Echo Chambers in the Tulpa Community

[G+3]

educated me about the term 'echo chamber' and got me thinking about our community in that light. I lurked around parts of the form I normally don't as well as many, many tulpa-related ircs. What I found scared me deeply and also brought to my attention another painfully hurtful effect in our tiny and fragile community.

 

What I found was that the tulpa echo chamber is massive, particularly on ircs. Techniques and ideas that are not only ridiculous but potentially hurtful to host and tulpa alike, are being spread through our community. Such as the idea that personality should be left 'til last so that you can get the most real feeling tulpa before you start talking to them; yes, someone actually did say that.

I'm not giving out names, that would just be rude.

Their reasoning was that if you can experience your tulpa through all your senses, than working out sentience and speech would be easier because of all the sensory cues. This isn't entirely false but is missing the ergonomics of it, so to say: you'll just have a shell for a few months before having a tulpa.

 

This person posed this idea, and the entire irc agreed with that person—from what I could see—only because they said it and that the person was well known in the irc. This is ridiculous, and for the tulpa community, (which already has very shaky public credibility) this shadowy problem is one we don't need floating around our heads. It promotes false/dangerous ideas. It puts some in danger. It splits the community. It pushes those who don't share an irc's ideals out. And worse of all, it's creating groups and niches. In relevance to echo chambers, and because irc rooms are generally isolated, this means that that one person holding an alpha/power status can become what I'm going to coin as a speaker. A speaker metaphorically meaning something very loud in an echo chamber. If a person in this position of power starts spreading erroneous ideas, then everyone—host and tulpa—suffers greatly. Were it not degrading, I'd call it sheep/shepherd syndrome.

 

I almost wish I could say that I've suffered because of this, someone could just say I'm crying over spilt milk, but I'm not. This is a serious problem and it must stop. More than half the ircs I lurked in had a speaker and almost all had even the smallest echo. It's not only creating niches, but speakers are very quickly losing their minds in power and, quite frankly, become assholes. The 'high and mighty' of the tulpa forums are big suspects. (

This refers to no one in particular. Let me ask if you thought of anyone in particular there; you might want to stop thinking of them in that fashion.

)

 

How are we going to fix this? Well it would be nothing but moronic to rid of all ircs, which was my first plan. Alas. I can only ask that everyone who frequents any irc—and especially one irc in particular—to stand back and look at their community as a whole. Look at themselves and try not to fall suit to stupid ideas just so they can be part of that one irc they think they like. Don't be a fucking sheep. And don't be afraid to call out speakers an echo rooms, wrong ideas, and people bullying others. Yes, we have to stoop to bullying here people.

 

And speaking of that. Don't be afraid to leave a group of people you clearly don't like or who encourage stupid ideas, especially those with apparent speakers.

 

 

If you don't believe that this is a real problem, I had a friend who came to just yesterday, saying that he'd left his irc because they all hated him. And why? He said it was because he was friends with someone who didn't share their non-tulpa related ideas. Or maybe I'm wrong, maybe the irc just didn't like that person for no reason; that's not only unprofessional, but once again downright childish. But I'm not pointing fingers.

 

Wise up, everyone. Considering we need to create as positive an image for the public, sceptics, and new tulpamancers alike, we need to tear down the echo chamber and stop being children, creating little friend groups who exclude those who don't agree with them.

[Viski]

Hierarchy, tribalism and power struggling is more or less rooted in the neurotypical neurology. It's not just a tulpa community problem, it's what the typical human is. They follow, almost or completely without exceptions, those who seem most confident, rather than those with the most or best information. The person with most confidence/social status may or may not have the most/best information, but they follow them anyway.

