They may claim that technically, the group doesn’t fit the characteristics of a cult, or that technically some other group that is an accepted part of society does fit the characteristics of a cult, and therefore that society, by its own standards, must accept the group. But this is false! Society doesn’t have to use this standard, and often doesn’t. It comes across as trying to undermine the often unspoken norms of the society, make them legible so the group can manipulate them in order to achieve its ends. That feels threatening.
I think this is both an important point and proves too much. I’m interested in a discussion harms-of-cults or (not of cults) rationalism might be producing, but I can’t get invested in the opinion of a guy who thinks a three story building is inherently ominous.
That’s an entirely valid interest. One point I want to make is that when people spin a narrative accusing a group of being a cult, the points of evidence they raise are often post-hoc rationalizations rather than true reports on how they concluded the group was a cult. In this case, I doubt the guy truly finds the building is ominous, any more than I find pictures of the art in Jeffrey Epstein’s mansion ominous. They take on an ominous feeing because of prior assumptions about the group that are being mapped on to things associated with it.
This matters because it’s important to accurately distinguish the real evidence someone’s drawing on to form their conclusion that a group is a cult from the narrative they’re spinning to make an accusation or insult. In this case, the quip about the building is the insult, not the evidence. It’s still fine to not take the insult seriously. But usually we evaluate people’s evidence and reasoning process to decide whether to take them seriously. In this case, we’d want to know how the guy truly first came to the conclusion that rationalism was a cult. Maybe he heard a bunch of stories about the Zizians and was exposed to some salacious Metz quotes of Scott’s writing and Tyler Cowen’s quotes of Eliezer. Maybe he heard from his friend they’re a cult and saw some weirdly dressed people going to a party and heard about Aella doing sex work to pay for IVF. Or maybe he applied the cult criteria differently than OP here and decided the rationalists fit the bill. Some reasons may be good, others bad, but in any case, this is where I’d look to decide whether to take him seriously. If I just wanted to defend rationalism I’d say “this guy is a bigot, a rationalist-phobe, and a hypocrite. He should be ashamed of himself. Would he talk this way about a religious community or an ethnic group or a hobby community? No? Then what makes it OK to talk about us this way? It’s unacceptable.” Etc.
I think this is both an important point and proves too much. I’m interested in a discussion harms-of-cults or (not of cults) rationalism might be producing, but I can’t get invested in the opinion of a guy who thinks a three story building is inherently ominous.
That’s an entirely valid interest. One point I want to make is that when people spin a narrative accusing a group of being a cult, the points of evidence they raise are often post-hoc rationalizations rather than true reports on how they concluded the group was a cult. In this case, I doubt the guy truly finds the building is ominous, any more than I find pictures of the art in Jeffrey Epstein’s mansion ominous. They take on an ominous feeing because of prior assumptions about the group that are being mapped on to things associated with it.
This matters because it’s important to accurately distinguish the real evidence someone’s drawing on to form their conclusion that a group is a cult from the narrative they’re spinning to make an accusation or insult. In this case, the quip about the building is the insult, not the evidence. It’s still fine to not take the insult seriously. But usually we evaluate people’s evidence and reasoning process to decide whether to take them seriously. In this case, we’d want to know how the guy truly first came to the conclusion that rationalism was a cult. Maybe he heard a bunch of stories about the Zizians and was exposed to some salacious Metz quotes of Scott’s writing and Tyler Cowen’s quotes of Eliezer. Maybe he heard from his friend they’re a cult and saw some weirdly dressed people going to a party and heard about Aella doing sex work to pay for IVF. Or maybe he applied the cult criteria differently than OP here and decided the rationalists fit the bill. Some reasons may be good, others bad, but in any case, this is where I’d look to decide whether to take him seriously. If I just wanted to defend rationalism I’d say “this guy is a bigot, a rationalist-phobe, and a hypocrite. He should be ashamed of himself. Would he talk this way about a religious community or an ethnic group or a hobby community? No? Then what makes it OK to talk about us this way? It’s unacceptable.” Etc.