jimrandomh comments on Cult impressions of Less Wrong/Singularity Institute - Less Wrong
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Google's autocomplete has a problem, which has produced controversy in other contexts: when people want to know whether X is trustworthy, the most informative search they can make is "X scam". Generally speaking, they'll find no results and that will be reassuring. Unfortunately, Google remembers those searches, and presents them later as suggestions - implying that there might be results behind the query. Once the "X scam" link starts showing up in the autocomplete, people who weren't really suspicious of X click on it, so it stays there.
Personal anecdote warning. I semi-routinely google the phrase "X cult" when looking into organizations.
Does this ever work?
I think so, but it's hard to say. I look into organizations infrequently enough that semi-routinely leaves me a very small sample size. The one organization that had prominent cult results(not going to name it for obvious reasons) does have several worrying qualities. And they seem related to why it was called a cult. -edit minor grammar/style fix
Thanks; I updated the post to reflect this.