I never had the chance to try usenet, a little before my time sadly, so I get quite jealous hearing about peoples early net journeys!
Ha yeah that's it exactly, although on a slight tangent, do those cultural sub-groups still exist? I mean, there's still goths, and punks and ravers, but the last sort of "original" subculture I've seen was the Emo scene kids of the mid-00s. There doesn't seem to be a subculture for the now.
Never apologise for going of on a tangent with me, I love it! The prepper community is one I first came across a few years ago through a show called Doomsday Preppers when it was sort of trendy, I guess?
I often thought it must be exhausting living like that, to me as well having to think about so much all the time and constantly be on your guard for the coming end-times... yeah it'd finish me off. The one thing that always bugged me was how are they maintaining the freshness of their food supplies? Canned food still goes off, so do they circulate it and eat it and replace? Anyway...
That religious motivation is something I noticed too, and it's definitely a very common feature amongst the preppers, and to a less extent the conspiracy theorists I've seen.
Could you share a link to that ladies post? I'd be very interested to read it.
I can understand how that would be just completely draining both physically and mentally. It's been a common argument of mine for why believing too much in these things is bad for the individual. If the end times are coming, it's out of our control so why worry? If the government is this shadow entity run by the NWO, well there's bugger all I can do about it so might as well just continue with my life.
Plus, it's not cheap being a prepper from what I can tell!
I definitely think that the religious mentality can make someone more susceptible to this way of thinking and being. Certainly those who, for example, take the bible literally and believe in the Creation story and so on.
You saying that about creativity and fear being located in the same parts of the brain makes me feel like I've seen a documentary that said a similar thing. Gonna take me awhile to remember, but when I do I'll let you know. There is a really interesting experiment, where the researchers can stimulate a certain part of the brain and induce what many participants describe as a "religious experience", where they feel like they've been in the presence of God.
I think there's also an element of these people are having their fears and anxieties prayed upon by what are essentially snake oil salesman. Alex Jones is the prime example of that. The government is putting chemicals in the freaking air and hillary and obama will kidnap your children and turn them into gay frogs, but buy my super male vitality supplements and you'll be able to fight the authoritarian bastards off with the power of a dozen bears!