I don't think they're ready to change the 144,000 doctrine yet, but they do seem to be making strides in that direction since they're not the FDS anymore. It would make some sense, though, because litterally every time I've ever heard anyone say "he partakes" or "he's annointed" or he's one of the 144,000" it's been in a negative context, either because the person is bat-s*** insane, in their early 20s, recently involved in some less than ideal behavior (like unscriptural divorce), or just generally likes to lord their status over people.
The downside to this change is that it would remove a lot of the stigma that JWs have. It seems that when a comedian makes a joke about JWs, they frequently state how odd it is that we're actively recruiting, even though the space in heaven is limited. If they do away with the literal 144,000 number, then JWs lose some of their isolation. Isolation (physical or psychological) is what keeps a cult together, so I don't know if that's coming any time soon. It'd almost be like letting them celebrate birthdays, mothers/fathers day or thanksgiving.
I think it's entirely possible that all this 'listen, obey and be blessed' BS is being thrown around lately is just in response to what appears to be a large number of folks realizing that the generation doctrine changes don't make a lick of sense. It seems like I see a lot of people here citing that as being a significant factor in their awakening, and I wouldn't be surprised if that was also somewhat the motivation of the now (in)famous "human appostates" talk.
It wouldn't be surprising if they really start pushing the play a video on your phone when you go d2d stuff, since they seemed to be trying to get ahead of the criticism in this latest convention's talk by saying that it wasn't a return to the phonograph days, just with modern technology (even though there was no evidence presented to convince anyone that it wasn't a return to the phonograph...). That's something that the JWs would lap up readily, though, so i don't think it would justify the level of rhetoric that we're seeing. They might be coming off extreme in order to scare off the fence-sitters as a few here have postulated, or it may just be another smoke screen to get the R/F whipped into a froth. Maybe a combination.
It's difficult for me to see what they could possibly be preparing for that 'wouldn't seem sound from a human point of view' since there's essentially nothing that would justify them doing anything so extreme. The whole basis for this seems to have been on the expectation that the world will destroy babylon the great and subsequently come after JWs. That narrative is clearly not going to play out the way they think, so why would they need to issue instructions that don't make sense? The only thing that I can see that would warrant this would be if the pedophille stuff starts to become a problem, but they'd hardly be able to plan that for this october, which seems to be what all the subtle hype points to.
That turned out to be a really long post just to say 'I'm not sure what they're planning' lol.
