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Why are there so many rationalist cults?

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Re: Why are there so many rationalist cults?

#111

Post by alphazard »

glenstein wrote: post #73
alphazard wrote: post #48

The terminology here is worth noting. Is a Rationalist Cult a cult that practices Rationalism according to third parties, or is it a cult that says they are Rationalist? Clearly all of these groups that believe in demons or realities dictated by tabletop games are not what third parties would call Rationalist. They might call themselves that. There are some pretty simple tests that can out these groups as not rationa…

Yeah, I would say the groups in question are notionally, aspirationally rational and I would hate for the takeaway to be disengagement from principles of critical thinking and skeptical thinking writ large. Which, to me, raises the fascinating question of what does a "good" version look like, of groups and group dynamics centered around a shared interest in best practices associated with critical thinking? At a first…

It would seem like the quintessential Rationalist institution to congregate around is the prediction market. Status in the community has to be derived from a history of making good bets (PnL as a %, not in absolute terms). And the sense of community would come from (measurably) more rational people teaching (measurably) less rational people how to be more rational.

Re: Why are there so many rationalist cults?

#112

Post by ctoth »

JohnMakin wrote: post #85

One of a few issues I have with groups like these, is that they often confidently and aggressively spew a set of beliefs that on their face logically follow from one another, until you realize they are built on a set of axioms that are either entirely untested or outright nonsense. This is common everywhere, but I feel especially pronounced in communities like this. It also involves quite a bit of navel gazing that m…

> I immediately become suspicious of anyone who is very certain of something, especially if they derived it on their own.

Are you certain about this?

Re: Why are there so many rationalist cults?

#113

Post by Isamu »

So I like Steven Pinker’s book Rationality, to me it seems quite straightforward.

But I have never been able to get into the Rationalist stuff, to me it’s all very meandering and peripheral and focused on… I don’t know what.

Is it just me?

Re: Why are there so many rationalist cults?

#114

Post by naasking »

nyeah wrote: post #55
nathan_compton wrote: post #12

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 a…

I'm lucky enough work in a pretty rational place (small "r"). We're normally data-limited. Being "more rational" would mean taking/finding more of the right data, talking to the right people, reading the right stuff. Not just thinking harder and harder about what we already know. There's a point where more passive thinking stops adding value and starts subtracting sanity. It's pretty easy to get to that point. We've…

> We're normally data-limited.

This is a common sentiment but is probably not entirely true. A great example is cosmology. Yes, more data would make some work easier, but astrophysicists and cosmologists have shown that you can gather and combine existing data and look at it in novel new ways to produce unexpected results, like place bounds that can include/exclude various theories.

I think a philosophy that encourages more analysis rather than sitting back on our laurels with an excuse that we need more data is good, as long as it's done transparently and honestly.

Re: Why are there so many rationalist cults?

#115

Post by ameliaquining »

Isamu wrote: post #113

So I like Steven Pinker’s book Rationality, to me it seems quite straightforward. But I have never been able to get into the Rationalist stuff, to me it’s all very meandering and peripheral and focused on… I don’t know what. Is it just me?

Depends very much on what you're hoping to get out of it. There isn't really one "rationalist" thing at this point, it's now a whole bunch of adjacent social groups with overlapping-but-distinct goals and interests.

Re: Why are there so many rationalist cults?

#116

Post by rglover »

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 came to comments first. Thank you for sharing this quote. Gave me a solid chuckle.

I think people are going nuts because we've drifted from the dock of a stable civilization. Institutions are a mess. Economy is a mess. Combine all of that together with the advent of social media making the creation of echo chambers (and the inevitable narcissism of "leaders" in those echo chambers) effortless and ~15 years later, we have this.

Re: Why are there so many rationalist cults?

#117

Post by nyeah »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #77
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

To be honest I don't understand that objection. If you strip it from all its culty sociological effects, one of the original ideas of rationalism was to try to use logical reasoning and statistical techniques to explicitly avoid the pitfalls of known cognitive biases. Given that foundational tenet, "rationalism" seems like an extremely appropriate moniker. I fully accept that the rationalist community may have morphe…

I'm going to start a group called "Mentally Healthy People". We use data, logical thinking, and informal peer review. If you disagree with us, our first question will be "what's wrong with mental health?"

Re: Why are there so many rationalist cults?

#118

Post by handoflixue »

cjs_ac wrote: post #19

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.

Rationalists, in this case, refers specifically to the community clustered around LessWrong, which explicitly and repeatedly emphasizes points like "you can't claim to have a well grounded belief if you don't actually have empirical evidence for it" (https://www.lesswrong.com/w/evidence for a quick overview of some of the basic posts on that topic)

To quote one of the core foundational articles: "Before you try mapping an unseen territory, pour some water into a cup at room temperature and wait until it spontaneously freezes before proceeding. That way you can be sure the general trick—ignoring infinitesimally tiny probabilities of success—is working properly." (https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/eY45uCCX7DdwJ4Jha/no-one-can...)

One can argue how well the community absorbs the lesson, but this certainly seems to be a much higher standard than average.

Re: Why are there so many rationalist cults?

#119

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

TrackerFF wrote: post #33
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?

Cult leaders tend to be narcissists. Narcissists tend to believe that they are always right, no mater what the topic is, or how knowledgeable they are. This makes them speak with confidence and conviction. Some people are very drawn to confident people. If the cult leader has other mental health issues, it can/will seep into their rhetoric. Combine that with unwavering support from loyal followers that will take ever…

That's pretty much it. The beliefs are just a cover story.

Outside of those, the cult dynamics are cut-paste, and always involve an entitled narcissistic cult leader acquiring as much attention/praise, sex, money, and power as possible from the abuse and exploitation of followers.

Most religion works like this. Most alternative spirituality works like this Most finance works like this. Most corporate culture works like this. Most politics works like this.

Most science works like this. (It shouldn't, but the number of abused and exploited PhD students and post-docs is very much not zero.)

The only variables are the differing proportions of attention/praise, sex, money, and power available to leaders, and the amount of abuse that can be delivered to those lower down and/or outside the hierarchy.

The hierarchy and the realities of exploitation and abuse are a constant.

If you removed this dynamic from contemporary culture there wouldn't be a lot left.

Fortunately quite a lot of good things happen in spite of it. But a lot more would happen if it wasn't foundational.

Re: Why are there so many rationalist cults?

#120

Post by mlinhares »

WJW wrote: post #39
mlinhares wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I didn't originally write this, but can't find the original place I read it anymore. I think it makes a lot of sense to repost it here: All of the World Of Darkness and Chronicles Of Darkness games are basically about coming of age/puberty. Like X-Men but for Goth-Nerds instead of Geek-Nerds. In Vampire, your body is going through weird changes and you are starting to develop, physically and/or mentally, while realis…

This tracks, but I'd say Werewolf goes beyond LGBT folks, the violence there also fits the boy's aggressive play and the saving the world theme resonated a lot with the basic "i want to be important/hero" thing. Its my favorite of all world of darkness books, i regret not getting the kickstarter edition :(
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