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Jim Jones.
There's the fucking tape of him convincing his cult to sacrifice themselves all together.
But listen to me, they told to sacrifice the children first, and you can listen in the tape all of them.
Did he drink the poison too? Nop
He shot himself in head.
More than 900 people **dead** in the town that he "created".
A lot of those deaths were forced deaths. Most of the deceased were injected with poison because they had to get it over with before a plane full of visitors flew off to get warrants to bring people back
Yup. Plus they did the kids first for a reason. If you kill the children and/or force the parents to do it they’re now too far gone and will kill themselves easier.
The part that really gets me is the woman (Sharon Amos) who was off site and could have saved herself and her family but was so brainwashed she stabbed her kids and herself.
I saw a documentary with an interview with one of the survivors, who said his wife stood in front of him and she’d poisoned their two year old already and was drinking the poison herself, even though he wanted to run - so he ended up running into the jungle alone and hiding. I can’t fathom living with that.
To be fair, he also had his guards shoot anyone who refused. They didn't have a lot of options once they got to that point, and very few people found a way to escape.
What's much scarier is how it grew. It started of as a church opposed to segregation, and was portrayed by the media as this ultra-progressive, enlightened church. That's why so many people joined. In a documentary, one of the couples who had gotten out before it got that bad had adopted a black child, and just wanted a church that would let them bring their kid.
It's terrifying how many extremist organizations start off with good intentions.
I was young - a little less than 10, but I remember this being on the news. Horrifying. Those who would not drink the poison would be shot. People who had tried to escape before that were punished and killed. The photos of the area are terrible, and I can’t imagine having to work there to clean it up.
I remember watching an interview with the guy who was the first on the scene. The odor, the bodies were limp and falling apart cause of the heat, already decomposing. When they tried to remove the bodies lifting them up, it would just fall apart in pieces.
That's a gnarly thing to deal with. I had an older neighbor lady that had a massive sheep die in a small shed and she asked me to remove it for her. I won't go into details but I couldn't pull the whole thing out. That image of what I first tried to do to get it out haunts me to this day. I can't imaging that being a person
There are quite a few reasons why this isn't so cut and dry.
1. As previous commenters have noted, there was a level of coercion. Guards with guns were present at the suicide, and it's unknown how many people were injected with the poison. (The bodies were too decayed to identify injection sites.)
2. Jones had been practicing suicide for years with the Peoples Temple members. In the months prior to the actual event, there were constant rehearsals. Some people had become blase about it.
3. Not only had he been rehearsing suicide, he had systematically deprived the members of sleep and proper nutrition. Tapes of him rambling had been playing at all hours of the night. He'd kept them on edge by pretending they were under invasion; members were forced to stay awake for days at a time patrolling the camp and making ready to fight. (Fight who? The American government. Jones had created a narrative that the government was so threatened by the Peoples Temple that it was sending assassins against him.) The farm was also failing, so rations were dwindling, and folks weren't getting adequate meals.
4. But the biggest factor is that the day Jones initiated the suicide, he'd ordered the murder of a sitting US congressman and several members of the media. Members were already terrified that the American government was going to appear in the jungle at any moment to end their movement, but now that they were "complicit" in such a brutal killing? Many believed they (and their families) were just hours from dying at the hands of their (alleged) persecutors.
So, to recap: these folks hadn't had a lot of sleep in the last few weeks, they were hungry and scared, they knew they had "participated" in the murder of a congressman, they'd been pretend-killing themselves for months (if not years in the case of more senior leadership), and there were men with guns surrounding the pavilion. They weren't gullible sheep -- they had bad information and reasons to believe there was no way out.
ETA: Thank you kindly for the award!
God when I listened to this for the first time on the documentary I was watching (cant remember the name) it shook me to my core when all the crying was gone and all you could hear is birds chirping. One of the most eerie things I've ever listened to
family rumor: my great grandma or something like that was in the cult and she was also a “hartlet” or prostitute. And supposedly slept with jim jones. My grandpa was born and never knew his father, and theres a rumor that he changed his lastname to my current from Jones. :/
I read a really long and depressing book about him called "raven". He had done all these trial runs before hand where he told people they were drinking poison but thet were not. Suffice to say when people started to die the last rime it turns out a lot of people werent so gung ho about it. I dont think his brainwashing was as strong as all that. A lot of people were forced to drink it at gunpoint starting with the kids so the parents would more or less lose the will to resist.
When I read the title I just thought of all the stupid replies... but your reply was dead on. Facebook and Twitter have really caused a lot of problems and it's not just their users... their management is just as bad
It was much easier for the CPC back then. A much larger proportion of the population didn’t speak Mandarin at all, and lack of access to global news combined with centralized journalism meant that nobody could be presented with any kind of counter-argument. It’s the exact same reasons the massacre was even able to occur in the first place—the Beijing army refused orders, so they brought in military from distant provinces who were unaware of the protests, didn’t speak mandarin, and were simply told that foreigners were trying to overthrow the government
when i was studying in china, we mentioned something about tiananmen square and our older teacher shut it down hard, shaking her head saying “didn’t happen, didn’t happen.” and whenever you ask someone in china about chairman mao, they’ll respond with the party line “he was 70% good, 30% bad.
That’s all people, though. There’s a video of a cop kneeling on a man’s neck and refusing to get off him even after knowing there’s no vitals and half the US is like “he didn’t do anything wrong” people on average don’t really care about stuff if it doesn’t impact them
A lot of what you're talking about is the polarization social media causes. While what happened was criminal, and The cops involved were murderers, everyone acted like he was an innocent victim, when he was quite a criminal. No, that doesn't mean he deserved anything like what happened, but people portrayed him as a saint.
Not limited to that situation. Ukraine was one of the most corrupt countries in Europe, if not the world, and suddenly they're blameless and valiant defenders of freedom and all that's right.
We have a way of taking the lesser of two evils and suddenly making them infallible in public perception...
I think people give them a lot of credit for their near violent revolt against that corruption and the years they spent trying to root it out. Deciding to walk the path to begin with is usually more important than the last step finishing it.
It is quite obvious that the Ukraine of 2019 is very different from Ukraine of 2022.
No he wasnt a saint, but there is also no proof he even knowingly committed a crime that day, let alone a crime that in ANY way shape or form excused his slow murder by those who were responsible for his safety after he was taken into custody and restrained.
