Eric Barbour's experience needs spelling out, because it is fundamental, and explains why Wikipedia is a cult. All cults have a single belief which is completely mad. Everything is they believe is quite logical and rational, except for the single mad belief. Marxists have the thing about the explanation of history. Scientologists have the 'Thetan' theory of the origin of evil.

All the evil things that a cult does can be explained by their belief in this single mad thing.

In the case of Wikipedia, the mad belief is that good articles arise from the efforts of hundreds or thousands of individual nameless editors. This is despite all evidence to the contrary that each good article is the work of one or two editors who have special or unique expertise in their subject area.

This explains all the evil that has arisen. The cult belief naturally irritates the editors who have contributed the good articles. They get no special status on the project. Look at the way Giano has been treated. It also explains the obsession with 'civility'. Clearly there are problems at the moment (witness Giano again). But the obvious explanation has to be ruled out, because it contradicts the cult belief. Therefore the explanation has to be 'incivility'. Incivility is not the symptom of the Wikipedia problem, it is the cause of it. Therefore good editors must be evicted, because they are harming the project. They can be replaced, because the progress of the encylopedia depends not on individuals, but the wisdom of the crowd. And they must be replaced, because their uncivil behaviour is preventing this progress.

I don't think that explains all of the WikiClique behavior... if the core belief is that everybody is interchangeable and replaceable, then how come certain people (like Slim Virgin and JzG) get enormous deference despite their incivility and abuses, on the grounds of their supposed great contributions to the project?

Only subject matter experts are interchangeable and replaceable. True believers are difficult to find, and are valuable. They infuse other members of the project with this valuable spirit. Ergo &c.

One of the telltale marks of a cult is that cult members never call it a cult — they always use some kind of disarming euphemism like "clique" or "community" or "that ol' gang o' mine" or something.

Jonny

The cult analogy has been raked over many times, but I reckon its always worth looking at in the light of current events.

The "single mad belief" thing is pedestrian, and would lead you to classify most organisations with supernatural belief as cults. I mean, come on - guy nailed to cross comes back to life? Taking your example of scientology, that's a lot more than a single mad belief, its a whole lifestyle full of them, from the bizarre misuse of vitamins to the whole "engram/thetan" delusion.

Any serious attempt I've seen to describe the essentials of a cult tends to focus not on what the members believe, but on how they behave, and its fascinating to reflect on the list that generally emerges: an internal political system exercising power over devotees; a leader claiming spiritual or material wisdom and being the subject of adoration for infallibility; dogmatic inflexibility; emphasis on recruitment/proselytizing; creation and use of front groups to carry out part of the organisation's mission; emphasis on obtaining wealth and on member donations; desire to obtain external political influence; sexual/emotional manipulation, "love-bombing"; censorship and attempts to control members' access to external discourse; efforts to prevent or recover dropouts; paranoia; disallowing of humour aimed at the group, its leader or its doctrines.

Wikipedia? Cult-like? Nah, no evidence at all...

This is my favoured description of what makes a group destructive, or a 'cult', it's actually a topic I was interested in very much at one point. As UseOnce says, it often focuses on a charismatic leader, and exploitation of members in various ways. They tend to volunteer a lot of their time. I don't remember seeing this particular description before from Rick Ross (whose forum I used to frequent a lot) though I probably did:-

http://www.rickross.com/warningsigns.html If you will bear with me, when it comes to Wikipedia, so much of it applies (except -so far- perhaps the religious elements), it is worth considering here

"Ten warning signs of a potentially unsafe group/leader.

1. Absolute authoritarianism without meaningful accountability.

2. No tolerance for questions or critical inquiry.

3. No meaningful financial disclosure regarding budget, expenses such as an independently audited financial statement.

4. Unreasonable fear about the outside world, such as impending catastrophe, evil conspiracies and persecutions.

5. There is no legitimate reason to leave, former followers are always wrong in leaving, negative or even evil.

6. Former members often relate the same stories of abuse and reflect a similar pattern of grievances.

7. There are records, books, news articles, or television programs that document the abuses of the group/leader.

8. Followers feel they can never be "good enough".

9. The group/leader is always right.

10. The group/leader is the exclusive means of knowing "truth" or receiving validation, no other process of discovery is really acceptable or credible.

Ten warning signs regarding people involved in/with a potentially unsafe group/leader.

