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i think this is true; also i think they fall prey to the usual "a community which tries to build new social tech from scratch is highly vulnerable to abuse" thing. It's not that trying new social tech is bad, its just we have poor understanding of why current stuff is here

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Tyler Alterman

@TylerAlterman

Jan 9, 2022

Somewhere I think @Aella_Girl opined smth like: “Mayb communities that r abt psych/spiritual techniques go wrong by default” Reason why this might b true: Wherever there is pwr, u can expect abuse. Psych & spiritual pwr affects minds w more depth & immediacy. The abuses magnify.

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5:43 PM · Jan 9, 2022

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Like, if you have a group where its like "lets get rid of emotional boundaries, let's be totally vulnerable," - i love this, but *also* it has potential to seriously amplify problems that we don't have the social tech to solve yet.

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I hadn’t thought of this – that lindy/long-standing social tech will more often have solved abuse problems, otherwise it wouldn’t have survived so long. Good insight.

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Hunter gather communities had very high levels of murder and were also very egalitarian. Implies that level of hierarchy doesn't predict abuse very well.

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This is a huge factor in why this happens. Also, this does not seem to happen as often in a group that is for an activity _other_ than changing its members, possibly bcs it gives them something else to do. nemorathwald.dreamwidth.org/#entry-398851