I've been doing a lot of internet search action on a lot of subjects in the last few days...came across something pretty interesting on coercion, brainwashing and mind control. In light of troll accusations that Y2K-Preparers are a cult...I offer this:

True Believers And Mass Movements

http://www.magnet.ch/serendipity/sutphen/brainwsh.html#hh

The main URL for Dick Sutphen, the hypnotist's, take on brainwashing and coercion is: http://www.magnet.ch/serendipity/sutphen/brainwsh.html#contents

So are the Y2K preparers of the "true believer" ilk...or are we individuals preparing to be self-sufficient? You be the judge. I realize that this web site has application beyond Y2K. Caveat Emptor...Let the buyer beware!

-- Donna Barthuley (moment@pacbell.net), March 16, 1999

Answers

Okay, I checked out my HTML link and it works...and I get to push this to recent answers....I have no shame.

-- Donna Barthuley (moment@pacbell.net), March 16, 1999.

There is a season turn, turn, turn

-- (nobody@home.com), March 16, 1999.

I'd say a true believer is someone who thinks their Y2K preparations are more likely to be useful than their health insurance during the next 12 months.

-- (my@email.address), March 16, 1999.

I'm insulted! Where's Vinnie?! <:)=

-- Sysman (y2kboard@yahoo.com), March 16, 1999.

Sysman,....don't be insulted...research and read the rest of the site...I don't think we Yourdonites fall in the True Believer category.....I think some of the DGIs do....read again. Learn what you know.

-- Donna Barthuley (moment@pacbell.net), March 16, 1999.

I hear ya Donna. Every other word from Vinnie is "all you TBs". Don't worry, I'm not going to blow my kool again. <:)=

-- Sysman (y2kboard@yahoo.com), March 16, 1999.

The real question should be:

Who are the TBs going to be mad at when their lives are not fundamentally changed by Y2K? Once the culture of Gary North has been discredited, what will the TBs do?

-- Y2K Pro (2@461.com), March 16, 1999.

Hi Y2K Pro.

I don't have an attitude problem. You have a perception problem.

Dilbert

-- Sysman (y2kboard@yahoo.com), March 16, 1999.

Y2K Pro - I haven't mentioned Vinnie's name in days, and I haven't seen you in days. What, do you have a Vinnie filter running or something? <:)=

-- Sysman (y2kboard@yahoo.com), March 16, 1999.

So continue to read on what it takes to become a "true beliver"...coercion and brainwashing techiniques have application to what we are discussing here.....

-- Donna Barthuley (moment@pacbell.net), March 16, 1999.

Sorry Donna... <:)=

-- Sysman (y2kboard@yahoo.com), March 16, 1999.

No problem,...read and LEARN. And be self-sufficient not matter what your philosophic orientation...So silly...get it...! Chose to learn and thrive or chose otherwise.

-- Donna Barthuley (moment@pacbell.net), March 16, 1999.

No wide mouthed frogs here!

Most posters to this site do not fit the true believer category.

I speak only for myself in the following interpretation of the nature of posting to this site.

In my experience the road to my set of convictions about Y2K has been slow and rocky. My background runs across a number of disciplines. The conclusions I have reached have been amassed from a long period of intensive study drawing from the disciplines I have been educated in.

My judgement on Y2K is still just that, a judgement made in the knowledge that the future is essentially unknown and unknowable.

Like many folks here I use triangulation with sources of info:

What those people close to the technical issues say What the disciplines say about their own activities What the people without a vested interest have to say

Without confirmation from three independent sources any data is just that data.

There is too much evidence of healthy celtic scepticism on this BB for me to say the label of true believers applies to any but the worst of our trolls. Even they, by their questions, indicate a high degree of independent thought.

This forum is unique because here are collected, by the agency of technology, people who can support one another in thinking about the unthinkable... and take action to protect themselves from the possible consequences of their own insights.

-- Bob Barbour (r.barbour@waikato.ac.nz), March 16, 1999.

Y2k Pro asked: Who are the TBs going to be mad at when their lives are not fundamentally changed by Y2K? Once the culture of Gary North has been discredited, what will the TBs do?

Y2k Pro, I am going to treat your question as a serious one, so please take the answer in the same spirit.

I'm preparing for Y2k to be a 7. If Y2k is a bump, I'll probably at first feel like a teddy bear with all the stuffing pulled out of it (so to speak). That is different from disappointed or needing someone to be mad at. I'll be honest and say sure, since I have put a lot of energy into preparing, at the expense of other things I might have been doing if it weren't for Y2k, I will surely experience some "cognitive dissonance" - which is when the reality inside of you is different from the reality outside of you.

Preparing has been, for me, a trade-off, a difficult decision I am making. Knowing that I've been rational about this, I doubt if the overriding feeling will be "I was wrong" but rather "I played my hand the best I could." Then, when it turns out the world isn't so devastated by Y2k, I'll get with that and be unbelievably relieved. Of that I am absolutely sure! Some plans that I had on hold, I'll be able to go ahead with. Yeehaa!

