TheAncientGeek comments on Cult impressions of Less Wrong/Singularity Institute - Less Wrong

29 Post author: John_Maxwell_IV 15 March 2012 12:41AM

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Comment author: JoshuaFox 15 March 2012 10:12:30AM *  24 points [-]

Eliezer addressed this in part with his "Death Spiral" essay, but there are some features to LW/SI that are strongly correlated with cultishness, other than the ones that Eliezer mentioned such as fanaticism and following the leader:

  • Having a house where core members live together.
  • Asking followers to completely adjust their thinking processes to include new essential concepts, terminologies, and so on to the lowest level of understanding reality.
  • Claiming that only if you carry out said mental adjustment can you really understand the most important parts of the organization's philosophy.
  • Asking for money for a charity, particularly one which does not quite have the conventional goals of a charity, and claiming that one should really be donating a much larger percentage of one's income than most people donate to charity.
  • Presenting an apocalyptic scenario including extreme bad and good possibilities, and claiming to be the best positioned to deal with it.
  • [Added] Demand you leave any (other) religion.

Sorry if this seems over-the-top. I support SI. These points have been mentioned, but has anyone suggested how to deal with them? Simply ignoring the problem does not seem to be the solution; nor does loudly denying the charges; nor changing one's approach just for appearances.

Comment author: TheAncientGeek 20 May 2014 01:33:44PM 4 points [-]

add

  • Leader(s) are credited with expertise beyond that convenrional experts in subjects they are not conventionally qualified in.

  • Studying conventional versions of subjects is deprecated in favour of in group versions.

Comment author: JoshuaFox 20 May 2014 06:03:48PM *  2 points [-]

Also:

Associated with non-standard and non-monogamous sexual practices.

(Just some more pattern-matching on top of what you see in the parent and grandparent comment. I don't actually think this is a strong positive indicator.)

Comment author: TheAncientGeek 20 May 2014 06:24:58PM 2 points [-]

The usual version of that indicator is "leader has sex with followers"