[RD] Why are theories around T.I.s so compelling?

[Tahuti]

Seriously, while it is extremely unlikely that actually exists, workplace mobbing, psychiatric abuse and overreach of law enforcement actually resemble T.I. claims and do exist.

For those who don't know what it is, T.I.'s is a conspiracy theory in which a certain group of people - likely non-selfaware psychosis sufferers who possibly do suffer actual harassment from their peer groups - claim to be harassed using electronic weaponry and covert operatives which was an outgrowth of the MKULTRA research.

Vice has a nice video covering this conspiracy theory, which (in my view unsurprisingly) proliferated since social media have become ubiqutious.

Should we listen to T.I.'s, even if we know their claims are false, because their fears are possibly reflective of the state of society? What causes people to have these beliefs? The own five cents to this is that the common thread seems to be that practically all self-proclaimed T.I.'s actually suffer from social isolation and that this feeds their beliefs in that they are being targeted.

 

[Ryika]

What causes people to have these beliefs?

Well, you already answered that question yourself, didn't you? Psychotic, or at least in some way mentally unstable people who have access to the internet where they can meet people who spread those beliefs.

Especially because if you are psychotic, anything can be a sign that you're being targeted, because things don't have to make sense. Haven't watched the vice video, but I know of cases where people thought that all red cars are agents who are stalking them, or that every cell phone they saw was recording them. So once the possibility of something like that is in a person's head, it reinforces itself constantly.

Don't think it tells us anything about society as a whole, those are people with unfortunate mental illnesses that cause them a lot of problems.

 

[Hygro]

Should we listen to T.I.'s, even if we know their claims are false, because their fears are possibly reflective of the state of society?

that's an interesting question.

 

[Tahuti]

that's an interesting question.

Well, I would like Traitorfish's take on that one.

Well, you already answered that question yourself, didn't you? Psychotic, or at least in some way mentally unstable people who have access to the internet where they can meet people who spread those beliefs.

Yes, however, wouldn't studying of psychotics from a sociology point of view question established beliefs within psychiatry?

Any, so-called T.I.'s suffer from a thought disorder. Not all people in a psychosis have that as such, evidenced by my own psychotic experiences, which usually consisted of hallucinations and seldom of thought disorders.

I find T.I. beliefs fascinating because I can relate to them and at the same time spot the conspiracism aspects of the theory to not be too concerned about being a T.I. myself.

 

[BvBPL]

The theories are compelling because they assert the importance of the individual. On some level, people look for meaning and import in their lives. The notion that the CIA is targeting a particular private individual, an individual who otherwise has little power in society, affirms the importance of that individual. The idea that the world rotates around us is a comforting, and that placing ourselves at the center of a vast conspiracy is a way to imagine that the world rotates around us.

What's more, people with paranoid delusions are totally certain of their delusions. They cannot be dissuade. That certainty is compelling to the outsider. We, as observers, take notice of such certitude.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

The brother of a girl I once lived together with had paranoid psychosis. I can't say I found it in any way illuminating other than how crazy a mind can get. It was very sad to see because right in front of your eyes he was ruining his entire life, was making himself utterly miserable, for utterly pointless and stupid reasons, and there was nothing you could do. Because you literally could not talk sense into him. You could converse with him like with a normal person, you didn't see his crazy at the surface, just some sort of ujnbalancedness, but as far as his delusions went, he was caught in a mental loop imperious to outside influence. This is such a tragic combination of thinking that you should be able to help him, easily, and not being able to do so at all, that it is kinda soul-crushing.

I think modern mass society lends itself particularly well for such a kind of psychosis because, in a sense, mass society traps you in a constant state of social emergency. You are entangled in a tight social web of a mass of faceless people whom you do not know, do not trust, but have to share a "society" with, with all the implications this has. Like being judged, competing for social status etc. I think the leap from there to feel surrounded by conspiring enemies truly isn't that far, albeit still crazy.
To better illustrate why this constitutes an emergency: Humans have been bred to live in a close community of 300 or so people whom you all know since birth, whom you spend every day with, and while you may not like all of them, whom you are bound to by sheer necessity and destiny. That is about the opposite of what our societies constitute. Where everyone can isolate him or herself without much problems and where even the closest thing we got to the close community we come from, family, is far less bound. You do not depend on each other like they did* (not even children) and you certainly don't spend your entire lives together like they did.

*I think this point is particularly important, because in my opinion people overlook how vital necessity is for great bonding. Nowadays we associate bonding solely with feelings, but necessity is, IMO, a much more reliable and potentially also much more intense ground for bonding. An example for this is a company of soldiers in war. There, the sheer necessity of the situation bounds them together in a way civilians do not even know. They may not like each other, in instances, but they feel and act like one, they are a true community of destiny, where everyone is responsible for everyone.
This video sheds more light on that phenomena:

 

[Tahuti]

I think modern mass society lends itself particularly well for such a kind of psychosis because, in a sense, mass society traps you in a constant state of social emergency. You are entangled in a tight social web of a mass of faceless people whom you do not know, do not trust, but have to share a "society" with, with all the implications this has. Like being judged, competing for social status etc. I think the leap from there to feel surrounded by conspiring enemies truly isn't that far, albeit still crazy.

Psychosis has been likened to being linked up to a machine of sorts. Social media are the perfect psychosis machines at that.

It was very sad to see because right in front of your eyes he was ruining his entire life, was making himself utterly miserable, for utterly pointless and stupid reasons, and there was nothing you could do. Because you literally could not talk sense into him.

Was he ruining his own life, or was his life being ruined by society before then?

I recongnise myself in your account about him, though psychosis tends to evaporate practically completely when stress is properly managed.

Not unlike suicidal thoughts and depression, psychosis happens when your coping mechanisms are overstretched.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

Yes this is more or less exactly what happened, though he still shares part of the blame, of course.
He was some higher-up in a small business and I believe this business had some financial troubles and he invested everything he had, all his energy and time, into this high-pressure work environment. Desperately trying to keep the business (which was not even his) afloat. So in a way he was super-functional, at the time. Too functional, too focused on performing well and meeting demands which turned out to be too high, exterior demands, but also interior demands from himself.
This is all ended in an epic burn-out. And this lead directly to his psychosis.
So in a way society ruined him, as he tried to meet societies demands. But I think his share of the blame is, that he too greatly and too indiscriminately internalized those demands. He was too dedicated, too uninterested in his own innate needs.

 

[Tahuti]

Yes this is more or less exactly what happened, though he still shares part of the blame, of course.
He was some higher-up in a small business and I believe this business had some financial troubles and he invested everything he had, all his energy and time, into this high-pressure work environment. Desperately trying to keep the business (which was not even his) afloat. So in a way he was super-functional, at the time. Too functional, too focused on performing well and meeting demands which turned out to be too high, exterior demands, but also interior demands from himself.
This is all ended in an epic burn-out. And this lead directly to his psychosis.
So in a way society ruined him, as he tried to meet societies demands. But I think his share of the blame is, that he too greatly and too indiscriminately internalized those demands. He was too dedicated, too uninterested in his own innate needs.

He begins to sound a lot like me.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

One of the great promises of AI is pattern recognition. In a sci-fi novel I once read it was speculated that advanced psychological AIs would quickly discover that for all the different flavors of the human condition, they all follow the same basic patterns. I believe there is a lot to it.