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Sarcopenia posted:It's loving dumb to in any way hand it to Jones himself but this is a really lovely misconception. I actually had to re-read the tweet because I thought "Oh neat! Yeah we should withhold judgement of the victims of Jonestown, why is this causing a stir... oh, oh no". Most of those people didn't kill themselves and if they did it was while being threatened at gun point after months if not years of starvation, isolation and torture committed by Jones and his cronies. They all wanted out which is why they were murdered. I’ll admit I drastically oversimplified to make a joke.
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Oct 6, 2020 07:18
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Like a lot of events, the popular idea of the Jonestown story is simplified to the point of really missing the point and drastically understating how the real situation was way crazier than anyone thought even then. Hell, people don't even remember it was after they murdered a politician as his plane was taking off.
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Oct 6, 2020 07:27
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The only devil's advocate thing I'll do for society is that I think Jonestown really got mixed in with Heaven's Gate as one big cult/mass suicide thing in a fuzzy cultural memory. Like, as we've talked about in this thread before, it is useful to explore the early days of the cult to better understand how people got sucked in. Especially since there are still a lot of attitudes that only idiots would ever wind up in that situation. But acting like Jones wasn't pretty much a straight up monster is ridiculous and trying to link it to some vague "Oh, but you also trust institutions and society, so really are you any different  " is peak galaxy brain. To add to Jones not being a sincere, there was supposedly a point where Jonestown wasn't too bad...before he came to live there. As much as it was a nightmare to build given the land and conditions, supposedly the people just hanging out trying to start their own little goon island level settlement were relatively content and happy. Then Jones showed up and started his poo poo.
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Oct 6, 2020 08:17
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Ghost Leviathan posted:Like a lot of events, the popular idea of the Jonestown story is simplified to the point of really missing the point and drastically understating how the real situation was way crazier than anyone thought even then. Hell, people don't even remember it was after they murdered a politician as his plane was taking off. For a modern connection, if you’re from San Mateo County, CA, then your representative Jackie Speier (14th Congressional district) was a staffer accompanying Leo Ryan on that trip. She was hit five times by bullets or shotgun pellets but made it away and hid until help arrived.
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Oct 6, 2020 09:34
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Alright, I'll bite. So, on my dad's side, I can trace relatives here in SF back to at least the 1840s. He and my mom met here in the City in the late 1970s. My dad's senior class in school booked Big Brother &The Holding Co. with Janis Joplin for like, a homecoming dance, not even a prom. I had absolutely no idea and didn't mean to cause my mother any pain, but one time as an edgy 12-year-old or so, I brought home a giant biography/history book about Jonestown that had a lot of photos from the library. I thought it was edgy because it was SF-oriented true crime (when Polly Klaas was abducted, my world stopped. We lived around the corner at the time and my parents were friends with hers) but my mother was really, really upset when she saw what I was reading... She cried in her room and it wasnt until my Dad told me that he and my mom had lost a number of friends (like 20+,) distant family and coworkers in Jonestown, that it and the Moscone/Milk assassination had been incidents that forever marked and affected their lives to huge degrees did I understand... I've spoken to both my parents about Jonestown a few times, so I will happily answer what I can from their historical responses, and I will compile a list of other Q's to ask them... Please understand this is a difficult thing to speak on, so I will respect my parent's boundaries if they do not want to discuss certain topics.
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Oct 6, 2020 11:01
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Ghost Leviathan posted:Like a lot of events, the popular idea of the Jonestown story is simplified to the point of really missing the point and drastically understating how the real situation was way crazier than anyone thought even then. Hell, people don't even remember it was after they murdered a politician as his plane was taking off. I was completely unaware about the ‘murdering a state representative’ element until listening to the Casefile episode yeah.
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Oct 6, 2020 11:05
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Inceltown posted:Won't somebody think of the murderous cult leader? You don't have to be all the evils to be evil. A person can believe in some good things and some evil things at the same time. I mean probably the biggest example of this is Hitler who was a huge dog lover, general animal lover, vegetarian and was.....well Hitler.
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Oct 6, 2020 17:21
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Kitfox88 posted:I was completely unaware about the ‘murdering a state representative’ element until listening to the Casefile episode yeah. that reminds me, leo ryan is the second most recent sitting rep to die in office of unnatural causes the most recent was larry mcdonald of georgia, who died when the korean airliner he was in was shot down by soviet interceptors in 1983 after it strayed into russian airspace https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_Air_Lines_Flight_007
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Oct 6, 2020 17:24
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Madkal posted:You don't have to be all the evils to be evil. A person can believe in some good things and some evil things at the same time. I mean probably the biggest example of this is Hitler who was a huge dog lover, general animal lover, vegetarian and was.....well Hitler. Jones’s behavior from the very earliest accounts of his childhood through everything he did up to and including the Jonestown massacre clearly indicate that he was a psychopath. Jones was not a person who believed in some good things and also some bad things. Everything he did was to further his own ends, which were things like “acquire power over other people.” Jones did not give a gently caress about racism or poverty. Those were simply convenient wedge issues he learned to use to manipulate people. Obviously, we’re never going to get someone to sit Jones down and administer the PCL-R to him at this point, but literally everything we know about him screams “remorseless, manipulative psychopath,” and not “complicated man with some good and some bad.”
