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I haven& #39;t watched the NXIVM doc, and I have no first hand experience with Raniere, but I& #39;m seeing people comment on it with the usual, "He doesn& #39;t seem that charismatic to me. How could anyone fall for this?"
That represents a dangerous misunderstanding about how liars work.
That represents a dangerous misunderstanding about how liars work.
In general, the most successful lies aren& #39;t the ones that stand up to questioning. They& #39;re the ones that don& #39;t get questioned. So the most successful liars and cult leaders aren& #39;t good at lying, they& #39;re good at finding people who won& #39;t question the lie they want to tell.
Really "unconvincing", easily-disproved lies are actually useful for that. They weed out the people who are inclined to question your central premise (that you& #39;re a genius, or aliens are coming, or austerity is good economic policy) right away.
The thing is, mostly what they& #39;re finding aren& #39;t people who are stupid or never question anything. It& #39;s people who are already invested in something like that central premise, or something the liar can tie to it so the mark can& #39;t separate them.
The trick isn& #39;t to question everything anyone else tells you, because a good lie sounds like something you already believe. The trick is to question yourself.
And going one Twitter to tell us all you& #39;re too clever to join Alison Mack& #39;s sex cult is the opposite of that, suckers.
And going one Twitter to tell us all you& #39;re too clever to join Alison Mack& #39;s sex cult is the opposite of that, suckers.
I will gladly join a cult that promises to teach me to spot ALL the typos in a thread before I post it, though. No questions asked.
