Larry Wall & Cults

[John Savard]

On 25 Aug 2004 14:56:06 -0700, xah at xahlee.org (Xah Lee) wrote, in part:

>Did you know that throughout history there's this thing called cult?

We have heard of it.

>Don't think that i'm citing from
>some arcane books buried in libraries. These are real, and not
>difficult to find in real life.

Unlike the cult of Chthulhu, for example.

>Big brother organizations, such as the FBI, is keen on these and
>very interested in benefiting from social psychology themselves. They
>are recorded in books too. Ever wonder why the library houses so many
>cold volumes of paper? This is one contributing reason. You might be
>interested to verify that sometimes.

Ah, yes. If it weren't for the interest of the FBI in cults, our
libraries would be much smaller, or they would emphasize warm audio and
video recordings more.

>Surely you have heard of Adolf Hitler
>and his atrocities of genocide?

Yes, you are rather safe in assuming that.

>I must alert you, that a single person
>couldn't commit such a crime. You see, even if you are superman, you
>can only kill few at a time.

Yes, despite claims at the Nuremberg trials, Hitler didn't run the
concentration camps as a one-man operation.

>You see, it is the people, people like
>you and me, who commit the killings willingly, by Hitler's
>teaching. You may say: "no, i won't ever do such stupid thing", well
>because you are very ignorant about social psychology. It is precisely
>innocent people like you and (not) me, who were lead by the radical
>leaders of supreme brain-washing abilities. The innocent mob were
>fervent in their leader's vision and beliefs to commit anything.

They did, though, have to select from the German people those who would
operate the concentration camps.

As for the masses, it was enough that they were afraid to try to do
anything to stop it.

>How can we prevent heinous cults then? Stop bending truths. Education
>and rationalism. I'm starting my own cult to exterminate morons on
>this earth.  Two things are on the top of my agenda: Unixism and Perl.

You are not providing any validation for your claim that these things
are so dangerous that the use of deadly force is justified or necessary.

John Savard
http://home.ecn.ab.ca/~jsavard/index.html