"When you are playing not to lose your focus isn't on what you could gain but on protecting what you already have."

"While playing safe may feel safe in the short term, while we're busily protecting what we have, we can get left behind as the world around us marches steadily forward." https://www.forbes.com/sites/margiewarrell/2014/07/13/world-cup-wisdom-play-to-win-not-to-lose/#3745763a4a2b

I am hoping that some of you people manager types who are much smarter than me can weigh in here. Seems to me that The Brethren are on the defensive, scared and almost desperately hanging onto what they perceive as their precious resources of active members, real estate and investments.

What would we see differently coming from the Q15 if they were playing to win?

They just do not hold a winning hand.
If they did they would be aggressively refuting documents like the CES letter and providing real answers to church historical and doctrinal questions.
Instead, they excommunicate the people who ask the questions and try to divert the members attention from those questions.

I think they use excommunication as a tool of intimidation. They understand the tribal need, and that exclusion from the tribe is scary for most. So if they excommunicate people for asking tough questions, the hope is that it will scare others enough to keep them from asking questions too.

They’re not playing with a full deck.

If they were playing to win, the 15 and all, ALL, their wives would take the money, ALL the money, and run to a country that had no extradition treaty with los estado unidos.

Your question, Cricket, presumes that "winning" is still possible.

I'm not sure it is. If the Q15 stick with the current version of church history and doctrine, they lose the young and can't attract new members in the rich countries. But at least they keep the core.

If they conversely acknowledge the past lies and errors, they sacrifice much of their core. And they gain no advantage with the young or investigators because there is no longer any foundation for the church's claim of special authority. The Q15 cease being prophets and become desiccated, grumpy old men, as we perceive them, to virtually everyone.

So perhaps the current playing-to-not-lose approach is the best available option. They maintain as much membership as they can, continue to receive 10s of billions of dollars in tithing every year for a decade or two longer, then live off of the accumulated wealth indefinitely. They essentially become a Community of Christ but with a helluva lot of money.

I think that is pretty much the winning strategy: the church as cash cow.

Bingo. Most salient post on this thread.

At the end of the day, I think the 15 know that the sun is setting on their operation. Hinckley was a PR man - he was able to get them a surge and establish a bit of a Mormon Moment. They may see a couple short bursts of life here and there, but picking turds like Nelson - who will literally just be keeping a seat warm for a few years - instead of a younger Mormon version of Pope Francis isn't going to help them. It will be a very slow burn out, but they aren't doing anything to stop it.

Yes.

They are mostly just trying to be relevant.

I think they are just trying to keep their market share.

I have seen this play out in life. When we first started our company we were in awe of another company who manufactured the same product. They had developed a unique system of fabrication that was superior to anything in years. But, they stuck with that.

We kept trying new things, assessing and reassessing our methods. Often we went back to the tried and true but here and there made significant advancements with new understandings.

At a certain point the other company was no longer able to secure much work. Their strategy was to advertise their original method as the best way. It wasn't any longer. But they kept insisting it was and gave examples of how it was that were misleading half truths that I am sure the owner believed.

We sent them a case of Champagne when they closed because they had always been so nice.

I see the Gerontocracy doing the same thing. They are playing to "not lose" as you say. I do take Lot's Wife's point that there is no winning. So that means there is true value in how you play the game. Because the game is never ending. There may be no eternal progression as per a Mormon afterlife, but there is perpetual progression for us in this life and the number one enemy is leveling off, staying safe, or in other words becoming stagnant.

Mormonism has become like the Great Salt Lake itself. Tributaries empty in just as members are expected to do, but there is no outlet and therefore the salt build up allows no growth except the awful brine shrimp with flies swarming. There are no outlets to bring life to other plains. The lake just takes. It is a very fitting lake for the Mormons---pretty from a distance--up close, not so much.

When the Mormon church goes out of business I will send them a case of Champagne.

Done & Done Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I have seen this play out in life.

The demise of MORmONISM is playing out right in front of you right now.

> Mormonism has become like the Great Salt Lake
> itself.

MORmONISM like the great salt lake "what a dis appointing promise"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vICq4gGFfY

> When the Mormon church goes out of business I will send them a > case of Champagne.

you must have meant "sham pain" because they are NOT nice like you former competitors, and sham pain is what sham LDS inc deserves NOT champagne, and why wait !!!

so 3.1 billion dollars is over 33 tons of 100 dollar bills. LDS Inc to give 3 one hundred dollars bill to a local charity...... as a token of their general appreciation and to give back to the community. so were they playing to win or playing to NOT lose ????

I know that Hinckley is as boring as MORmONISM but try to watch, so you can see him make an ass of himself

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZxlQ68tIpc

regardless, just 4 years later, proven to be profitable for 100 years LDS Inc's Beneficial Finance was broke because Beneficial funds had been gambled on high risk hopefully high yield mortgage bonds that then went bust. (WHOOPS!!!!!)

MORmONISM is such a shoddy piece of garbage that it already beat the odds by lasting as long as it has, that success due to Brigham Young moving the LDS to the isolation of the American frontier to incubate and concentrate the MORmON infection in MORmON zion Utah. That isolation no longer exists.


When Joseph Smith started MORmONISM, religious revivals and church served as entertainment to a certain extent in a world that had very little entertainment to offer. The modern world has a lot of entertainment to offer. There is a surplus of entertainment. Boring stale MORmONISM simply can not compete with the NBA, NFL, MLB or the NCAA. The worst televised ball game ever is still probably better than the best church meeting ever. MORmONISM can not compete.

