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- Hacker News
- No One Would Listen by Harry Markopolos about how he knew Bernie Madoff was a ponzi scheme is a great book in this genre. Markopolos went to the SEC with proof, multiple times, and each time the SEC blew him off.
- The podcast « Decoding the Gurus » covers the topic in an entertaining way: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/decoding-the-gurus/id1...by dgellow
- A lot of topics on that podcast are extremely relevant to my interests, but I just can't get past Christopher Kavanagh's accent. Maybe I can fix it with AI...by etc-hosts
- Underground, by Murakami, was one of the better books I've read. It mostly covers victims, but the later chapters are interviews with various members of the Aum cult. It does a pretty decent job of presenting the psyche of the type of person who joins, stays, and some that leave. Although mostly relevant for what he calls the "Japanese psyche" I still found it very insightful.by frankfrank13
- For a British view, I like "Spying In Guru Land" https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2487851.Spying_in_Guru_L...
- In a very different vein, I have read a number of books recently that feature a surprising amount of "scam and schemes":
- The Worst Hard Time by Timothy Egan, about the Dust Bowl during the Great Depression. A lot of people were scammed into settling the high plains by railroad salesmanship and other "real estate" scams.
- The Indifferent Stars Above by Daniel James Brown. A book about the harrowing Donner Party. Scamming and scheming are what draw them out to that expedition.
- The Guns of August by Barbara Tuchman. WW1 history but it boils down to the scheming of various men in the respective countries.
- The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money, and Power, Daniel Yergin. The oil rush from America to the World. Scheming features prominently to say the least.
by zshrdlu - Never read Michael Lewis's book about SBF. It's so bad it permanently ruined him as an author in my mind, I doubt the verity of any of the other books he wrote as a result of it.by int32_64
- Why? I really enjoyed the book, over-colorized, probably written to be made into a movie. He never portrayed SBF in a good or bad light, but he showed the mess SBF and his companions made.by kmac_
- Lewis has a weakness for characters with lots of chutzpah and self-confidence. Morry Taylor, SBF, John McCain, numerous Wall Street guys—he seems to lose perspective when he writes about them.by xhevahir
- It really revealed how much he relied on the gift of hindsight when writing his earlier books. Nothing wrong with that per se, but it's something he should have been aware of when doing a book on an ongoing event.by hingler36
- If we are talking about scams an obvious one is Bad Blood, about the Theranos scam.by ktallett
- The author alluded to it, but I really think the BITE model of authoritarian control[0] is something everyone should know about. BITE stands for Behavioral, Information, Thought, and Emotional, which describes the 4 categories of controlling behaviors used by authoritarian groups (from religious cults, to the Maoist movement in post-war China, to multilevel marketing schemes). They really are surprisingly consistent, from controlling what members wear or how they cut their hair and encouraging sleep deprivation on the Behavioral side, to discouraging access to external sources of information, punishing people for asking questions or engaging in struggle sessions to get people to confess to false beliefs, and isolating people from the other people in their life that may love and care for them.
Not everyone or every group that exhibits some of these behaviors is going to be a cult. But the warning signs are something everyone should be aware of.
[0] https://freedomofmind.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/The-BIT...
by derektank - Another relevant rating scale that is pretty educational, in my opinion:by jaggederest
- > Not everyone or every group that exhibits some of these behaviors is going to be a cult. But the warning signs are something everyone should be aware of.