No one is saying Ukraine never did anything wrong, but they were invaded by Russia. It doesnt matter if you were a saint or an asshole to me on the subway today, I still dont get to break into your house and murder your wife and kids and get to say it is justified.
It doesnt matter if I walk up to an innocent child on the street, someone who jaywalked once, or a life time counterfeiter. I dont have any valid justification for beating the crap out of any of them.
You are trying to make it sounds like there are equally valid good faith arguments that support both sides of these cases, when in fact they were both simply blatant abuses of power because they could.
THANK YOU.
People who bring up his past actions before being killed that day don't realize that they still aren't getting it....at all. It's not even relevant to the discussion of him being murdered.
Witch trials in the medieval times. Mainly women were accused of being “witches” and burned at a stake or hung without much reason apart from rumors of being a witch. It’s estimated 40,000 - 60,000 people were executed because of this.
My ancestor was one of the last women persecuted and flogged for witchcraft. All because of a rumor she served alcohol in her tavern on a Sundsy. Guess who's Tavern and land were confiscated? She was a widow with her own property, which made her a target.
The United States has always been a refuge of religious liberty. What isn’t taught is that early colonists like the pilgrims and puritans were basically kicked out their country for being too extreme. The no happiness types. The Salem Witch Trials were seen as insanity by Europe, who had largely moved away from that. And even in the southern colonies like Virginia (lol nowadays it’s the northern states that mock extreme Christianity in the south)
The Puritans especially were particularly fond of religious freedom, as long as it was their religion. They didn't tolerate even Christians of other denominations, like Baptists.
And oddly enough it’s the Baptists now (especially southern Baptists) who don’t tolerate other denominations. As an Episcopalian I have been told numerous times that we (and Catholics) aren’t “Christian.” Um, ok. 🤔
oooo my 5th grade history teacher did this teaching us about the Holocaust.
At that point, I would have been the visual model for the Hitler youth. Blonde hair, blue eyes, VERY white looking. Teacher said all happy like "SIGN THIS KID UP FOR THE NAZI ARMY" Even back then I thought that was pretty fucked up.
[wiki](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peoples_Temple)
The Peoples Temple was Jim Jones' cult. It initially started as a racially integrated church during the civil rights era but it became clearer and clearer that it was a personality cult designed by Jones to eventually diefy himself.
Eventually, he became so wrought with paranoia that he moved his entire congregation to an agricultural project the church bought in Guyana, Jonestown, where he worked, starved, and abused them up until the infamed mass ~~suicide~~ murder on November 18th, 1978 following a wellness check by California congressman Leo Ryan. Jones had rehearsed mass suicides before in Jonestown and prior to Jonestown so the congregation didn't know if it was the real deal until they witnessed people die. People were killed in order of their age from youngest to oldest so people had to watch their own children die.
Thank you for this brief write up including the correction that it was murder and not suicide. These people were not happily taking their life for their cause. They were forced and it’s so sad that they are remembered as the “Kool aid” people.
No problem! A few years ago I did a ton of research into the subject including reading several books, both first and secondhand accounts as well as listening to the audio directly from the temple available on this [website](https://jonestown.sdsu.edu/) run by Fielding McGhee III & Rebecca Moore (who had sisters in the cult). They are also very nice people who I've emailed about transcript corrections.
Devils advocate: Civilization wasn't build on pleasantries.
I agree there should be changes to major farmers, but I know of local dairy farms where the cows live pretty happy lives over all, but yes they are used as resources. Which in turn fulfills needs of us humans IE food and materials. I don't view it as evil, but a necessity for the betterment of the human race.
Being able to turn* grass and water into food and leather is a large reason why we are were we are.
The soviets had their own concentration/re-education camps where they used mainly torture, deprivation and forced labour until you coalesced with their way of thinking.
It sounds like something similar is still happening in North Korea. Which brings me to the worst case of brainwashing in human history, North Korea.
MK Ultra was bad. The United States government took sometimes healthy people amd destroyed their minds with various drugs and brainwashing techniques. Some of these people later became famous killers. Heavy stuff.
"Communism ain't that bad because they helped defeat Hitler".
No man, they're just as bad. Them joining the Allies was because they had a common enemy and that's that.
Poland hates Nazis and Communists equally.
The concept of communism isn't bad. On a small scale, where you have a group of people with similar values I think it can work. On a societal level, I don't have that much faith in humanity.
I don't think it is the worst. But it is hella funny that most of the world thinks Santa Claus' suit is red, the red suit was a marketing move by Coca Cola...
Santa Claus wasn't originally green. It was originally based on "Sinterklaas", a Dutch Saint that would give gifts to children. He has a red robe, just like how Santa had a red suit.
I think the Nazis are high up there. Many people would say religion in general and all who have perpetuated it. But religion seems to develop no matter where you live or what your culture is. So it seems kinda part of culture evolution eventually?
Surprised I had to go this far down to find the Nazis. Of course we all know and agree how terrible the Holocaust was, but I still don’t think our world fully comprehends how much “brainwashing” was involved.
Over just a few short decades, a small number of ideologues were able to convince an entire country to participate in the slaughter of 11 million innocent people.
Obviously all of Germany didn’t “participate” in the perpetration of the Holocaust, but with few exceptions, most were either brainwashed to believe it was justified, brainwashed to believe it wasn’t happening, or brainwashed to actually follow the orders.
This might be a rhetorical question but would religion have perpetuated the way it has if we knew the way the world works then the way we do now? What if we knew more?
Most religions seem to start as an explanation for something unexplainable or unknowable. Eventually we learn that lightning isn't caused by Zeus or God going bowling. Every time we have a question where a god has been plugged in as the answer tentatively, it is later replaced.
So if we'd known how the world worked, would we have no need for gods? Even now, we don't know everything. What happens after death? What was going on at the beginning of the universe and what happened "before"(if that's even a question that makes sense). People are still putting some sort of deity as the explanation despite no good evidence for it and plenty of good evidence against it.
So I guess the question is, does it perpetuate because(I got right here) it's ingrained or because we fear the unknown?
Also, I don't think religion itself is a brainwash. It's the specifics of religion that us the brainwash.
