I think it's a credibility issue. During my time in TWI it was TWIs credibility vs the cult awareness peoples'. I'm sure TWI has their spin which attacks internet credibility. It better be more convincing than "TWI = God / Internet = devil."
Geez I just can't stop laughing. I have been out for so long I didn't know TWI thinks that the internet is evil. Odd - let's see now... the printed book was invented and became the way to SPEED UP THE FLOW OF INFORMATION FROM THE AUTHOR TO MANY PEOPLE. While the first printed book was the bible many other books followed - some with not so nice things in them - but TWI never came down on the printed book!!! Nooooh no no - as I recall the movable type printing press was an example of "revelation." Gosh wow where would you right your margin notes from a SNS?!?! laffing so hard I am gonna spit on my keyboard....Ummm explain why the internet is a different value proposition than the printing press other than being faster and having even broader distribution please.....
...From that...
If the internet is evil then books are evil and we should still be living in wood huts and dying of disease at the "old" age of thirty something. Better yet - if the internet is evil and it follows that books are evil perhaps we shoujld start burning books... Oh WAIT - WE DID THAT SH(T TOO on uncle hairloss day...LOL. A holocaust survivor commented that "When they starting burning books it is only a matter of time until they start to burn bodies." Oh my yep yep Hitler burned books....I wonder if that Nazi F*&K ever rode around in a motorcoach instead of his custom armored car from time to time.
Geez I just can't stop laughing. I have been out for so long I didn't know TWI thinks that the internet is evil. Odd - let's see now... the printed book was invented and became the way to SPEED UP THE FLOW OF INFORMATION FROM THE AUTHOR TO MANY PEOPLE...
There is a difference. The internet, while not free, can expose you to ideas, news, opinions, truth, and bu11sh1t faster than any library on Earth.
I think organizations (Such as Communist China) fear that very much. Search-able, indexable, and at your fingertips in most homes.
I don't think TWI will ever really be destroyed. Yes, the internet has certainly had an impact on TWI - no doubt - but I think there will always be a small, disillusioned group who think they're still onto a good thing - that they're "doing God's will" - yaddy, yaddy, yaddy.
I think the internet provides a way for TWI newbies and their families and friends to get more information about the group. Perhaps those family and friends can apply a little pressure to the newbie about what they're really getting into - and like joniam said, it becomes a credibility issue then.
Who is going to take you seriously when you say you've found Jesus, in a cornfield in Ohio, and he's with a money-hungry, skirt-lifting, family breaking, and motorcoach rockin' organization like TWI, whose name has been in a few lawsuits?
There is a difference. The internet, while not free, can expose you to ideas, news, opinions, truth, and bu11sh1t faster than any library on Earth.
I think organizations (Such as Communist China) fear that very much. Search-able, indexable, and at your fingertips in most homes.
That's much more than a room full of books.
SFSailor
Communism was spread throughout the world via printed material and "witnessing" - go read "The Communist Manifesto" by Marx and Engel - it did not achieve world ascendancy via the internet. Book expose you to everything the internet does - just slower in these times of high technology.
....Ummm explain why the internet is a different value proposition than the printing press other than being faster and having even broader distribution please.....
C'mon now RumRunner...You're an advanced class grad. You should know that certain demons from Hell infiltrate between the digital spaces of the electronic signals being sent. Expanding and contracting the spaces until the content is engulfed by demonic influences. Similar to what LSD does to the human brain, the nefarious spiritual powers from Hades do likewise to the Internet.
I may post something that says..."Verily I say unto thee, today thou shat be with me at the local beerjoint"...but when the monsters from the black pit get through with it, it reads..."Verily I say unto thee today, thou shalt be with me at the local beerjoint"
See what I mean? I'm sitting there in the beer joint ALONE because you didn't realize that I meant TODAY...you thought I meant next Thursday or some other day!
I suspect you know what I mean. The internet reaches a wider audience than books.
Having visited several communist countries, I think I can say I know something about how it spreads. Commies tend to shove their material at you whether you want it or not. I doubt TWI ever had jackbooted thugs kicking in doors and making people "believe".
I don't think the internet will be a fatal blow. I think I agree with Chas.
It will, as I said on the other thread, keep them from having a comeback. They will never have the 30,000 followers the way they did in the early 80s. We don't have the left-over Jesus freak hippies around and twi isn't that type of organization anymore. We do have somthing-for-everyone-megachurches out the whazoo though. I think that is another factor in keeping TWI's numbers low. They have all kinds of services and groups for all kinds of people and they have music and productions that don't always suck. Lastly, with the exception of some major off the mainstream doctrines that twi seems to want to keep on the DL for the uninitiated, they are not all that different in doctrine from a lot of churches or dime-a-dozen-self-help videos. (Oh yes I like the hyphen.)