1. Extreme obsessiveness regarding the group/leader resulting in the exclusion of almost every practical consideration.

2. Individual identity, the group, the leader and/or God as distinct and separate categories of existence become increasingly blurred. Instead, in the follower's mind these identities become substantially and increasingly fused--as that person's involvement with the group/leader continues and deepens.

3. Whenever the group/leader is criticized or questioned it is characterized as "persecution".

4. Uncharacteristically stilted and seemingly programmed conversation and mannerisms, cloning of the group/leader in personal behavior.

5. Dependency upon the group/leader for problem solving, solutions, and definitions without meaningful reflective thought. A seeming inability to think independently or analyze situations without group/leader involvement.

6. Hyperactivity centered on the group/leader agenda, which seems to supercede any personal goals or individual interests.

7. A dramatic loss of spontaneity and sense of humor.

8. Increasing isolation from family and old friends unless they demonstrate an interest in the group/leader.

9. Anything the group/leader does can be justified no matter how harsh or harmful.

10. Former followers are at best-considered negative or worse evil and under bad influences. They can not be trusted and personal contact is avoided."

Chilling

I deliberately left that one out. And there can be many other mad beliefs, but there has to be one really important one. As for the rest of the criteria, these I claim are derivative of the 'single belief' thing.

There's been plenty of philosophical debate on the question of when a religious cult becomes an established religion. Hopefully it's not the point at which it achieves tax-exempt status, because WP already has that...

Anyway, I think the "single mad belief" idea is perfectly valid. My only question would be, if you look at some of the other questionable, and possibly "mad," beliefs that are regularly bandied about on WP, are they in support of the "wisdom of crowds" Big Lie misconception, or do they merely augment it?

For example:

Objectivist fundamentalism is a valid conceptual framework for a general informational reference. It is possible to develop a completely objective or "neutral" description of practically everything that exists, so create a software model that forces people to try, but also gives casual readers the impression that success has been achieved in each case, even if it hasn't.

Free content is an end in itself. The copyright system is "bloated" and "corrupt"; therefore, nobody should ever have to pay for anything they read or listen to ever again. Copy, plagiarize, or even steal if necessary.

Morality is "irrelevant." Everything is relative, and situational ethics "don't work," so the only workable system is one based on rules, except that the rules may be changed or reinterpreted to fit any given situation. Arbitrary policy (which in practice turns out to be based mostly on preserving the size and influence of the site and its own internal power structure) therefore trumps traditional (non-relativist) morality.

Given that "wisdom of crowds" is the Guiding Principle™, in those three (and it's by no means an exhaustive list) you have a working concept, an ever-elusive goal, and a solution to the individual-conscience problem.

All you need now is a logo, and you're all set!

This looks like a very fruitful discussion — and by their fruits ye shall know them — I've got too much on my plate right now to join in, but maybe I will make a meta-thread to collect some previous thoughts.

One of the things that keeps coming to mind is the kinship between con artists and cult leaders — the idea that a genuine cult leader is like a conman who has conned himself along with his marks or followers into buying his line.

Con artists and cult leaders alike rely on tapping a prior stratum of uncritical belief that their flocks really, really want to believe, more than they desire reality itself.

Jonny

Doesn't basing things on Objectivist fundamentalism, and claiming that "everything is relative", contradict one another?

Yes. That's what makes it so appallingly hypocritical.

Strictly speaking, there is no contradiction between holding that there is an objective reality and holding that everything we know of it involves a relation to us as knowers.

It's just that Randroid Objectivism was so fixated on a radically adolescent view of science that it had no grasp of how the integration between these two aspects of knowledge had come to fruition in modern times.

Jonny

They aren't getting defference on the basis of their enormous WRITING contributions. They're getting deference on the basis of their enormous administrative contributions. Does anybody imagine that JzG or Slimey is an expert on anything at all, in real life?



Worth pointing out that the Nation of Islam in the late 50's and early 60's was spot on for all of this. Their leader got nailed for sex stuff, but they tried to cover it up. Malcolm X got kicked out for defying authority by saying politically incorrect stuff about the JFK assassination, and spent what was to be the rest of his life in WR-like struggles with his parent association (they killed him about a year later). That famous pic of him looking out the window with a machine gun is not meant to be one illustrating his stuggles with crackers-- he had it taken as a warning to Nation of Islam member trying to firebomb his house.

Anyway, Malcolm X really didn't "grow up" fully until he left his cult and got out into the world. A shame he didn't quite make it for a few years longer, as he was growing fast and would have had much to say.