50 years ago, LDS inc was collecting tithing and then hitting members with every thing else they could come up with on top of tithing, to get an effective second or double tithing from members, and dumb ass faithFOOL MORmON members(like my stupid ass parents) were paying it.

50 years ago state and local sales tax was a tiny amount. Now its very close to a tithing in its own right, and sales tax really is not optional as tithing really is optional in spite of the lies that greedy LD$ inc leaders have told about the necessity of paying tithing. LDS inc is competing with that tax expense/ burden and the shrinking income of the middle class so that LD$ is left coming up short.

Due to the internet, it is much harder, harder as in impossible, for MORmONISM to hide its corrupt, unpleasant seedy history, and other negative aspects.

Because MORmONISM is a fraud, it is constantly picked apart by science. That situation is ONLY going to get worse for MORmONISM.

Its not like another set of gold plates is going to be found and translated that is going to give MORmONISM a big boost. LD$ inc tried the gimmick of hosting the Olympics to boost its visibility and conversions, the final outcome was more negative PR than positive PR with NO increase in conversions. Same thing with running a MORmON for US president.

These are some of the latter day factors that MORmONISM is forced to try to deal with and can not prevail, and there is no relief in sight because it is not like sale taxes are going to go down or that the internet or TV is going to go away or that science is going to go away or that professional sports is going to go away.

The future pretty much sucks for LD$ Inc and its MORmONISM. It had a good run for a laughable shoddy scam, they better have enjoyed it because it is OVER.

Always reminds of hockey...after two periods the score is 6 to 1 and suddenly everyone on the leading team becomes a goal tender?..more often than not they lose to a rally from the team with nothing to lose"..once that goal tender mentality sets in its dam hard to turn off...and they seldom win...it appears there are 13 goal tenders just trying to keep the puck out of the celestial net...and not one of them is a goalie...least of all Nelson and Wendy...it'll be epic...buy popcorn...I hear Wendy just loves to shoot the puck and Dieter just wants her to get the puck outta there...I see a great slamtoon...13 guys piled up in the goal...and a puck with ces letter on it in the net...red light on of course...runnels shoots...HE SCORES....and the apostates go wild...the Kirkland apostates have won the Stanley cup

And yet I attended a fast and testimony meeting Sunday in Southern California in which people of all ages were bearing fervent testimony. And these folks are generally wealthy with advanced degrees and very successful businesses. I can't explain it. Three wards in the building all with a packed house. I am surprised the young families with children can even afford to live here.

Russell - how long ago did you attend church there in So Cal?

I'm sad to hear that so many are still so deceived. I have not been to church for so long that I'm completely out of touch with what's going on inside those meeting houses, so I appreciate your "return and report."

It seems most TBM's don't care and don't want to be "in touch" with the current hot issues that we as exmos get exercised about. Their world is their ward and those fervent testimonies seem to be the social glue that keeps their tribal instincts fired up?

Some TBM's actually love to go to church and don't know what to do with themselves if they don't.

Last Sunday.

You are on to something, but the interesting thing is, they actually have some of the ingredients to make it an interesting game. They just choose not to. For example:

1. This is a church that claims ongoing revelation. Where would the church be if instead of fighting ERA in The 1970's they had been a champion?

2. What if, again citing ongoing revelation, the church championed lgbtq rights instead of fighting against them?

3. This is a church that not only asks for 10% of members income, but almost demands it. What if rather than building shopping malls and hunting preserves the church built homeless shelters, hospitals, food banks?

4. What if rather than demanding home teaching and toilet scrubbing the church encouraged its members to volunteer that time at those food banks and shelters?

5. Missionaries are expected to work 12 hour days an average of six days per week. With more than 60,000 missionaries currently "serving" that is approximately 225,000,000 hours of labor per year. What if that was donated to teaching people employable skills, raising standards of education, hygiene, and housing in substandard areas of the world?

7. What if the "largest women's organization in the world" actually focused on bettering the opportunities of women and girls?

If the church focused on those items they would be playing to win by leveraging their strengths. What's more, they might even succeed because they would be relevant.

But they won't, and as much as I don't like the church, that is a shame, because they could be an amazing source for good.

The mormon church used to have the luxury of controlling their message and image. They thought they'd always have that. They went so far as to instill so much fear in their members that the majority were very afraid to ever say anything negative about the church. If you got caught doing that you could get ex'd. They were also good at training members to tattle on each other.

The result was a well behaved congregation that never ever said anything negative about the church. You didn't dare. There were a few brave souls that wrote books or took up some causes containing some truths, and they ex'd them enmass one September.


Then came the internet. They never saw it coming. They way underestimated it. I think they still do. Suddenly mormons could say whatever they wanted to the entire world, anonymously. It was like dropping a bomb. People had a lot to say. There were sky scrapers full of old mormon skeletons. The pent up silence exploded into volumes of stories of the mormon experience. They can't, and won't ever recover from that.

Even worse for the church, their dirty lies and secrets were drug out into the light of day. It seems like the supply is never ending. Lies, deception, corruption, scandals, and just plain evil at every turn. They've been overwhelmed and overrun by their actions of the past. Their way of handling it has been to attorney up. They still seem to think they can silence the members on some levels. Ummm, no. No they can't. A lot of them are leaving. Not much they can do about that. The future result of that is going to be big hits financially when their new crop of tithe payers are nowhere to be found.

They keep swinging the bat, but they no longer are pitching the game. They never will again where members are concerned. There will be some diehards that stay, but there won't be the extras or the big crowds lined up to play. Those days are gone forever.

They got caught in their lies. They still tell those lies to those who want to stay and listen. The crowd is shrinking though. Not too many people want to cheer as they clean the toilets.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 01/08/2018 05:31PM by janis.

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