Current Events > Anybody watch the NXIVM docuseries on HBO?

(+) Yeah! (+)

I'm 4 eps in. God damn this shit was fucked. When they started branding the women and it was shown the brand was Allison Mack and Keith Raniere's initials. Jeez man.
---

Yep, finished it a week or two ago. Very crazy. Also, spoilers for the end and after, if you haven't kept up with the case at all outside of the documentary: Keith Raniere just got sentenced to 120 years in prison this week

---

Yes I did but apparently the documentary is kind of skewed, as one might imagine, there's always an angle. There's an interesting interview that Scott Adams did with one of the members of DOS and she paints quite a different picture. You can decide what is the truth though.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0IuzPI-Nx14

AlCalavicci posted...

Yep, finished it a week or two ago. Very crazy. Also, spoilers for the end and after, if you haven't kept up with the case at all outside of the documentary: Keith Raniere just got sentenced to 120 years in prison this week

what did they sentence the blonde psycho chick?

Yeah I saw that in the news. I hope he's not the only one. I see they're making a second season based on his trial too.
---

Yup, you really get to see how they used years-long friendships to slowly wear people down and normalize shit. Sarah and Mark's stories from when they were members are really interesting, and Sarah in particular is a fucking hero. There's a new series on STARZ that focuses on India Oxenburg but I haven't started it yet.

---

Poop2 posted...

what did they sentence the blonde psycho chick?

As of 3 days ago, Allison is awaiting sentencing

---

yeah i watched it
there's a spinoff type show right now on starz or something too with india oxenberg that's feeling like a cashgrab piggyback
the whole thing is stupid and i can't help myself but thinking these people were also stupid, but i guess they were actually just damaged and i'm a dick but /jordanshrug

---

On_The_Edge posted...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0IuzPI-Nx14

lmao, jesus fucking christ. after all the time the wig nut right spent getting their tinfoil worked up over sex trafficking cult conspiracies everywhere from children's pizza places to online furniture stores, now you're spinning up the conspiracy engines to defend the first actual sex trafficking cult you come across. "You think this person is guilty because of the mass amount of evidence and victim testimony against them? Well their wife says it's fake news. Checkmate, libcucks ;) " Fuck this planet.

---

Frolex posted...

lmao, jesus fucking christ. after all the time the wig nut right spent getting their tinfoil worked up over sex trafficking cult conspiracies everywhere from children's pizza places to online furniture stores, now you're spinning up the conspiracy engines to defend the first actual sex trafficking cult you come across. "You think this person is guilty because of the mass amount of evidence and victim testimony against them? Well their wife says it's fake news. Checkmate, libcucks ;) " Fuck this planet.

Lmao I never said any of that. Who are you even talking to? This is bizarre.

Ran through the comments of that YT video. That lady is Allison Mack's wife? I dunno if she's a reliable source on all of this lol plus it seems like the sex trafficking and abuse were 100% going on, so not sure what she could actually say that could paint this shit differently.
---

On_The_Edge posted...

Lmao I never said any of that. Who are you even talking to? This is bizarre.

He was talking about Scott Adams, who is a blatant Trumpist.

---

Nicki Clyne lost her damn mind

---

On_The_Edge posted...

Yes I did but apparently the documentary is kind of skewed, as one might imagine, there's always an angle. There's an interesting interview that Scott Adams did with one of the members of DOS and she paints quite a different picture. You can decide what is the truth though.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0IuzPI-Nx14

Yeah... I don't think I'm going to be taking the word of Allison Mack's wife!!!

Call me crazy, but I think she might have a reason to lie.

---

Solar_Crimson posted...

He was talking about Scott Adams, who is a blatant Trumpist.

Instead of immediately dismissing the video because you hate Scott Adams you should watch it and judge for yourself. Scott presses her with some hard questions and it's genuinely interesting to hear her side of things. I've watched all of the HBO and Starz series and honestly even though Keith is a disgusting pig I do question how many laws he actually broke and what proof they have. It's not as simple as Keith bad = go to jail.

---

Heavy_D_Forever posted...

It's not as simple as Keith bad = go to jail

Uh... it pretty much is.

---

BeyondWalls posted...

Uh... it pretty much is.

That's completely ignoring how laws and court cases work lol

---

They blackmailed women into trafficking. That seems pretty cut and dry to me. I still haven't finished the series but I really don't see it getting any less fucked up from here lol

And yeah sure there's bias as with any documentary, but the blackmailing and the sex trafficking is right there. Also apparently the dude had child pornography and had sex with a 15 year old? There really is no defending this guy wtf.
---

Heavy_D_Forever posted...