 

A related quote that I had saved from some imageboard:

 

Over the past year and a bit I have joined and risen to the top of a social group, manipulating certain people to climb the hierarchy. I did this by understanding their individual egos, becoming friendly with them and then eventually using their weaknesses to exploit them and show my sinister humour to the others, I am now the leader. I actually like a few of these guys but not enough to want to hang out with them alone, but most I consider to just be normal, annoying people. When I had risen to about the middle of the group and was equally intertwined with the upper and lower halves, I tried to convince them to allow a more open, honest discussion amongst the group. We started to talk about things in what they considered a moral grey area, we would openly debate the consequences of incest without one person thinking the other was a freak for considering it. Now, of course some of them didn't open up completely but that was expected. My goal was to completely abolish any kind of social firewall they had up, and become a group that could discuss a vast matter of issues and opinions without emotional conflict. There was a major setback when I introduced a few race based topics and the Egyptian guy (a retarded faggot) got pissed off and started to chimpout. A few weeks ago I conceded to myself that my dreams of creating a completely open circle of discussion would never be realised. I simply couldn't tame the ego, there was always a power struggle, the hierarchy that I had tried to disassemble once at the top still remained and all of them still had areas they wouldn't venture into. We'd even had a group conversation about our own personality strengths and weaknesses, but even after that I could still sense some resistance to my plans.

 

Now my time as a puppet master is over, I don't want to be part of a group of people that aren't willing to break their chains like I am. I am the man who desires something more than to be the proletariat of social communication. To be part of an intellectual elite that I will never find, and probably doesn't exist.

[G+3]

That's actually an incredibly interesting story... but I do hope that this entire community aren't social sociopaths like this guy. I'm not going to say that we can abolish any sense of power, I understand the the fatal weaknesses of human minds. But that's not to say that the order can't be more open to debate between higher and lower members, more open to opinion; seeing that our entire phenomenon is based around the happenings and reluctantly accepted opinions of each other.

 

To say we can't improve upon the system is defeatist and therefore, I'm disregarding your point for the most part.

 

 

Edit: Aslo, I don't think this person is the best example considering he says

Egyptian guy (a retarded faggot)

That's infantile and also shows he's simply on of those assholes I was talking about.

Hypocritical? I think not.

 

[Couguhl]

I think that part of being a good psychologist is recognizing your own flaws in reasoning and thinking, and trying to overcome that as best and as consistent as you can.

I don't think it's very efficient to do without action and give something up to "human nature." If one can recognize something, then it can usually be prevented with effort.

 

However, this is a very interesting idea, and one I've never really learned about before. It's interesting applying it to our community because it is quite a closed system. We really do have to be careful about our ideas (and we've seen many examples in which ideas were harmful or were transmitted poorly).

[ror]

I'll be perfectly honest, The main reason why I don't post a lot here and am hesitant to share my experience is because I get a feeling that negative opinions are not that welcome here. Some claims I consider to be ridiculous are accepted as fact by the community. The problem presented here is definitely one present in every community, but this site's motto, "for science", should serve as a guide to go against that, to protest ideas in case of dissagreement and offer arguments to back up those opinions.

 

This is especially dangerous here as there isn't a true competitor for this website. This means that an opinion that becomes "truth" to the community here might well end up as being accepted everywhere. My personnal take on the phenomenon was to read as many guides as I can, then lurk and get as many different opinions as possible. I then took a step back and compared what I learned about tulpas to what I already knew about human psychology, accepting and dismissing theories as a result.

 

I have to admit, a lot of ideas seemed perfectly acceptable to me until I took a step back, distanced myself from the community and looked at it from a different, more skeptical point of view. I'm really more of a lurker then a poster, but I did feel like giving my opinion here, as this phenomenon can definitely hurt the exprience of other people trying to create a tulpa.

[Nobillis]

[Kevin says: I'm usually happy when someone says "I don't believe you" and I usually say "that's good. I value a healthy sense of skepticism." I'm so "out there" in statistical terms that I and my tulpas are an anomaly in almost every measure of this population (i.e., I'm weird even relative to most tulpa makers). My tulpa kerin tries to help, but she's more then a little bit broken (though she does seem good at supporting young tulpas). Myself, Waffles is probably right that I'm a little bit crazy (Nobillis tulpa insists I put "a lot crazy").

