gwern comments on Notes on Brainwashing & 'Cults' - Less Wrong

35 Post author: gwern 13 September 2013 08:49PM

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Comment author: gwern 15 September 2013 07:14:03PM *  4 points [-]

How is competition from other cults impacting the decision to join a cult?

Exactly as I said, pressure from other cults: direct retaliation (like the legal system endorsing your kidnapping), opportunity costs, lack of subsidies, regulatory capture being used against you, the risk of joining a small new organization... Many of the reasons that apply to not joining a startup and instead working at Microsoft can be tweaked to apply to small cults vs big cults.

Well, I know of one cult that provides value in form of the nice fuzzy feeling of being able - through a very little effort - to see various things that, say, top physicists can not see. Except this feeling is attained entirely through self deception, unbeknown to the individuals, and arguing that it is providing value is akin to arguing that a scam which sells fake gold for the cheap is providing value.

You know what's even more awesome than self-deception? Sliming people you don't like as cults, when your ideas about what a cult is aren't even right in the first place. Sweet delicious meta-contrarianism.

True, it's not as good a racket as Singer getting paid tons of money to testify about how awful cults are and how powerful their deceptions are - but it's a lot less work and more convenient.

Comment author: private_messaging 15 September 2013 07:24:26PM *  -1 points [-]

Exactly as I said, pressure from other cults: direct retaliation (like the legal system endorsing your kidnapping), opportunity costs, lack of subsidies, regulatory capture being used against you, the risk of joining a small new organization... Many of the reasons that apply to not joining a startup and instead working at Microsoft can be tweaked to apply to small cults vs big cults.

I said, joining a cult. I didn't say, joining a small cult, I didn't say, joining a big cult, I said, joining a cult.

You know what's even more awesome than self-deception? Sliming people you don't like as cults, when your ideas about what a cult is aren't even right in the first place. Sweet delicious meta-contrarianism.

Well, a scam then, if you don't like me to call it a cult. It is my honest opinion that the value arises through the self deception, which goes against the intent of individual, and is of lesser value compared to what the individual is expecting to get.

Comment author: gwern 15 September 2013 07:42:04PM 3 points [-]

I said, joining a cult. I didn't say, joining a small cult, I didn't say, joining a big cult, I said, joining a cult.

I'm sorry, I didn't realize I was supposed to interpret that as meaninglessly general as possible, rather than, you know, be about the topic of my post or the topic of the previous comments.

Why do all organizations and religions in particular exist? That's a tough question which I'm afraid I have no quick answer to, but the right answer looks like 'all sorts of reasons'.

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