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Why are there so many rationalist cults?

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Re: Why are there so many rationalist cults?

#371

Post by psunavy03 »

Muromec wrote: post #342
psunavy03 wrote: post #335

A problem with this whole mindset is that humans, all of us, are only quasi-rational beings. We all use System 1 ("The Elephant") and System 2 ("The Rider") thinking instinctively. So if you end up in deep denial about your own capacity for irrationality, I guess it stands to reason you could end up getting led down some deep dark rabbit holes.

Wasn't the "fast&slow" thingy debunked as another piece of popscience?

The point remains. People are not 100 percent rational beings, never have been, never will be, and it's dangerous to assume that this could ever be the case. Just like any number of failed utopian political movements in history that assumed people could ultimately be molded and perfected.

Re: Why are there so many rationalist cults?

#372

Post by nemomarx »

PaulHoule wrote: post #338
ar-nelson wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find Yudowsky-style rationalists morbidly fascinating in the same way as Scientologists and other cults. Probably because they seem to genuinely believe they're living in a sci-fi story. I read a lot of their stuff, probably too much, even though I find it mostly ridiculous. The biggest nonsense axiom I see in the AI-cult rationalist world is recursive self-improvement. It's the classic reason superintelligence tak…

Yeah, to compare Yudkowsky to Hubbard I've read accounts of people who read Dianetics or Science of Survival and thought "this is genius!" and I'm scratching my head and it's like they never read Freud or Horney or Beck or Berne or Burns or Rogers or Kohut, really any clinical psychology at all, even anything in the better 70% of pop psychology. Like Hubbard, Yudkowsky is unreadable, rambling [1] and inarticulate --…

I thought sequences was the blog posts and the fanfic was kept separately, to nitpick

Re: Why are there so many rationalist cults?

#373

Post by tshaddox »

lukan wrote: post #356
twic wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a variant of this that argues that humans are already as intelligent as it's possible to be. Because if it's possible to be more intelligent, why aren't we? And a slightly more reasonable variant that argues that we're already as intelligent as it's useful to be.

"Because if it's possible to be more intelligent, why aren't we?" Because deep abstract thoughts about the nature of the universe and elaborate deep thinking were maybe not as useful while we were chasing lions and buffaloes with a spear? We just had to be smarter then them. Which included finding out that tools were great. Learning about the habits of the prey and optmize hunting success. Those who were smarter in t…

Is it just dumb luck that we're able to create knowledge about black holes, quarks, and lots of things in between which presumably had zero evolutionary benefit before a handful of generations ago?

Re: Why are there so many rationalist cults?

#374

Post by MinimalAction »

tbrake wrote: post #337
Muromec wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you know?

having known dozens of friends, family, roommates, coworkers etc both before and after they started them. The two biggest telltale signs - 1. tendency to produce - out of no necessity whatsoever, mind - walls of text. walls of speech will happen too but not everyone rambles. 2. Obnoxiously confident that they're fundamentally correct about whatever position they happen to be holding during a conversation with you. No…

Pretty much spot on! It is frustrating to talk with these when they never admit they are wrong. They find new levels of abstractions to deal with your simpler counterarguments and it is a never ending deal unless you admit they were right.

Re: Why are there so many rationalist cults?

#375

Post by throwanem »

6177c40f wrote: post #215
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…

To be clear, this article isn't calling rationalism a cult, it's about cults that have some sort of association with rationalism (social connection and/or ideology derived from rationalist concepts), e.g. the Zizians.

This article attempts to establish disjoint categories "good rationalist" and "cultist." Its authorship, and its appearance in the cope publication of the "please take us seriously" rationalist faction, speak volumes of how well it is likely to succeed in that project.

Re: Why are there so many rationalist cults?

#376

Post by Terr_ »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #238
ar-nelson wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find Yudowsky-style rationalists morbidly fascinating in the same way as Scientologists and other cults. Probably because they seem to genuinely believe they're living in a sci-fi story. I read a lot of their stuff, probably too much, even though I find it mostly ridiculous. The biggest nonsense axiom I see in the AI-cult rationalist world is recursive self-improvement. It's the classic reason superintelligence tak…

An interesting point you make there — one would assume that if recursive self-improvement were a thing, Nature would have already lead humans into that "hall of mirrors".

I often like to point out that Earth was already consumed by Grey Goo, and today we are hive-minds in titanic mobile megastructure-swarms of trillions of the most complex nanobots in existence (that we know of), inheritors of tactics and capabilities from a zillion years of physical and algorithmic warfare.

As we imagine the ascension of AI/robots, it may seem like we're being humble about ourselves... But I think it's actually the reverse: It's a kind of hubris elevating our ability to create over the vast amount we've inherited.

Re: Why are there so many rationalist cults?

#377

Post by freejazz »

derektank wrote: post #274
inasio wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Saw once a discussion that people should not have kids as it's by far the highest increase in your carbon footprint in your lifetime (>10x than going vegan, etc) be driven all the way to advocating genocide as a way of carbon footprint minimization

Setting aside the reductio ad absurdum of genocide, this is an unfortunately common viewpoint. People really need to take into account the chances their child might wind up working on science or technology which reduces global CO2 emissions or even captures CO2. This reasoning can be applied to all sorts of naive "more people bad" arguments. I can't imagine where the world would be if Norman Borlaug's parents had dec…

Insane to call "more people bad" naive but then actually try and account for what would otherwise best be described as hope.

Re: Why are there so many rationalist cults?

#378

Post by gen220 »

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…

Strongly recommend this profile in the NYer on Curtis Yarvin (who also uses "rationalism" to justify their beliefs) [0]. The section towards the end that reports on his meeting one of his supposed ideological heroes for an extended period of time is particularly illuminating.

I feel like the internet has led to an explosion of these such groups because it abstracts the "ideas" away from the "people". I suspect if most people were in a room or spent an extended amount of time around any of these self-professed, hyper-online rationalists, they would immediately disregard any theories they were able to cook up, no matter how clever or persuasively-argued they might be in their written down form.

[0]: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2025/06/09/curtis-yarvin-...

Re: Why are there so many rationalist cults?

#379

Post by nemomarx »

prepend wrote: post #230
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 mean, is it a really good game? I’ve never played, but now I’m kind of interesting.

It's reportedly alright - the resolution mechanic seems a little fiddly with varying pools of dice for everything. The lore is pretty interesting though and I think a lot of the point of that series of games was reading up on that.

Re: Why are there so many rationalist cults?

#380

Post by jmull »

I think rationalist cults work exactly the same as religious cults. They promise to have all the answers, to attract the vulnerable. The answers are convoluted and inscrutable, so a leader/prophet interprets them. And doom is neigh, providing motivation and fear to hold things together.

It's the same wolf in another sheep's clothing.

And people who wouldn't join a religious cult -- e.g. because religious cults are too easy to recognize since we're all familiar with them, or because religions hate anything unusual about gender -- can join a rationalist cult instead.

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