 

I'm not wise. I'm not an authority figure. I'm just old and my tulpas are just old (except Nobillis). When I post, I try to report what I remember as well as I can, but I have no surety that what I remember is in any way fact. I consider my tulpas part of me, even though they are very autonomous most of the time.

 

Before coming to this site I called myself "I" and I called my tulpas "I" too. My tulpas all called me "me" too. There never was a need to distinguish between one another, even though each as a name and a different personality from each other. Since coming to the site I've started using "we" instead of "I" to refer to my tulpas as it was too confusing for others. So, for me, who has little doubt about my tupas being independent individuals (kerin is actually smarter then I am); have the possibly the least need to consider them as separate individuals in my thinking. They always were intended to show me myself - that in essence is the "why" of the Tibetan method (Nobillis disagrees).

 

As always, I say, take what I say with "a very large grain of salt." Decide what is correct for yourself. If I can help, I will try - I often fail. I really, really suck at making tulpas. For some reason, mine have lived a long time anyway. (Possibly being bad at creation, is good from a tulpa's perspective? There's a radical meme for you.)

[G+3]

I think that part of being a good psychologist is recognizing your own flaws in reasoning and thinking, and trying to overcome that as best and as consistent as you can.

I don't think it's very efficient to do without action and give something up to "human nature." If one can recognize something, then it can usually be prevented with effort.

 

-snip-

 

Fair point. Of course I'm not implying the it will never be fault of the individual. And I can admit myself to whining about social-circles and lines which simply didn't exist, only because of my own fault and ego. Though I think the likelihood of it being the individual solely is very slight. But still, well put Couguhl.

 

---

 

-snip-

The problem presented here is definitely one present in every community, but this site's motto, "for science", should serve as a guide to go against that, to protest ideas in case of dissagreement and offer arguments to back up those opinions.

 

I'll be perfectly honest and say that an idea unchallenged isn't an idea but a fairy tale. But the problem I'm posing is a more social problem as opposed to one untrue to the scientific method (which I think everyone should learn by heart.) Where is this situation, instead of ideas or experiences of an individual being questioned, challenged and tested, they are ridiculed and viewed by the greater tulpa community as false or role-playing because they are radical or unheard of.

 

Or—in term more relevant to my OP—where an ideas held by a group and any opposing idea by an individual is disregarded and slandered.

 

 

Slightly related rant inc.

 

That really confuses me that someone could say something in the tulpa phenomenon is wrong because it's unusual or impossible or what ever codder the person happens to come up with. To suggest that anything past the idea of tulpas it unreasonable or, worse yet, weird, deeply sickens me and only proves that the person is more than likely a role player themselves. My reasoning being for not realising that tupae are unfathomable themselves only goes to show that the person doesn't understand the phenomenon full stop.

 

/rant

 

 

-snip-

but I did feel like giving my opinion here, as this phenomenon can definitely hurt the experience of other people trying to create a tulpa.

 

I'm not sure what you mean by 'this phenomenon'. As in the tulpa phenomenon? as that doesn't make much sense to me then. Rephrase it maybe?

 

---

 

[Kevin says: I'm usually happy when someone says "I don't believe you" and I usually say "that's good. I value a healthy sense of scepticism." I'm so "out there" in statistical terms that I and my tulpas are an anomaly in almost every measure of this population (i.e., I'm weird even relative to most tulpa makers). My tulpa kerin tries to help, but she's more then a little bit broken (though she does seem good at supporting young tulpas). Myself, Waffles is probably right that I'm a little bit crazy (Nobillis tulpa insists I put "a lot crazy").

 

Once again, very well put, but with the same underlying problem that Ror missed. It's not a case of bad scepticism, but of unrelenting scepticism. Where the scepticism is persistent and unyielding.

 

-snip-

 

The rest of your post is all quite interesting but I don't see it's relevance to the OP; maybe I missed something you could point out?

