I dunno, under this definition isn’t pretty much every group a cult? A group that gives outsiders as much influence as insiders isn’t really a group at all, and a lot of groups pick their most impactful arguments even if they’re somewhat sketchy if you look too closely[1]. Earlier this week I was at a culty Safeway that didn’t have any space for competitors to advertise, and which falsely claimed to “Always have the best deals*”.
I’m not saying we should do this, and pushing back on arguments you think are bad is a good thing, but the drowning child thought experiment doesn’t seem particularly culty.
Yes, pretty much every (large) group has cult adaptations. Otherwise it would have been outcompeted by a similar group with a similar ideology, that hides its inconsistencies a little better. I think there’s two important differences between Rationalism and Safeway that make the former culty in a worse way:
The degree of impact it has on people’s lives. People will switch careers, or donate percentages of their wealth for Rationalism, but maybe waste $100 on a Safeway membership card.
You get a lot more pushback from a Rationalist than a Safeway employee when you point out inconsistencies. If you go around an EA conference saying, “I don’t think it’s worthwhile to work on AI safety research, because most of the research groups I’ve seen haven’t put out useful work,” every attendee will find a reason you should work on it anyway, and probably switch fields to try to join one of those research groups. If you go around a Safeway store telling the employees, “I don’t think you have the best deals, Whole Foods seems to have cheaper eggs,” they’ll probably shrug their shoulders and say, “I guess so.”
If you go around an EA conference saying, “I don’t think it’s worthwhile to work on AI safety research, because most of the research groups I’ve seen haven’t put out useful work,” every attendee will find a reason you should work on it anyway, and probably switch fields to try to join one of those research groups.
I dunno, under this definition isn’t pretty much every group a cult? A group that gives outsiders as much influence as insiders isn’t really a group at all, and a lot of groups pick their most impactful arguments even if they’re somewhat sketchy if you look too closely[1]. Earlier this week I was at a
cultySafeway that didn’t have any space for competitors to advertise, and which falsely claimed to “Always have the best deals*”.I’m not saying we should do this, and pushing back on arguments you think are bad is a good thing, but the drowning child thought experiment doesn’t seem particularly culty.
Yes, pretty much every (large) group has cult adaptations. Otherwise it would have been outcompeted by a similar group with a similar ideology, that hides its inconsistencies a little better. I think there’s two important differences between Rationalism and Safeway that make the former culty in a worse way:
The degree of impact it has on people’s lives. People will switch careers, or donate percentages of their wealth for Rationalism, but maybe waste $100 on a Safeway membership card.
You get a lot more pushback from a Rationalist than a Safeway employee when you point out inconsistencies. If you go around an EA conference saying, “I don’t think it’s worthwhile to work on AI safety research, because most of the research groups I’ve seen haven’t put out useful work,” every attendee will find a reason you should work on it anyway, and probably switch fields to try to join one of those research groups. If you go around a Safeway store telling the employees, “I don’t think you have the best deals, Whole Foods seems to have cheaper eggs,” they’ll probably shrug their shoulders and say, “I guess so.”
This sounds false to me. Have you tried it?