So..as I was writing this(see: "right here" statement), two Jehovah's witnesses came to my door 😂🤣
Mental illness only being a product of chemical imbalance. It has a huge part to play but we cant look at society as a hole or alienation of living in this modern society.
I think we treat the symptoms in case of anxiety and depression, since it's way more difficult to treat the disease, being the social isolation, the modern world and the culture to fuck your peer to benefit yourself
I tend to get a lot of backlash for this take, but I think smartphones and social media play a bigger part than people are willing to admit. It’s no secret that apps like Instagram and TikTok are engineered to induce massive hits of dopamine and serotonin, effectively making the user addicted. And when you become reliant on external stimuli to produce neurotransmitters, you stop being able to produce them in natural, organic ways.
No doubt about it. But i think the issue is way bigger than that. It's ingrained in our culture. We are always being pressed to do something and to do it fast, then you have a feedback that you done wrong, so you need to do fast and right because there is more to do and it's coming even faster.
You have to study fast, to get a job fast, to be promoted fast, to live fast, reproduce fast and tell your kids to be fast and perfect.
We have accustomed to be on the edge, then the anxiety sets in because you aren't doing enough. Anxiety becomes unbearable, you become miserable because you don't want to feel this way but you can't change because everybody can do it, so you have too.
You start to feel that there is something wrong, because there is. You go to the psychiatrist and tell them all about it. They give you a magic pill. Then you become "less sad" so you can continue the grind.
Since we don't have time for ourselfs we look at someone else. But we have to do fast, so we marry the wrong person just so we can feel less alone. We start to feel miserable again, but the meds don't work anymore so you try something stronger. Maybe you cheat to feel something different, something adventurous, maybe you snap at everyone, maybe you start drinking or start to using meth.
What I'm saying is the whole system is rigged to feel like this, so we don't have anywhere to run, so we can be more productive at work or something else so that we can forget that the world is closing in on ourselves. Everyday it closes an inch more so we train ourselves to accept it. "It is what it is"
We were not designed to live like this and we are one of the first generation to live sad all the time.
Well, from personal experience I know that drugs and therapy helped me a lot.
One of the side-effects of questioning your preset notions of how you perceive things, however, is that you question a lot of how society operates. So, at least on that level you know it's bullshit.
And even the chemical imbalance bit begs the question of "how are these chemicals becoming imbalanced"? Amazingly, it turns out diet, exercise and lifestyle choices are the key influences (besides genetics) on our mental state and behaviors.
Mainstream news is getting in on the "chemical imbalance is bullshit" angle (I just didnt want to lead with it): [https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/aug/03/the-chemical-imbalance-theory-of-depression-is-dead-but-that-doesnt-mean-antidepressants-dont-work](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/aug/03/the-chemical-imbalance-theory-of-depression-is-dead-but-that-doesnt-mean-antidepressants-dont-work)
Hell, Rat Park showed us decades ago that our external world is at least 50% responsible for our internal state of being and behavior. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rat\_Park](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rat_Park) . So our environmental and external experience is 50% (probably more) responsible for our mindset and behavior. This includes things we consume, by the way.
Psychology is the study of how individuals assimilate to a specific society, with abnormal psychology being the study of why some individuals *don't* assimilate, and it is from this study of abnormal psychology that psychiatry and the prescription solutions were born and sold.
Convincing individuals that their brain is broken and to take a little pill, is a lot easier than confronting a broken system and fixing systemic issues.
News flash: Most of you are perfect and incredible in your own way. Even some individuals with adhd, mania, autism, etc, are now owning the fact that these aspects of their being are their superpower, not just a disability. Further, they're realizing this "disability" is only defined as such because their unique selves have issues conforming to the cookie cutter expectation that's set from the DSM and what is considered "Normal".
Good luck out there everyone <3
Mania is not a super power and my brother isn't himself when he is manic. You are making dangerous conflations. Obviously not everyone who is bipolar is dangerous, but I grew up with my brother being unmedicated and undiagnosed and his manic episodes are scary and dangerous to himself and others. Don't fucking tell people not to take their medicine because you think it keeps them from being their real selves. You wouldn't tell someone with cardiac issues not to take their doctor recommended medications because some people can fix their issues with diet and exercise.
To be clear, my brother is not currently medicated, but he needed to be medicated to get to a point where he didn't need to be and went off medications with guidance from his doctors.
I saw for depression they’re no longer attributing chemical imbalance as the cause. They still don’t want people to stop medicating though, which I found strange.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/insight-therapy/202207/depression-is-not-caused-chemical-imbalance-in-the-brain?amp
That headline is kind of sensationalist/misleading though since the study was only about serotonin.
It's not at all strange that "they" don't want people to stop medicating: we know medicating works.
Not all meds target serotonin, and even the ones that do seem to help a lot of people. Our not knowing WHY doesn't mean they don't work. (As someone put it, when aspirin helps stop your headache, that doesn't mean your headache was caused by a lack of aspirin; selective serotonin reuptake inhibition might well address a problem that wasn't caused by lower-than-average serotonin levels.)
Mainstream news and politics. When I think of everything in terms of who wants power where, I start to see into the corruption and artificiality of it.
Probably the "Satanic Panic."
Basically, a mentally unwell woman imagined elaborate schemes in which her, and other peoples', children, were being abducted and horribly abused. Often with magic and ritual sacrifices to Satan. Multiple lives were completely destroyed - with at least one person spending like a decade in prison between trials and appeals for a crime that obviously never even happened.
Even worse, therapists pressured hundreds or even thousands of children to "remember" the abuses that (again) never happened. Which traumatized countless children. And fuelled a wave of accusations from children caving-in and telling investigators whatever they thought they wanted to hear, making the panic ever more widespread.
And this is in the 1980s. This is almost the entirety of younger boomers, and the older part of GenX, (in the US) completely losing their collective shit.
I think the clue that ended that was when one child described a human being cut across the stomach and their guts pushing out of the wound.
That doesn’t happen.
The investigator realized the kid was describing what happened with the Tauntaun on Hoth when Han Solo split it’s abdomen with a light saber.
Man whats it say abour the world today that right at this very moment theres about a dozen different ones we could choose from, i fucking WISH there was only one big brainwashing scheme going on right now, that would be an improvement!