[Linkzelda]

Things pretty much are Echo Chambers because newcomers that come to the IRC, those who are a bit more experienced or at least have their fair share of the tulpa experience find it easy to use known concepts related to tulpaforcing/imposition/etc. And as for the social status, I agree that I do find it pathetic that people rely on those who seem most confident or had major contributions in filtering misconceptions over various things. However, at the same time, it just portrays how anything social, or just anything with the totality of people's thoughts and beliefs diving into a cluster is built upon authority.

 

We know that tulpa.info is in a state of infancy, and it most likely will be like that the more people put aside their ambitions to make the tulpa phenomenon easily accessed and has a broader awareness. And even if there should be change within the community itself, it will always have to keep aiming for progressive mindset. IRC, to me personally, is bit more fast-pace then the boards itself, and most people don't really give much thought into the advice they're stating there in the first place. It's the idea that seems to encroach into people's heads that people in the IRC can help others, so newcomers who see this will automatically go there for advice, only to find that people are just saying what can be read on the main site.

 

The idea of "For Science" seems to be irrelevant other than to create a pretense that there's something of a "studious" endeavors going on. And I have a feeling that it isn't the social aspect that's the major problem, but also just the individuals perception and how they define the social aspect themselves. It's one thing to be empathetic and compassionate for our tulpa to try and work through things they have to learn themselves, but it's another to start doing the same to other members in the community. Especially since when we built our own resolve and found solace in climbing over the insanity and over-doubting barrier, it's hard to try and reason with these people that are new, because we assume "Why don't they know this?" or "How come they aren't aware of this?"

 

Sometimes we want to feel that the moment we have a realization or some lesson learned, we assume others "should" know what we learned to. And the more we become attached to our tulpa, the more likely we develop urges of apathy and passive-aggressiveness (usually expressed through being condescending). And getting over the barrier itself is definitely painful, since it takes time to really make good reasons why we should be doing this. This is why what Ror did is what anyone should do, just temporarily alienate yourself from others' opinions and set a foundation on your own so you don't go worshiping people like their Gods just because "at the time" when you saw their opinions, it felt right to you.

 

There's absolutely nothing wrong with stepping back from the community a little bit to see what YOU think is suitable for your schema of things. And it's not just matter of being open-minded towards new ideas, it's just a matter of being empathetic. We know people are insecure about many things when they're starting out, and for us to go back to the same thing we were trying to avoid and conquer obviously wouldn't be something we do naturally. But when you start realizing that not everyone is going catch on as fast on things you learned, and when you practice remembering something so obvious, it gets easier. And people who keep asking the same questions only getting the same results, even if they say "I checked other threads" when there's threads with a similar format, it's just what anxiety does to us.

 

The totality of our being is like a Google Search Engine. When we collect the information from other people's perspectives (almost being "Yes-men/Yes-women"), we are in a way like Google Spider bots that mine for those opinions, but sometimes we're in limbo, and we're too caught into a person's words, and we never go back to our more analytical side (the search engine base) to actually learn something. The analogy might not make much sense, but I'm using it to state that we lose sight of our ability to use retrospect and hindsight because we're so caught up with trying to satisfy others too much before going back to ourselves.

 

And as for people believing others who express more confidence/have more social status than others, of course that's going to be something people do naturally. No one wants to see a person that clearly can't get their shit together and expect to console or offer people's advice. People either put up a pretentious portrayal of confidence, or they're really confident and went through the pains that other people are now trying to resolve, or they're just people who are learning and don't want others feeling miserable. If a person doesn't know what to say to console the other person's concerns, they're bound to use pre-fetched concepts as a euphemistic way of getting the other to STFU. It's sad, but that's what happens when we rely ONLY on conjecture.

 

So if anyone wants to solve anything with the presumed social problem, there's many things to cover, but one obvious and important thing is that as much information you get out of this community and other sources beyond that, you have to get time for yourself to analyze what you've learned and make your own principles. That is really the practical way to get anything out of this. We can't really change how people respond to others who seem to have confidence and/or higher social status, because everyone is going to have their own preconceptions of what fits the "competent" or "intelligent" persona. And if OP is worried more that people who seem confident are the ones getting acknowledged (and sadly worshiped like gods), then honestly, if you want your ideas to be known as well, you're going to have to state them in some way if anyone wants to know what you're thinking.

