In the parts of the world that were prone to this, we're too atomized, lonely. We've also been more educated through documentaries to be wary of cult compounds. People are very cynical of spiritual belief and skeptical of the intentions of a hierarch. Forming an in-person cult is also harder now because people are more diverse and you have to account for many backgrounds. It's easier to scoop up on trends from a general population that is dominated by one demographic.
I'm of the persuasion to think that our society has allowed for the permeation of an invisible communion; the loneliness death-cult of the self. There are not mass suicide events, but individual devotional ritual endings to life. The drug overdoser, the lone gunman, the suicide. Instead of communal attendance, adherents live largely as anchorites and communicate their discontent to their peers by digital epistle. This prepares them for their time. The ultimate virtue in that system is control enough over one's life to choose how to end it, be it via "revenge" or self-destruction.
I'm 50 feet tall and made of metal, of course I'm going to be heavy. As the airline companies realized, software weighs nothing, so its removal did nothing to unburden me ;_;
I'm of the persuasion to think that our society has allowed for the permeation of an invisible communion; the loneliness death-cult of the self. There are not mass suicide events, but individual devotional ritual endings to life. The drug overdoser, the lone gunman, the suicide. Instead of communal attendance, adherents live largely as anchorites and communicate their discontent to their peers by digital epistle. This prepares them for their time. The ultimate virtue in that system is control enough over one's life to choose how to end it, be it via "revenge" or self-destruction.