[ExI] and speaking of exponential singularities...

[Keith Henson]

On Wed, Jul 20, 2011 at 5:00 AM,   BillK <pharos at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On Wed, Jul 20, 2011 at 11:13 AM, Stefano Vaj wrote:
>> Originally, Dianetics and Scientology may well have been both a
>> practical joke and a way to make a decent living for their founder.
>> But now? You are recruited, your personal life and estate is swallowed
>> by the organisation, you climb the ladder, and find other people whose
>> life and estate to swallow in a sort of social Ponzi scheme where
>> there is no Ponzi actually becoming rich. In fact, the entire
>> structure does not appear to serve any other purpose than its own
>> survival.

snip

> That is a rather simplistic version of $cientology.
>
> Agreed it was designed as a money-making scheme for the leader(s).
> The current leader, Miscavige, is said to be worth over 50 million
> USD, plus he controls all the funds, businesses and real estate of the
> organisation.
>
> But the idea was to devise an ever-growing multi-level marketing
> scheme with incentives to continually expand. Members get 10% to 15%
> commissions on the expensive courses that they sell to people. So they
> can get a good living selling courses and incidentally growing the
> business.
>
> So people join and are persuaded verbally and monetarily to carry on
> working for the business. No wonder it is difficult to break away.

It is worth considering where the human psychological vulnerability to
cults comes from.

For darn good evolutionary reasons we are highly rewarded by
attention.  Anyone who has lectured and come off the stage higher than
a kite knows the feeling.

Especially for males, a certain amount of status is required in human
social groups for "mating opportunities."  Status is more or less the
sum over time of attention.

Cults promote attention, and few of them provide as much intense
focused attention (auditing sessions) as this bunch.

How rewarded a person is by this kind of treatment seems to be mainly
genetic, not unlike the ability to be hooked on addictive drugs and
probably some of the same genes are involved.  The rate of nicotine
addiction among members of this cult is legendary.

I went into this years ago in "sex drugs and cults."

Keith