> I guess what I'm saying is there's something fundamentally broken about how people process information.
As far back as you can go, yes. 2.5M years. But I think the point is not to call what exists "broken," but to understand and then use it to the advantage of humanity. Cult-like behavior is human behavior--i.e. the rule, not the exception. Now how do we use this to advance the species?
For context: I grew up Mormon, which I consider "cult-lite mainstream" on the cult<->religion spectrum. Having gone through that and left the church, I've spent some time deconstructing what influenced me to think the way I did as a believing member.
The best advice I can give is (a) make friends with people who are inside information bubbles [1], (b) people are motivated primarily by feelings and needs [2] despite what they say, (c) people often cover what they're really feeling with political, philosophical, and ideological language, which is often very difficult to decrypt to outsiders, and leads to significant misunderstandings, which usually serves to further separate and prevent friendship from happening, which is what's needed in the first place.
As far back as you can go, yes. 2.5M years. But I think the point is not to call what exists "broken," but to understand and then use it to the advantage of humanity. Cult-like behavior is human behavior--i.e. the rule, not the exception. Now how do we use this to advance the species?