A good summary article–if anyone has a gift link:
Even having read the works of Harlan Ellison and Neal Stephenson, my mind cannot process how human beings could get themselves wound up this way. I can’t account for it with anything I know of, except that it appears they’ve invented a whole new way to go crazy. A systematic program to destroy one’s own mind. I can’t find the like of it in fiction or fact. I’m grasping for the most extreme examples to compare it to. Like the ultra-fascistic Julius Evola cranked up to eleven starring in a scenario written by Philip K. Dick when he was tripping on several psychedelics at once simultaneously with a really horrible gastrointestinal disorder.
The end of Liztomania where Richard Wagner rises from the tomb as a demonic hybrid of Hitler and Frankenstein’s monster and destroys the world with an electric guitar machine gun. A distillation of the darkest depths of the Teutonic id. Something approaching that, only cyber this time.
Bad luck for her:
She’s accused of fatally shooting agent David Maland on Jan. 20, the same day President Donald Trump was inaugurated and signed a sweeping executive order lifting the moratorium on federal executions.
Every sort of specific kind of crazy has a specific kind of memetic ideology that is exactly impedance matched to it. The ideology, by itself, may be benign or even positive; the crazy may only be mildly negative without the ideology. But the two together and you get psychopathic behavior.
One of the downsides of the internet is that it seems to have sped up this matching process.
“Impedance matching is the process of ensuring that the output impedance of a signal source is equal to the input impedance of the load it is connected to. This is done to maximize power transfer and minimize signal reflection. Achieving impedance matching is crucial in various applications, from RF systems to audio circuits, to ensure optimal performance and signal integrity.”
Honestly, the whole thing doesn’t seem that far off from Pascal’s Wager to me. Some overly-simplistic math with some very bad assumptions going in can lead to bonkers outcomes.
That was only part of the crazy.
It’s a metaphor. Two systems which are fully unmatched will basically act as if they’re isolated (this is most people, most of the time, with various cult ideologies). If they’re a little matched, there will be some transfer. But the transfer is only maximized when the two systems are matched.
Some kinds of brains go wild when presented with, say, religious fervor, but are indifferent to anything else. Others when paired with the right economic ideology. And apparently, some brains go wild when paired with rationalism.
I have a relative who spent time in Scientology. One of the smartest people I know (especially when he was younger). It’s hard to fathom how someone like that could get sucked in–and yet he did. Even today, he sometimes reminisces on it, and once basically tried to “sell” me on it, despite being out of the cult for decades. Just total nonsense. But somehow it was matched to his brain and never quite left it.
Sometimes I wonder if there’s an equivalent mind virus that would work on me, despite all my defenses.
I think the answer is always some kind of social pressure. If you spend some time in isolation and suddenly you have a community, a family, it’s a very powerful drug. It’s not something you can be reasoned out of. I think the victim would have to realize he’s not as beloved as he thinks he is or that the relationships themselves were bad, in order to break free of the beliefs.
Probably true. As a child, he was vastly more gifted than his family. He went to MIT and a professor indoctrinated him. There’s a good chance that he finally felt he was among peers there. He was also not around his family at the time.
Oh, I’ve been in and out of matching my brain to so many various trips in my lifespan that now I’m frankly tired of it all. In my old age I’ve settled down to my one tried and true brainmatch:
Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol
. Helps take life a bit easier.
And that’s why cults often target college students.
Being smart is a double edged sword: it makes it easier to reject obviously nonsensical beliefs and weigh evidence, but once you are emotionally invested in a belief, it makes you better able to defend it from counterarguments and rationalize away contrary evidence.
How do you know it hasn’t already? 
I believe this is true. We are not all vulnerable to the same ideas, but we are all vulnerable.
Ah, that makes sense. This 100% fits the Ziz cult. And perhaps explains attachment to various niche political ideologies - they similarly provide a community of like-minded people, united by a common goal of improving the world.
I’m sure a lot of “smart” people have been sucked into these cults.
Once upon a time I briefly considered semi-rural Tennessee as a retirement destination. Just imagine living close to these people.
Yes, the need for “belonging” is a mighty driver in many areas of human behavior.
And cult leaders and con men are great at “reading” those vulnerabilities. Better than ourselves.
This reads like something I’d expect to see on a right wing conspiracy site or an over-the-top parody. I know it’s true, but had someone written this as a work of fiction we’d all be rolling our eyes over how ridiculous it is.
Yeah, you have to put up with enough made up baloney as it is. Nothing like transphobes having something more concrete to use against you. That sucks, and I’m sorry you have to put up with it.
I’ve read similar arguments regarding conspiracy theories. They’re not dummies and are often intelligent people who are able to defend their beliefs. I’ve also seen it argued that many cult members weren’t vulnerable loners with low self-esteem who got sucked into the group but apparently that’s not necessarily true.
Maybe. Or are they pretty much one-trick ponies who cast a wide net and haul in whoever happens to have the right “shape” to not slip through the net? The folks that Marshall Applewhite’s Heaven’s Gate cult collected were different from David Koresh’s Branch Davidians were different from Jim Jone’s Jonestown crowd-followers.
Their adherents were all similar in that they had what it takes to join and follow a really over-the-top cult. But I believe each group’s recruiting and retention “secret sauce” was a bunch different.
MAGA is not that different from a cult now. With different sauce again.
It’s beyond parody. A trans vegan murder cult and the Church of the AR-15. Gotta 
America.
If I am in a cult, it’s a really unpopular one. Just one member.