Instead of immediately dismissing the video because you hate Scott Adams you should watch it and judge for yourself. Scott presses her with some hard questions and it's genuinely interesting to hear her side of things. I've watched all of the HBO and Starz series and honestly even though Keith is a disgusting pig I do question how many laws he actually broke and what proof they have. It's not as simple as Keith bad = go to jail.

^

This

Smashingpmkns posted...

They blackmailed women into trafficking. That seems pretty cut and dry to me. I still haven't finished the series but I really don't see it getting any less fucked up from here lol

And yeah sure there's bias as with any documentary, but the blackmailing and the sex trafficking is right there. Also apparently the dude had child pornography and had sex with a 15 year old? There really is no defending this guy wtf.

the women had a chance to walk away at the blackmail part though, freely and with no consequence
it's not as simple as you're making it sound in that slant
no one is defending him as a good guy
it's just that the criminality is a complicated thing in this story

---

The Trent posted...

the women had a chance to walk away at the blackmail part though, freely and with no consequence

I've watched several documentaries about various cults. Just because people had a chance to walk away at the beginning, or had a chance not to join the cult, doesn't mean they aren't victims.

---

i didn't say they weren't victims either

---

he was clearly a predator who was preying upon and victimizing people who had put faith in him for help

---

The Trent posted...

he was clearly a predator who was preying upon and victimizing people who had put faith in him for help

And for that, he deserves life in prison

---

oh i don't know what the law says about that specifically

---

The Trent posted...

the women had a chance to walk away at the blackmail part though, freely and with no consequence
it's not as simple as you're making it sound in that slant
no one is defending him as a good guy
it's just that the criminality is a complicated thing in this story

I'm pretty sure it's still blackmail and that's still illegal regardless of whether or not they were in a dangerous position when giving the collateral. Giving that collateral or even requesting it probably isn't illegal but using it against them once they decided to leave definitely is. I don't think that part is as grey as you're making it.
---

i mean it's clearly not as grey as i thought it was because dude is doing life in prison for his shit now

---

Smashingpmkns posted...

I'm pretty sure it's still blackmail and that's still illegal regardless of whether or not they were in a dangerous position when giving the collateral. Giving that collateral or even requesting it probably isn't illegal but using it against them once they decided to leave definitely is. I don't think that part is as grey as you're making it.

The thing is the collateral was never used against any of the women even after they left.

---

I haven't gotten any further into the doc but I've read online that they used the collateral to blackmail the women as they were leaving but never released the collateral. That's still illegal. In the third or fourth ep that Lauren lady was clearly using the collateral to blackmail Sarah (I think that's her name) when she was threatening to leave over the phone.
---

The Trent posted...

the women had a chance to walk away at the blackmail part though, freely and with no consequence

(X)
---

voldothegr8 posted...

(X)

how did they not?
what would have happened if they walked away when pressed to present "collateral"?

---

Again, that doesn't make the events that happened afterward any less illegal lol
---

Smashingpmkns posted...

Again, that doesn't make the events that happened afterward any less illegal lol

which events are you referring to?

---

The Trent posted...

which events are you referring to?

My previous post about them using the collateral as pressure when they threatened to leave. Or when Sarah's husband found out and Lauren clearly threatens to use the collateral after she said she deleted it.
---

but what about the argument that says "the women presented the collateral freely and agreed to the purpose it would eventually serve" ?
is there an argument there?

---

I don't think there is legally. It's still blackmail regardless if they voluntarily gave them the collateral.
---

i do wonder at the end of all this shit though, what the fuck did keith reneire actually think he was doing?
who was this guy?
was he just koresh-ian and had no idea where he was going with any of it until it went down in a ball of flames?
was it a long con from the beginning that he used nancy and the whole design to recruit his sex harem?
was it something he started by actually drinking his own nonsense koolaid about changing the world, only to look up after a few years and realize that he had general kurtz-like power over these natives and just got corrupted by the potential?

the fact that literally 95% of his credentials were bullshit lends me to a more malevolent con-type start
he was a C-student in college, has no real backing to his genius claim, probably wasn't any kind of judo master or whatever
just...what the fuck was all this bullshit?

---

AlCalavicci posted...

As of 3 days ago, Allison is awaiting sentencing

Smashingpmkns posted...

I don't think there is legally. It's still blackmail regardless if they voluntarily gave them the collateral.

Yeah it sounds like they charged him a lot like they would charge an organized crime ring. They got him on racketeering, which encompasses all the blackmail stuff, and then a lot of trafficking of women charges.

Also one of the victims was 15 I think, so that added a lot of years to the sentence w/ child pornography charges and sexual exploitation of a minor charges

---