I don't know whether that is true, either. I think they are propitiated rather than respected, because of their MMORPG prowess. People suck up to them in hopes of advancement, and out of fear.

I would be cautious in presenting Rick Ross as an authority -- he's a charlatan. His definition may be useful for the purposes of this discussion.

And yet, the NOI accomplished much that was positive -- which is a good example of why these sorts of discussions can be ticklish. I would submit that what WP and NOI have in common is that their potential for playing a constructive role in society has been seriously compromised by corruption and hypocrisy among their leading elites.

User Andries, who actually was in a cult, wrote an essay about this. The comparison of one Jim to another didn't go over to well.

In a way. His general points about destructive groups are good- it doesn't matter for that purpose that he does not have a professional qualification, as these points are mainly summaries of other's work such as that of Margaret Singer.

But he has his own biases towards certain groups for reasons of political correctness, which prevents him accepting people's reports of abuse by them. And he particularly dislikes certain groups based on his own biases.

Could I Have A Single Malt Scotch Instead?

Jonny

Yes, but please don't ask while in Belize.

Well, this makes sense. I was all but evicted when I challenged the "truth in numbers" aspect of Wikipedia, and of course Larry Sanger left long before that and slammed the door hard quite a few times on his way out.

Wikipedia does not trust experts at all. While officially opposing "page ownership" by any one individual, it tolerates and even supports group ownership ("tag-team editing") tacitly.

I was taken down a few pegs for daring to balance several different articles - each about a different liberal sacred cow - and was charged, tried and convicted of "tendentious editing". In other words, they said I was promoting a POV - although I was merely trying to mention that (in the world outside Wikipedia's cozy little cult) there are people who believe things contrary to the slant expressed in those articles. (Details available on request.)

"Uncle Ed"

The legendary Ed Poor! Welcome to WR.

Indeed! Has anybody heard the weather report from Hell today?

Live On Line

Jon

Geogre has a nice analysis of this here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...ned_at_RfAr_IRC



This is the heresy I was talking about - that the crowd has no wisdom.



Welcome, Ed.

Very scary but real too. Maybe a couple of points can be scrapped off but certainly the clique (not the whole Wikipedia - which it's actually its editors, not so much its managers) acts that way.

Managers = admins, WMF staff, both, or some other set?

Both.

I meant to say that who make Wikipedia are basically the editors. The clique are mostly managers instead.

There are many types of cults

Harmful cult is something I would apply in the context of WP. Its harmful in terms of misinformation, and harmful what it does to people.

Cults such as scientology are harmful psychologically (probably) and they are harmful because they abuse people by taking their resource (time or money) and giving them something back that is harmful (psychological harm).

WP is harmful because it recruits people by pushing the "free" label but ignoring the time sink/stress/sociopath alert issue, gets them to contribute a lot of their resources, and indoctrinates them into doing things they would not normally do whilst propagating the bullshit or harmful POVs of any admin who wants to do so.

Bullying is one such activity. Another is creating enemies. The sockpuppet enemy is something that they generally do. The signs are up all over WP.

WR is another enemy.

These are all entities for the purpose of effigy burning.

Sockpuppet lists are there to keep other editors in line (they are built by admins to make sure specific POV interests are protected).

Cults such as scientology have a specific lingo. WP is the same in this regard. They have obscurantisms that are used to force people or coerce them into falling in line.

And when you end up with a suppressive person

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suppressive_Person

who rebels enough, they end up ejected from the cult and their effigy is usually burnt in full view.

So you end up with an organization with a famous evangelist (Cruize or Wales), that has a large following and seemingly reputable setup, but which makes its believers ignore reality, and burn anyone else who doesn't comply. The burning can extend to the presentation of IPs and the gross misrepresentation of statements.

WP is more efficient and effective as pushing harmful POV worldwide though.

