Interesting in this context is completely divorced from morally good/bad. Could be any group from any area at any time in history. I’ll start with a few, followers of the cult of pythagoras, contemporary black Hebrew Israelites, antiracist skinheads and the Amish (neo-luddites in general). Don’t be racist or a prick to other people discussing.
It’s not too interesting but there is a subreddit full of people who apply LLMs to do physics research. The place itself can be rather unhinged, but every week or so someone posts about how they have uncovered a groundbreaking theory of the universe. Such posts are so abstracted as to be disagreeable to the rest of this community. They are the writings of a mind turned in upon itself, an idea several reflections deep in a fun house mirror.
I (LLM hater, non-physicist) use this community to find cool science-ish sounding words for my sci-fi worldbuilding.
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Appears to be https://www.reddit.com/r/LLMPhysics/
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You can’t just say this and not drop the name
I follow paranormal/UFO/ghost/Milab/conspiracy literature. I collect books by these authors and I like to follow individuals on their career trajectory though the subject matter. I’m more interested in the people and the amount and rate that they deviate from the mainstream.
I’ve noticed that their views and books tend to get more fringe and extreme the further they go on their career, which isn’t too surprising, but what surprised me more was that there was less infighting than I expected, and a surprising groupthink product where all their ideas come together.
How do you reconcile aliens and bigfoot, witches, ghosts, and automatic writing, loch Ness monster, time slips and self-mummifying monks, tulpas, poltergeists and UFOs, cattle abduction and missing persons, Jewish space lasers and fae folk, changelings and vaccine mind control? It seemed like many of these were exclusive OR concepts?
They all seem to come together under one porous, unifying theory of everything supernatural. There’s no real guidelines, the whole raft of authors are just continually “yes, and”-ing each other into this vast soupy mass of theories which, if I had to put a label on it, boils down to transdimensional demonology.
It’s like they all sort of figured out that infighting is not so profitable, and so they are practicing academic radical acceptance without any real guiding force.
That’s my take-away, anyway.
The Free Zone folks.
Basically, they’re Scientologist Lutherans. They love the teachings of Scientology and the works of L. Ron Hubbard. They’re fully onboard with all the wacky Scientologist beliefs and practices. But they think the church itself is hopelessly corrupt and shouldn’t be followed. They believe everyone should be able to read about Xenu without having to pay the church a bunch of money.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jäger_Movement was a Finnish political movement whose aim was to liberate the Grand Duchy of Finland from the Russian Empire. It grew into a trained military battalion and formed a core of the White army in the Finnish Civil War.
One of the biggest reasons why Finland has been an independent country for 109 years.
Interesting that one of the more popular weather forecasting sites is named after a terrorist group
I’ve been using WU for probably 15 years. It’s been one of the most consistent weather sites and apps as far as decent quantity and quality of data. I had completely forgotten about the terrorist group with the same name. Now I’ll never be able to unsee it.
Owned by IBM now.
online, stumbled upon chronic lyme community at least on 2 different forums(i believed i had lyme one time as i had encountered with a tick years before, until i realized most of them had some sort mental issue going on) because i was suffering from some unusual neurological conditions, which lyme may cause.
they believe lyme isnt curable according to them and can explain any range of symptoms, even if its not related to lyme. plus they believe it is endemic in other countries where lyme doesnt occur. and any tick species can carry it. like they believed every skin rash that may look like a bullyesys as a sign of lyme.
they also ended up harassing and issuing death threat against the ACTUAL infectious disease specialist who discovered lyme, because he was contradicting chronic lyme believers. and mostly its midwestern white women who believes this stuff. now to that end, theres a whole industry apparently furthering the delusions. now draws in all sorts of people.
Lyme doctors, naturopaths will try to prey on people by convincing them to take a lyme specific test from a well known questionable company that makes these blood tests. and then they have the LYME mds prescribe them actual Long term antibiotics, months or years on it. they believe the side effects is causing is treating the “chronic lyme” symptoms. at the same time they also take supplements “extraction from plants” as supplemental treatment, again it causes unknown side effects, so they think its treating it. they are getting constant thrush infections, from the ANTIBIOTICS. and the lyme mds, also dont take insurance, red flag here. thier family members have reported, some of them suffered some permanent neurological damage from taking antibiotics for too long, or some wierd plant supplement. and guess which politics they side with.(and this was pre trumps 1st term). very dangerous as it involves MDs preying on people, prescribing them actual meds to things they may not have. and furthering the delusions of “chronic lyme” people.
also any attempt to confront or question chronic lyme will draw thier ire.
basically health conspiracy.
It’s chronic fatigue syndrome, which can be triggered by actual Lyme, but hangs around after whatever illness has been cleared from the body. They mistakenly think it’s still a bacteria in there. The antibiotics help their symptoms because a broad range of antibiotics act as a strong anti inflammatory in ways current NSAIDs don’t, so it feels like it makes them better. The bladder pain community I’m in deals with the same crap of people thinking they have a permanent ‘embedded infection’ and there are people who take antibiotics for years.
