I told my father if he, 60+, catches the virus, he dies and he will take our grandparents with him and it'll be his fault.
well, i actually said "Look, I'm young, i'll survive, my brothers will too. But you? and your parents, if you got it, don't even bother to go to the hospital"
My favourite pandemic activity is seeing people without their masks, and I fake cough into my elbow directing it towards them. More than once I've seen horror in people's faces when it has happened
In the unlikely event that the last story is true, I'll side with the adult because sneezes have the ability to sneak up and hit you like a freight train with no warning and you just have to do your best
I think it’s a bit nuanced. Generally speaking you can usually find a way to cover your face, or at least know a sneeze is coming. But I’ve had it happen where a sneeze came on so fast for me- that as I was frantically trying to bring my face into my elbow, the sneeze came out before I could get it covered. So I think it is possible that a person can be taken by complete surprise by a sneeze and not be able to cover, or perhaps not even have time to try and cover, their face. Of course wearing a decent mask would largely mitigate that risk, and in many countries or even communities within countries where it isn’t the norm- many people have been wearing masks for years before this pandemic and in between other potential pandemics.
We could easily say yes. But... that’s not a very good metric. Move everyone into a compound, shave their heads and make them dress the same and create structures of rules and routine, sleep disruption and use systems of positive reinforcement and punishments to indoctrinate philosophy and behaviors.... establish a strong group identity and bond, have people believe so hard they will kill or die for the group.... tiered memberships where only those deemed worthy are given certain key pieces of information... have songs, stories, heroes, traditions which exist only within the group... create special languages and codes used by members, form a strong culture of compliance to authority and peer pressure to conformity and compliance..... this is a long list of things cults often do. It is also.... a list of things we could apply to most militaries no?
So I mean- “cult” is a label somewhat like “terrorist” in that- there isn’t really a strong and solid list of well defined attributes which we can use to easily and accurately label these things in most cases. In many cases- it is perspective or nuance. What’s the difference between a cult and a religion? A cult and a club like the masons or even the NRA? If we define cult so loosely as “follows the law” and “polices ones community for law breakers” or “adheres to a certain set of standards for safety and well being” and “pressures others to do so as well..” then all of society is really a cult. Most people probably wouldn’t turn the other cheek if someone lit up in a restaurant- or even in a line for a carnival ride. Many may not care- but I’d wager where law prohibits smoking one would almost certainly speak, and where manners would deter it, a person with manners and or integrity would.
In modern English, a cult is a social group that is defined by its unusual religious, spiritual, or philosophical beliefs, or by its common interest in a particular personality, object or goal. This sense of the term is controversial, having divergent definitions both in popular culture and academia.
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First few lines of the Wikipedia entry. For ideas on what a cult can look like, the religious comparison is The Church of Jesus Christ Restored are a break-off cult from the Church of Latter Day Saints when they issued a manifesto that they would not issue any more plural marriages, The Klan is considered a "Racist" cult, believing in racial inferiority and superiority and having a set idea on which is which, and Al-Qaida is considered a "Terrorist" cult.
Thank you. And to be clear- I didn’t mean we cannot define the word, there is nuance and ambiguity as well as perception and bias in how we apply the definition. We can’t really codify so much as we can identify a cult when we see it, and even that is based on the majority consensus. But I was more specifically referring to the informal usage of the term, as in famousones example. That if we do loosely define cult, then we can say almost anything is a cult.
lol. The marines are supposed to be insane- but I don’t think the army is a cult- we could do other examples. The main point is just that simply because something has some of the properties of a cult- doesn’t make it a cult, or inherently a bad thing.
well, i actually said "Look, I'm young, i'll survive, my brothers will too. But you? and your parents, if you got it, don't even bother to go to the hospital"
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First few lines of the Wikipedia entry. For ideas on what a cult can look like, the religious comparison is The Church of Jesus Christ Restored are a break-off cult from the Church of Latter Day Saints when they issued a manifesto that they would not issue any more plural marriages, The Klan is considered a "Racist" cult, believing in racial inferiority and superiority and having a set idea on which is which, and Al-Qaida is considered a "Terrorist" cult.