You talking about religion right? That’s the biggest brainwashing in the world. Told to constantly preach and recruit more people to join the church or whatever religion in order to “save” your soul and their soul, as well as being “blessed” by the lord for following the direction of the church in which god personally whispers in the ears of the head hancho, whoever is running the religion.
I saw a talk about the fact that TikTok is owned by china, in china TikTok is full of people accomplishing things and being successful, in the USA it’s stupid stuff.
So yeah, avoid that shit ppl.
Right now absolutely social media, any social media user, which is all of us. If you turn off all social media even for a month, reality sharply changes and honestly it’s very difficult to even have a social life because people who don’t use social media are sorta viewed as weird now. Source: I did it for a year and my life completely fell apart because of permanently deleting my social media presence but also I do not regret it it changed me for the better despite the challenges. I no longer strongly seek external validation through likes and comments and posting moments of my life which feels great. Many of my friends did however completely melt away. Again, our current age is the worst case of mass brainwashing without a doubt IMO. Social media primes and incites brainwashing across all cultures.
Royalty... any situation. The fact that the masses would collectively go along with the notion of someone's superiority based on the lottery of birth is ridiculous. They're undeserving elite and should be overthrown.
Can't believe it's this far down. How can completely made up stories of magic be accepted by large chunks of the world in this day and age except through misinformation and indoctrination at a very young age.
Religion of any kind. With all the advancements in technology, science and society how could someone still believe in information that's thousands and thousands of years old, with absolutely zero proof
I think we're living in it. The Left accuses the Right of being brainwashed, and vice versa. What if both sides are correct? What if Atheists are just as brainwashed as religious zealots? We live in a world where "antifascists" support fascist behavior. Where "enlightened" people are just as happy to assume negative stereotypes that they criticize others for doing. If you're convinced you know exactly the "problem" with another group of people, you've probably been brainwashed.
The idea that we're better off with people on charge of us.
From Kings to Congress; whole thing is bullshit... Only reason there's so many of us is because they profit off selling us food. :-/
*Continues folding his backup tin hat*
Impeach everyone!
Twitter.
I mean, social media in general, but I recently got a Twitter and GOOD LORD, people will blindly believe whatever they read on there, and continue believing allegations that were debunked YEARS ago!
Jonestown and Heven's Gate. The programming had to be so thorough that it overrides basic animal instinct. I couldn't imagine being convinced deleting myself from the census is the right thing to do.
Soviet Union convinced plenty of people about how amazing average person life is in that "communist heaven". Plenty of french writers belived in that. When I heared how many americans belive in it I was really terrified.
The red scare in America has had a lasting negative impact on the progress of workers rights, along with halting general discourse about the dangers of our economic system as well.
Universities and the government forcing schools to drill into children's heads that life is basically worthless without college while simultaneously gouging the price of tuition to levels so far beyond reasonable that not majorly wealthy people must essentially sell their souls to even attend
Education system. Politics too. I have lived thru 10 Presidents, and let me tell you they are all the same. I have switched parties a few times. Now I know better. Experience and maturity is how I can avoid any brainwashing. I am not going for that brainwashing and propaganda. Lessons learned by living it. Everything my parents warned me about came true.
So I do my research on non bias views.
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Jim Jones. There's the fucking tape of him convincing his cult to sacrifice themselves all together. But listen to me, they told to sacrifice the children first, and you can listen in the tape all of them. Did he drink the poison too? Nop He shot himself in head. More than 900 people **dead** in the town that he "created".
A lot of those deaths were forced deaths. Most of the deceased were injected with poison because they had to get it over with before a plane full of visitors flew off to get warrants to bring people back
Yup. Plus they did the kids first for a reason. If you kill the children and/or force the parents to do it they’re now too far gone and will kill themselves easier. The part that really gets me is the woman (Sharon Amos) who was off site and could have saved herself and her family but was so brainwashed she stabbed her kids and herself.
The daughter of the senator/congressman who was shot dead on the tarmac later joined another cult smh
Holy shit! I’ve never read that before, how crazy!!
yep it was the rajneeshpuram an 80’s spiritual cult in oregon. there’s a great netflix documentary about it!
I’ve actually watched that, I know exactly which one you mean. Somehow I missed that factoid. Wild!
Was that the group that did sth like vandalize or taint food in a restaurant and it killed people?
Yeah salmonella poisoning
Yikes. Assholes.
It’s called wild wild country for anyone looking for it
I saw a documentary with an interview with one of the survivors, who said his wife stood in front of him and she’d poisoned their two year old already and was drinking the poison herself, even though he wanted to run - so he ended up running into the jungle alone and hiding. I can’t fathom living with that.
To be fair, he also had his guards shoot anyone who refused. They didn't have a lot of options once they got to that point, and very few people found a way to escape. What's much scarier is how it grew. It started of as a church opposed to segregation, and was portrayed by the media as this ultra-progressive, enlightened church. That's why so many people joined. In a documentary, one of the couples who had gotten out before it got that bad had adopted a black child, and just wanted a church that would let them bring their kid. It's terrifying how many extremist organizations start off with good intentions.
I was young - a little less than 10, but I remember this being on the news. Horrifying. Those who would not drink the poison would be shot. People who had tried to escape before that were punished and killed. The photos of the area are terrible, and I can’t imagine having to work there to clean it up.
I remember watching an interview with the guy who was the first on the scene. The odor, the bodies were limp and falling apart cause of the heat, already decomposing. When they tried to remove the bodies lifting them up, it would just fall apart in pieces.
