Disagree: the problem with rationalist cults is that they’re wrong about [the effects of their behavior / whether what they’re doing is optimific], not that what they’re doing is Pascalian. (And empirically you should expect that subcommunities that really hurt their members do so for bad reasons.)
Yeah I’m pretty familiar with Black Lotus and Leverage and don’t think they used pascalian reasoning at all. The problem with Black Lotus was it was designed to meet the psychological needs of it’s leader (and his needs were not healthy).
I’m less confident about what actually went wrong at Leverage, but pretty confident it wasn’t that.
Disagree: the problem with rationalist cults is that they’re wrong about [the effects of their behavior / whether what they’re doing is optimific], not that what they’re doing is Pascalian. (And empirically you should expect that subcommunities that really hurt their members do so for bad reasons.)
Yeah I’m pretty familiar with Black Lotus and Leverage and don’t think they used pascalian reasoning at all. The problem with Black Lotus was it was designed to meet the psychological needs of it’s leader (and his needs were not healthy).
I’m less confident about what actually went wrong at Leverage, but pretty confident it wasn’t that.