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Oct 6, 2020 17:37
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Veni Vidi Ameche! posted:Jones’s behavior from the very earliest accounts of his childhood through everything he did up to and including the Jonestown massacre clearly indicate that he was a psychopath. Jones was not a person who believed in some good things and also some bad things. Everything he did was to further his own ends, which were things like “acquire power over other people.” Jones did not give a gently caress about racism or poverty. Those were simply convenient wedge issues he learned to use to manipulate people.
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Oct 6, 2020 17:49
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Veni Vidi Ameche! posted:Obviously, we’re never going to get someone to sit Jones down and administer the PCL-R to him at this point, but literally everything we know about him screams “remorseless, manipulative psychopath,” and not “complicated man with some good and some bad.” From this personal experience, and these people I knew, I don't see how they would have put up with an obvious monster. The san Francisco is similar, he was quite inspiring to a lot of people that I don't think would have fallen for so transparent a psychopathy. Of course, this is the era where the drugs and power politics came in, and those can certainly allow the monster to come out.
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Oct 6, 2020 17:54
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Parakeet vs. Phone posted:The only devil's advocate thing I'll do for society is that I think Jonestown really got mixed in with Heaven's Gate as one big cult/mass suicide thing in a fuzzy cultural memory. I got them mixed up one time, one time!
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Oct 6, 2020 17:57
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PetraCore posted:Right, like, when I say I don't think he was racist that's not me saying he loved everyone equally, I think he saw everyone as equally able to be tools for him. Not exactly a shining endorsement. He just figured out how to leverage that to seem like a good person. * I’m not sure this is true, since I think there are records of him saying some pretty racist poo poo. I can’t swear to that, though, because I can’t remember specifics. Remulak posted:From this personal experience, and these people I knew, I don't see how they would have put up with an obvious monster. You also have to consider that the people you knew _didn’t_ put up with it. The people his poo poo worked on went with him, and left behind the people who either didn’t know any better, or who were put off by him. People as a group are very, very susceptible to this kind of manipulation. One reason for that is that it’s really hard to believe that psychopaths exist. Many people simply cannot fathom a person who has no conscience, no remorse, no attachments to other people other than as property or tools, and a world view where anything he or she does is justified just because they felt like doing it. Many people just can’t grasp that. They are sure that there must be a spark of humanity in there, and there just isn’t. If someone says over and over and over that they care about poverty, and they are there to fight poverty, and you can join them to fight poverty, and that person actually does some things that at least look like they are fighting poverty, people will make a loooot of excuses for the stuff that doesn’t line up with the way the person in question is presenting himself. Anyone interested in learning more about the topic of psychopaths in general, which can really shine a light onto people like Jones, should start with Hervey Cleckley’s The Mask of Sanity, then move on to the works of Robert Hare. Without Conscience is a good place to start with Hare. Without Conscience is accessible. Hare is the inventor of the PCL-R, which is the tool used to diagnose psychopathy, so he is a very solid source for information on this topic. Snakes in Suits is also by Hare, and is also accessible. I didn’t care much for The Psychopath: Emotion and the Brain, by Karina Blair and some others, but it comes up a lot when people recommend things to read on this topic. I actually have my copy within reach, right now. There is always the pop-science problem that a lot of these books are simplified for mass audiences, but they are still worth reading. The Psychopath is not particularly dumbed down, but it’s a bit of a slog. I can recommend a lot of reading for anyone interested in psychopathy. Skip the DSM, because they’re still pretending psychopathy doesn’t exist.
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Oct 6, 2020 18:31
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Pirate Radar posted:For a modern connection, if you’re from San Mateo County, CA, then your representative Jackie Speier (14th Congressional district) was a staffer accompanying Leo Ryan on that trip. She was hit five times by bullets or shotgun pellets but made it away and hid until help arrived. She's wonderful in general, by the way. Strong voice for, among other things, stopping military rape and sexual harassment.
