I think the cult view is valuable to look at some issues.
When you have someone asking whether he should cut ties with his nonrational family members is valuable to keep in mind that’s culty behavior.
Normal groups in our society don’t encourage their members to cut family ties. Bad cults do those things. That doesn’t mean that there’s never a time where one should rationally advice someone to cut those ties, but one should be careful.
Given the outside view of how cults went to a place where people literally drunk kool aid I think it’s important to encourage people to keep ties to people who aren’t in the community.
Part of why Eliezer banned the basilisk might have been that having it more actively around would push LessWrong in the direction of being a cult.
There’s already the promise for nearly eternal life in a FAI moderated heaven.
It always useful to investigate where cult like behaviors are useful and where they aren’t.
I think the cult view is valuable to look at some issues.
When you have someone asking whether he should cut ties with his nonrational family members is valuable to keep in mind that’s culty behavior.
Normal groups in our society don’t encourage their members to cut family ties. Bad cults do those things. That doesn’t mean that there’s never a time where one should rationally advice someone to cut those ties, but one should be careful.
Given the outside view of how cults went to a place where people literally drunk kool aid I think it’s important to encourage people to keep ties to people who aren’t in the community.
Part of why Eliezer banned the basilisk might have been that having it more actively around would push LessWrong in the direction of being a cult.
There’s already the promise for nearly eternal life in a FAI moderated heaven.
It always useful to investigate where cult like behaviors are useful and where they aren’t.