“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.

Learning a second language hasn’t made me think English is broken. I already thought English was messed up but know a little of it’s history so have a general idea why. Learning Spanish means learning the flaws of a second language. I thinking all languages are flawed, but English just goes the extra mile.

I had that last night. I went to finally watch Pluto, which I read the manga and seen the first episode before so knew I was love it, but when I started it I was like “Can I speed this up?” Which wouldn’t have made it as good. " Do I have time for this? I could be doing something else?" When I had did some chores and didn’t have anything the next day just for this. Once I was into it, I had a hard time stopping, but had to because I was too tired to appreciate it.

I think I been consuming media that not very important to me and that I don’t have to pay close attention that I normalize that. When years ago I use to purposely consume a big chunk of media. So the opposite of what I do now. Making setting aside time and focusing hard to do.

It’s going to be a effort or significant cost or both to get rid of it

Laser hair removal. You can get it done professionally or buy a at home device. If buy an at home make sure it’s safe to use on your face and near your eyes. I have an at home and it works and it takes years to get rid of all the hair in an area. I got rid of the hair on my feet still working on my lower legs.

I also use a brand of hair inhibitor called Completely Bare. It a lotion. I use on my upper face like between my eyebrows. You pluck the hair out and rub in the lotion. Not as good as laser but I’m not going to buy a laser removal device just to use in that area.

Laser hair removal works best on dark hair and light skin, but the tech has gotten better over the years so if you are not that see if there stuff out there that may work for you. If you buy a laser hair machine find out how much replacement cartridge are. It’s better to pay more for a machine if the cartilage are cheaper. Also read the warnings so you don’t burn yourself.

Years ago when I use to go Anime News Network daily I would click on some ads because they only allowed relevant ads and found some great sites to buy anime stuff from. Yesterday I clicked on an ad for a Kickstarter because I was curious. I’ve clicked on ads and rarely I end up buying stuff, but have bought after I verified it was a legit site, but mostly I clicked on ads out of curiosity because it a cool design or idea. Ads are not inherently bad. The pervasiveness, intrusiveness, and scams are the problems. When ads were a banner at the top of a page and were relevant to the site they were ok. I miss those. I won’t purposely click on pop up or over ads or in between paragraphs ads, but I do sometimes click on obviously ads that are not aggressive that are interesting.