Chronic Fatigue Syndrome/Long Covid is real, though. Probably some autoimmune shit going on. Women are notoriously ignored in medical studies and are more likely to have autoimmune disorders.
When no one helps you, you cling onto the first bullshit that make sense. And let me be clear on how there is absolutely no help for chronic, weird symptoms as a woman. You slowly just start to lose your mind as your life falls apart and no real doctor will offer anything but vitamin D and antidepressants. (It was endometriosis. I had undiagnosed endometriosis for 20 years no one gave a shit about).
if you try to confront them , or tell them it something else they become very hostile to you on other sites, they will legit stalk you on the site you critcized them with facts and hound you, its basically a cult so to speak. its more like psychosomatic illness or delusional parasitosis.
They have an illness destroying their life (even if it’s not the one they think it is) and they’ve found a medication that actually makes them feel better. Everyone tries to take this medication away (antibiotics) without providing anything else effective in it’s place. It’s understandable why they’re hostile.
CFS\Long Covid isn’t solely psychosomatic in the cases where an illness triggered it, that’s autoimmune.
There’s no good options for them right now outside of social support, but they certainly don’t get that in my country either. So I get why they’re absolutely hostile and just leave them be.
since they dont know what they have(so csf is not even on the table for them), they dont seek out 2nd opinions and just attribute all thier symptoms to “chronic lyme”, because its an “LYME DOCTOR” convincing them.
Wait. Is chronic Lyme not actually a thing? There are quite a few long/chronic types of things I’m aware of that are quite real, but also still not super well understood. I assumed Lyme was in there with those. Real, but more of a side-side-effect of a disease that breaks something in weird ways for different people.
Chronic lyme is pseudoscience, its the belief that “lyme” isnt curable. but people dont attribute the neurological damage from lyme as a sequelae or the fact that there a bunch of other diseases that cause symptoms similar to lyme. so they seek out LLMD to give them confirmation biases(LLMD are unethical asf, but thier MD license arnt in danger.) by the way, chronic lyme was coined by a mom, like with other fake diseases, and they also lean into anti-vax a bit. almost any posts about lyme on any forum/video, always have someone chiming in to look into the Chronic lyme. there was an episode of monsters inside me, about lyme i think the official channel deleted the video as it was drawing unnecessary attention,
the problem is these people also seeing UNETHICL MDs who prescribe them questionable blood tests and antibiotics, which as you know if you take abx too long it can cause THRUSH infections, and neurological problems, like peripheral neuropathy. since these docs usually dont take Insurance, because eitherthey know insurance will try to investigate fraud, or whatever, they CHARGE BY THE HOUR, USUALLY hundreds.
lyme, if you leave untreated long enough it causes syndromes similar to RA, and other neurolgoical diseases, which can be long term or permanent. what the CL people believes is this is a permanent infection. also as a note they dont believe in Infectious diseases specialists too,.
Wow thanks for that follow up info. I had no idea. I also looked it up some and read a few things in it. Hard to know what is accurate or true, but yeah. It makes a lot of sense that it is the untreated infection leading to neurological damage and it’s that neuro damage that is mistaken for an ongoing infection. I can see how people would believe that.
Sad that it’s being taken advantage of too, ugh.
I remember being TERRIFIED of getting Lyme as a kid because there was this kinda perception/belief in permanent illness or severe damage and all that. Not that Lyme isn’t dangerous or deadly, but good to know it’s not some spooky forever mystery disease.
remember the scientist who discovered lyme, was stalked, harrassed and had death threats against him, he had to get private security. he was also saying theres no such thing as CHRONIC lyme. its basically a cult with an industry behind it. like someone said it likely it some other disorder, like CF or a mental component. if you dont live in lyme “country”, or unless you were near there but dint see a tick or anything, ubt a telltales bullseye rash.
It’s just chronic fatigue syndrome.
Just an fyi the black Hebrew Israelites have a history of some pretty problematic beliefs and history. The Southern poverty law center (they keep track of hate groups in the U.S.) have a write up on them.
Oh I know that’s why I made the point of morally good/bad not being part of the equation. Just interesting. I saw some CRAZY videos of them in public. So, I looked into their general ideas and beliefs. They are like half the reason I made the thread.
In the early days of the Internet - mid-90s or so - my buddy happened upon a community of “gainers” online. They are apparently gay men into feeding each other and being obese. Also typically opposed to body hair.
Early internet was weird. I found a forum where gay men would write public, erotic love letters detailing their willingness to contract, or transmit HIV to each other on purpose. Like, viscerally describing giving or getting each other’s “pozzie” (HIV-positive status)
I get that kinks exist but this seems dangerous
Yikes! I think I’d rather be a gainer.
Another extremely odd group to pop out of the gay community? Bug chasers.
Yikes! I think I’d rather be a gainer.
The word interesting is doing a lot of work here.
On one hand flat earthers are very interesting. Stupid the stupidest but interesting.
On the other hand it’d be better if there were no flat earthers at all for them to be interesting in the first place.
Pretty much. In terms of “harmless” interesting? Maybe hobby biking? It started as a parody of hobby horsing, which is already a hilariously cringey thing.
