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.
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?