So what's the draw?
I think it will sputter out to a degree but I think there will always be those that want to keep hope alive no matter what.
I think as the "old guard" dies off, so will the population of TWI. Kids are not going to stay involved with that kind of control and manipulation, especially with their propensity for visiting places like myspace. Heck, even the TWIt kids on there have some very....ummmmm.... questionable content for TWIts on their blogs. <_<
The kids at HQ are the only ones really sheltered from the "real world" and, as they get older, especially if they go to college, they'll be exposed to things that will make them think. They'll also, most likely, start to want to have "normal" families, with houses, kids, stable, permanent addresses, etc.
TWI will continue to dwindle away to a very small contingent living a compound lifestyle off the millions that we provided for them, unless the government comes in and rightfully (and hopefully) takes that away from them.
And, RR, I get what you're saying about books. ;) The printing of books and making information readily available to the general public made manipulation and control extremely difficult for those in charge and caused no small stir. That's why the printing of the Bible is such a big deal in history.
SF and DM - I agree with both of you hoever my point was not that books and the internet are functionaly identical but that they are analogs and hence (in light of TWI) if the internet is evil then by analog comparison then books are evil. Books were one of the earliest forms of mass communication (I'll ignore jungle drums for now) and the internet is the modern analog - faster, easier, broader reaching.
Another observation now that I am not tanked - if TWI teaches that the internet is evil why do they have a web site?!?!
BTW SF - Also having been to a number of communist and other repressed nations I have long believed that the cure for that is to airlift cell phones, computers and fax machines more than weaponry... not that I am a pacifist by any means but the quickest way to dissolve a totalitarian regime is to give the population the ability to communicate.
Yeah, that might work. Allthough it's almost frightening what internet and cell phones have done to some of my favorite spots around the world. Fly halfway around the world and run into...
There was a time when I was still "in" where i didn't beleieve anything negative about TWI. There were plenty of pamphlets around in the 70's.
Even during the early days of the internet, it was matter of credibility: I believed my "leadership" more than the anonymous words on the computer screen.
It was the message boards like Waydale & Grease Spot that made a difference to me; not only could you read the stories, but you could interact with the storytellers, look for inconsistancies, question, debate. That was a big part of the diffeence for me.
Indeed - Oak...I remember the same thing. And I responded the same way until something else happened.
Even though I was out before these Message Boards made their appearance, I think that today, they will count more than my TC's word for it...for all the reasons you listed.
The internet? Well, it's a great deal, but it doesn't work the same way in China that it does here! Not everybody is as free to explore as we are!
There was a time when I was still "in" where i didn't beleieve anything negative about TWI. There were plenty of pamphlets around in the 70's.
I vaguely remember reading some of the info from deprogrammers in the early 80's ... I think part of their problem was they went over the top with stuff about twi being paramilitary and I think in some other areas too. Of course the sex stuff turns out to have been largely true, which I think I mostly didn't believe. But if there was an internet then, with many people giving their "testimony", it would have been more effective.
Free info to the world is a good concept ... radio free Europe interent style ... hmmmm ... satellite internet and solar powered laptops ... how many laptops for the price of a couple laser guided missles, a thousand? ...
China keeps trying to filter out some info ... I think google and microsoft (or some of those tech giants) get some heat for giving technology to help them do that ...
Free info to the world is a good concept ... radio free Europe interent style ... hmmmm ... satellite internet and solar powered laptops ... how many laptops for the price of a couple laser guided missles, a thousand? ...
Raytheon gets $800K for every Tomohawk cruise missle. That doesn't include storage, launch facilities, training etc. Now let's say that a reasonable laptop is right around $1K these days. The arithmetic speaks loudly. On the other hand I am not against a cruise missle or 50 when needed.
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excathedra
if people want to see, they will
if they don't, they won't
i still can't believe anyone would follow the psycho bus driver
i still can't believe people think wierwille never did anything horribly inappropriate on that bus
sorry for the de-rail :)
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johniam
I think it's a credibility issue. During my time in TWI it was TWIs credibility vs the cult awareness peoples'. I'm sure TWI has their spin which attacks internet credibility. It better be more convincing than "TWI = God / Internet = devil."
