Why are there so many rationalist cults? • Hacker News Board

Re: Why are there so many rationalist cults?

#181

Post by AnimalMuppet » Tue, Aug 12, 2025, 4:52 PM UTC

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?

From false premises, you can logically and rationally reach really wrong conclusions. If you have too much pride in your rationality, you may not be willing to say "I seem to have reached a really insane conclusion, maybe my premises are wrong". That is, the more you pride yourself on your rationalism, the more prone you may be to accepting a bogus conclusion if it is bogus because the premises are wrong.

Re: Why are there so many rationalist cults?

#182

Post by naasking » Tue, Aug 12, 2025, 5:17 PM UTC

nyeah wrote: post #130

naasking wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

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

And I think you missed the main point of my reply: that people often think we need more data, but cleverness and ingenuity can often find a way to make meaningful progress with existing data. Obviously I can't make any definitive judgment about your specific case, but I'm skeptical of any claim that it's out of the realm of possibility that some genius like Einstein analyzed your problem could get no further than you have.

Re: Why are there so many rationalist cults?

#183

Post by Mountain_Skies » Tue, Aug 12, 2025, 5:19 PM UTC

startupsfail wrote: post #102

reactordev wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s always been like this, have you read the Bible? Or the Koran? It’s insane. Ours is just our flavor of crazy. Every generation has some. When you dig at it, there’s always a religion.

It is used ti be always religion. But now downsides are well understood. And alternatives that can fill the same need (social activities) - like gathering with your neighbors, singing, performing arts, clubs, parks and paries are available and great.

Religions have multitudes of problems but suicide rates amongst atheists is higher than you'd think it would be. It seems like for many, rejection of organized religion leads to adoption of ad hoc quasi-religions with no mooring to them, leaving the person who is seeking a solid belief system drifting until they find a cult, give in to madness that causes self-harm, or adopt their own system of belief that they then need to vigorously protect from other beliefs.

Some percentage of the population has a lesser need for a belief system (supernatural, ad hoc, or anything else) but in general, most humans appear to be hardcoded for this need and the overlap doesn't align strictly with atheism. For the atheist with a deep need for something to believe in, the results can be ugly. Though far from perfect, organized religions tend to weed out their most destructive beliefs or end up getting squashed by adherents of other belief systems that are less internally destructive.

Re: Why are there so many rationalist cults?

#184

Post by idontwantthis » Tue, Aug 12, 2025, 5:20 PM UTC

ctoth wrote: post #112

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?

Suspicious implies uncertain. It’s not immediate rejection.

Re: Why are there so many rationalist cults?

#185

Post by hungmung » Tue, Aug 12, 2025, 5:20 PM UTC

bobson381 wrote: post #96

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…

There should be an extremist cult of people who are certain only that uncertainty is the only certain thing

What makes you so certain there isn't? A group that has a deep understanding fnord of uncertainty would probably like to work behind the scenes to achieve their goals.

Re: Why are there so many rationalist cults?

#186

Post by zzzeek » Tue, Aug 12, 2025, 5:22 PM UTC

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.

yeah, people should understand, what is Scientology based on? The E-Meter which is some kind of cheap shit radio shack lie detector thing. I'm quite sure LLMs would do very well if given the task to spit out new cult doctrines and I would gather we are less than years away from cults based on LLM generated content (if not already).

Re: Why are there so many rationalist cults?

#187

Post by jl6 » Tue, Aug 12, 2025, 5:23 PM UTC

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 don’t think it’s just (or even particularly) bad axioms, I think it’s that people tend to build up “logical” conclusions where they think each step is a watertight necessity that follows inevitably from its antecedents, but actually each step is a little bit leaky, leading to runaway growth in false confidence.

Not that non-rationalists are any better at reasoning, but non-rationalists do at least benefit from some intellectual humility.

Re: Why are there so many rationalist cults?

#188

Post by card_zero » Tue, Aug 12, 2025, 5:23 PM UTC

bobson381 wrote: post #96

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…

There should be an extremist cult of people who are certain only that uncertainty is the only certain thing

The Snatter Goblins?

https://archive.org/details/goblinsoflabyrin0000frou/page/10...

Re: Why are there so many rationalist cults?

#189

Post by rpcope1 » Tue, Aug 12, 2025, 5:23 PM UTC

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…

Even the real progenitors of a lot of this sort of thought, like E.T. Jaynes, expoused significantly more skepticism than I've ever seen a "rationalist" use. I would even imagine if you asked almost all rationalists who E.T. Jaynes was (if they weren't well versed in statistical mechanics) they'd have no idea who he was or why his work was important to applying "Bayesianism".

Re: Why are there so many rationalist cults?

#190

Post by BalinKing » Tue, Aug 12, 2025, 5:23 PM UTC

ponector wrote: post #160

JTbane wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I my experience, religious people are perfectly fine with contradicted worldview. Like christians are very flexible in following 10 commandments, always been.

That example isn’t a contradictory worldview though, just “people being people, and therefore failing to be as good as the ideal they claim to strive for.”