WrongBot comments on Open Thread: July 2010 - Less Wrong

6 Post author: komponisto 01 July 2010 09:20PM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (653)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: WrongBot 02 July 2010 09:07:35PM 2 points [-]

if someone is to call the discoverer, his discovery and a few of those experimenting with his method as a cultic organization, then the burden of proof lies on the shoulder of this someone, does it not?

Nope, and cult members ask the exact same question.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. You came here to convince people to adopt Actualism (it seems). So, actually convince me. Why should I pay more attention to you and your alleged non-cult than I do to someone else's alleged non-cult? Arguments based on the teachings of your alleged non-cult are worthlessly circular, because you're trying to convince me that such claims should have worth in the first place.

Comment author: naivecortex 02 July 2010 09:42:02PM *  -2 points [-]

You came here to convince people to adopt Actualism (it seems). So, actually convince me.

You're way off the mark. I am not intending to convince/convert anyone to Actualism; there is no group/belief-system/cult here (outside the human imagination, anyways).

I'm posting about Actualism here in LW (which presumably was never mentioned before) simply in the spirit of sharing information and possibly engaging in mutually-interesting discussion with other fellow freethinkers.

Why should I pay more attention to you and your alleged non-cult than I do to someone else's alleged non-cult?

As it is your life you are living with - and I am only posting here in the spirit of sharing - then what you do with it is completely up to you.

Arguments based on the teachings of your alleged non-cult are worthlessly circular, because you're trying to convince me that such claims should have worth in the first place.

I can't help but think that this is getting as absurd as a 19th century person responding to Darwin's claims on evolution as follows: *Arguments based on the teachings of your alleged non-cult cult are worthlessly circular, because you're trying to convince me that such claims should have worth in the first place"

But all is not lost; how do you reconcile your probabilistic non-factual belief on cultic nature of an organization that does not actually exist with what I wrote above (which is copy-pasted below for your convenience)?

Here's a hint: the fact that the AF method is primarily about investigation of one's own feelings/beliefs and how they cause malice/sorrow in oneself and others should automatically imply that phenomena such as groupthink, affective death spiral, dogmatic identification, belonging-to-a-group and so on are completely unproductive to its very thesis/goal.