Douglas_Knight3 comments on Cultish Countercultishness - Less Wrong

31 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 30 December 2007 12:53AM

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Comment author: Douglas_Knight3 21 May 2009 03:41:17PM 0 points [-]

Nancy, I'm confused by your sentence about "serving"; are you talking about how both soldiers and politicians are said to "serve"? or are you talking about how people get status points for becoming soldiers? (or police or...)

I think the main use of the word "cult" is something like "illegitimate source of authority." This explains both why "legitimate" sources of authority are similar and why no one wants to call them cults.

But they've got a big supply of legitimacy, so they don't have to do as much nasty stuff as cults. Yes, nations kill a lot of people, but not that many per member. Joining the military is probably a better idea than joining a cult.