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How's this any different from people who spend tens of thousands of dollars stocking up on food and weapons because they're convinced we're on the brink of nucl

by GuiA 10y ago

How's this any different from people who spend tens of thousands of dollars stocking up on food and weapons because they're convinced we're on the brink of nuclear war, or people who are convinced that Obama is a secret Muslim terrorist infiltrating America, or people who absolutely believe that the (Bible/Qu'ran/Old Testament/...) is the word of god, or...

usgroup 10y ago
Maybe nothing other than scale and consequence.
bpodgursky 10y ago
> spend tens of thousands of dollars stocking up on food and weapons because they're convinced we're on the brink of nuclear war I mean, I haven't stockpiled anything personally, but honestly that's a pretty reasonable cost-benefit analysis. The world _is_ perpetually pretty close to nuclear war, if you treated the risk like any other day to day risk. (You probably spend more on health and house insurance than they spend on food, and IMO nuclear war is more likely than a given house catching fire in a year. The unknowable question of course is whether it will manifest in a way that your preparations matter)
carapace 10y ago
That's exactly my point: Some horseshit written by some nameless hack to make a few bucks and here's this kid founding his reality on it. Yikes! At least nuclear bombs are real. It makes a little more sense to worry about them than Cthuloo.
TeMPOraL 10y ago
I feel it's kind of different. Frankly, not freaking out over nuclear seems to be crazy thinking - even though it's also required to live a normal, sane life. I wonder how many things people shut off in their lives this way in order to cope.
throwanem 10y ago
Well, I don't know what all is in the paperback Necronomicon, because I'm a science fiction fan, not a Cthulhu Mythos camp follower. But if it's at all in accord with the depiction of cultists in Mythos fiction, I can see an argument that someone who genuinely buys into it, to a degree consistent with psychosis, might be more dangerous than someone who buys into something else to a similar degree. It seems very probable that the cited book is the "Simon Necronomicon" [1], which appears to incorporate a lot of Derleth's rather disappointing Manichaeism. I'm not sure whether, in this context, that would make it more dangerous or less so, or indeed whether it would make any significant difference at all. I'd be curious to discuss the matter with someone like the person mentioned by the grandparent commenter. But I would very much prefer to do so in a context where I could be very certain he hadn't decided to follow me home. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Necronomicon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Necronomicon

by GuiA 10y ago

usgroup 10y ago

Maybe nothing other than scale and consequence.

bpodgursky 10y ago

> spend tens of thousands of dollars stocking up on food and weapons because they're convinced we're on the brink of nuclear war I mean, I haven't stockpiled anything personally, but honestly that's a pretty reasonable cost-benefit analysis. The world _is_ perpetually pretty close to nuclear war, if you treated the risk like any other day to day risk. (You probably spend more on health and house insurance than they spend on food, and IMO nuclear war is more likely than a given house catching fire in a year. The unknowable question of course is whether it will manifest in a way that your preparations matter)

carapace 10y ago

That's exactly my point: Some horseshit written by some nameless hack to make a few bucks and here's this kid founding his reality on it. Yikes! At least nuclear bombs are real. It makes a little more sense to worry about them than Cthuloo.

TeMPOraL 10y ago

I feel it's kind of different. Frankly, not freaking out over nuclear seems to be crazy thinking - even though it's also required to live a normal, sane life. I wonder how many things people shut off in their lives this way in order to cope.

throwanem 10y ago

Well, I don't know what all is in the paperback Necronomicon, because I'm a science fiction fan, not a Cthulhu Mythos camp follower. But if it's at all in accord with the depiction of cultists in Mythos fiction, I can see an argument that someone who genuinely buys into it, to a degree consistent with psychosis, might be more dangerous than someone who buys into something else to a similar degree. It seems very probable that the cited book is the "Simon Necronomicon" [1], which appears to incorporate a lot of Derleth's rather disappointing Manichaeism. I'm not sure whether, in this context, that would make it more dangerous or less so, or indeed whether it would make any significant difference at all. I'd be curious to discuss the matter with someone like the person mentioned by the grandparent commenter. But I would very much prefer to do so in a context where I could be very certain he hadn't decided to follow me home. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Necronomicon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Necronomicon