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Oct 6, 2020 18:41
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Veni Vidi Ameche! posted:There is always the pop-science problem that a lot of these books are simplified for mass audiences, but they are still worth reading. The Psychopath is not particularly dumbed down, but it’s a bit of a slog. I can recommend a lot of reading for anyone interested in psychopathy. Skip the DSM, because they’re still pretending psychopathy doesn’t exist. What did you make of Jon Ronson's The Psychopath Test?
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Oct 6, 2020 19:52
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For anyone who is interested in how a psychopath thinks there is an A/T thread from a Primary Psycohpath going on right now.
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Oct 6, 2020 21:37
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Inceltown posted:For anyone who is interested in how a psychopath thinks there is an A/T thread from a Primary Psycohpath going on right now. It's a neat look into someone's head. Great thread, more people should be in there asking questions.
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Oct 6, 2020 21:41
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Rascar Capac posted:What did you make of Jon Ronson's The Psychopath Test? I haven’t read it since it was new, so maybe eight years. My memory of it is that it made some good points about slapping labels on people, and had some interesting case studies (sort of) of real or suspected psychopaths. I remember he spoke to a big time executive type who was pretty much, “Yeah, I totally have all of these psychopathic traits you’re talking about, but they’re good, actually.” On the whole, it didn’t impress me enough for me to read it more than once, and I remember feeling like it really didn’t dig very deeply into the stuff I was interested in. I also felt like it spent too much time worrying about how the poor psychopaths are perceived by society.
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Oct 6, 2020 22:00
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Ghost Leviathan posted:Like a lot of events, the popular idea of the Jonestown story is simplified to the point of really missing the point and drastically understating how the real situation was way crazier than anyone thought even then. Hell, people don't even remember it was after they murdered a politician as his plane was taking off. The real crazy part is how many Big Names in CA politics were on pretty good terms with the People's Temple before things got worse, and how all of them saw zero blowback for it.
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Oct 6, 2020 23:02
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My 26F Husband 29M of 4 years thinks its weird I've never had the urge to kill someone, he says that is normal? Ok so this is really weird. I don't really know where to start. So this morning he was mentioning how he doesn't like reading news stories where people get murdered and how his friends are really into slender man. I mentioned I read the story of the two girls who stabbed their classmate for slender man. He got really offended I read news articles about murder. Like so offended you would have thought I said something horrible about his mother or something. I asked him why it was such a big deal to him that if I see a news article about murder that I read it. He said because he doesn't want those articles to make me actually kill someone (bare with me, this sounds like a joke but its not). I told him I have never had the urge to kill someone? He said that it is normal and everyone has that urge. I clarified with him if he meant like you are so mad you say it sarcastically or if it is a real urge and he said it is a real urge. He told me I was lying when I said I never wanted to kill someone. I feel really weird now, he is a really normal happy guy who has had a good vanilla normal life. Should I urge him to go to therapy. This is all so weird.
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Oct 6, 2020 23:39
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Veni Vidi Ameche! posted:I also felt like it spent too much time worrying about how the poor psychopaths are perceived by society. Jon Ronson has some weird credulity/apologia stuff going on for this sort of thing. I remember his essay on Neurolinguistic Programming being shockingly uncritical of the whole idea.
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Oct 6, 2020 23:42
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StrixNebulosa posted:My 26F Husband 29M of 4 years thinks its weird I've never had the urge to kill someone, he says that is normal? He's a real weirdo 
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Oct 6, 2020 23:43
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Was Jim Jones also the one who could arc his piss clear over a house, or is that weird claim about a different historical psycho?
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Oct 7, 2020 01:48
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Nope you got it
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Oct 7, 2020 01:50
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StrixNebulosa posted:My 26F Husband 29M of 4 years thinks its weird I've never had the urge to kill someone, he says that is normal? I feel like this is a bit of crossed signals between someone who's lived a relatively sheltered life and someone with past trauma. I try to ask people tactfully to avoid talk of suicide because it puts me in a dark place because of friends I've lost. No one ever seems to ever be able to just loving drop it. Maybe don't push someone to talk about murder if they act like, " I just said something horrible about his mother. "
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Oct 7, 2020 01:52
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Leviathan Song posted:I feel like this is a bit of crossed signals between someone who's lived a relatively sheltered life and someone with past trauma. I try to ask people tactfully to avoid talk of suicide because it puts me in a dark place because of friends I've lost. No one ever seems to ever be able to just loving drop it. Maybe don't push someone to talk about murder if they act like, " I just said something horrible about his mother. " Actually I think it's normal to "push" someone to tell you why they think you should never read articles about murder. Also think it is normal to not have ever had a serious urge to kill someone.
