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advancedatheist comments on Cult impressions of Less Wrong/Singularity Institute - Less Wrong
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I think the phrase 'raising the sanity waterline' is a problem. As is the vaguely religious language, like 'litany of Tarski'. I looked up the definiton of 'litany' to make sure I was picking up on a religious denotation and not a religious connotation, and here's what I got:
Not a great word, I think. Also 'Bayesian Conspiracy.' There's no conspiracy, and there shouldn't be.
Agreed. I realize that the words like "litany" and "conspiracy" are used semi-ironically, but a newcomer to the site might not.
This wording may lose a few people, but it probably helps for many people as well. The core subject matter of rationality could very easily be dull or dry or "academic". The tounge-in-cheek and occasionally outright goofy humor makes the sequences a lot more fun to read.
The tone may have costs, but not being funny has costs too. If you think back to college, more professors have students tune out by being boring than by being esoteric.
(Responding to old post.)
One problem with such ironic usage is that people tend to joke about things that cause themselves stress, and that includes uncomfortable truths or things that are getting too close to the truth. It's why it actually makes sense to detain people making bomb jokes in airports. So just because the words are used ironically doesn't mean they can't reasonably be taken as signs of a cult--even by people who recognize that they are being used ironically.
(Although this is somewhat mitigated by the fact that many cults won't allow jokes about themselves at all.)
You'd have to be new to the entire internet to think those are being used seriously. And if you're THAT new, there's really very little that can be done to prevent misunderstanding no matter where you first land.
On top of that, it's extremely unlikely someone very new to the internet would start their journey at LessWrong