I'm sure I'll feel some fleeting regrets "Just think, I could have spent less time and money preparing" etc. etc. It's only human to look back and question yourself. Like when you buy stocks that tank. All that money down the drain, if only I hadn't..., etc. But in the end, my attitude is a deliberate "never look back." It enhances a person to take a position and stick with it, and that's how I am with Y2k. Remembering that helps me on down days.

The idea that I am a True Believer is laughable! It's just about 180 degrees opposite from that. If anything, I am a True Doubter - considering ALL the angles as best I can, and judging that (at least, to date) certainty simply isn't possible, preparing anyway.

Is that too gray for you? Sorry, I just couldn't make it black or white.

-- Debbie (dbspence@usa.net), March 16, 1999.

By the way Donna, great question, great food for thought.

-- Debbie (dbspence@usa.net), March 17, 1999.

let me ask the question then this way: Why do they (the Anti-TB's) feel so strongly that "they" (the trolls and Anti-TB's) need to convert those who are preparing from preparing?

To phrase that more clearly perhaps, why do they feel they need to "convert" us? If someone chooses to prepare for a potential disaster, should they not rejoice and get others to prepare?

It is why I'm skeptical of their agenda - only the federal government - in its zeal to protect the banks from a bank run as people try to get their own cash next Nov - Dec - has a reason to keep people "dumbed down" and pacified with respect to Y2K issues.

Every other group nationally, without exception, improves by people preparing early for some level of disruption of services - 3 hours, 3 days, 3 weeks, 3 months - take your pick. Only the government - as it seeks to cover its mistakes and protect the banks - gains by seeing people not prepare, and by seeing people not discuss Y2K.

Perversely, the government is causing the panic it so fears. Because it has no credibility.

-- Robert A. Cook, P.E. (Kennesaw, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), March 17, 1999.

Thanks for this thread Donna,

I'm with you Debbie. Not a believer, but a disbeliever. I wish the system would topple, but really don't think they are dumb enough to let dependancy on communications do it. I didn't hear about y2k from the feds so I heard about it from the cult of TEOTWAWKI. The last poster I read was Robert Cook. I don't work with nukes. I read all of Cory's DCweathers, and I don't work with mainframe programming. A lot more people in Mr. Cook's and Cory's professions are claiming a bump in the road (is that a speed bump at 90?) than a 7-10 scale. So I keep lurking at this and other sites because there is just enough logic in the web going down, as the web staying up. Sometimes I get a sense of you guys are like a cult when I read a thread, but have never read consistent religion type of propoganda, programming whatever you want to call it on this forum. I have been deleted from another forum for casting doubt on their belief, so the cult is out there.

I do think that anyone who gives more than an hour or two a day to Y2k is one of two things, dependant on something other than themself, or paranoid.

-- R. Wright (blaklodg@aol.com), March 17, 1999.

Donna,

I "truly believe" Y2K could well be a significant global problem, based on personal and group extensive research. Others at the D.C. and beyond level think so too.

So, who's paranoid? Those who "believe" nothing ever changes, then try to prove it. We live in a dynamic world, not a static one.

Can some Y2K happy news really be "true." Absolutely. And that's great. Doesn't mean I'll "believe" everything is fixed or we won't have problems. Or that we can't find work-around solutions, as a group, once we figure out what we're "working around."

Wondering "how big" and for "how long" is what keeps me Y2K studying and getting ready for the unknown.

Diane, "concerned" individual preparing to be in a self-sufficient community, because that's what makes sense

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), March 17, 1999.

Robert,

You wrote:

"To phrase that more clearly perhaps, why do they feel they need to "convert" us?"

Everytime I see someone doing that I wonder about it as well. Why devote the time to a non-issue?

It's not like we're all planning to drink funny kool-aid and end it all. I also doubt the number of people posting here are enough to trash the economy via taking money out of the bank or buying beans.

Maybe someone trying to convert GI's into unGI's would like to explain their motivation?

Deborah

Donna,

Thanks for the thread, I'm off to read the link now.

Oh, before I go I would just like to say it would seem that encouraging self sufficiency, and independent research would be a rather odd way to run a cult. The ones I am familiar with seem to discourage asking questions (thinking for yourself is dangerous to them), looking outside the cultic literature is usually frowned upon. Although mocking cult DGI's in some way is usually present. Also associating with people outside of the cult is frowned upon as well.

One cult like behavior recognizable to me from gov./media would be the idea that GI's are ignorant, crazy, extreme, an object of mockery, in short our behavior (preparation) is dangerous to their control of the cult herd. It veers off the path of blind submission. Their methods of discrediting GI's is very much like what I have seen up close & personally, because a part of my Hubby's family is involved in a rather well known & basically harmless cult. It is important to discredit any source of information that might wake up the cult victims.

off to read,

-- Deborah (infowars@yahoo.com), March 17, 1999.

It occurred to me recently that many of the people who used to post here who could be characterized as "True Believers" with cult-like tendencies aren't posting as much. I have seen a marked increase in regulars who sound more moderate and are making less drastic preparations. The hard-core doomers aren't around as much as they were a few months ago.

-- Buddy (buddydc@go.com), March 17, 1999.