You're looking at Less Wrong's discussion board. This includes all posts, including those that haven't been promoted to the front page yet. For more information, see About Less Wrong.

Nornagest comments on Open thread, 7-14 July 2014 - Less Wrong Discussion

2 Post author: David_Gerard 07 July 2014 07:14AM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (232)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: Nornagest 10 July 2014 12:53:52AM *  1 point [-]

The simplest explanation I can see: I'm pretty sure the writers who coined some of the memes you reference (i.e. "Bayesian Conspiracy," "higher gate") were drawing on those very same occult traditions for affect and flair.

I'm pretty sure this is false, except insofar as some of the style of Western ceremonial magic has seeped into pop-cultural ideas of how conspiracies and secret teachings work. There isn't much overlap in doctrine, terminology, or practice other than what you'd expect from two different groups that've spent a lot of time thinking about how to cause change in accordance with will (which we call "instrumental rationality" and they call "magic").