I agree, but I'd say a lot of the BITE attributes can be damaging regardless of whether or not the group rises to the level of cult. If your group is doing stuff in BITE you really should be questioning "why" and thinking about whether or not the group policing is actually good for you.
by cogman10 - Steven Hassan, who developed the BITE model, is really missing on that list. You're absolutely correct, not everything that checks the boxes of the model necessarily is a cult, but more often than not it's only a small step to transform into one.by linohh
- I always thought the below was much simpler:
1. love bombing
- make you feel welcome/loved/accepted
- lots of attention etc
2. isolation
- "you weren't appreciated before so why hang out with those people"
- "your family didn't understand you, but we do so stay with us"
3. control
- "we have your best interests at heart so you should do X"
- etc
by alexpotato - One definition of a cult I've liked is "A cult is a group you can't leave with your dignity intact". You can really get a good understanding if something is a cult by the way they talk about their ex members. A healthy organization will pretty much just say "Sad to see you go, come back anytime". Unhealthy organizations spend a fair amount of time warning members about how how dangerous/bad/sinful/sad/miserable their ex members are.
And yes, I'd call several mainstream religions cults because of this. I'd not argue that something isn't a cult if they don't fit this definition, but a very large number of the most damaging cults do have this behavior.
by cogman10 - > And yes, I'd call several mainstream religions cults because of this
Which ones ? Not something I have seen myself
I do like your definition. Its a pretty clear and meaningful distinction and linked to other cult behaviours such as encouraging members to cease contact with ex-members.
by graemep - Apostasy is treated very severely by many (most?) religions. The cults have just borrowed that concept.by jcsager
- > One definition of a cult I've liked is "A cult is a group you can't leave with your dignity intact". You can really get a good understanding if something is a cult by the way they talk about their ex members. A healthy organization will pretty much just say "Sad to see you go, come back anytime". Unhealthy organizations spend a fair amount of time warning members about how how dangerous/bad/sinful/sad/miserable their ex members are.
OK but those without dignity here are the ones acting like that, not the person leaving.
> And yes, I'd call several mainstream religions cults because of this.
Oh definitely. And it's disgusting that their hate speech is protected because it's religious.
- No literature list on MLM scams can be complete without Bridget Read's meticulously researched 2025 book "Little Bosses Everywhere".by Hackbraten
- sound like you lead a cult called "MERLBE" make everyone read little bosses everywhere.by dackdel
- I would like to add to the list the excellent history of frauds "Lying for Money", by Dan Davies.by pjc50
- A friend of mine was pulled into Amway and tried hard to pull me in, resulting in the end of our friendship.by aruggirello
- I was approached by people trying to get me into a pyramid scheme at least thrice in my life.
One was a friend who got into it in high school and said I could get in on it too for 100 USD (~2004). Another was a random stranger I struck up a conversation with at a bookstore in around 2011. The last was an old boss, who attributes his drastic weight loss to a strange drug that he's peddling and says I can get in on.
It's crazy. I was 17, 24 and 37 and all 3 times I knew there was something super suspicious about these and never engaged.
- MLMs have to be up there with the biggest scams, ever. My mother was scammed over and over under the guise of friendship. As a kid I remember there was very little money but there was always enough to buy another order of whatever. The ugliest part is that once you become a member you fall into the trap, you become part of the scam and become a scammer too. It's ultimately very sad once you learn it's a legal pyramid that eventually collapses and you're left holding the bag. And your "friends" led you to it.
- If you want to know about the ins and outs of more personal cons and scams, the Howdunit series of books are great. Ostensibly meant to help writers get details correct, they are fascinating reads. Dating from the 1990's they predate scams and cons using the web, mobile phones, and other tech, but so many cons even today have roots going back to even the 1800's.by encyclic
- Going Clear is a wonderful book https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Going_Clear_(book)
I loved the break down of how Scientology finds people. The simplicity is stunning.
People need connection, they need to feel important and that they have agency. Feeling "smart", better than, a member of... feels good.
Promises of a simple, easy, known path to getting what you want will always be appealing.
Figuring it out for yourself will always be harder.
It's no surprise that people take the easy route.
by JennyWeston - I'd seen and enjoyed the film adaptation, didn't realise it was based on a bookby barbs
- >People need connection, they need to feel important and that they have agency. Feeling "smart", better than, a member of... feels good.
Doesn't sound much different from the Abrahamic religions.
by p_j_w