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Why are there so many rationalist cults?

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Re: Why are there so many rationalist cults?

#221

Post by jacquesm »

bobson381 wrote: post #8

I keep thinking about the first Avengers movie, when Loki is standing above everyone going "See, is this not your natural state?". There's some perverse security in not getting a choice, and these rationalist frameworks, based in logic, can lead in all kinds of crazy arbitrary directions - powered by nothing more than a refusal to suffer any kind of ambiguity.

They mostly seem to lean that way because it gives them carte blanche to do as they please. It is just a modern version of 'god has led my hand'.

Re: Why are there so many rationalist cults?

#222

Post by jacquesm »

potatolicious wrote: post #143
meroes wrote: post #47

It grew out of many different threads: different websites, communities, etc all around the same time. I noticed it contemporaneously in the philosophy world where Nick Bostrom’s Simulation argument was boosted more than it deserved (like everyone was just accepting it at the lay-level). Looking back I see it also developed from less wrong and other sites, but I was wondering what was going on with simulations taking…

Yeah, a lot of the comments here are really just addressing cults writ large and opposed to why this one was particularly successful. A significant part of this is the intersection of the cult with money and status - this stuff really took off once prominent SV personalities became associated with it, and got turbocharged when it started intersecting with the angel/incubator/VC scene, when there was implicit money in…

Paypal will be traced as the root cause of many of our future troubles.

Re: Why are there so many rationalist cults?

#223

Post by jacquesm »

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.

It's no more crazy than a virgin conception. And yet, here we are. A good chunk of the planet believes that drivel, but they'd throw their own daughters out of the house if they made the same claim.

Re: Why are there so many rationalist cults?

#224

Post by bitwize »

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?

It's been like this a while. Have you heard the tale of the Final Fantasy House?: http://www.demon-sushi.com/warning/

https://www.vice.com/en/article/the-tale-of-the-final-fantas...

Re: Why are there so many rationalist cults?

#225

Post by 6177c40f »

noqc wrote: post #154
johnisgood wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do not see any reasons for you to get down-voted. I agree that the term "rationalist" would appeal to many people, and the obvious need to belong to a group plays a huge role.

There are a lot of rationalists in this community. Pointing out that the entire thing is a cult attracts downvotes from people who wish to, for instance, avoid being identified with the offshoots.

No, the downvotes are because rationalism isn't a cult and people take offense to being blatantly insulted. This article is about cults that are rationalism-adjacent, it's not claiming that rationalism is itself a cult.

Re: Why are there so many rationalist cults?

#226

Post by egypturnash »

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've always been under the impression that M:tA's rules of How Magic Works are inspired by actual mystical beliefs that people have practiced for centuries. It's probably about as much of a magical for mystical development as the GURPS Cyberpunk rulebook was for cybercrime but it's pointing at something that already exists and saying "this is a thing we are going to tell an exaggerated story about".

See for example "Reality Distortion Field": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reality_distortion_field

Re: Why are there so many rationalist cults?

#227

Post by petralithic »

tialaramex wrote: post #165
saghm wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without speaking for religions I'm not familiar with, I grew up Catholic, and one of the most important Catholic beliefs is that during Mass, the bread (i.e. "communion" wafers) and wine quite literally transform into the body and blood of Jesus, and that eating and drinking it is a necessary ritual to get into heaven[1], which was a source of controversy even back as far as the Protestant Reformation, with some sect…

Yeah "Transubstantiation" is another technical term people might want to look at in this topic. The art piece "An Oak Tree" is a comment on these ideas. It's a glass of water. But, the artist's notes for this work insist it is an oak tree.

Someone else who knows "An Oak Tree"! It is one of my favorite pieces because it wants not reality itself to be the primary way to see the world, but the belief of what reality could be.

Re: Why are there so many rationalist cults?

#228

Post by VonGuard »

This is actually a known pattern in tech, going back to Engelbart and SRI. While not 1-to-1, you could say that the folks who left SRI for Xerox PARC did so because Engelbart and his crew became obsessed with EST: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erhard_Seminars_Training

EST-type training still exists today. You don't eat until the end of the whole weekend, or maybe you get rice and little else. Everyone is told to insult you day one until you cry. Then day two, still having not eaten, they build you up and tell you how great you are and have a group hug. Then they ask you how great you feel. Isn't this a good feeling? Don't you want your loved ones to have this feeling? Still having not eaten, you're then encouraged to pay for your family and friends to do the training, without their knowledge or consent.

A friend of mine did this training after his brother paid for his mom to do it, and she paid for him to do it. Let's just say that, though they felt it changed their lives at the time, their lives in no way shape or form changed. Two are in quite a bad place, in fact...

Anyway, point is, the people who invented everything we are using right now were also susceptible to cult-like groups with silly ideas and shady intentions.

Re: Why are there so many rationalist cults?

#229

Post by prepend »

afpx wrote: post #195
glenstein wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Her books were very popular with the gifted kids I hung out with in the late 80s. Cool kids would carry around hardback copies of Atlas Shrugged, impressive by the sheer physical size and art deco cover. How did that trend begin?

People reading the book and being into it and telling other people.

It’s also a hard book to read so it may be smart kids trying to signal being smart.

Re: Why are there so many rationalist cults?

#230

Post by prepend »

JTbane wrote: post #20
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.

I mean, is it a really good game?

I’ve never played, but now I’m kind of interesting.

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