Doc

i wandered into my local public library today, and came across a curious tome entitled "The Ayn Rand Cult," by Jeff Walker. Knowing Jimbo Wales, your friend and mine, claims to subscribe to "Objectivism," i decided to pick it up. While Walker generally seems overly polemic than is necessary, there is a section, entitled "An Ignorant Oracle?," where he discusses how Rand instituted a practice of not reading "books and articles she knew to be evil" (generally anything critical of her) but also that she pontificated as an authority on philosophical and cultural subjects she hadn't read or had limited knowledge of. As he states:



Now, I know that sounds like the analytical approach of your average Wikipedian in general, (indeed, that seems to be the operating assumption of Wikipedia itself) but in particular, Walker's depiction of Rand reminds me of everyone's favorite Wikipedian, SV. After reading this, Jimbo's indulgence of SV makes more sense, in that his "Objectivism" would have inoculated in him an abiding respect for completely insane but dogmatic women of conviction, especially if they happen to be attractive right-wing nutjobs.

anyone not familiar with the practice of checking the sources that Wikipedia articles link to could assume that Wikipedia's content represented a consensus in reality, like anyone not familiar with philosophy, upon reading Rand, might assume that "Objectivism" represented a legitimate take on philosophy. but it hadn't struck me before now the extent to which Objectivism could explain Wikipedia. Basically, everything wrong with Objectivism is a Wikipedian operating principle.

I'm no particular fan of Ayn Rand, but it would defame even her to say that Jimmy Wales is her disciple.

There is not even the shallowest attempt at a coherent philosophy to be found in the Church Of Wikipediology (COW).

Jon

When excommunicated Objectivist Nathaniel Branden and his former wife Barbara Branden each brought out "tell-all" books exposing the inner secrets of the Rand cult, the reaction of Objectivist officialdom (run by Leonard Peikoff after Rand's death) was to demand that their true believers not read those evil books... that's the Objectivist version of the BADSITES policy.

That may be a good test of the validity of any movement or organization in how comfortable they are with outside criticism. For example, democracies are usually much more tolerant of criticism than totalitarian regimes, like China or North Korea.

aw, give him his due. he might not make it as an encyclopedianist or even a rationalist, but Jimbo could be the next L. Ron Hubbard!

Mmm, register WP as a religion for the tax breaks? Now there's an idea!

Doc

I am surprised that something very much like a religion, consciously asserting itself as such, has not arisen on Wikipedia. I don't mean a mere send up of a religion, but something more serious. This is an almost irresistible "social mod" on a MMORPG that is as large and flexible as Wikipedia has become. I think that some of what Moulton attempts smacks of this type of thing. Giano worship also points in this direction but only in an rudimentary manner. He needs a more dramatic "departure and return" drama than petty transitory blocks and bans before he can hope to rapture his children up into the clouds of the internet.

What part of Assume Good Faith did you not Accord Genu-Flection?

Jon

The old religion of "God-King" never had much magic and that has altogether played out at this point. I mean some kind of new religion that develops on wiki in opposition to The Cult of the God-King. Probably will have some progressive and reform aspects, but would amount to a deepening of the role playing game nature of the site.

The phenomenon of scientism is one of those topics that falls within the study of inquiry, so it is something that I had been examining long before I ever encountered its manifestations among certain cabals of Wikipediots.

Now, the very few articles on politics or religion or their surrounding arenas of discussion that I ever visited in Wikiputia were enough to tell me that no good could ever come of the unsound wiki-φury I found there, so I never ran into what some folks call the ID Cabal in all its full array and greater glory, but I do know the type from elsewhere in Wikipedia and from long acquaintance elsewhere in the real world.

There are people who know what scientific inquiry really demands of one who would live a life of inquiry, and there are people who worship the Flash-Frozen Idols Of Science for the same reason that these same people would have worshipped this or that ecclesiastical power in former times, to wit, or not, simply because it's the Biggest Bully On The Block at the present time. These fairweather friends of shiny science will desert science-in-the-rough just as soon as the going gets tough.

In case you hadn't noticed, the going is beginning to get tough …

Jon

I am skeptical of the idea that "all the evil things that a cult does can be explained by their belief in this single mad thing", and I certainly don't think that "everything they believe is quite logical and rational, except for the single mad belief".

But the strategy known as Unifying The Manifold Of Senseless Irrationalities (UTMOSI) under a Sole, Unique, Mad Belief (SUMB) is still worth trying, even if only for the mental exercise, and even if the attempt does not succeed completely.

PD's candidate for the SUMB is the belief that "good articles arise from the efforts of hundreds or thousands of individual nameless editors".

Let us examine that suggestion, and let us see if we can think of other mad beliefs that share in e-mitting the observed spectrum of Wiki-Induced Knowledge Impairments (WIKI's).

Jon

There is indeed a Single Mad Belief, but it's hardly unique to Wikipedia.

I have another name for it.

I call it Humankind's Original Logic Error (HOLE), because it dates all the way back to the Dawn of Civilization.