 

And even if those people who are confident and how people attach themselves so much to them bothers you, it doesn't mean that all people portraying confidence are pretentious or don't know how to follow what they're saying.

 

 

IRC is meant for people who are popular to have people on the sidelines, this is why you should make your existence known on the boards, where you can develop your thoughts a bit more than the High-School style the IRC is, a popularity contest. If the person people are worshiping can't discuss things with other members on the board, it's a clear sign that they're just people that others magnify their "greatness" over. Which is why you don't see many of those "greats" really commenting as much.

 

You get people to become attached to a person's clever way of words, and suddenly they're stripped of using their own brain for once. It happens, we all need as many perspectives as we can, but we simply have to make it a habit to know this is for our own sake at times. And for those groups of people that outcast a person for not sharing their own views, it's just like High School where people try to validate their identity.

 

Solution? Just like OP stated, Get over the bullshit they're doing and stand by your own beliefs. A select group of people not accepting you shouldn't make you feel worthless. Unfortunately, since people are still pretty young, it's going to take a few months to years for them to realize.

 

And it's not just about setting a positive image, we don't want to make that a militant ambition where the positive nature becomes superficial and pretentious; we should aim for being practical. Because when someone tries to give a realistic answer that might make others cringe, it's going to be considered negative because we're not doing our best to make this some kind of retirement home where we let people hear what they want to hear. We're here to provide solutions, even if those solutions may not be consistent with our beliefs and values, and for people to be intolerant of change.....you should be very afraid of yourself. VERY AFRAID.

[ror]

I'm not sure what you mean by 'this phenomenon'. As in the tulpa phenomenon? as that doesn't make much sense to me then. Rephrase it maybe?

 

Sorry if I wasn't clear, I meant the echo chamber phenomenon. Everyone, in my opinion, should approach creating their first tulpa with an open mind and a healty amount of skepticism. Just believing what is said online because the community seems to agree on it might not be the best way of going at it.

 

For example, the idea of assuming sentience from the start. This lead a lot of people to believe that a tulpa is sentient from the first hour of forcing. I do not believe this to be the case and cannot find good arguments to back up that claim. This can lead people into imagining that they have a tulpa when they really don't. (Not accusing anyone here, just giving a personnal opinion to illustrate my point)

[Linkzelda]

 

For example, the idea of assuming sentience from the start. This lead a lot of people to believe that a tulpa is sentient from the first hour of forcing. I do not believe this to be the case and cannot find good arguments to back up that claim. This can lead people into imagining that they have a tulpa when they really don't. (Not accusing anyone here, just giving a personal opinion to illustrate my point)

 

It seems people think sentience is just having intelligence, but I see it as them being capable of processing subjective nature and just having awareness, which I feel doesn't really have much need for intelligence in the first place. How people interpret the Assuming Sentience from the Start is varied, and I could even state that because of this, our tulpa "seem" to be having slow progress because maybe they want to have a suitable form and competence for their host.

 

It's what happens when we entrust so many expectations of how our tulpa should be, we're not aware that they could be feeling insecure and aren't showing up because of that. If people use Sentience as some means of intelligence and use that to cop out from pulling their own weight, then yes, that's a bad mindset to get into. But the sentience, at least in my opinion, is to allow your tulpa to be able to gradually learn things and eventually set their own moral code and principles.

 

It's like a self-fulfilling prophecy, and sometimes our tulpa try so much to accommodate towards those expectations on their own, which is why I feel that we should constantly ask questions and try to find ways to help our tulpa feel at ease. Because no matter how much we get into having implied separate consciousness, they aren't other-worldly beings, they are an aspect of ourselves, and can only be as sentient and sapient as much faith we put into those ideas. And the more we want to practice good habits and mindsets, the more likely the habit will deteriorate over time, and that's when we have to polish ourselves up again (which brings me back to what I stated with having alone time instead of only lurking and being around the community).