[andai]

Psychosis does not require hallucinations. Delusions are sufficient.

The key factor is losing touch with reality, which results in individual or collective harm.

There is also such a thing as mass psychosis, and those are unfortunately a more difficult situation because the government and corporations are generally the ones driving them, and they are culturally normalized.

[mcmcmc]

Yes. I was offering examples. Again, having a difference of opinion is not a delusion.

If he meant mass psychosis, he should have said mass psychosis. And again, since he is not a public health scientist or any flavor of psych professional, he probably shouldn’t make those proclamations. And should probably call for a wellness check instead of posting on social media if he were truly concerned for their health.

[hoppp]

I don't think this is all psychosis but more like extreme groupthink.

For people who are considered neurotypical, social coherence often overwrites reality. Its a mechanism for achieving consensus withing groups while spending the least amount of brain compute energy. Same goes for social metainfo tagged messages, they are more likely to influence reality perception, subconsciously. E.G: If a rich guy says you should be hyped the people who wanna get rich will feel hyped and emotional contagion can spread between people who belong to the same "tribe"

It's very visible for us atypical folk who can't participate well in groupthink at all

[benatkin]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folie_%C3%A0_deux

I guess at a company of seven, if two people are making the executive decisions and the two people are drinking the same AI kool-aid and the other five people are dutifully following these executive decisions, the whole company can be considered to be under this condition.

[hoppp]

I just thought that instead of psychosis it's just regular groupthink

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groupthink

Maybe the difference would be the level of absurdity that's accepted

[andai]

I would add to this that there's actually a social function to "costly" beliefs, which is that they signal allegiance to the in-group.

A practice (or a fashion) has more social value to the degree that it is absurd, because it signals the person is able and willing to align with the group at personal cost.

This is easiest to see in some insular religious communities.

Normie culture is quite similar: a vast complex of ever-shifting shibboleths which signal, "I'm one of you. You can trust me."

It signals the person is able and willing to follow the rules, to make themselves predictable, easier to understand and cooperate with.

[hoppp]

That is true, it's beneficial for social survival.

But what I find fascinating is how the groupthink mechanism alters the subjective reality of people.

Lies or fantasy becomes reality if the entire group believes it and people truly believe the collectively accepted things to be real.

It just makes me think about consciousness overall or the lack of it, because all these things are mainly governed by subconscious mechanisms in the brain.

We are not the same when it comes to levels of consciousness and if the group mechanism demands less of it, people have no conscious choice about it

Of course nothing is black and white

[array_key_first]

Having a difference of opinion can absolutely be a delusion. For example, I think you're probably not God. If you thought you were God, then we'd disagree, and you'd also be delusional.

I use that example because I have literally seen people fall into delusions of thinking they're God after talking to AI enough. That's shit is scary, for real.

[goatlover]

Would you prefer it be called reality distortion field? People use slang, woke scolding the internet isn't going to change that.