Robin, transmission of expertise in non-rational domains has to rely on authority rather than argument, so is more susceptible to slide into abuse of authority than transmission in rational domains. The original post here is strange in that it supposes such a type of transmission in the field of rational teaching. The definition of cult in the field of master / disciple relationships has to start with an examination of whether authority is being abused by, for example, being exercised in areas unrelated to the teaching. Don't take sweets from philosophers.

That lastr one got through, so let's try : Random malfunction ?

Trying to work out the biases of the new antispam filter. Frequency of comments from same individual in same thread ?

Just had a response to Goplat rejected as spam. Wonder what the biases built in to the new antispam filter are ?

Goplat, can't answer for Caledonian, but as I'm pretty sad & pathetic myself, I'll take a stab. The unborn represent variety and potentiality. More of the same represents sterility. Sure I'd like to live 500 productive & happy years, but am in my better moments conscious that with present biotechnology this is unlikely. With SIAI improved biotechnology who knows ? However, my totally uninformed intuition is that however superproductive & longlived the ultra-new curly-wurly chromosomes that my friendly neighbourhood SIAI will give me are, they would do better (in accordance with their interest) endowing them on the young of the species. Your argument that we now are happy living 80 years where our ancestors were lucky to make 40 is pertinent, but adding years after 40 still doesn't increase the productive lifespan of a mathematician. Jesus died at 30 (or was it 33 ?). Mother Theresa was doing productive caring work into advanced old age. So perhaps youth = creativity, age = caring. A 'Self Improving' AI would surely privilege the 1st option. For better or for worse. Personally I'm for balance, and am all for the increase of life expectancy at a rate which is compatible with human capacity to adapt. I wrote a piece on the Impossibility of a 'Friendly' SIAI which I may inflict on the world someday.

Couldn't resist adding a complaint about the abuse of the term 'guru' as a term of ...abuse. It represents in fact an exponent of a perfectly respectable form of expertise transmission in non-rational domains. Drift into abuse of authority by such an exponent is perhaps more likely because the method relies on authority rather than argument, but that doesn't mean that the concept is invalid, or indeed that there is any other method possible in those domains.

What about the Guru who wrote 'Why work towards the Singularity' ? It is a text with a distinctly Messianic feel. Or, to be more generous, a Promethean feel. While it is true that Hom Sap has a nasty itch to create anything that can be created, regardless, thre's no need for such pseudo valuations as the following : "If there's a Singularity effort that has a strong vision of this future and supports projects that explicitly focus on transhuman technologies such as brain-computer interfaces and self-improving Artificial Intelligence, then humanity may succeed in making the transition to this future a few years earlier, saving millions of people who would have otherwise died. Around the world, the planetary death rate is around fifty-five million people per year (UN statistics) - 150,000 lives per day, 6,000 lives per hour. These deaths are not just premature but perhaps actually unnecessary. At the very least, the amount of lost lifespan is far more than modern statistics would suggest." Who says that continuing the lives of us dull old farts, to the inevitable detriment of the unborn, has any positive value ? I'd say that's monstruous. The transhuman AI may be an unavoidable consequence of our Luciferian inclination to meddle. That doesn't mean it's a cause. Any chance of it becoming a cult ?

Robin : "For example, "ostracizing anyone who dared contradict her" would seemingly apply to a great many, perhaps the majority, of ordinary human organizations." : Yes, but there is a difference between ostracizing = damning to the nethermost pits of hell with no hope of salvation and ostracizing = delaying your next pay increase by a couple of months. i.e., the cult-dom-ness is contingent on the existential nature of the ostracization.

EY, thanks for the link in this post to your Global Risks paper. It addresses in passing something that had puzzled me : how would an AI acquire hands ? On Ayn Rand : the concept of purity seems to me central in cult formation, more so than that of absoluteness. See, for instance, the deviations of the Self Realisation Foundation in handling Yogananda's legacy. Or, for that matter, General Jack D Ripper in Dr Strangelove. So, let your knowledge and wisdom increase, but let them not be pure. Amen.

"an "environmentalist" is not someone who believes in the existence of the environment." Non sequitur. An environmentalist is someone who believes in the value of the environment. sloppy, sloppy, sloppy.......