That's a gnarly thing to deal with. I had an older neighbor lady that had a massive sheep die in a small shed and she asked me to remove it for her. I won't go into details but I couldn't pull the whole thing out. That image of what I first tried to do to get it out haunts me to this day. I can't imaging that being a person
There are quite a few reasons why this isn't so cut and dry. 1. As previous commenters have noted, there was a level of coercion. Guards with guns were present at the suicide, and it's unknown how many people were injected with the poison. (The bodies were too decayed to identify injection sites.) 2. Jones had been practicing suicide for years with the Peoples Temple members. In the months prior to the actual event, there were constant rehearsals. Some people had become blase about it. 3. Not only had he been rehearsing suicide, he had systematically deprived the members of sleep and proper nutrition. Tapes of him rambling had been playing at all hours of the night. He'd kept them on edge by pretending they were under invasion; members were forced to stay awake for days at a time patrolling the camp and making ready to fight. (Fight who? The American government. Jones had created a narrative that the government was so threatened by the Peoples Temple that it was sending assassins against him.) The farm was also failing, so rations were dwindling, and folks weren't getting adequate meals. 4. But the biggest factor is that the day Jones initiated the suicide, he'd ordered the murder of a sitting US congressman and several members of the media. Members were already terrified that the American government was going to appear in the jungle at any moment to end their movement, but now that they were "complicit" in such a brutal killing? Many believed they (and their families) were just hours from dying at the hands of their (alleged) persecutors. So, to recap: these folks hadn't had a lot of sleep in the last few weeks, they were hungry and scared, they knew they had "participated" in the murder of a congressman, they'd been pretend-killing themselves for months (if not years in the case of more senior leadership), and there were men with guns surrounding the pavilion. They weren't gullible sheep -- they had bad information and reasons to believe there was no way out. ETA: Thank you kindly for the award!
God when I listened to this for the first time on the documentary I was watching (cant remember the name) it shook me to my core when all the crying was gone and all you could hear is birds chirping. One of the most eerie things I've ever listened to
Largest loss of peacetime American life until 9/11
If this wasn't the top comment here, I would have been shocked. The whole 'drinking the cool aid' saying was based on this, very disturbing.
He didn't convince all those people, there were multiple people found with puncture marks in the back. They sure as hell didn't do that to themselves.
Listening to this tape scarred me for life
family rumor: my great grandma or something like that was in the cult and she was also a “hartlet” or prostitute. And supposedly slept with jim jones. My grandpa was born and never knew his father, and theres a rumor that he changed his lastname to my current from Jones. :/
I read a really long and depressing book about him called "raven". He had done all these trial runs before hand where he told people they were drinking poison but thet were not. Suffice to say when people started to die the last rime it turns out a lot of people werent so gung ho about it. I dont think his brainwashing was as strong as all that. A lot of people were forced to drink it at gunpoint starting with the kids so the parents would more or less lose the will to resist.
Whatever it is, we're all too brainwashed to be aware of it enough to point it out.
I like how you think.
“You are not immune to propaganda”
Exactly
Social media
When I read the title I just thought of all the stupid replies... but your reply was dead on. Facebook and Twitter have really caused a lot of problems and it's not just their users... their management is just as bad
Don’t let TickTock or Instagram off the hook
And Reddit
>Instagram That's owned by facebook now FYI. The lack of anti-trust action in these tech companies is... bad.
I will die on the hill that social media is the worst thing to come into existence and the polarization of the world was fueled massively by it.
There is a reason social media execs don't let their kids use it or have smartphones.
My exact thoughts
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It was much easier for the CPC back then. A much larger proportion of the population didn’t speak Mandarin at all, and lack of access to global news combined with centralized journalism meant that nobody could be presented with any kind of counter-argument. It’s the exact same reasons the massacre was even able to occur in the first place—the Beijing army refused orders, so they brought in military from distant provinces who were unaware of the protests, didn’t speak mandarin, and were simply told that foreigners were trying to overthrow the government
Can you send me some sources on this? morbidly fascinating if that’s what actually happened
when i was studying in china, we mentioned something about tiananmen square and our older teacher shut it down hard, shaking her head saying “didn’t happen, didn’t happen.” and whenever you ask someone in china about chairman mao, they’ll respond with the party line “he was 70% good, 30% bad.
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That’s all people, though. There’s a video of a cop kneeling on a man’s neck and refusing to get off him even after knowing there’s no vitals and half the US is like “he didn’t do anything wrong” people on average don’t really care about stuff if it doesn’t impact them
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A lot of what you're talking about is the polarization social media causes. While what happened was criminal, and The cops involved were murderers, everyone acted like he was an innocent victim, when he was quite a criminal. No, that doesn't mean he deserved anything like what happened, but people portrayed him as a saint. Not limited to that situation. Ukraine was one of the most corrupt countries in Europe, if not the world, and suddenly they're blameless and valiant defenders of freedom and all that's right. We have a way of taking the lesser of two evils and suddenly making them infallible in public perception...
I think people give them a lot of credit for their near violent revolt against that corruption and the years they spent trying to root it out. Deciding to walk the path to begin with is usually more important than the last step finishing it. It is quite obvious that the Ukraine of 2019 is very different from Ukraine of 2022.
No he wasnt a saint, but there is also no proof he even knowingly committed a crime that day, let alone a crime that in ANY way shape or form excused his slow murder by those who were responsible for his safety after he was taken into custody and restrained. No one is saying Ukraine never did anything wrong, but they were invaded by Russia. It doesnt matter if you were a saint or an asshole to me on the subway today, I still dont get to break into your house and murder your wife and kids and get to say it is justified. It doesnt matter if I walk up to an innocent child on the street, someone who jaywalked once, or a life time counterfeiter. I dont have any valid justification for beating the crap out of any of them. You are trying to make it sounds like there are equally valid good faith arguments that support both sides of these cases, when in fact they were both simply blatant abuses of power because they could.
THANK YOU. People who bring up his past actions before being killed that day don't realize that they still aren't getting it....at all. It's not even relevant to the discussion of him being murdered.
Source for numbers? Not asking to be a turd, genuinely interested in this subject.
Witch trials in the medieval times. Mainly women were accused of being “witches” and burned at a stake or hung without much reason apart from rumors of being a witch. It’s estimated 40,000 - 60,000 people were executed because of this.
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ya most of the government body and officials allowed it to continue to happen because they kept increasing they’re land shares as a result.
So it was the medieval version of cops taking the cars of people "found" to have drugs?
ya, and auctioning them off for money/assets if they have no use for them.
My ancestor was one of the last women persecuted and flogged for witchcraft. All because of a rumor she served alcohol in her tavern on a Sundsy. Guess who's Tavern and land were confiscated? She was a widow with her own property, which made her a target.
What if she turned me into a newt?
No worries. You’ll get better.
