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Why are there so many rationalist cults?

asteriskmag.com

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Re: Why are there so many rationalist cults?

#11

Post by TimorousBestie »

mlinhares wrote: post #4

> One is Black Lotus, a Burning Man camp led by alleged rapist Brent Dill, which developed a metaphysical system based on the tabletop roleplaying game Mage the Ascension. What the actual f. This is such an insane thing to read and understand what it means that i might need to go and sit in silence for the rest of the day. How did we get to this place with people going completely nuts like this?

Mage: The Ascension is basically a delusions of grandeur simulator, so I can see how an already unstable personality might get attached to it and become more unstable.

Re: Why are there so many rationalist cults?

#12

Post by nathan_compton »

Thinking too hard about anything will drive you insane but I think the real issue here is that rationalists simply over-estimate both the power of rational thought and their ability to do it. If you think of people who tend to make that kind of mistake you can see how you get a lot of crazy groups.

I guess I'm a radical skeptic, secular humanist, utilitarianish sort of guy, but I'm not dumb enough to think throwing around the words "bayesian prior" and "posterior distribution" makes actually figuring out how something works or predicting the outcome of an intervention easy or certain. I've had a lot of life at this point and gotten to some level of mastery at a few things and my main conclusion is that most of the time its just hard to know stuff and that the single most common cognitive mistake people make is too much certainty.

Re: Why are there so many rationalist cults?

#14

Post by incomingpain »

We live in an irrational time. It's unclear if it was simply under reported in history or social changes in the last ~50-75 years have had breaking consequences.

People are trying to make sense of this. For examples.

The Canadian government heavily subsidizes junk food, then spends heavily on healthcare because of the resulting illnesses. It restrict and limits healthy food through supply management and promotes a “food pyramid” favoring domestic unhealthy food. Meanwhile, it spends billions marketing healthy living, yet fines people up to $25,000 for hiking in forests and zones cities so driving is nearly mandatory.

Government is an easy target for irrational behaviours.

Re: Why are there so many rationalist cults?

#15

Post by noqc »

Perhaps I will get downvoted to death again for saying so, but the obvious answer is because the name "rationalist" is structurally indistinguishable from the name "scientology" or "the illuminati". You attract people who are desperate for an authority to appeal to, but for whatever reason are no longer affiliated with the church of their youth. Even a rationalist movement which held nothing as dogma would attract people seeking dogma, and dogma would form.

The article begins by saying the rationalist community was "drawn together by AI researcher Eliezer Yudkowsky’s blog post series The Sequences". Obviously the article intends to make the case that this is a cult, but it's already done with the argument at this point.

Re: Why are there so many rationalist cults?

#16

Post by mlinhares »

TimorousBestie wrote: post #11
mlinhares wrote: post #4

> One is Black Lotus, a Burning Man camp led by alleged rapist Brent Dill, which developed a metaphysical system based on the tabletop roleplaying game Mage the Ascension. What the actual f. This is such an insane thing to read and understand what it means that i might need to go and sit in silence for the rest of the day. How did we get to this place with people going completely nuts like this?

Mage: The Ascension is basically a delusions of grandeur simulator, so I can see how an already unstable personality might get attached to it and become more unstable.

I don't know, i'd understand something like Wraith (which I did see people developing issues, the shadow mechanic is such a terrible thing) but Mage is so, like, straightforward?

Use your mind to control reality, reality fights back with paradox, its cool for a teenager but you read a bit more fantasy and you'll definitely find cooler stuff. But i guess for you to join a cult your mind must stay a teen mind forever.

Re: Why are there so many rationalist cults?

#18

Post by nyeah »

optimalsolver wrote: post #3

Pertinent Twitter comment: "Rationalism is such an insane name for a school of thought. Like calling your ideology correctism or winsargumentism" https://x.com/growing_daniel/status/1893554844725616666

Great names! Are you using them, or are they available? /s

Re: Why are there so many rationalist cults?

#19

Post by cjs_ac »

Rationalism is the belief that reason is the primary path to knowledge, as opposed to, say, the observation that is championed by empiricism. It's a belief system that prioritises imposing its tenets on reality rather than asking reality what reality's tenets are. From the outset, it's inherently cult-like.

Re: Why are there so many rationalist cults?

#20

Post by JTbane »

mlinhares wrote: post #4

> One is Black Lotus, a Burning Man camp led by alleged rapist Brent Dill, which developed a metaphysical system based on the tabletop roleplaying game Mage the Ascension. What the actual f. This is such an insane thing to read and understand what it means that i might need to go and sit in silence for the rest of the day. How did we get to this place with people going completely nuts like this?

I don't know how you can call yourself a "rationalist" and base your worldview on a fantasy game.
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