2:38am September 11, 2014

My #1 red flag about LW.

At least, the #1 red flag I’m able to coherently articulate, and that I completely forgot to mention earlier.

They basically take any mental system you have that is capable of showing you what is going badly wrong in their organization, that is capable of showing you actual danger signs, that is capable of sending a warning siren sky high with rockets blaring saying “GET OUT OF HERE NOW!”

And they either (with “it” being whichever system of thoughts is allowing you to see these red flags, which varies depending on the red flag):

1. Disparage it.

2. Teach you to systematically dismantle it.

3. Treat it as a lesser form of thought that won’t get you the real answers about the world.

4. Mock it (and mock people who use it).

Depending on which mental system it is that’s capable of giving you the warnings. Once I saw that pattern going on, I think that was when I finally decided to stop experimenting with hanging around trying to understand.

Also, I just want to reiterate that I’m aware that LW is an enormous group of people and that some people are genuinely helped by it. Some people are Some people are genuinely helped by involuntary psychiatric commitment to a crappy mental institution that beats, rapes, and kills more people than it cures. Some people are genuinely helped by Scientology. Some people are genuinely helped by dangerously massive doses of LSD. Some people have had their lives saved by all of those things. Should I stop saying that, in general, those things are really bad news? No. I am always glad when people are able to be helped by something, even if it is something I strongly disagree with or that I think is, overall, harming more people than it helps. But that’s not going to stop me from saying that it’s overall a very harmful and dangerous thing that people shouldn’t probably be screwing around with, and that there are almost always better places to get the same help, even if one particular person didn’t happen to find those better places first.

And I don’t think there’s anything morally wrong with condemning something that I’ve seen do serious damage on a repeat basis, that I’ve seen contain and condone deeply sinister patterns of behavior, even if by some fluke it’s saved a few people’s lives along the way. This doesn’t diminish the lives it’s saved, at all, but I know there are always better ways to save lives than to put people in such a dangerous situation. I am genuinely happy that LW has saved some people’s lives, but I think it would be highly unusual for an organization of its scope and size (and especially, with a huge range of ideas being put out on a regular basis so that a person is exposed to tons of good ideas and tons of bad ideas and if they hit the right good idea it’s like hitting the jackpot) not to save someone’s life somewhere along the way, regardless of whether it was a good organization, a terrible one, or something in between. (I think it’s a pretty terrible one, but I think it contains a large mix of people and ideas that range from good to terrible, and people’s ideas about it and experiences with it often end up being shaped by what parts they’ve seen first or most often.)

Speaking of red flags I can coherently articulate, another red flag I’ve found with the group is that if I'm not capable of coherently articulating the exact problem I see with something, in precise language (and often they prefer I use the jargon of the group, and understand group jargon, even though I’m incapable of both), then I must not have anything useful to say. Like, if I see something wrong, but I can’t say why it’s wrong, and especially if I can’t do it using their jargon, then it can’t really be wrong, can it? That’s another red flag to me right there. And I found that as a person with a language disability and a low IQ, I wasn’t exactly the sort of person they were all that interested in having around in the first place. Which also put me off pretty badly, TBH.

But seriously – dismantling and belittling every cognitive ability that will give you red flags about an organization – bad news, run, do not walk, in the other direction.

Notes: