Thoughts on Gaslighting

This term is almost universally misused in the Nexus. Gaslighting is an intentional attempt to force someone to distance themselves from their own perceptions of reality, to push them to believe that their understanding of an event or situation is not only flawed but counterfactual. It doesn't need to proceed along logical lines like a debate, where you try to demonstrate that someone's idea is inconsistent or faulty; in fact part of its power is that intimidation can be used instead of reason. People can be frightened or manipulated into forcing themselves to believe on some level things they know to be untrue.