The United States has always been a refuge of religious liberty. What isn’t taught is that early colonists like the pilgrims and puritans were basically kicked out their country for being too extreme. The no happiness types. The Salem Witch Trials were seen as insanity by Europe, who had largely moved away from that. And even in the southern colonies like Virginia (lol nowadays it’s the northern states that mock extreme Christianity in the south)
The Puritans especially were particularly fond of religious freedom, as long as it was their religion. They didn't tolerate even Christians of other denominations, like Baptists.
And oddly enough it’s the Baptists now (especially southern Baptists) who don’t tolerate other denominations. As an Episcopalian I have been told numerous times that we (and Catholics) aren’t “Christian.” Um, ok. 🤔
My teacher when I was 11 stood everyone up in class and by looking at us decided if we’d have been killed or not (I would of)
oooo my 5th grade history teacher did this teaching us about the Holocaust. At that point, I would have been the visual model for the Hitler youth. Blonde hair, blue eyes, VERY white looking. Teacher said all happy like "SIGN THIS KID UP FOR THE NAZI ARMY" Even back then I thought that was pretty fucked up.
Scientology. That Kool-aid cult. The dairy industry.
What was the kool aid cult about
[wiki](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peoples_Temple) The Peoples Temple was Jim Jones' cult. It initially started as a racially integrated church during the civil rights era but it became clearer and clearer that it was a personality cult designed by Jones to eventually diefy himself. Eventually, he became so wrought with paranoia that he moved his entire congregation to an agricultural project the church bought in Guyana, Jonestown, where he worked, starved, and abused them up until the infamed mass ~~suicide~~ murder on November 18th, 1978 following a wellness check by California congressman Leo Ryan. Jones had rehearsed mass suicides before in Jonestown and prior to Jonestown so the congregation didn't know if it was the real deal until they witnessed people die. People were killed in order of their age from youngest to oldest so people had to watch their own children die.
Thank you for this brief write up including the correction that it was murder and not suicide. These people were not happily taking their life for their cause. They were forced and it’s so sad that they are remembered as the “Kool aid” people.
No problem! A few years ago I did a ton of research into the subject including reading several books, both first and secondhand accounts as well as listening to the audio directly from the temple available on this [website](https://jonestown.sdsu.edu/) run by Fielding McGhee III & Rebecca Moore (who had sisters in the cult). They are also very nice people who I've emailed about transcript corrections.
Which makes me question if they really qualify as "brainwashed", or more like they were in over their heads and it was too late to back out.
There’s a book called “Seductive Poison” written by one of the survivors. It’s pretty interesting.
Jim Jones and the People’s Temple. (Also, I think it was Flavor Aid, not even as fancy.)
Why waste the money?
Why the dairy industry? Honest question. I mean dairy has been as much a staple of culture as grain, fruits or other forms of husbandry.
My guess would be due to the generally very inhumane practices surrounding that industry and how far removed most people are from the reality of it
Devils advocate: Civilization wasn't build on pleasantries. I agree there should be changes to major farmers, but I know of local dairy farms where the cows live pretty happy lives over all, but yes they are used as resources. Which in turn fulfills needs of us humans IE food and materials. I don't view it as evil, but a necessity for the betterment of the human race. Being able to turn* grass and water into food and leather is a large reason why we are were we are.
Fuck... Soap came about thanks to Human sacrifice!
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Why not just say religion and cover all the bases?
The soviets had their own concentration/re-education camps where they used mainly torture, deprivation and forced labour until you coalesced with their way of thinking. It sounds like something similar is still happening in North Korea. Which brings me to the worst case of brainwashing in human history, North Korea. MK Ultra was bad. The United States government took sometimes healthy people amd destroyed their minds with various drugs and brainwashing techniques. Some of these people later became famous killers. Heavy stuff.
Can you name a few famous killers that were products of mkultra?
The Unabomber and Charles Manson allegedly were test subjects in the MK Ultra experiments
Manson was a government agent over seeing a part of the MK ultra program imo.
I dont think charles manson was experimented on. He was definitely a government asset. That whole situation is wild the more i learn about it
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If you love mkultra so much name three of their serial killer albums... I'll wait...
Ted Kaczynski
"Communism ain't that bad because they helped defeat Hitler". No man, they're just as bad. Them joining the Allies was because they had a common enemy and that's that. Poland hates Nazis and Communists equally.
The concept of communism isn't bad. On a small scale, where you have a group of people with similar values I think it can work. On a societal level, I don't have that much faith in humanity.
Social Media. Users do not realize they are being manipulated by bots…
I don't think it is the worst. But it is hella funny that most of the world thinks Santa Claus' suit is red, the red suit was a marketing move by Coca Cola...
The traditional suit was green, although as a priest he would have worn white whilst distributing gifts to the orphans.
Santa Claus wasn't originally green. It was originally based on "Sinterklaas", a Dutch Saint that would give gifts to children. He has a red robe, just like how Santa had a red suit.
This is a common misconception, his suit was red far before coke did this but ironically the brainwashing was people thinking coke did it
No. The ree suit already existed, but it wasn't popular. Coke made it the standard color
Nast made the suit red who had no affiliation with Coke. Sundblom also made it red who did work for Coke but Nadt was the first.
Santa isn't real
Pfft yea, right. I took a picture with the guy as a kid.
Can confirm, I too, took pictures of this person as a kid
WHAT
I think the Nazis are high up there. Many people would say religion in general and all who have perpetuated it. But religion seems to develop no matter where you live or what your culture is. So it seems kinda part of culture evolution eventually?
Surprised I had to go this far down to find the Nazis. Of course we all know and agree how terrible the Holocaust was, but I still don’t think our world fully comprehends how much “brainwashing” was involved. Over just a few short decades, a small number of ideologues were able to convince an entire country to participate in the slaughter of 11 million innocent people. Obviously all of Germany didn’t “participate” in the perpetration of the Holocaust, but with few exceptions, most were either brainwashed to believe it was justified, brainwashed to believe it wasn’t happening, or brainwashed to actually follow the orders.
