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RichardKennaway comments on Cult impressions of Less Wrong/Singularity Institute - Less Wrong
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LW doesn't do as much as I'd like to discourage people from falling into happy death spirals about LW-style rationality, like this. There seem to be more and more people who think sacrificing their life to help build FAI is an ethical imperative. If I were Eliezer, I would run screaming in the other direction the moment I saw the first such person, but he seems to be okay with that. That's the main reason why I feel LW is becoming more cultish.
How do you distinguish a happy death spiral from a happy life spiral? Wasting one's life on a wild goose chase from spending one's life on a noble cause?
"I take my beliefs seriously, you are falling into a happy death spiral, they are a cult."
I guess you meant to ask, "how do you distinguish ideas that lead to death spirals from ideas that lead to good things?" My answer is that you can't tell by looking only at the idea. Almost any idea can become a subject for a death spiral if you approach it the wrong way (the way Will_Newsome wants you to), or a nice research topic if you approach it right.
I've recanted; maybe I should say so somewhere. I think my post on the subject was sheer typical mind fallacy. People like Roko and XiXiDu are clearly damaged by the "take things seriously" meme, and what it means in my head is not what it means in the heads of various people who endorse the meme.