And that's a reductio?

Insofar as many corporations would check more items from that list than I suspect the Boston LW group would, yes.

Insofar as many of the items are vague enough to apply to any social group that elicits loyalty from its members, yes.

One problem is relative terms like "excessive" in "excessively zealous, unquestioning commitment". What observations, precisely, count as indications of "excessive" behavior in this regard?

Or "preoccupied with making money" - well who isn't? Again, what's a cult-indicative level of preoccupation? It's going to be hard to beat, e.g. the startup community in terms of being obsessed with money, so this indicator totally fails to discriminate cults in any useful manner. If you said "cults assert and enforce an exclusive and all-encompassing claim to members' or prospective members' income and wealth", that would be more diagnostic. (But then you couldn't arbitrarily designate any group you didn't like as being a cult. Oh well.)