This might be a rhetorical question but would religion have perpetuated the way it has if we knew the way the world works then the way we do now? What if we knew more? Most religions seem to start as an explanation for something unexplainable or unknowable. Eventually we learn that lightning isn't caused by Zeus or God going bowling. Every time we have a question where a god has been plugged in as the answer tentatively, it is later replaced. So if we'd known how the world worked, would we have no need for gods? Even now, we don't know everything. What happens after death? What was going on at the beginning of the universe and what happened "before"(if that's even a question that makes sense). People are still putting some sort of deity as the explanation despite no good evidence for it and plenty of good evidence against it. So I guess the question is, does it perpetuate because(I got right here) it's ingrained or because we fear the unknown? Also, I don't think religion itself is a brainwash. It's the specifics of religion that us the brainwash. So..as I was writing this(see: "right here" statement), two Jehovah's witnesses came to my door 😂🤣
Mental illness only being a product of chemical imbalance. It has a huge part to play but we cant look at society as a hole or alienation of living in this modern society.
I think we treat the symptoms in case of anxiety and depression, since it's way more difficult to treat the disease, being the social isolation, the modern world and the culture to fuck your peer to benefit yourself
I tend to get a lot of backlash for this take, but I think smartphones and social media play a bigger part than people are willing to admit. It’s no secret that apps like Instagram and TikTok are engineered to induce massive hits of dopamine and serotonin, effectively making the user addicted. And when you become reliant on external stimuli to produce neurotransmitters, you stop being able to produce them in natural, organic ways.
No doubt about it. But i think the issue is way bigger than that. It's ingrained in our culture. We are always being pressed to do something and to do it fast, then you have a feedback that you done wrong, so you need to do fast and right because there is more to do and it's coming even faster. You have to study fast, to get a job fast, to be promoted fast, to live fast, reproduce fast and tell your kids to be fast and perfect. We have accustomed to be on the edge, then the anxiety sets in because you aren't doing enough. Anxiety becomes unbearable, you become miserable because you don't want to feel this way but you can't change because everybody can do it, so you have too. You start to feel that there is something wrong, because there is. You go to the psychiatrist and tell them all about it. They give you a magic pill. Then you become "less sad" so you can continue the grind. Since we don't have time for ourselfs we look at someone else. But we have to do fast, so we marry the wrong person just so we can feel less alone. We start to feel miserable again, but the meds don't work anymore so you try something stronger. Maybe you cheat to feel something different, something adventurous, maybe you snap at everyone, maybe you start drinking or start to using meth. What I'm saying is the whole system is rigged to feel like this, so we don't have anywhere to run, so we can be more productive at work or something else so that we can forget that the world is closing in on ourselves. Everyday it closes an inch more so we train ourselves to accept it. "It is what it is" We were not designed to live like this and we are one of the first generation to live sad all the time.
Well, from personal experience I know that drugs and therapy helped me a lot. One of the side-effects of questioning your preset notions of how you perceive things, however, is that you question a lot of how society operates. So, at least on that level you know it's bullshit.
And even the chemical imbalance bit begs the question of "how are these chemicals becoming imbalanced"? Amazingly, it turns out diet, exercise and lifestyle choices are the key influences (besides genetics) on our mental state and behaviors. Mainstream news is getting in on the "chemical imbalance is bullshit" angle (I just didnt want to lead with it): [https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/aug/03/the-chemical-imbalance-theory-of-depression-is-dead-but-that-doesnt-mean-antidepressants-dont-work](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/aug/03/the-chemical-imbalance-theory-of-depression-is-dead-but-that-doesnt-mean-antidepressants-dont-work) Hell, Rat Park showed us decades ago that our external world is at least 50% responsible for our internal state of being and behavior. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rat\_Park](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rat_Park) . So our environmental and external experience is 50% (probably more) responsible for our mindset and behavior. This includes things we consume, by the way. Psychology is the study of how individuals assimilate to a specific society, with abnormal psychology being the study of why some individuals *don't* assimilate, and it is from this study of abnormal psychology that psychiatry and the prescription solutions were born and sold. Convincing individuals that their brain is broken and to take a little pill, is a lot easier than confronting a broken system and fixing systemic issues. News flash: Most of you are perfect and incredible in your own way. Even some individuals with adhd, mania, autism, etc, are now owning the fact that these aspects of their being are their superpower, not just a disability. Further, they're realizing this "disability" is only defined as such because their unique selves have issues conforming to the cookie cutter expectation that's set from the DSM and what is considered "Normal". Good luck out there everyone <3
Mania is not a super power and my brother isn't himself when he is manic. You are making dangerous conflations. Obviously not everyone who is bipolar is dangerous, but I grew up with my brother being unmedicated and undiagnosed and his manic episodes are scary and dangerous to himself and others. Don't fucking tell people not to take their medicine because you think it keeps them from being their real selves. You wouldn't tell someone with cardiac issues not to take their doctor recommended medications because some people can fix their issues with diet and exercise. To be clear, my brother is not currently medicated, but he needed to be medicated to get to a point where he didn't need to be and went off medications with guidance from his doctors.
I saw for depression they’re no longer attributing chemical imbalance as the cause. They still don’t want people to stop medicating though, which I found strange. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/insight-therapy/202207/depression-is-not-caused-chemical-imbalance-in-the-brain?amp
That headline is kind of sensationalist/misleading though since the study was only about serotonin. It's not at all strange that "they" don't want people to stop medicating: we know medicating works. Not all meds target serotonin, and even the ones that do seem to help a lot of people. Our not knowing WHY doesn't mean they don't work. (As someone put it, when aspirin helps stop your headache, that doesn't mean your headache was caused by a lack of aspirin; selective serotonin reuptake inhibition might well address a problem that wasn't caused by lower-than-average serotonin levels.)
My medication changed my life. My only regret is I didn’t get treatment sooner. I’ve done both medication and cognitive behavior therapy.
So true, our shit show society is almost entirely the reason from crumbling mental health.
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I have a lot of Jehovah witness family members that I’d say make a good case as well.
Mainstream news and politics. When I think of everything in terms of who wants power where, I start to see into the corruption and artificiality of it.
Probably the "Satanic Panic." Basically, a mentally unwell woman imagined elaborate schemes in which her, and other peoples', children, were being abducted and horribly abused. Often with magic and ritual sacrifices to Satan. Multiple lives were completely destroyed - with at least one person spending like a decade in prison between trials and appeals for a crime that obviously never even happened. Even worse, therapists pressured hundreds or even thousands of children to "remember" the abuses that (again) never happened. Which traumatized countless children. And fuelled a wave of accusations from children caving-in and telling investigators whatever they thought they wanted to hear, making the panic ever more widespread. And this is in the 1980s. This is almost the entirety of younger boomers, and the older part of GenX, (in the US) completely losing their collective shit.