For the uninitiated, hobby horsing is when people run around on foot completing tiny horse agility courses, while holding a toy broomstick horse between their legs. One of these:
It’s basically what happens when horse girls don’t have horse girl money. And no, I’m not making this up:
Hobby biking started as a parody of that. They got rid of most of a BMX bike, only keeping the front wheel and handlebars. They don full BMX gear. Full helmet, hard plate pads, riding boots, etc… Then they run through BMX and mountain bike courses on foot, while pushing this wheel (or sometimes even just the front handlebars without a wheel) along in front of them.
There is also the natural offshoot, hobby moto. Where people take modified motocross bike frames, and carry them through dirtbike courses:
I don’t know what’s more funny the content of your comment or the fact that you put in such a massive effort to illustrate your point.
Either way thank you! I woke up to this and it put me in a better mood!
Well, someone has to fight the globalist agenda
The benedryl abusers. https://www.reddit.com/r/DPH/
I can only assume these people can’t get their hands on any other kind of high and are desperate. After a certain amount you start seeing spiders.
i went to a forum where people abuse this and other drugs, i thought had side effects since i took it for allergies, and i suddenly develop strange neuro symptoms, eventhough i took only the reccommended dose, later i suspected it was due to my undiagnosed spinal issues.
The Gadget Cult worships a 90s cartoon mouse
The Luddites were a labour movement with really admirable goals. They were only anti technology because it was being used to screw over textile workers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite
Yea, they were an example of early anti-capitalist organization. Their biggest weakness was identifying the means of production as their enemy, not the owners of capital themselves, which became a valuable lesson for future organizers.
They weren’t even really anti technology - breaking the tech was the means available to them that worked. Protesting and petitioning didn’t get them anywhere, so they decided on direct action to make it hurt the capitalists in the only place they care about. That meant smashing looms and carders and everything else, because those were incredibly expensive.
That meant smashing looms and carders and everything else, because those were incredibly expensive.
Like data centers and ram are
Oh that’s interesting! I had a different internal definition of the term. Thanks for sharing!
Here’s an excellent recent book on the topic. https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/brian-merchant/blood-in-the-machine/9780316487740/
Margaret Killjoy did a great couple of episodes on them as well
antiracist skinheads
I’ve read about these guys. Their take on it is that the skins started as a working class solidarity movement (the short hair is for safety while working on factory machinery) that got corrupted by nationalism and they have more in common with immigrant workers than with their own country’s capitalists.
Non-racist skinheads pre-date the racist ones.
Ska is a Jamacain music style that white working class British youth got into due to working and living alongside Jamaican immigrants, leading to mixing with punk to create 2 Tone.
The racists started to co-opt and taint the movement later on.
I am a bald white guy, I have this patch on both of my battle vests.
And fuck white power skinheads, and fuck nazi punks.
Nazi punks FUCK OFF!
I learned about them after using “skinhead” in a derogatory way to a music buff. That was the same conversation where I learned that ska is actually older than reggae, which is still wild to me.
I’ve looked into them too a while ago and the skinhead subculture is pretty interesting. I’m going off of memory but I’m pretty sure the subculture started in London in the 1960s. There were three big subcultures at the time in London, the posh upper class were “mods”, the lower class “rude boys” got their influences and style from Jamaican immigrants, and finally the “skinheads” were the middle class had their shaved heads and Doc Martens. The second wave of skinheads in the 70s and 80s in the UK and US were basically anti-punks. They were the punks who were mad about the commercialization of their culture and they shaved their mohawks, traded their battle jackets for flannels, and moved from punk music towards ska. And finally the third wave in the 80s and 90s were the racists who were getting tired of getting their teeth kicked in at punk shows. And since hating people for no reason doesn’t have a style or culture of its own, those shitbags (I would argue very successfully) stole the working class style of the skinheads
Similar is just actual punk culture in general
Boyfriend took me to see The Seventh Seal over the weekend, and in that I learned that Flagellantism rose out of the Black Death. As in, they couldn’t psychologically handle the Black Death so much that they turned to whipping themselves to pray for the plague to end. They would travel through towns, performatively whip themselves, and scream at people to repent.
Yeah they’ve inspired some really cool fictional characters.
Think about how awful covid was, even for a lot of people who didn’t get seriously ill. Now imagine if we knew nothing about where it came from or how to prevent or heal it, and nobody, absolutely nobody could reliably give any insight.
Then it lasts for seven years, nearly halving the population, before coming back seven years after that. In a place where seven is a religiously significant number.
I would have gone fucking nuts too.
Rojava, an socialist autonomous region in northern Syria: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rojava_Revolution
And the Zapatistas, another successful socialist insurgency in mexico: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zapatista_Army_of_National_Liberation
Zapatistas mentioned, nice. They’re really interesting to read about, including how Mexico stopped trying to kill them.
Rojava coverage by famed bagel chucking weirdo Robert Evans.
Do you happen to have a link about the bagel chucking though?
First couple of years of the show, pre covid. He would hurl said baked goods at the ceiling with a shout near the end of shows iirc.
Very interesting.
