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Why are there so many rationalist cults?

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Re: Why are there so many rationalist cults?

#121

Post by ZeroGravitas »

andy99 wrote: post #63
optimalsolver wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funnily enough, the actress who voiced this line is a Scientologist: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nancy_Cartwright#Personal_life

I think they were making fun of the "Moonies" so she was probably able to rationalize it. Pretty sure Isaac Hayes quit South Park over their making fun of scientologists.

I read recently that he suffered a serious medical event atound that time and it was actually cult members speaking on his behalf that withdrew him from the show.

I think it was a relative of his claiming this.

Re: Why are there so many rationalist cults?

#122

Post by biophysboy »

> “There’s this belief [among rationalists],” she said, “that society has these really bad behaviors, like developing self-improving AI, or that mainstream epistemology is really bad–not just religion, but also normal ‘trust-the-experts’ science. That can lead to the idea that we should figure it out ourselves. And what can show up is that some people aren't actually smart enough to form very good conclusions once they start thinking for themselves.”

I see this arrogant attitude all the time on HN: reflexive distrust of the "mainstream media" and "scientific experts". Critical thinking is a very healthy idea, but its dangerous when people use it as a license to categorically reject sources. Its even worse when extremely powerful people do this; they can reduce an enormous sub-network of thought into a single node for many many people.

So, my answer for "Why Are There So Many Rationalist Cults?" is the same reason all cults exist: humans like to feel like they're in on the secret. We like to be in secret clubs.

Re: Why are there so many rationalist cults?

#123

Post by mlinhares »

reactordev wrote: post #87
mlinhares wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mage is a game for teenagers, it doesn't try to be anything else other than a game where you roll dice do to stuff.

Mage yea, but the cult? Where do you roll for crazy? Is it a save against perception? Constitution? Or intelligence check? I know the church of Scientology wants you to crit that roll of tithing.

> I know the church of Scientology wants you to crit that roll of tithing.

I shouldn't LOL at this but I must. We're all gonna die in these terrible times but at least we'll LOL at the madness and stupidity of it all.

Re: Why are there so many rationalist cults?

#124

Post by rglover »

SirFatty wrote: post #25
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?

Came to ask a similar question, but also has it always been like this? The difference is now these people/groups on the fringe had no visibility before the internet? It's nuts.

> Came to ask a similar question, but also has it always been like this?

Crazy people have always existed (especially cults), but I'd argue recruitment numbers are through the roof thanks to technology and a failing economic environment (instability makes people rationalize crazy behavior).

It's not that those groups didn't have visibility before, it's just easier for the people who share the same...interests...to cloister together on an international scale.

Re: Why are there so many rationalist cults?

#125

Post by ameliaquining »

api wrote: post #2

Why are there so many cults? People want to feel like they belong to something, and in a world in the midst of a loneliness and isolation epidemic the market conditions are ideal for cults.

The question the article is asking is "why did so many cults come out of this particular social milieu", not "why are there a lot of cults in the whole world".

Re: Why are there so many rationalist cults?

#126

Post by ameliaquining »

biophysboy wrote: post #122

> “There’s this belief [among rationalists],” she said, “that society has these really bad behaviors, like developing self-improving AI, or that mainstream epistemology is really bad–not just religion, but also normal ‘trust-the-experts’ science. That can lead to the idea that we should figure it out ourselves. And what can show up is that some people aren't actually smart enough to form very good conclusions once th…

Sure, but that doesn't say anything about why one particular social scene would spawn a bunch of cults while others do not, which is the question that the article is trying to answer.

Re: Why are there so many rationalist cults?

#127

Post by the_third_wave »

Gott ist tot! Gott bleibt tot! Und wir haben ihn getötet! Wie trösten wir uns, die Mörder aller Mörder? Das Heiligste und Mächtigste, was die Welt bisher besaß, es ist unter unseren Messern verblutet.

The average teenager who reads Nietzsches proclamation on the death of God thinks of this as an accomplishment, finally we got rid of those thousands of years old and thereby severely outdated ideas and rules. Somewhere along the march to maturity they may start to wonder whether that which has replaced those old rules and ideas were good replacements but most of them never come to the realisation that there were rebellious teenagers during all those centuries when the idea of a supreme being to which or whom even the mightiest were to answer to still held sway. Nietzsche saw the peril in letting go off that cultural safety valve and warned for what might come next.

We are currently living in the world he warned us about and for that I, atheist as I am, am partly responsible. The question to be answered here is whether it is possible to regain the benefits of the old order without getting back the obvious excesses, the abuse, the sanctimoniousness and all the other abuses of power and privilege which were responsible for turning people away from that path.

Re: Why are there so many rationalist cults?

#128

Post by ryandrake »

glenstein wrote: post #56
SirFatty wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Came to ask a similar question, but also has it always been like this? The difference is now these people/groups on the fringe had no visibility before the internet? It's nuts.

I personally (for better or worse) became familiar with Ayn Rand as a teenager, and I think Objectivism as a kind of extended Ayn Rand social circle and set of organizations has faced the charge of cultish-ness, and that dates back to, I want to say, the 70s and 80s at least. I know Rand wrote much earlier than that, but I think the social and organizational dynamics unfolded rather late in her career.

“There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs."

https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/366635-there-are-two-novels...

Re: Why are there so many rationalist cults?

#129

Post by reactordev »

mlinhares wrote: post #123
reactordev wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mage yea, but the cult? Where do you roll for crazy? Is it a save against perception? Constitution? Or intelligence check? I know the church of Scientology wants you to crit that roll of tithing.

> I know the church of Scientology wants you to crit that roll of tithing. I shouldn't LOL at this but I must. We're all gonna die in these terrible times but at least we'll LOL at the madness and stupidity of it all.

Like all tragedies, there’s comedy there somewhere. Sometimes you have to be it.

Re: Why are there so many rationalist cults?

#130

Post by nyeah »

naasking wrote: post #114
nyeah wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 encourag…

I suspect you didn't read some parts of my comment. I didn't say everyone in the world is always data-limited, I said we normally are where I work. I didn't recommend "sitting back on our laurels." I made very specific recommendations.

The qualifier "normally" already covers "not entirely true". Of course it's not entirely true. It's mostly true for us now. (In fact twenty years ago we used more numerical models than we do now, because we were facing more unsolved problems where the solution was pretty well knowable just by doing more complicated calculations, but without taking more data. Back then, when people started taking lots of data, it was often a total waste of time. But right now, most of those problems seem to be solved. We're facing different problems that seem much harder to model, so we rely more on data. This stage won't be permanent either.)

It's not a sentiment, it's a reality that we have to deal with.

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