Air conditioning units actually condition the air.

I grew up in a house that had an air conditioning unit and an evaporative cooler (we called it a swamp cooler). Swamp coolers are awesome when you live in dry place. Only when the humidity gets too high you need to switch over to the AC. Swamp coolers are cheaper to run so cue arguments on trying to get my parents to switch to the AC when it starts getting humid. 😆

“Perfect Blue” by Satoshi Kon. Watching it dubbed multiple times so I notice the visuals. Also the changes between the sub and dub can bring more understanding.

The ice maker stopped working and When I make Sodastream I pour it over ice so I wouldn’t make Sodastream soda and was “forced” to drink the Cokes in the fridge. It took 2 days before the ice machine was fixed.

I lived through Livejournal choosing to destroy itself and saw Reddit doing the same things and worse and walked away. Choosing short term profits over people makes me NOPE out. No bans or warnings for me. I guess I just don’t type “dangerous” stuff even though I consider myself pretty opinionated.

“Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Rules and leaders are needed, but they always have the chance of being misused. That why checks and balances are always needed.

You have the normal rules and norms, but what if you take them to an absurd level. Let’s say your in a Club. It has a rule that only members allowed and every member has to dress nice and be clean and presentable at all times inside. Well one member falls into the food table, getting food all over them and breaking their leg. Does the manager of the Club demand the person who fell get up and leave immediately? After all they are no longer clean and presentable. Well a reasonable Club would care more about having the person not move and getting emergency services in there. A cult would demand they get up and leave. The emergency personnel wouldn’t be allowed inside anyway since they are not members.

I see the parallel because I see cults as normal behaviors taken to the extreme.

A philosophy group could turn into a cult. A lot of cults start out as going against whatever everyone else is doing/thinking.

I agree. Science is a tool, people don’t believe in science. You use science. You don’t believe in gravity you accept it and our current understanding of it. Which may change as our tools to measure and understand our environment get better.

Atheism isn’t really a community either. The atheism community is more people who lack a belief in a god who banded together in various areas to protect themselves and others against having religious things forced onto them. Now an atheist group could turn into a cult because once you have a group systems of control can take over and it could turn into an authoritarian group.

Any group can become a cult, because cults are systems of control. Loosely organized groups are going to have a harder time becoming one, but sporting club which probably have rules and hierarchies, a soup kitchen is probably a nonprofit so would need rules and leaders. Artistic communities may have rules to use the space. Any group can become authoritarian if they get structured enough.

AA could be a cult. Synanon which was a drug rehab organization became a cult. A lot of cults start out as positive and affirmative groups.

I think of cults as more of systems of control. MLMs, jobs (Theranos), large-group awareness training (nxivm), political groups (Maga), exercise groups (CrossFit), fandoms, book clubs, families, online groups, etc can all be cults.

I suggest the podcast IndoctriNation⁠ by Rachel Bernstein to see many ways these “systems of control” as she calls them can manifest.

I personally think that cult behavior is just normal behavior taken to the extreme so there really isn’t an opposite. Maybe being alone with no relationships.

The various types of groups we are on family, friends, work, recreational, etc have various controls on how you act and speak. This isn’t necessarily bad. You probably want to be a little different with family than with your hobby group. I explained the broader meaning of cults to my Dad and he said the Marines have those aspects. I think an important part to know if a group is probably fine is if you can leave with no issues. If there are consequences to leaving the group that’s a huge red flag.

I suggest looking at the BITE Model of Authoritarian Control. Which is a useful tool to check if a group is a cult. You can read up on problems with this tool, but it’s still a good starting point.

Edit: No one joins a cult. They join groups for positive reasons and then those groups either turn into cults or as they get deeper into the group the control parts are introduced.

We all probably brushed up against cults without knowing. You could go to an exercise/spiritual/hobby/other group and what you don’t know is if you had gotten more involved and took the special classes, or volunteered and became a part of the in group you could have become a part of a cult.

Bloody, but just because when I had a period I would say things like “I’m on my bloody period!”

Tech support is mostly turning things off and on since it fixes a lot of things. And I mean actually turning them off and on, not just turning the screen off and on. Then turning setting off and on. Lots of checking what should or shouldn’t be on and trying it the other way.

Financial institutions are not as secure as you think.

Every once in a while I will see someone ask “We bank online why can’t we vote online?” Banking is secure enough that the money the banks lose is less than the money they make. Also not all lose of funds will hurt the bank if the individual is scammed, since individuals are supposed to keep their accounts secure and not fall for scams.

Your bank is using old technology and Excel for a lot of internal records keeping. Most fraud detection is a cost to the bank not a money maker. Stopping money laundering, human trafficking, ect means the bank doesn’t get that money and has to pay people to investigate it and shudder report to the government.

Like almost every other business out there they work off of poorly made or old tech and the lowest paid people are push to more work with less time and resources.

The Impending Blindness of Billie Scott by Zoe Thorogood.

I’ll just steal the description from Amazon "Billie Scott is an artist.

Her debut gallery exhibition opens in a few months.

Within a fortnight she’ll be completely blind.

Zoe Thorogood’s first graphic novel is a story about what it’s like to get something you want, have it immediately taken away from you and then how you put it all back together again. Set in a world of people down on their luck from Middlesbrough to London, it’s a graphic novel that speaks of post-austerity Britain and the problems facing those left behind."

The art is great, the characters feel real, and the issues with it are minor. I read it for a book club and loved reading this and discussing it

The anime Perfect Blue. It was ahead of it’s time. 1997 but the parasocial aspect of society it explores was in it’s infancy compared to current time.

Over my life I’ve had several shoes and other clothes that I wish when they wore out I could have bought more. Thankfully my favorite shirt right now I can. It is a tshirt from Hot Topic. It says it is the Dark Phoenix but I know it is Kitty Pryde using shi’ar tech to look like the Dark Phoenix and it amuses me to wear it. I have several times worn it and said “Do you like my Kitty Pryde T-shirt?” And people being confused. The shirt is also very comfortable.

I went to a small concert and you could buy their music on a flash drive. That was awesome. I like that option

At a anime convention there was a table with various CDs of the band playing that night. I couldn’t go to concert, but bought a CD to support them even though it was going to be a slight inconvenience to rip it. I still have all my old CDs (I don’t really have that much so haven’t gotten rid of them. I keep them in a plastic container) so just put it with the rest.

Even if you are paying for a product, you may be another income stream. You pay for a smart watch/home assistant/email/VPN and they use your data. Not all but enough people need to be aware of. Sadly It’s pretty much now deciding on who gets your data. Or trusting that they really are not taking your data, trust them, they say they are not!

PT is evidence based, chiropracty is woo. PT goal is to get you better and stop PT or teach you how to do it on your own. Chiropractors want you to come back for the rest of your life.