Cult impressions of Less Wrong/Singularity Institute

John_Maxwell

If you type "less wrong c" or "singularity institute c" into Google, you'll find that people are searching for "less wrong cult" and "singularity institute cult" with some frequency. (EDIT: Please avoid testing this out, so Google doesn't autocomplete your search and reinforce their positions. This kind of problem can be hard to get rid of. Click these instead: less wrong cult, singularity institute cult.)

There doesn't seem to be anyone arguing seriously that Less Wrong is a cult, but we do give some newcomers that impression.

I have several questions related to this:

Did anyone reading this initially get the impression that Less Wrong was cultish when they first discovered it?
If so, can you suggest any easy steps we could take?
Is it possible that there are aspects of the atmosphere here that are driving away intelligent, rationally inclined people who might otherwise be interested in Less Wrong?
Do you know anyone who might fall into this category, i.e. someone who was exposed to Less Wrong but failed to become an enthusiast, potentially due to atmosphere issues?
Is it possible that our culture might be different if these folks were hanging around and contributing? Presumably they are disproportionately represented among certain personality types.

If you visit any Less Wrong page for the first time in a cookies-free browsing mode, you'll see this message for new users:

Less Wrong is a community blog devoted to refining the art of human rationality. Please visit our About page for more information.

Here are the worst violators I see on that about page:

Some people consider the Sequences the most important work they have ever read.

Generally, if your comment or post is on-topic, thoughtful, and shows that you're familiar with the Sequences, your comment or post will be upvoted.

Many of us believe in the importance of developing qualities described in Twelve Virtues of Rationality: [insert mystical sounding description of how to be rational here]

And on the sequences page:

If you don't read the sequences on Mysterious Answers to Mysterious Questions and Reductionism, little else on Less Wrong will make much sense.

This seems obviously false to me.

These may not seem like cultish statements to you, but keep in mind that you are one of the ones who decided to stick around. The typical mind fallacy may be at work. Clearly there is some population that thinks Less Wrong seems cultish, as evidenced by Google's autocomplete, and these look like good candidates for things that makes them think this.

We can fix this stuff easily, since they're both wiki pages, but I thought they were examples worth discussing.

In general, I think we could stand more community effort being put into improving our about page, which you can do now here. It's not that visible to veteran users, but it is very visible to newcomers. Note that it looks as though you'll have to click the little "Force reload from wiki" button on the about page itself for your changes to be published.

There doesn't seem to be anyone arguing seriously that Less Wrong is a cult, but we do give some newcomers that impression.

I have several questions related to this:

Did anyone reading this initially get the impression that Less Wrong was cultish when they first discovered it?
If so, can you suggest any easy steps we could take?
Is it possible that there are aspects of the atmosphere here that are driving away intelligent, rationally inclined people who might otherwise be interested in Less Wrong?
Do you know anyone who might fall into this category, i.e. someone who was exposed to Less Wrong but failed to become an enthusiast, potentially due to atmosphere issues?
Is it possible that our culture might be different if these folks were hanging around and contributing? Presumably they are disproportionately represented among certain personality types.

If you visit any Less Wrong page for the first time in a cookies-free browsing mode, you'll see this message for new users:

Less Wrong is a community blog devoted to refining the art of human rationality. Please visit our About page for more information.

Here are the worst violators I see on that about page:

Some people consider the Sequences the most important work they have ever read.

Generally, if your comment or post is on-topic, thoughtful, and shows that you're familiar with the Sequences, your comment or post will be upvoted.

Many of us believe in the importance of developing qualities described in Twelve Virtues of Rationality: [insert mystical sounding description of how to be rational here]

And on the sequences page:

If you don't read the sequences on Mysterious Answers to Mysterious Questions and Reductionism, little else on Less Wrong will make much sense.

This seems obviously false to me.

We can fix this stuff easily, since they're both wiki pages, but I thought they were examples worth discussing.

I don't believe LW is a cult, but I can see where intelligent, critical thinking people might get that impression. I also think that there may be elitist and clannish tendencies within LW that are detrimental in ways that could stand to be (regularly) examined. Vigilance against irrational bias is the whole point here, right? Shouldn't that be embraced on the group level as much as on an individual one?

Part of the problem as I see it is that LW can't decide if it's a philosophy/science or a cultural movement.

For instance, as already mentioned, there's a great deal of jargon, and there's a general attitude of impatience for anyone not thoroughly versed in the established concepts and terminology. Philosophies and sciences also have this problem, but the widely accepted and respected philosophical and scientific theories have proven themselves to the world (and weren't taken very seriously until they did). I personally believe there's a lot of substance to the ideas here, but LW hasn't delivered anything dramatic to the world at large. Until it does so it may remain, in the eyes of outsiders, as some kind of hybrid of Scientology and Objectivism - an insular group of people with a special language, a revered spokesperson, and who claim to have "the answers".

If, however, LW is supposed to be a cultural movement, then I'm sorry, but ”ur doin it wrong". Cultural movements gain momentum by being inclusive and organic, and by creating a forum for people to express themselves without fear of judgment. Movements are bottom up, and LW often gives the impression of being top down.

I'm not saying that a choice has to be made or even can be made, merely that there are conflicting currents here. I don't know if I have any great suggestions. I guess the one thing I can say is that while I've observed (am observing) a lot of debate and self-examination internally, there's still a strong outward impression of having found “the answers”. Perhaps if this community presented itself a little more as a forum for the active practice of critical thinking, and a little less as the authoritative source for an established methodology for critical thinking.

And if that doesn't work, we could always try bus ads.

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Cult impressions of Less Wrong/Singularity Institute

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Cult impressions of Less Wrong/Singularity Institute

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