This is a particularly stubborn misconception to flush down the toilet, as it's an error in mathematical reasoning.

I estimate that 95% of Homo Schleppians still have a HOLE in their head.

You've said as much before, in pretty much the same words, and it's still not making much sense to me.

Jon

I did not see this. I must admit I am bit surprised, or just... uhh... lazy...

http://www.wikicult.org/index.html

Found that at: http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/is-something...sses/2008/01/07 (there)

I found this thread where we already had a fairly good discussion of cults and their characters, and it looked like a fine and proper place to continue my own current thoughts about them.

Peter Damian expressed a thought-provoking theory as to what makes a cult a cult — that each one is marked by a Single Mad Belief (SMB) peculiar to itself.


Faced with the manifold of senseless impressions that the typical cult unfolds to boggle our brains, it would certainly be useful if we could reduce those manifestations to the unity of single concept — and yet my sense of the matter balks at the assertion that "everything they believe is quite logical and rational, except for the single mad belief." Perhaps Peter Damian expressed that last part more to create a rhetorical contrast than to state a literal truth.

So I will take up another perspective on the origin and nature of cults.

Jon Awbrey

My single mad belief is that humans are capable of rational thought.

In order make a cult of HACORT, you would have to convince another person of that, or find another person who is already convinced of it.

Good luck with that …

Jon

Cults have periodically erupted into public notice for as long as I can recall, and I remember being amazed at the behavior of a few casual acquaintances who fell prey to cults in the 60's and 70's, but I don't think I put much serious thought into the psychosocial dynamics of cult phenomena until the time of the Heaven's Gate Mass Suicide on March 26, 1997.

The research that I had long been pursuing into the subject of Inquiry in general had in those days begun to link up with the literature on Critical Thinking, and so it seemed to me that one of the factors involved in this Cultist Act was a kind of Cul-De-Sac, a cognitive blind alley or mental dead end — literally — that diminished the capacity for Critical Reflective Thinking (CRT) on the part of the members of the group.

That is the gist of the guess that I still find suggestive today.

Jon Awbrey

I think the central aspect of a cult is that it is hostile to members developing independent spheres of influence and support. A healthy well adjusted person will have a number of places they can turn for psychological and social sustenance. They have marriages, families, work, school, churches, community activities, social life, political parties, sports etc. They are not only numerous but independent in the sense of not have complete or extensive overlap of the persons involved. If any one or two of these independent spheres fail the healthy person can rebound because many other aspects of there life and identity remain intact.

This pluralism of support has the effect of providing sources of new information and "reality checks." As Jon indicated, a cult will not provide these sources and bizarre ideas may be accepted for lack alternatives or testing.

I believe that best indicator of a cult is hostility toward other spheres. Does Wikipedia evidence this hostility? To the extent it does "cult" may be a productive model. Otherwise "addiction" or "game" might have more value.

Critical thinking needs to be encouraged, and there are all kinds of mad beliefs of various groups (call them whatever you like) which would not survive relentless application of {{fact}} = "citation needed here." And of course that gets you into epistemological arguments, but they're inescapable anyway, and we may as well start on them immediately.

Too many groups are lazy and rely on "scripture" or some "revealed and unquestionable truths" from some Master, and they encourage a type of damaged thinking. Naturally this is one reason why so many of these groups are religious, since the "I have a pipeline to God Almighty" idea is a very convenient way to shut off debate (if you can get anybody to believe you on that, plus believe in God or Gods, plus believe these God or Gods are always Correct, Truthful, and Perfectly Understood....).

Every group has Masters, but you rarely find the worst pathology in those where people seriously ask themselves "Say, do you suppose the Master Himself is Full of Shit (WP:MHFOS) on this issue?" Essay needed.

But our problems don't end there, because there are beliefs which are not based on prediction or future observation, which aren't subject to epistemology as commonly understood. A lot of ethics and aesthetics goes here, and there are lots of not-necessarily-pragmatic political ideologies which go here, and a lot of special interest private clubs, too. Music appreciation. LEGO clubs. Scouting.

Time for one example. You join a chess club. It has rules, and chess itself has rules. But you don't want to play by the rules, but new rules that you like better, and which you think makes a faster and more exciting and creative game. You say "Look, do it my way. Pretty soon everybody will be playing the new chess and like it better, and old chess, which dragged ass, will be forgotten."

