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Why are there so many rationalist cults?

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Re: Why are there so many rationalist cults?

#61

Post by throw4847285 »

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…

People find academic philosophy impenetrable and pretentious, but it has two major advantages over rationalist cargo cults.

The first is diffusion of power. Social media is powered by charisma, and while it is certainly true that personality-based cults are nothing new, the internet makes it way easier to form one. Contrast that with academic philosophy. People can have their own little fiefdoms, and there is certainly abuse of power, but rarely concentrated in such a way that you see within rationalist communities.

The second (and more idealistic) is that the discipline of Philosophy is rooted in the Platonic/Socratic notion that "I know that I know nothing." People in academic philosophy are on the whole happy to provide a gloss on a gloss on some important thinker, or some kind of incremental improvement over somebody else's theory. This makes it extremely boring, and yet, not nearly as susceptible to delusions of grandeur. True skepticism has to start with questioning one's self, but everybody seems to skip that part and go right to questioning everybody else.

Rationalists have basically reinvented academic philosophy from the ground up with none of the rigor, self-discipline, or joy. They mostly seem to dedicate their time to providing post-hoc justifications for the most banal unquestioned assumptions of their subset of contemporary society.

Re: Why are there so many rationalist cults?

#62

Post by potato3732842 »

righthand wrote: post #13

[flagged]

I think it speaks volumes that you think "american" is the approximate level of scope that this behavior lives at.

Stuff like this crosses all aspects of society. Certain americans of certain backgrounds, demographics and life experiences are fare more likely engage in it than others. I think those people are minority, but they are definitely an overly visible one if not a local majority in a lot of internet spaces so it's easy to mistake them for the majority.

Re: Why are there so many rationalist cults?

#63

Post by andy99 »

optimalsolver wrote: post #50
andy99 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Boring as it is, this is the answer. It's just more religion. Church, cult, cult, church. So we'll get bored someplace else every Sunday. Does this really change our everyday lives?

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.

Re: Why are there so many rationalist cults?

#64

Post by reactordev »

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.

Rationalizing the fantasy. Like LARPing. Only you lack weapons, armor, magic missiles…

Re: Why are there so many rationalist cults?

#65

Post by keybored »

Cue all the surface-level “tribalism/loneliness/hooman nature” comments instead of the simple analysis that Rationalism (this kind) is severely brain-broken and irredeemable and will just foster even worse outcomes in a group setting. It’s a bit too close to home (ideologically) to get a somewhat detached analysis.

Re: Why are there so many rationalist cults?

#66

Post by ameliaquining »

alphazard wrote: post #48

The terminology here is worth noting. Is a Rationalist Cult a cult that practices Rationalism according to third parties, or is it a cult that says they are Rationalist? Clearly all of these groups that believe in demons or realities dictated by tabletop games are not what third parties would call Rationalist. They might call themselves that. There are some pretty simple tests that can out these groups as not rationa…

The article is talking about cults that arose out of the rationalist social milieu, which is a separate question from whether the cult's beliefs qualify as "rationalist" in some sense (a question that usually has no objective answer anyway).

Re: Why are there so many rationalist cults?

#67

Post by DonHopkins »

wavefunction wrote: post #28
mlinhares wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know, i'd understand something like Wraith (which I did see people developing issues, the shadow mechanic is such a terrible thing) but Mage is so, like, straightforward? Use your mind to control reality, reality fights back with paradox, its cool for a teenager but you read a bit more fantasy and you'll definitely find cooler stuff. But i guess for you to join a cult your mind must stay a teen mind forever.

How many adults actually abandon juvenalia as they age? Not the majority in my observation, and it's not always a bad thing when it's only applied to subjects like pop culture. Applied juvenalia in response to serious subjects is a more serious issue.

[dead]

Re: Why are there so many rationalist cults?

#68

Post by bubblyworld »

What is the base rate here? Hard to know the scope of the problem without knowing how many non-rationalists (is that even a coherent group of people?) end up forming weird cults, as a comparison. My impression is that crazy beliefs are common amongst everybody.

A much simpler theory is that rationalists are mostly normal people, and normal people tend to form cults.

Re: Why are there so many rationalist cults?

#69

Post by zzzeek »

because humans are biological creatures iterating through complex chemical processes that are attempting to allow a large organism to survive and reproduce within the specific ecosystem provided by the Earth in the present day. "Rational reasoning" is a quaint side effect that sometimes is emergent from the nervous system of these organisms, but it's nothing more than that. It's normal that the surviving/reproducing organism's emergent side effect of "rational thought", when it is particularly intense, will self-refer to the organism and act as though it has some kind of dominion over the organism itself, but this is, like the rationalism itself, just an emergent effect that is accidental and transient. Same as if you see a cloud that looks like an elephant (it's still just a cloud).

Re: Why are there so many rationalist cults?

#70

Post by hungryhobbit »

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.

Mage is an interesting game though: it's fantasy, but not "swords and dragons" fantasy. It's set in the real world, and the "magic" is just the "mage" shifting probabilities so that unlikely (but possible) things occur.

Such a setting would seem like the perfect backdrop for a cult that claims "we have the power to subtly influence reality and make improbable things (ie. "magic") occur".

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