Conversation

obviously we all depend constantly on each other’s thoughts, stretching back to the beginning of writing. nobody has ever thought for themselves. it’s impossible to be isolated from other people’s thoughts, even if those people have been dead for centuries
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the problem with cults is not that people have “stopped thinking for themselves,” as if that were something they would otherwise be doing. it’s that people are trusting some person or idea which is not actually trustworthy, and which is *unusual* to be trusting in that way
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in the small cult you might give all your money to some guy who kinda looks like jesus or commit mass suicide in guyana but in the big cult you’ll get a *job* and maybe if you’re lucky one day you’ll get to *retire* *after* giving up your health and youth
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it’s not that the big cult won’t hurt you. it’s just that the ways the big cult will hurt you are normalized. small cults are also exactly like this. the ways you get hurt get normalized. and you find a reason to pretend they don’t matter
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