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PeerInfinity comments on How to Save the World - Less Wrong
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good point, thanks, but I think it would still be a very bad idea to avoid having any friends who are world-savers, just to avoid seeming cult-like.
And I should mention that I think that it would also be a bad idea to avoid being friends with anyone who currently isn't a world-saver, because of a mistaken belief that only world-savers are worthy of friendship.
Also, even the cults know that making friends with non-cult-members can be an effective recruitment strategy.
I rephrased the second point as "Spend less time with your current friends, if it's obvious that they are causing you to be significantly less effective at world-saving, and the situation isn't likely to improve any time soon. But don't break contact with any of your current friends entirely, just because they aren't world-savers."
the original version was "Spend less time with your current friends, if it's obvious that they have no interest in world-saving, and they aren't helping you be more effective at world-saving, and you're not likely to make them any more interested in world-saving."
or maybe I should just drop the second point entirely...
Thoughts on the 1st and 2nd points:
To the extent that you are or can be someone others look up to and are inspired by, stay friends with as many non-world-savers as possible. If you assess yourself as unable to exert a possible influence in this way, have less non-world-saver friendships. Or at least keep your two worlds from colliding, so the positive one isn't hampered by the recreational one.
Having friends with shared interests is critical for many people -- I can't tell you how little I care about IT (my job) when I don't have other enthusiastic people to discuss the tech with. Or, wait, I guess I just did.
Jordan - When Ben Franklin started the Junto, and later the American Philosophical Society, was he being cultish?
That depends whether you are optimising for world saving advice or social signalling.
In the current form it doesn't seem cultish so much as it seems blatantly obvious. To be honest the part about synergy and sharing actually struck me as more cultish.
In my geographical area, I know only about 10 people who might be described as trying to save the world. I would hate to have that small a pool of potential friends. Also, I think spending time on non-world-saving activities is essential to my mental health. Some of that off time happens with friends who aren't interested in saving the world. That's fine.
It is fine. Just so long as it is not intended as any more than tangentially relevant to the grandparent.
Not if maintaining my mental health (via social connections) is important to my ability to save the world.