51–60 of 63 posts
There's lots and lots written about cults and cult leaders, which is worth reading, such as Combatting Cult Mind Control by Steven Hassan, or if you prefer a more traditional take, "Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism" by Robert Jay Lifton. Or any of other dozens of good authoritative takes on the subject by people who have spent their careers formally studying such phenomena, which can draw lines between a…
Cult leader behavior: belief that no field of study matters until one's own attention is turned to it :)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's not interesting at all, because it was written partially to target Yudkowsky, with the goal that you won't "Pascal's mug"* yourself eg https://twitter.com/sashachapin/status/1657063187655843841 Keep in mind that a lot of tech-adjacent writing these days is just AI debates (and this is why he is not engaging with the actual cult literature or providing examples); this is not the place to debate the object-level…
I'm saying more that it's "interesting" in an argumentative way, not that it's actually of interest about how this is about EY. It should be interesting to followers of EY because all of these traits are things that cult leaders do, and are things that EY does, because EY is (intentionally or not) running a doomsday cult. It's impressive how much reach he's been able to get, to the point where his ideas of control an…
Not sure if it should be on the list but I think that epistemic certainty should be on the list as something distinct from personal humility. You can command a room by saying something like "I'm not all that smart, smart people overcomplicate this, but this is so simple..." I tend to be a "only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing" sort of guy, but when I run into someone who isn't like that, who seems to have…
Not sure if it should be on the list but I think that epistemic certainty should be on the list as something distinct from personal humility. You can command a room by saying something like "I'm not all that smart, smart people overcomplicate this, but this is so simple..." I tend to be a "only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing" sort of guy, but when I run into someone who isn't like that, who seems to have…
Reminds me of "One weird trick." Really they're two specimens of the same phenomenon. Some people essentially spam and clickbait the world with ads for themselves.
Some related thoughts, sorted by brevity: (1) All pathos are healthy behaviors "gone wrong" - wrong time, or, wrong place, or (mostly), wrong magnitude. (2) I wondered for a very long time: what's the difference between being convinced, and being manipulated? Stumbled across something on the 'net that finally gave an answer: Manipulation begins with diminishment, and (bringing it back to cults), "isolation" is one of…
> Drop a ball on sand, it goes thud; the force involved is the weight of the ball. Drop a bouncy ball on concrete, the force is ~2x (stopping the downward motion, then enough for the upward motion). The force in both scenarios is exactly the same. In the first the force goes into displacing the sand while in the second - since the concrete is a rigid lattice - the force goes into deforming the ball, which causes it t…
AFAICT - The force to bring the ball to rest is exactly the same. As you point out, either the sand or the ball's structure (or the ground's structure, such as a trampoline) absorbs that force. After that however, one ball remains at rest, and the other ball accelerates back up. The force producing that acceleration is exerted (keeping in mind newton's third). If the ball returns to 80% of the original height, then that's 100% of the force to bring it to rest (same in both situations), and then an additional 80% of the force to re-"throw" it, which is only present in the bounce. So in a "thud" there's 100% of the force, and in the "bounce" there's 1xx% of the force.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
use a different word then
> What's wrong with this blog post is that the author does not seem to have read any books at all on the subject, Lol and you didn't read the blog post apparently
It's interesting how many of these traits line up perfectly with the actions of Eliezer Yudkowsky. Especially the parts about lacking humility to the point where they think their ideology will save the universe from certain doom. Or making people who follow his words say that everyone who thinks he's crazy just "doesn't get it" and is tragically unable to absorb the wisdom or goodness.
A substantive discussion of this topic isn't going to work if it veers into dissecting particular personalities.
It's interesting how many of these traits line up perfectly with the actions of Eliezer Yudkowsky. Especially the parts about lacking humility to the point where they think their ideology will save the universe from certain doom. Or making people who follow his words say that everyone who thinks he's crazy just "doesn't get it" and is tragically unable to absorb the wisdom or goodness.
Please let's not cross into personal attack on HN. I gather that's not your intent, but threads can too easily turn that way unintentionally. A substantive discussion of this topic isn't going to work if it veers into dissecting particular personalities. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html