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Oct 7, 2020 01:58
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Dirty Deeds Thunderchief posted:Actually I think it's normal to "push" someone to tell you why they think you should never read articles about murder. Also think it is normal to not have ever had a serious urge to kill someone. You're not their therapist, you're just some goon. They don't owe you an explanation of why they are uncomfortable with the subject of murder. Not everyone has to relive their personal traumas for your curiosity. That statement about an urge to kill is an obvious emotional reaction to being put on the defensive about an uncomfortable and personal situation.
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Oct 7, 2020 02:06
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There's the whole "husband of 4 years" thing that might change the math on pushing the point. I'd say the whole "All my friends love Slenderman" is more of a red flag to be honest.
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Oct 7, 2020 02:13
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Pirate Radar posted:Was Jim Jones also the one who could arc his piss clear over a house, or is that weird claim about a different historical psycho? The surest proof he was God’s chosen
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Oct 7, 2020 02:20
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'serious' is subjective
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Oct 7, 2020 02:22
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Parakeet vs. Phone posted:There's the whole "husband of 4 years" thing that might change the math on pushing the point. I still think pushing is the mistake. Regroup and address it from a more neutral vantage. Forcing an immediate response isn't going to get you anything rational. Even in her account he sounds cornered.
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Oct 7, 2020 02:31
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Leviathan Song posted:You're not their therapist, you're just some goon. They don't owe you an explanation of why they are uncomfortable with the subject of murder. Not everyone has to relive their personal traumas for your curiosity. That statement about an urge to kill is an obvious emotional reaction to being put on the defensive about an uncomfortable and personal situation. You're projecting really hard here. We're talking about a husband and wife couple where the husband is insisting that the wife not read a news article because it might make her decide to kill someone out of the blue, not some rando on a message board saying "please tread lightly when talking about suicide around me because it brings up past trauma for me".
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Oct 7, 2020 03:06
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Inceltown posted:For anyone who is interested in how a psychopath thinks there is an A/T thread from a Primary Psycohpath going on right now. It's definitely an interesting read, but I'm on the edge of calling bullshit on this.
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Oct 7, 2020 04:57
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Proteus Jones posted:It's definitely an interesting read, but I'm on the edge of calling bullshit on this. Like everything on the internet, it's obviously fake and gay. Just enjoy the ride.
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Oct 7, 2020 06:40
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Fred Phelps was apparently an anti-racist preacher at one point as well. Just like today, a progressive movement that's getting traction is often jumped on by opportunistic grifters as an opportunity to get attention and sympathy they can turn into money and power.
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Oct 7, 2020 06:44
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Proteus Jones posted:It's definitely an interesting read, but I'm on the edge of calling bullshit on this. It's kinda neat how he goes from "I can tell when people fake their emotions. I am gifted at people reading" to "I make women orgasm constantly for hours when I have sex with them"
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Oct 7, 2020 16:28
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^^^ yeah, that tooProteus Jones posted:It's definitely an interesting read, but I'm on the edge of calling bullshit on this. I was iffy (he got a vasectomy at 18?), then skeptical (being a psychopath means having NO physical feeling, like he doesn't know when he has to poop, he just poops on command?), then called utter bullshit when he admits he's never seen a professional of any kind, yet somehow knows he has only one out of five nerve receptors on his emotion-sensing dendrites or whatever that was. Now, psychopaths do lie to gain power, so could be that he's legit psychopath, spinning a totally fake/exaggerated a/t story to make us puppets dance and get a gold rating. Or it's a creative writing exercise in "ask me about being a robot". Or he just did way too much DXM, DMT, and other dissociative drugs and his brain done busted. I remember his a/t about being an audio engineer on a cruise ship (I was an AV engineer of sorts at the time, so I was posting in it), and I dont recall his writing being so stilted. So maybe he was just playing the part as psychopaths do, back then? Or maybe he's playing the part now? Either way, it kinda fits this thread because it's unnerving me. JacquelineDempsey has a new favorite as of 16:46 on Oct 7, 2020 |
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Oct 7, 2020 16:38
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Leviathan Song posted:You're not their therapist, you're just some goon. They don't owe you an explanation of why they are uncomfortable with the subject of murder. Not everyone has to relive their personal traumas for your curiosity. That statement about an urge to kill is an obvious emotional reaction to being put on the defensive about an uncomfortable and personal situation. I would hope that you have a stronger bond to your SO than “just some goon”
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Oct 7, 2020 16:39
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how long should you be married before it's okay to ask personal questions
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Oct 7, 2020 17:20
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StrixNebulosa posted:My 26F Husband 29M of 4 years thinks its weird I've never had the urge to kill someone, he says that is normal? I'd bet this guy suffers from serious intrusive thoughts rather than him being a psychopath. It's a form of OCD and it can be really devastating, because people think having these thoughts pop up all the time means they're monsters when really they're just having random brain blips and then obsessing over them.
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Oct 7, 2020 18:05
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