I’m halfway through my introductory, week-long, “conversation”, with a half dozen other individuals.
Have any other Dopers explored this site/community?
I have a lot of observations from just a few days. Some of them bad, some of them good. It is difficult, as yet, to determine if the negative things are attributable to other individual participants and not associated with the site/organization.
Can you summarize this site because it’s hard to tell what it’s about from the site.
Is it a community of psychologists? A cult? What is it’s aim? What will my role be?
HEY!
This organiztion uses rhetoric dangerously similar to a cult.
You should stop your “introductory, week-long, “conversation”, with a half dozen other individuals” ASAP, & check these folks out through a 3rd party source.
I advise against a face-to-face meeting with them.
I strongly advise against going on any form of “retreat” with them.
I have my full Skeptical Shields up. Thanks for the concern.
I’ve done the same degree of due-diligence that I give everything online, and could find no “Operation clambake”-esque cites, but my research was not exhaustive. I felt comfortable at least taking a peak.
The format appears to be focused on org-produced and “user produced” content, mostly videos and animations. You are encouraged to interact with them ala carte, or join a small discussion about them with others.
I’ll post again later with the list of authors/books/videos that have been recommended by both the facilitator and the other participants.
I freely admit that, in spite of what didn’t turn up during my due dilligence, that the word “cult” has crossed my mind and passed my lips. But, as I said in my OP, I do not yet have a clear reading as to whether those vibes are coming from some of the other participants, or from the org itself, or both.
Dude, from the heart–these guys make my Spidey-Sense tingle.
Go elsewhere, for enlightenment.
FAST!!
Ok, ok. Point taken. Do I at least get to list the “recommended reading/watching” and discuss what insight they offer, if any, into their motivations?
Sure, give us the reading/watching list. That will tell us more about them and where they’re coming from.
ETA: There are some interesting ideas here. Just keep your hand on your wallet.
So, what’s the One Big Idea? What it the one shift we all have to make to solve all the complex, complicated problems in the world?
I am still working on those references. Mafia V has me preoccupied. No tinfoil hats have been handed out. No retreats scheduled. No contributions requested. I am still in possession of all of my 10 fingers and 10 toes. I still have both kidneys.
I ramble more about my experiences. My full blog post is here .
It might be fun to see if y’all can guess which of the recommendations came from the same individuals, and what my reaction was to those individuals.
For example, I rented What the BLEEP do we know? and I was not impressed. I was actually disappointed because some seemingly solid information was presented along with such utter tripe, that I think it does more harm than good in the struggle for informed awareness. One of probably many previous threads on the film can be found here.
From what summaries I’ve seen (and the foreword, which is all I’ve had a chance to read of the copy I just bought) I’m probably going to have some problems swallowing what Ervin Laszlo has to say in The Chaos Point. I haven’t gotten around to finding any SDMB threads about it yet.
In summary, they’re not advocating a big “IT” to solve our problems, unless you consider the idea that the have to start thinking about the world differently (as individuals and populations) as a bit “IT”.
If that’s all they ain’t worth bothering with.
You got that here, on the SDMB.