I am not sure I follow your argument completely. It feels to me as if you suggested that discussing everything, as long as it is polite and rational, is the proof of LessWrong hivemind.

Well, I would call that "culture", and I am happy to have it here. I am not sure what benefit exactly would we get by dismantling it. (A well-kept garden that committed suicide because it loved contrarianism too much?) I mean, it's not like none of us ever goes beyond the walls of LessWrong.

But then you say it's okay to criticize anything, as long as one doesn't criticize LessWrong itself. Well, this is from article "Self-Improvement or Shiny Distraction: Why Less Wrong is anti-Instrumental Rationality", having 92 karma at this moment:

I think Less Wrong is a failure at instilling abilities-in-practice, and designed in a way that detracts from people's real-world performance.

I'm going to try to explain what LW is, why that's bad, and sketch what a tool to actually help people become more rational would look like.

This post is based on the assumption that a) the creators of Less Wrong wish Less Wrong to result in people becoming better at achieving their goals (instrumental rationality, aka "efficient productivity"), and b) Some (perhaps many) readers read it towards that goal. It is this I think is self-deception.

what is Less Wrong? It is a blog, a succession of short fun posts with comments, most likely read when people wish to distract or entertain themselves, and tuned for producing shiny ideas which successfully distract and entertain people. As Merlin Mann says: "Joining a Facebook group about creative productivity is like buying a chair about jogging". Well, reading a blog to overcome akrasia IS joining a Facebook group about creative productivity.

Many (most?) participants are allowing LW to grab their attention because it is fun and easy, and thus simultaneously distracting themselves from Work (reducing their overall Work time) while convincing themselves that this distraction is helping them to become more rational. This reduces the chance that they will consciously Work towards rationality, since they feel they are already working towards that goal with their LW reading time.

So, what kind of observation specifically does your hypothesis disallow?

Trying (admittedly only for a very short time) to steelman your position, I'd say the "dogma" of LessWrong is that having an aspiring rationalist community is a good thing. Because LW is an aspiring rationalist community, so obviously people who think such community is stupid, filter themselves out of LW. In other words, the shared opinion of LW members is that LW should exist.