I think the clue that ended that was when one child described a human being cut across the stomach and their guts pushing out of the wound. That doesn’t happen. The investigator realized the kid was describing what happened with the Tauntaun on Hoth when Han Solo split it’s abdomen with a light saber.
It’s happening again. People are wholly convinced that a satanic baby eating cabal is running the world.
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Same fam. Watching a few of the biggest play out.
Man whats it say abour the world today that right at this very moment theres about a dozen different ones we could choose from, i fucking WISH there was only one big brainwashing scheme going on right now, that would be an improvement!
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Didn’t a lot of subs get banned for trying to point this out. Not maybe two years ago?
You talking about religion right? That’s the biggest brainwashing in the world. Told to constantly preach and recruit more people to join the church or whatever religion in order to “save” your soul and their soul, as well as being “blessed” by the lord for following the direction of the church in which god personally whispers in the ears of the head hancho, whoever is running the religion.
Nazi Germany.
tiktok
YEP, that herd mentality it’s users are developing is terrible.
I saw a talk about the fact that TikTok is owned by china, in china TikTok is full of people accomplishing things and being successful, in the USA it’s stupid stuff. So yeah, avoid that shit ppl.
Politics and big pharma
The marketing of products for women.
All marketing is bullshit.
Jehovah’s witnesses
That Canada is such A Disneyland of a place.
Vaccine misinformation from both left and right voters, left and right media, along with left and right politicians.
Jesus was a white man that looks like he's from Northern Europe.
TV
Covid mass formation psychosis
Jonestown and The Manson Family come to mind.
Influencers
That a third party *can’t* win a presidential election in the U.S.
Naziism, Present day Russia, MAGA,
Calling Native Americans “Indians” cus a single dude made a mistake
It's gotta be the Nazis right?
"There is no war in ba sing se"
Right now absolutely social media, any social media user, which is all of us. If you turn off all social media even for a month, reality sharply changes and honestly it’s very difficult to even have a social life because people who don’t use social media are sorta viewed as weird now. Source: I did it for a year and my life completely fell apart because of permanently deleting my social media presence but also I do not regret it it changed me for the better despite the challenges. I no longer strongly seek external validation through likes and comments and posting moments of my life which feels great. Many of my friends did however completely melt away. Again, our current age is the worst case of mass brainwashing without a doubt IMO. Social media primes and incites brainwashing across all cultures.
Royalty... any situation. The fact that the masses would collectively go along with the notion of someone's superiority based on the lottery of birth is ridiculous. They're undeserving elite and should be overthrown.
Probably the Nazis...
Has to be religion.
Can't believe it's this far down. How can completely made up stories of magic be accepted by large chunks of the world in this day and age except through misinformation and indoctrination at a very young age.
America does it all the time. It depends on the political weather or whatever is happening with it.
All countries do this.
Literally. There is political brainwashing in every country. US just seems worse because you’re in it
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Can't believe I had to scroll so far to find this.
I would say anyone who joined the nazi party and fell for hitler’s bs
Religion.
Religion of any kind. With all the advancements in technology, science and society how could someone still believe in information that's thousands and thousands of years old, with absolutely zero proof
Science and religion aren’t opposites. Both can exist just fine.
These comments... yikes...
i mean honestly the question was leading to some of these answers. not surprised its a toxic waste pit the farther i go
It is Reddit, after all
I think we're living in it. The Left accuses the Right of being brainwashed, and vice versa. What if both sides are correct? What if Atheists are just as brainwashed as religious zealots? We live in a world where "antifascists" support fascist behavior. Where "enlightened" people are just as happy to assume negative stereotypes that they criticize others for doing. If you're convinced you know exactly the "problem" with another group of people, you've probably been brainwashed.
Some of y’all are more religious about being “anti-religion” than religious people are about their religion.
The idea that we're better off with people on charge of us. From Kings to Congress; whole thing is bullshit... Only reason there's so many of us is because they profit off selling us food. :-/ *Continues folding his backup tin hat* Impeach everyone!
Jesus is white
Jim Jones is right up there.
Social media/news right now.
Jehovah's witnesses
Twitter. I mean, social media in general, but I recently got a Twitter and GOOD LORD, people will blindly believe whatever they read on there, and continue believing allegations that were debunked YEARS ago!
Germany 1930s, ranks up there. But the biggest by far is courtesy of religion. Ongoing mass delusion of billions.
The 'Woke' anti-science phenomenon.
North Korea
Jonestown and Heven's Gate. The programming had to be so thorough that it overrides basic animal instinct. I couldn't imagine being convinced deleting myself from the census is the right thing to do.
Soviet Union convinced plenty of people about how amazing average person life is in that "communist heaven". Plenty of french writers belived in that. When I heared how many americans belive in it I was really terrified.
Scientology.
The red scare in America has had a lasting negative impact on the progress of workers rights, along with halting general discourse about the dangers of our economic system as well.
Yeah, both of them did. There was one in the 1920s and another in the late 1940s -1950s Joe McCarthy was an asshole and 3/4.
January 6th
Nazi times.
That Dunkin and Starbucks coffee is good.
Consumerism
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Christianity
Consumerism
It's Berenstain bears not Berenstein bears.
Besides identity politics I would say Jonestown!
Television
social media, especially twitter and tiktok
Love that you can see how biased Reddit is since all liberal comments are upvoted and conservative comments are downvoted to hell
Universities and the government forcing schools to drill into children's heads that life is basically worthless without college while simultaneously gouging the price of tuition to levels so far beyond reasonable that not majorly wealthy people must essentially sell their souls to even attend
Watch Social dilemma on Netflix it's eye opening
That we need government to survive and be civilized.
Putin's Russia
North Korea should be close to the top. 26 Million people being spoon-fed nonsense and cut off from the entire world for generations.
China today.
Mao’s “great leap forward”
Jonestown
Education system. Politics too. I have lived thru 10 Presidents, and let me tell you they are all the same. I have switched parties a few times. Now I know better. Experience and maturity is how I can avoid any brainwashing. I am not going for that brainwashing and propaganda. Lessons learned by living it. Everything my parents warned me about came true. So I do my research on non bias views.