Members of the Chess Club are outraged. Mighty fights begin. Schisms are in the works! And by the way, this crazy scenario has already happened in chess. The game we play now is not the same as the one of 500 years ago. The new rules for how the Queen should move did take over, and are now the only ones most people know and use.

Wikipedia is a maddening collection of all these kinds of debates. There are epistemological ones. There are meta-epistemological ones. There are political ones about aesthetics and ethics. And there are completely arbitrary ones like what card game we're going to play now, or how the Queen should move. But on those, we have to come to some agreement before we play.

For me the key ingredient in not getting trapped in this stuff is a meta-rule which says that you have to be very careful about how tightly you believe ANY propositions. Hopefully, if you mature, you'll get to the point where you are less conservative and start to wonder if anything is up for grabs. (This rarely happens, though-- often the arc of a life finds people less likely to think this way the older they get). But perhaps the Master is full of shit, and so is his Little Red Book, or the Torah or Qur'an or Book of Mormon he supposedly wrote down. Perhaps this or that scientiific "law" will be disproven, or (at best) found to be only a limiting special case of a more general law. We may change our minds about abortion, the death penalty, euthanasia, gun ownership, gay marriage, or (God help us) Indian Casinos. Perhaps we're tired of Texas Hold 'Em and want to play straight stud or even blackjack. Maybe we like the Mad Queen chess, and maybe not. The ticket is always in remembering how we got here, and the fact that we won't be here forever. So experiment. Change your mind. Try something new. I am starting to sound like a graduation speaker again.

But think like that, and spend too much time talking about it, and nearly any Club (your church, your political party, your interactive encyclopedia) will eventually decide that you should leave, due to being a disruptive influence and possible evil, too. But that is the price for avoiding the kind of pathology we're talking about here. A shame, but there it is.

-- Emerson

It only takes one aggressive, bipolar personality to create a cult. If he (and make no mistake, 90+% of cult leaders are men) manages to find a weakness in the logical substructure of an average person's personality, he will screw his toxic ego into that crack until it splits wide open.
Since there are always plenty of people with weak personalities, there are always opportunities for cultmakers.

I'm reading this book right now. Make no mistake--Bill Gates would have gone nowhere, if he had not hired a crazed, amoral screaming asshole like Ballmer to run the company.

This is a guy who says things like and gets away with it, because Microsoft has thousands of dedicated drones who have fallen into their ego-cracks, whereupon Ballmer jumped in on top of them.

I bet you didn't know the following:

Ballmer's father Fritz was a fascinating (demented) character in his own right. He was Swiss, a translator at the Nuremberg war trials, skipped out on paying an ex-wife and kid alimony and child support, had a criminal record AND was fired by the US tribunal for "misconduct". Bullshit must run in that family.

Steve Ballmer's second cousin was the late comedienne Gilda Radner.

Both his parents died of lung cancer after a lifetime of chain-smoking.

He dropped out of Stanford to join Microsoft.
(so, does a college degree mean a lifetime of wealth and joy? Apparently not.)

He speaks perfect French because his family spent 2 years in Brussels.

He went to the same school and had the same teacher as Robin Williams.

Ballmer is a VERY smart man. But he's also an obvious bipolar personalty, and uncontrollably aggressive. That's why he's one of the world's richest people. His brains and his education had very little to do with it. Right place, right time, insanely aggressive, manipulative and sleazy.

Despite his complex personality and history, he's mostly famous for his sweaty tantrums and screaming matches.
Don't believe me? Go to YouTube and type "Steve Ballmer" into the search box.

Sounds like L. Ron Hubbard to me. Or Jim Jones, or Adi Da, or Marshall Applewhite, or any number of others. The framework of the cult's beliefs are apparently of secondary concern. What is most important is the aggressive manipulation of weak personalities by a con-man leader.

Scientology was doubly blessed. After Hubbard died, his Poodle Boy took over.

Think such con-men are easy to oppose? Think their half-baked policies can be reversed in a twinkling? Read about what happened to the Cult Awareness Network.

How do you "encourage critical thinking", when you're confronted with a Steve Ballmer?
Screaming threats, sweating profusely, and throwing chairs, like he does?

Was Ballmer a pioneer in the IT Leader as Cult-Leader motif?

I've seen a few extracts of Microsoft and Apple presentations over the years, and they give off a wholly unusual stench. Unlike normal corporate gatherings.

The cult around Jimbo seemed similar in style.

This is something Kelly Martin probably knows most about.