You're claiming all religious beliefs reduce to decision policies and social signals? That's pretty cynical, even for you.

Not all, just a pretty big chunk, especially among Mormons. I guess I didn't think of it as "cynical". That's a weird word.

It can't be both? (Not that I see its "high instrumental rationality" either.)

'Course it can. But the existence of two causal factors makes it hard to determine which of the two causal factors contributed most of the causal juices to our observation, such that "low epistemic standards" isn't quite as obviously a big factor.

I edited my comment to "Singularity's political situation". I didn't mean to imply Beck has a good political model more generally. Priors say he doesn't.