= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
IlyaShpitser comments on Open thread, Nov. 23 - Nov. 29, 2015 - Less Wrong Discussion
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
= 783df68a0f980790206b9ea87794c5b6)
Loading…= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
Powered by Reddit
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d)
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (257)
As I said, I don't think rationalists are actually a cult in the way that Scientology is a cult. But I think there are some cult-like characteristics to the rationalist movement (and a big part of this is EY's position in the movement).
And I think it would be a good idea for the movement to become more like colleagues, and less like what they are now. What I think is somewhat disappointing is both EY and a fair bit of rank and file like things as they are.
I don't know if this matters. I don't particularly care for the Sequences, but that hasn't caused me any problems at all. LessWrong has been an easy site to get into and to learn from, and would be even if I never read anything by EY. (This seems to be true for most aspects of the site; LessWrong is useful even if you don't care about AIs, transhumanism, cybernetics, effective altruism.... there's enough here that you can find plenty to learn.)
You may be seeing the problem as bigger than it is because of the lens that you are looking through, although I agree that charisma is an interesting thing to study, and was central to the development of the site.
It's not just LW, it's the invisible social organization around it.
"Culty" dynamics matter. It's dangerous stuff to be playing with.