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RumRunner
Geez I just can't stop laughing. I have been out for so long I didn't know TWI thinks that the internet is evil. Odd - let's see now... the printed book was invented and became the way to SPEED UP THE FLOW OF INFORMATION FROM THE AUTHOR TO MANY PEOPLE. While the first printed book was the bible many other books followed - some with not so nice things in them - but TWI never came down on the printed book!!! Nooooh no no - as I recall the movable type printing press was an example of "revelation." Gosh wow where would you right your margin notes from a SNS?!?! laffing so hard I am gonna spit on my keyboard....Ummm explain why the internet is a different value proposition than the printing press other than being faster and having even broader distribution please.....
...From that...
If the internet is evil then books are evil and we should still be living in wood huts and dying of disease at the "old" age of thirty something. Better yet - if the internet is evil and it follows that books are evil perhaps we shoujld start burning books... Oh WAIT - WE DID THAT SH(T TOO on uncle hairloss day...LOL. A holocaust survivor commented that "When they starting burning books it is only a matter of time until they start to burn bodies." Oh my yep yep Hitler burned books....I wonder if that Nazi F*&K ever rode around in a motorcoach instead of his custom armored car from time to time.
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excathedra
i liked your post rummie
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RumRunner
Thanks Excie
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coolchef
rum
well said
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SFSailor
There is a difference. The internet, while not free, can expose you to ideas, news, opinions, truth, and bu11sh1t faster than any library on Earth.
I think organizations (Such as Communist China) fear that very much. Search-able, indexable, and at your fingertips in most homes.
That's much more than a room full of books.
SFSailor
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ChasUFarley
Shortfuse -
I don't think TWI will ever really be destroyed. Yes, the internet has certainly had an impact on TWI - no doubt - but I think there will always be a small, disillusioned group who think they're still onto a good thing - that they're "doing God's will" - yaddy, yaddy, yaddy.
I think the internet provides a way for TWI newbies and their families and friends to get more information about the group. Perhaps those family and friends can apply a little pressure to the newbie about what they're really getting into - and like joniam said, it becomes a credibility issue then.
Who is going to take you seriously when you say you've found Jesus, in a cornfield in Ohio, and he's with a money-hungry, skirt-lifting, family breaking, and motorcoach rockin' organization like TWI, whose name has been in a few lawsuits?
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RumRunner
Communism was spread throughout the world via printed material and "witnessing" - go read "The Communist Manifesto" by Marx and Engel - it did not achieve world ascendancy via the internet. Book expose you to everything the internet does - just slower in these times of high technology.
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dmiller
Hey there RumRunner. :) Don't know about you, but I don't have time to write a book.
I do, however, have time to post about the negative experiences I had with a certain cult.
Internet goes where books fear to tread (or are unable to) because of the brevity of the post,
and it's "availability" at the same time -- being *published* instantly.
Get enough folks posting about the over-riding negative characteristics of a certain outfit,
and soon enough -- that's what will show up on the internet first and formost.
I haven't tried it, but I'd bet if you googled twi -- GSCafe would come up first!
Folks are gonna read our posts before they read Karl's book, and with good reason.
We are accessible to them right now in their living room and Karl isn't.
Books expose too, but how many folks are going to fork over cash to buy a book
that promotes an opposing viewpoint, just to see if it is right or not? Not many.
But how many folks will click on a site that offers opposing info?
a whole lot more will do so -- cause it's FREE!!
It's easier to read a bunch of posts, than it is a book. ;)
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GrouchoMarxJr
C'mon now RumRunner...You're an advanced class grad. You should know that certain demons from Hell infiltrate between the digital spaces of the electronic signals being sent. Expanding and contracting the spaces until the content is engulfed by demonic influences. Similar to what LSD does to the human brain, the nefarious spiritual powers from Hades do likewise to the Internet.
I may post something that says..."Verily I say unto thee, today thou shat be with me at the local beerjoint"...but when the monsters from the black pit get through with it, it reads..."Verily I say unto thee today, thou shalt be with me at the local beerjoint"
See what I mean? I'm sitting there in the beer joint ALONE because you didn't realize that I meant TODAY...you thought I meant next Thursday or some other day!
...and drinking alone is a drag.
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WordWolf
RumRunner,
they can control the access to the books,
but they can't control the access to ideas in the internet.
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SFSailor
Rum,
I suspect you know what I mean. The internet reaches a wider audience than books.
Having visited several communist countries, I think I can say I know something about how it spreads. Commies tend to shove their material at you whether you want it or not. I doubt TWI ever had jackbooted thugs kicking in doors and making people "believe".
Have a nice day.
SFSailor
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lindyhopper
I don't think the internet will be a fatal blow. I think I agree with Chas.
