There have been countless speculative threads on here about this, kinda like "If the Watchtower literally told them to jump off a bridge, would they do it?".
Some here seem to think so, and perhaps even a few would. I think though that it won't come to that. One can point to the no-blood doctrine as an example that they don't mind playing games with people's lives, so why not, but it seems they are becoming aware of what a mess-up that whole thing has been, and are trying to ease their way out of it. If they could easily get out of it and simply say "new light reveals that we can take blood", I think they'd do it. As it is, there would be an uproar because of all the lives lost, there would be court cases etc.
That said, there does seem to be a 'tightening' of doctrine, but it's not any worse than it's been in the past - we're just not so used to it now. Read Watchtowers from the 40's and 50's and I think you'd be frightened. No "Kool-Aid drinking" occurred then, and I doubt it will happen now.
I wouldn't worry about it at least. Their rhetoric may become stronger and more pointed, but I think it's done in an effort to "throw JWs a bone", keep telling them it's close and why, and basically keep them on their toes and in line.
At worst, I think perhaps they'll become more conservative and more cult-like in the sense that most forms of entertainment will be at least frowned upon, if not banned. People not 100% into all parts of the 'service' will be looked down upon etc. I don't think it'll get worse than that, although it's bad enough I guess. Combine that with a constant fear of imminent world destruction (because they do fear it, even though they think they'll probably survive), creates a bunch of neurotics. Not such a good thing.
So... I'm not sure what my conclusion is here. I don't think they'll be asked to do something crazy, but at the same time, the coming years will probably be harder on them.
