Hubbard: The Expert on Children

[Reyne Mayer]

Ghetto culture contains contempt for academic learning, plus admiration for successful thuggery.

that could be said about scientology culture, too. particularly in Hubbard's day there was more actual violence, such as when his followers attacked the US Marshalls attempting to serve him with a subpoena, or followed his orders to 'bust up' meetings of 'squirrels'. the Berners reported that after they left the CoS, the compound where they started offering their own new programs was the victim of drive by shootings, until they complained to the FBI -- who went and talked to the scientologists, after which the attacks stopped. and to this day there are reports of pets being poisoned, and even houses set on fire.

i suspect scientologists are now trending down towards the lower part of this distribution:

a lot of other, similar 'white' suburban and rural groups and cultures with fundamentalist style beliefs seem to be trending towards 'know nothing' attitudes that reject learning and expertise, and embrace violence. and of course in the past there were those whites, then largely uneducated, who committed and embraced violence against 'blacks', even taking their families on picnics to watch the torture and killing of men who were often innocent; arguably, decades and generations of that sort of treatment from outside is what helped form a culture inured to violence internally.

who are the 'thugs' in those photos? (notice that in the last one, the guys on the left have firearms slung over their shoulders, and well dressed women have passed them by strolling towards the fire and destruction).

even in Germany, they're finding that in the East, it's going to take 2 to 3 generations to repair the social and cultural damage, that was done in only 44 years of Soviet oppression, and only with comprehensive effort and investment. and the Russians themselves are arguably still crippled by the legacy of the virtual enslavement of much of the population, that only ended with the abolishment of (medieval) serfdom in 1861 (almost exactly the same time that black slaves were nominally freed in the US); an interesting side note to that, is that the Ukrainians historically didn't have serfdom, until Russian conquerors tried to establish it to some extent during a period starting in the 18th century, and that arguably has conferred them advantages in a culture of personal initiative and democracy that the 'white' Russians were unable to grasp even when given the opportunity in recent decades.

 

[onceuponatime]

Scientology doesn't basically believe in kids at all; there's no concept of developmental psychology in the cult whatsoever. As Lotus says, they're just thetans in small bodies in the cult's view.

That's why you got people like Sheila at 16 looking after 30 Sea Org infants and toddlers despite the fact she'd had virtually no training in looking after children, or St Hill at one time appointing a 14 year old boy as their Ethics Officer.

Yes, the way Scientology treats and deals with children is actually one of the biggest reasons it is crashing and has no way to recover. Scientology has zero focus on building a strong family group, which causes many Scientology kids to branch out on their own, and the ones that do stay in Scientology are stunted by lack of education and being given too many responsibilities at a young age. This hurts their chances of having a successful life with children of their own, and that's without even getting into the Sea Org. Scientology basically created its own dwindling spiral.

Or we are getting the smart ones.

A large percentage (most?) of Indian immigrants are coming over on H1B visas as tech workers, or on student visas. We are not getting the illiterate peasants and street beggars.

Decades ago, people were talking about the "Brain Drain", where the smart people of the world were all trying to get to the US. Some were upset that this was damaging the countries they were coming from, who were losing their smartest people.

I don't like to get political on this board, so I'm not going to say too much on this topic. All I'll say is that some of the smartest people I've worked with and interacted with have been immigrants from India. If they are representative of India as a whole or were just the "smart ones" I can't say. I do know that I am happy they are in America and contributing to American companies, I'll leave it at that.

that could be said about scientology culture, too. particularly in Hubbard's day there was more actual violence, such as when his followers attacked the US Marshalls attempting to serve him with a subpoena, or followed his orders to 'bust up' meetings of 'squirrels'. the Berners reported that after they left the CoS, the compound where they started offering their own new programs was the victim of drive by shootings, until they complained to the FBI -- who went and talked to the scientologists, after which the attacks stopped. and to this day there are reports of pets being poisoned, and even houses set on fire.

i suspect scientologists are now trending down towards the lower part of this distribution:

I personally think Scientology is trending down in the IQ department for a few different reasons. I know that even smart people can get tricked and get into Scientology, I'm not saying that all Scientologists are stupid. Scientology works to subvert the way you think so that whether you have a high IQ or not doesn't matter, you're looking at the world through LRH's eyes. With all that said, I think you're more likely to see what's going on and get out of Scientology (or not get involved in the first place) if you have a higher IQ. The smart people still in Scientology have had their thinking warped so that they think the way LRH wants a Scientologist to think, many of the older/original people still in Scientology fall into this category, they are fully in and will be Staff/SO till they die. I think many 2nd gen Scientologists aren't as deeply in, they might think mostly the way Scientology wants them to think, but not to the point where they are going to give up their life for Scientology. And Scientology needs people who will fully commit their whole life to it, they have a shortage and it's only getting worse.

 

[Enthetan]

who are the 'thugs' in those photos? (notice that in the last one, the guys on the left have firearms slung over their shoulders, and well dressed women have passed them by strolling towards the fire and destruction).

From the dictionary: Thug is a term for a violent, lawless person, especially a man; a violent person, especially a criminal.

More practically, a thug is somebody whose primary characteristic is that he makes his way through life through the use of violence. He is a criminal, rather than somebody who earns a living at a conventional job.

I actually did some research into the events at the Tulsa race war some years back. I use the term "race war" in an exact sense, in that the blacks opened fire first into a crowd of whites. At that point, things degenerated into warfare, and the blacks lost.

There is a maxim about conflict, coined by Machiavelli : "Do not do your enemy a small injury". By this he meant, when there is no more choice except to resort to violence, the way to have peace afterwards is to not stop until the other side is terrified of pissing you off again.

 

[I told you I was trouble]

Australia has less than 24 million people. Seems there is a good bit of room there.

You may be surprised ... I live in Oz and it has changed enormously in the last 20 or so years due to population growth. We have the same struggles you have now with healthcare and the other usual issues, not as severe as the US yet but we on the same path. The middle bit of Oz is virtually empty (and huge) but no-one wants to live there because it's a sweltering desert.

 

[Enthetan]

The middle bit of Oz is virtually empty (and huge) but no-one wants to live there because it's a sweltering desert.

Is it worse than Arizona?

Given some nuclear power plants for water desalination and to power air conditioning in the hot times, it might be livable.

 

[I told you I was trouble]

Is it worse than Arizona?

Given some nuclear power plants for water desalination and to power air conditioning in the hot times, it might be livable.

Sssshhhhhhhh ... empty space is good.

 

[SuperstarNeilC]