Cool, I didn’t look the video-taker up, but I’m not sure how that changes what we saw in the video. 
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Bit of an oldie.
This doesn’t pass the sniff test- it’s got a lot of that Evo-psych, “current cultural practices are an inescapable part of human nature” flavour to it, and as others have pointed out, seems to be leaning towards making abusive behaviour a failing on the part of the victims rather than the perpetrators.
Rather than giving up and trying to “build a better irrationality”, it seems to me that we should all be shifting our focus onto defeating the exploitative cultish behaviour of those who lead cults, but that would mean confronting some of the bigger and more powerful elephants in the room.
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I was once hitchhiking in Colorado when a woman walked up and asked if she could join me. Turns out she had recently escaped a cult in Miami, lived homeless in an orange grove for a while, and then wandered out to Colorado. We had a weird relationship for a while, and she finally asked if I would be her cult master and she would give me all her assets (she had a small trust fund). I moved on, but the last I heard, she wrote me and said she had met some Moonies in a compound in Oregon and was going to join them. My point being that she WANTED to be in a cult, pure and simple. She wanted all authority to be given to someone else and all control and volition to be removed from her. (I hope you are living your best life C. Boltz!)
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As a freelancer, I was invited (in about 2007) by a contact to meet a guy with an internet business idea. The guy was a blowhard who bulldozed over my warnings that the internet actually didn’t work the way he thought.* When he and the other 2 started swapping stories about their fun experiences working in MLM, I literally got up and walked out mid-sentence.
So very much this ^^^
Just a few months ago someone in whom I had a great deal of respect on finance and investing topics called me me to “run an idea by me.” Apparently, they had hooked up with some grifter who had a “revolutionary new product” then I sat through this weird conference call where this person described how this supposed security software product could do all of these increasingly bizarre things up to the point where it could actually “physically change the chip, any chip” to make it “more secure.” At first, I thought it was just a bad description of some microcode patch, but nope, this was pure magic. The speel was peppered with right-wing dog whistles and claims to be able to do all sorts of illegal and unethical things. Then after telling me these things, they wanted me to sign an NDA and side-load an app on my phone to “try it out.” I waited until they stopped talking, then I just gave it to my friend straight without mincing words. You could hear the grifter change tracks right over the phone. I’m sure I’m now “part of the establishment trying to keep this technology away from patriots” or whatever the in-group pitch has morphed into. I haven’t heard from my friend since. It was basically a big MLM for conspiracy nuts thing.
Footnote: Alas, a whole lot of people thought they knew more than I did about the internet, because I was a middle-aged female (and fat). Let’s disregard my degree in CS and my first web site built in 1997
I got my start in the 80’s, so we’re contemporaries then. Thinking about what you’ve been through makes me feel physically ill. Thank you for your courage and for blazing a trail for others. I hope you’ve had a very successful career and revenge was sweet.
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It’s been proven that authoritarian type leaders, who tend to be amoral opportunists seeking power and riches, are psychologically different from their followers, who shy away from leadership, idealize authority, and lack diverse life experiences (which makes them both simple minded and filled with fear of outsiders). Dominate leader types are able to perfectly exploit the docile and submissive follower types for their own end, similar to how a right wing fundamentalist preacher will use religion to become filthy rich. It is most likely the leader cares very little for the actual beliefs of the religion, and is simply using it to accomplish their goal of building a following to profit from.
I exited the Jehovah’s Witnesses as a teenager, and spent a good bit of my 20s reading up on this stuff. When people say cult, I tend to believe that they are referencing the authoritarian aspects of a religion/movement. Evangelical fundamentalists, Q nuts, JWs, Mormons, Peoples Temple, Branch Davidian, Scientology and any authoritarian political system are all under the same psychological principles of amoral leaders exploiting a particular follower type that requires very little evidence for claims they agree with.
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Because the sex cults don’t advertise. So many cult options to choose from—you join one—fingers crossed—but sometimes things don’t work out. You would leave—but you’ve put in the time and they have a big event coming coming up with free Kool-Aid.
/s
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This forum is my cult. Mark Fraunfelder is to blame for my mental state.
Well, Steve Jackson, Marc Miller and Gary Gygax as well, but that’s a different tale.
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You mean like Leonard Cohen did? 
Pattern recognition bias, magical thinking, longing to belong, not being taught critical thinking skills… BELIEF IS THE ENEMY
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I know people are joking about this here, but the thing is, anyone who’s been in any kind of cult or even cult-adjacent social group can easily recognize that what we have here at BBS is not a cult. We disagree with each other and the authors/contributors relatively often but don’t get “kicked out” unless we’re breaking community guidelines, which center around being generally respectful. We don’t try to break people down or take all their money. Having a passionate community does not equal being in a cult. We have a good thing going here.
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Nor is it a “liberal echo chamber,” either.
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