As someone else said,  the more we can educate people on the ins and outs of these places the easier it will be to expose them publically and in a big way, tear the walls down, remove the leaders and make the bank accounts public.  The regulation is a first step in removing some of the power and control small groups or individuals have over these kids.  Were moving the elephant in the right direction, just not gaining much momentum.

[Anonymous]

Please don't bring make-believe statistics into this. It makes you look like TheWho.

TheWho’s stats stood the test of time here.  No one was able to poke a hole in them or point out a flaw, people were just angry with them because they told a different story, that’s all it was.  He provided links to his sources.
As someone else said,  the more we can educate people on the ins and outs of these places the easier it will be to expose them publically and in a big way, tear the walls down, remove the leaders and make the bank accounts public.  The regulation is a first step in removing some of the power and control small groups or individuals have over these kids.  Were moving the elephant in the right direction, just not gaining much momentum.

:guesswho:

[Anonymous]

There are an assload of anecdotes- the inter-mountain area near Utah having a high rape rate, for example- but let's skip that for now. Here's some actual research. If you don't have $31.50 go look at the titles of the 32 articles that cite it.

Psy uses "totalism" but I think it's more of a sliding scale- with Catholicism you get (today) priests ass-fucking altar boys; with Protestant fundamentalism you get Teen Challenge and some programs; with Mormonism you get even more child abuse, the highest suicide rate in America, and more programs; with the FLDS you get a compound where 14 year old girls are "marrying" 50 year old men; with resurgent Islamic fundamentalism you get total subjugation of women and absolute fanaticism taught to 5 year olds; and when you have a new system like Nazism, communism, and charismatic leaders like Pol Pot, you get millions of people killed.

Generally, the newer the cult, the more potential for danger it has until people become resistant to its nastier effects and the disease and the person have a general truce (as they do with Hepatitis C). What would happen if Scientology took over?

Christianity was actually crafted to not be dangerous, and you know what? It turned out to be fucking dangerous anyway. Crusades, inquisitions, witch burnings, persecutions. WWJD?

Give me an example of a great human evil that *did not* come about as the result of an all-encompassing belief system.

Oh, wait. You're TheWho. Okay, I'm talking to everyone else then.

[TheWho]

There are an assload of anecdotes- the inter-mountain area near Utah having a high rape rate, for example- but let's skip that for now. Here's some actual research. If you don't have $31.50 go look at the titles of the 32 articles that cite it.

Psy uses "totalism" but I think it's more of a sliding scale- with Catholicism you get (today) priests ass-fucking altar boys; with Protestant fundamentalism you get Teen Challenge and some programs; with Mormonism you get even more child abuse, the highest suicide rate in America, and more programs; with the FLDS you get a compound where 14 year old girls are "marrying" 50 year old men; with resurgent Islamic fundamentalism you get total subjugation of women and absolute fanaticism taught to 5 year olds; and when you have a new system like Nazism, communism, and charismatic leaders like Pol Pot, you get millions of people killed.

Generally, the newer the cult, the more potential for danger it has until people become resistant to its nastier effects and the disease and the person have a general truce (as they do with Hepatitis C). What would happen if Scientology took over?

Christianity was actually crafted to not be dangerous, and you know what? It turned out to be fucking dangerous anyway. Crusades, inquisitions, witch burnings, persecutions. WWJD?

Give me an example of a great human evil that *did not* come about as the result of an all-encompassing belief system.

Oh, wait. You're TheWho. Okay, I'm talking to everyone else then.

:guesswho:

[Froderik]

I'm as stoned as an old testament hooker in a synagogue full of rabbis.

[Anonymous]

I'm as stoned as an old testament hooker in a synagogue full of rabbis.

You must be. Old Testament hookers and rabbis lived about a thousand years apart.