Eh, I don't know. I'm friends with several people who grew up in this cult, two of whom are still peripheral to it because their families are still involved.
The cult definitely has a lot of weird and sketchy takes. And the leader definitely has a lot of sketchy stuff (particularly in the past) around younger male members, though there seems to be an attitude around it among the Fellowship people that the allegations aren't black and white -- these people aren't thinking of what has happened as sex trafficking or grooming.
For my friends who are still peripheral? Their experience is primarily of a loving community (with some definite weird crap and skeletons in the closet). They're well-educated and fairly skilled in their fields, and while they have some strange (primarily Buddhist and Sufi-inspired, plus some more niche California-original stuff) beliefs, they don't push those beliefs on people. They do understand that Fellowship is a cult, though as far as cults go it's on the less-nuts end, and they have a murky relationship with that fact. Lots of people who live in the Fellowship community in Oregon House aren't actually members, as well -- this particular cult doesn't try to separate its followers from the world.
So when I read this, the hiring stuff looks sketchy, but it's not uncommon at all. The wine procurement, as others have noted, appears not to be clear-cut as the winery is owned by a former member of the cult, and not the cult itself or current members -- it should be looked-into but may be above board. The firing? It should be investigated, sure, but he (as a contractor) was stirring up trouble in a team because a lot of team members were either members or peripheral to (and in my experience, the latter tends to be more common for tech people) the Fellowship community in Oregon House where the cult leader has pretty likely done some very bad stuff. But have the people on that team participated in the bad stuff? The author assumes it, but I don't think that's a good default assumption. I'd assume basically all of these people were raised in the community, and that many or most are not actively involved in the cult itself, because that seems to be the standard story there.
I'm not saying Fellowship isn't sketchy, or that the allegations shouldn't be investigated. I just think there's a wide spectrum of cults (including some that self-describe as cults and are totally voluntary and don't brainwash -- if you meet enough people in the Bay Area you'll eventually stumble on some), and that this one is closer to the level of sketch you'd expect in a small-town evangelical church with some skeletons than something like Jim Jones, etc.
Stop worrying about the drinking aspect of school. Socializing/networking is one of the golden nuggets of academia, the orgs and clubs really do improve the quality of life and experience of everything else. Just because you're not into it doesn't make it detrimental.
Otherwise, the ecosystem is decent, it's all about profit and marketing in the age where you can be self taught and many are complacent of having trades because bachelor's don't really offer much in terms of salary for some. Intl. students still strive a d see the merit in education/academia's quality but:
1. Raise the wages of professors/teachers
2. Give the athletes salaries
3. Reduce the inflation of job market qualifications
*4. Make higher Ed. Free (in NA+)
If they don't solve these things, then yeah you might see lower admission rates + quality of students' work.
What global security? The military has done more harm than good and the reason no one fights back is because of how mighty it is and the IMF. Look at Afghanistan and Iraq, did it leave it better off? Or its influence in Latin America. How's it's going in Ukraine, other than selling weapons? You don't want the US to "protect" you.
Wow, Israeli's spying on their main sponsor?? Espionage is part of the political territory but hopefully this sets precedent to a change of optics. (Which probably not since Russia does it boldly for fun at this point).
But it’s only one or two steps removed = Israeli company, acting with the approval and protection of the Israeli state, enabled and facilitated spying on the US by a third party.
There's a big, big difference between acting against your ally, and irresponsibly proliferating technology that's used against them. cf. France's Exocet sales and the Falklands, though much lower impact this time.
>Americans have been trained to have a strictly binary, categorical view of issues instead of looking at each issue as something with its own set of properties to explore.
I would slightly disagree. Americans are typically very moderate and I believe made to not understand the concepts of politics, when there's capitalism and liberalism involved it's just too complex to understand. The biggest and obviously evidence of this is the apathy toward voting, why even be engaged in something that isn't felt to be a democratic system? How many feel marginalized and the kinds of communities that say so. As impacftul Assange's work may be, the shakers and movers of the world are doing a good job at damage control sounds like.
I could never get into RSS. It just seemed so crowded and chunky with all my other notifications blasting me I'd rather just seek it out when i wanted it. It's a cool concept and j love the idea but I'd rather have compartmentalized with different sites than an all in one.
Damn it's hard advocating others HOW IMPORTANT digital privacy is even if you have nothing to fear nothing to hide because it sets the standard so low to anyone to be vulnerable to be molested.
Bad people are going to find ways to find ways to take advantage of a system in place, but at least we can try to make it a safe for those innocent.
