sure, it won't help them recruit, but it will help them hold their existing members. when they have evidence of the "persecution" they face it makes it easier for them to discredit the negative info online.

i know for certain that this is at least the Mormon playbook.

You’d think conservative values would lapse in the same way, but they have only been invigorated in the minds of current day youth. Sense and reason can be completely overtaken by emotion. Particularly against an “aggrieved” party like these slimy fucks.

Too much is already known about them for anyone to take them seriously.

Not true, unfortunately.

I was on a bus downtown last week, and they set up a giant red tent labeled

FREE STRESS TEST

And these little old ladies out of town behind me were immediately talking about it. "Oh my, is it a mental health thing? Maybe that's useful."

I hate getting into strangers business, but I forced myself to turn around and say loud enough so everyone on the bus would overhear "No, it's not a 'mental health' thing. It's a cult. Don't go down there."

People underestimate how many susceptible people with no knowledge on the dangers of it still exist. All of them ripe for the picking, as far as they're concerned. Don't just ignore them when you see it, throw their flyers back at them, cuss them out, tell them to be ashamed, make a scene. People around you need to clue into what this shit is. Don't allow them to normalize it.

You’d think a religion invented by a science fiction writer would have anticipated this vulnerability.

Joining, even jokingly, would be dangerous. I do not recommend doing so. They restrain and isolate new converts when they can.