Larry Wall & Cults

[John Thingstad]

I think I just hit the 'wall'.
rlol

On 25 Aug 2004 14:56:06 -0700, Xah Lee <xah at xahlee.org> wrote:

> Larry Wall and Cults
> (Lazyness, Impatience and Hubris)
> 200012
>
> Dear readers,
>
> Did you know that throughout history there's this thing called cult?
> It is a very interesting phenomenon. I don't have time to expound and
> teach, but will try to brief you.
>
> These cults, are often lead by a single person. They form a group as
> small as a dozen to multinational octopuses (such as
> Scientology). Their creed varies from the mild in appearance
> (Dianetics) to appalling (flat earth, extraordinary life-after-death,
> impinging apocalypse scenarios, militant anti-government conspiracy,
> diabolism with human sacrifices ...). 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. Some of these cult leaders, are so
> able to totally wash their member's brain, as to have them
> autonomously swear and volunteer to die for the cause of the cult.
> Occasionally, you'll even see mass suicide.
>
> You know, the world is not made completely of rubes. Somebody
> somewhere, will observe this phenomenon and study or report it as
> is. 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.
>
> These brain-washing phenomenon, are not limited to fanatical
> life-and-death or otherwise dire beliefs. You see it work in all
> manners of human thought in the general sense. From culture formation
> to fashion to commercialism.  Surely you have heard of Adolf Hitler
> and his atrocities of genocide? 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. 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. You
> know the concept of war, right? We have two massive body of people
> committed to cut off other people's head or otherwise stick a knife in
> their bodies or bomb off an arm or leg. How did that happen? Well, it
> starts with patriotism for people like you and (not) me.
>
> Now, back to topic. In the computing world, there're also bad seeds
> with colorful creed taking innocent mobs forming cults. The three
> principal virtues of a programmer are Laziness, Impatience, and
> Hubris. Yes?
>
> 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.
>
> --------
> This post is archived at
>  http://xahlee.org/UnixResource_dir/writ/larry_wall_n_cults.html
>
> Copyright 2000-2004 Xah Lee. Verbatim Reproduction for non-commercial
> purposes is hereby granted provided proper credit is given.
>
>  Xah
>  xah at xahlee.org
>  http://xahlee.org/PageTwo_dir/more.html



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