Notices by Nate Cull (natecull@mastodon.social), page 12

Never gonna give you up
Never gonna let you down
Never gonna fly a fantasyyyyyy
Dream a dream
And what you see will beeeee

This is the story that doesn't end
Yes it goes on and on my friend
Some people started singing it
Not knowing what it'd be

Now they are gonna turn around
And look at what they seeeeeeee
In her face
The mirror of their dreeeeeeams

@JoYo @zensaiyuki @Rich_Graham

omg songwriters = Georgio Moroder

well that explains that then

@JoYo @zensaiyuki @Rich_Graham

IN HER FACE

THE MIRROR OF YOUR DREEE-EEE-EEE-EEE-EEE-EEE-AAAMMMS

@zensaiyuki @Rich_Graham my wife was just telling me about Bhutan which seems to have a very similar penis cult

literally dicks everywhere

also apparently the happiest country in the world

possibly according to a survey created by guys

@zensaiyuki @Rich_Graham

I feel like the Masons must have been very important in unifying the USA after the Civil War, because one of the few (only?) statues of a Southern military officer in Washington DC was a high-level Mason.

@zensaiyuki @Rich_Graham

I imagine the Flag and Constitution are to the USA as the Bible was to the Protestant churches. A unifying symbol to fall back on, a substitute for the human leadership system they'd rejected.

@zensaiyuki @Rich_Graham

Just as hurricanes are essentially heat engines, I think of cults as 'fear engines'.

They feed off a 'fear differential'. The difference between feeling terrified by the world outside, and feeling safety inside the group.

And like hurricanes, they can become self-sustaining once the group itself generates enough social pushback that it *creates* fear in others, reflecting back on itself.

@zensaiyuki @Rich_Graham

Just as hurricanes are essentially heat engines, I think of cults as 'fear engines'.

They feed off a 'fear differential'. The difference between feeling terrified by the world outside, and feeling safety inside the group.

@zensaiyuki @Rich_Graham

Cultlike dynamics can emerge at all scales, from codependent relationships in families right up to big political cults that take over nations.

They're dangerous at all scales but at the national level they are enormously destructive.

And I think we're seeing at least one of those forming right now (Trumpism/Brexitism), but maybe also more.

There are some worrying signs, to me, of similar vortexes also appearing on the left.

@zensaiyuki @Rich_Graham

I tend to think of cults as something like an emergent, self-propagating social phenomenon... a little like a hurricane.

They are an energy system that feeds off the in-group/out-group division and the energy of a charismatic leader... but they're not *just* created by the leader (who may be consciously or unconsciously manipulating their followers), but also by the energy of all the followers who want desperately to believe.

@zensaiyuki @Rich_Graham

Cultlike dynamics can emerge at all scales, from codependent relationships in families right up to big political cults that take over nations.

They're dangerous at all scales but at the national level they are enormously destructive.

@zensaiyuki @Rich_Graham

I tend to think of cults as something like an emergent, self-propagating social phenomenon... a little like a hurricane.

They are an energy system that feeds off the in-group/out-group division and the energy of a charismatic leader... but they're just *just* created by the leader (who may be consciously or unconsciously manipulating their followers), but also by the energy of all the followers who want desperately to believe.

The Necronomitron

Rule:

For every EULA you read completely, lose 1D6 SAN points and gain 1 point of Forbidden Lore.

If you merely glance at or skim the EULA, lose 1 SAN point and gain no Forbidden Lore.

If you close your eyes and click Accept without reading, roll 1D6. On a 2 or lower, lose 1 SAN point anyway (you peeked) and gain no Lore. Otherwise, breath a sigh of relief - you have escaped with your mind unscathed, for now - but add one point of Corporate Dark Karma, to be used when the GM chooses.

Rule:

For every EULA you read completely, lose 1D6 SAN points and gain 1 point of Forbidden Lore.

If you merely glance at or skim the EULA without reading, lose 1 SAN point and gain no Forbidden Lore.

Rule:

For every EULA you read completely, lose 1D6 SAN points and gain 1 point of Forbidden Lore.

@Rich_Graham @zensaiyuki

An interesting parenthesis here: the career of L Ron Hubbard and Scientology. Who seemed to have a lot of connections to the military intelligence world, and not just via the STAR GATE projects in the 1970s (where high-level Scientologists were given clearance to work with the CIA).

Hubbard became deeply paranoid about the CIA and 'psychology/psychotherapy' being a left-wing plot, and seemed to like the Mafia.

So I peg him as far-right.

@Rich_Graham @zensaiyuki

Which is not to say that the CIA *didn't* engage in both psychological operations, and in experimenting with drugs, hypnosis and altered states of mind. They did.

But those experiments were all directed against suspected Communists.

The far-right crazy narrative is that the CIA was directing those techniques against *conservatives* and against the 'American People' to make, eg, the 1960s happen.

@Rich_Graham @zensaiyuki

So, whenever you see deeply paranoid people howling online about 'CIA mind control', check their politics on other things. You'll very likely find that they're ultra hard right conservatives worried that the CIA was part of a socialist 'globalist' plot to overthrow conservative values by brainwashing people via, eg, drugs and rock-n-roll.

If they're complaining about the CIA overthrowing Communist states in South America, they'll be the Left.