It will, as I said on the other thread, keep them from having a comeback. They will never have the 30,000 followers the way they did in the early 80s. We don't have the left-over Jesus freak hippies around and twi isn't that type of organization anymore. We do have somthing-for-everyone-megachurches out the whazoo though. I think that is another factor in keeping TWI's numbers low. They have all kinds of services and groups for all kinds of people and they have music and productions that don't always suck. Lastly, with the exception of some major off the mainstream doctrines that twi seems to want to keep on the DL for the uninitiated, they are not all that different in doctrine from a lot of churches or dime-a-dozen-self-help videos. (Oh yes I like the hyphen.)
So what's the draw?
I think it will sputter out to a degree but I think there will always be those that want to keep hope alive no matter what.
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Belle
I think as the "old guard" dies off, so will the population of TWI. Kids are not going to stay involved with that kind of control and manipulation, especially with their propensity for visiting places like myspace. Heck, even the TWIt kids on there have some very....ummmmm.... questionable content for TWIts on their blogs. <_<
The kids at HQ are the only ones really sheltered from the "real world" and, as they get older, especially if they go to college, they'll be exposed to things that will make them think. They'll also, most likely, start to want to have "normal" families, with houses, kids, stable, permanent addresses, etc.
TWI will continue to dwindle away to a very small contingent living a compound lifestyle off the millions that we provided for them, unless the government comes in and rightfully (and hopefully) takes that away from them.
And, RR, I get what you're saying about books. ;) The printing of books and making information readily available to the general public made manipulation and control extremely difficult for those in charge and caused no small stir. That's why the printing of the Bible is such a big deal in history.
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Kevlar2000
Excie, not a de-rail at all; rather, I think you have succinctly summed up the matter.
The information is there for those with eyes to see and ears to hear - and internet to browse.
If they don't - then
PFAHell has something just for yoooooooou.....
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PimpjuiceClergy
Base on the "Sir William Lynch Theory" 1712 no.
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RumRunner
SF and DM - I agree with both of you hoever my point was not that books and the internet are functionaly identical but that they are analogs and hence (in light of TWI) if the internet is evil then by analog comparison then books are evil. Books were one of the earliest forms of mass communication (I'll ignore jungle drums for now) and the internet is the modern analog - faster, easier, broader reaching.
Another observation now that I am not tanked - if TWI teaches that the internet is evil why do they have a web site?!?!
BTW SF - Also having been to a number of communist and other repressed nations I have long believed that the cure for that is to airlift cell phones, computers and fax machines more than weaponry... not that I am a pacifist by any means but the quickest way to dissolve a totalitarian regime is to give the population the ability to communicate.
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SFSailor
Rum,
Yeah, that might work. Allthough it's almost frightening what internet and cell phones have done to some of my favorite spots around the world. Fly halfway around the world and run into...
Us. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!
SFSailor
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Oakspear
There was a time when I was still "in" where i didn't beleieve anything negative about TWI. There were plenty of pamphlets around in the 70's.
Even during the early days of the internet, it was matter of credibility: I believed my "leadership" more than the anonymous words on the computer screen.
It was the message boards like Waydale & Grease Spot that made a difference to me; not only could you read the stories, but you could interact with the storytellers, look for inconsistancies, question, debate. That was a big part of the diffeence for me.
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krys
Indeed - Oak...I remember the same thing. And I responded the same way until something else happened.
Even though I was out before these Message Boards made their appearance, I think that today, they will count more than my TC's word for it...for all the reasons you listed.
The internet? Well, it's a great deal, but it doesn't work the same way in China that it does here! Not everybody is as free to explore as we are!
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rhino
I vaguely remember reading some of the info from deprogrammers in the early 80's ... I think part of their problem was they went over the top with stuff about twi being paramilitary and I think in some other areas too. Of course the sex stuff turns out to have been largely true, which I think I mostly didn't believe. But if there was an internet then, with many people giving their "testimony", it would have been more effective.
Free info to the world is a good concept ... radio free Europe interent style ... hmmmm ... satellite internet and solar powered laptops ... how many laptops for the price of a couple laser guided missles, a thousand? ...
China keeps trying to filter out some info ... I think google and microsoft (or some of those tech giants) get some heat for giving technology to help them do that ...
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RumRunner
Raytheon gets $800K for every Tomohawk cruise missle. That doesn't include storage, launch facilities, training etc. Now let's say that a reasonable laptop is right around $1K these days. The arithmetic speaks loudly. On the other hand I am not against a cruise missle or 50 when needed.
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Tom Strange
um... did someone mention LSD?
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