this post was submitted on 11 Jul 2026
243 points (98.8% liked)
pics
29056 readers
346 users here now
Rules:
1.. Please mark original photos with [OC] in the title if you're the photographer
2..Pictures containing a politician from any country or planet are prohibited, this is a community voted on rule.
3.. Image must be a photograph, no AI or digital art.
4.. No NSFW/Cosplay/Spam/Trolling images.
5.. Be civil. No racism or bigotry.
Photo of the Week Rule(s):
1.. On Fridays, the most upvoted original, marked [OC], photo posted between Friday and Thursday will be the next week's banner and featured photo.
2.. The weekly photos will be saved for an end of the year run off.
Instance-wide rules always apply. https://mastodon.world/about
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Could it be more of a sect?
Unfortunately that seems to be the pattern with a lot of beliefs right now, especially ones that the rich have vested interest in ensuring spread.
AI bros just updated their AI doomsday timeline again, from 2026 to 2030. At some point you'd think they'd see the parallels with the "world is ending on this specific day" cults and the constant timeline shifting.
As literacy, media literacy, numeracy, critical thinking, attention spans ... all broadly worsen...
... amidst a backdrop of very serious collapse of material conditions on the ground...
Basically every time in history you get that combo of conditions, humans start making cults.
Its a kind of sociological coping mechanism, or maybe basically panic/stress response.
When people don't have the tools to understand and evaluate reality, but people can very plainly tell tell that things are worsening, life is getting more tenuous... people will irrationally believe in anything that offers at least a real feeling of tribal belonging, identity, and that can also ideally either actually excercise force to secure material needs, or at the very least, make a convincing display that they could if they wanted to.
It's not "right now" it's always been that way.
Believing this is a new or temporary thing is wishful thinking.