As you rightly suspect, one of their strongly professed goals is the “viral” aspect, i.e. “we have been given a mission to spread the wonderful/enlightening message from the benevolent aliens that suspiciously look like a bunch of French dudes in jumpsuits”.
Besides that, they care a lot about:
Science
This may sound funny, but yes, they think of themselves as supporters of “science” and “scientific” views (versus religion). And in their cheering/repeating phrases heard from the scientific crowd, they even got a few things right, especially those that were well established at the time when their “message” book was written.
World peace
They consistently put emotional effort into thinking about this, but I do not know of any instances when they achieved an outcome in the world.
Polyamory
This one seems to be a pretty real positive effect, especially in the context of Japan, with its overly rigid social rules that cause a lot of anxiety and unhappiness all around.
Emotional well-being of humans
While their epistemology is abhorrent, the methods they use for this are pretty efficient, and this aspect provides clear value to members.
I personally use “take a deep breath and feel grateful” as a primitive action, which is perfectly compatible with rationality, and has measurable effect on quality of life (especially in case of countering SNS responses). Most cults and religions know that it works, and use it in a “package deal” with brainwashing. But regardless of how often they are misused, techniques like this are valuable, and so is spreading their practice in communities.
Note: I kind of sound like I’m defending them, but please keep in mind that I only take this stance because it’s opposed to the default LW reaction, and therefore more likely to produce non-tautological conversations.
Do they have goals aside from membership? How effective are they at those goals?
I’m concerned with comparisons based on number of members or tactics about recruiting that ignore the question of WHY the group is recruiting.
Good question!
As you rightly suspect, one of their strongly professed goals is the “viral” aspect, i.e. “we have been given a mission to spread the wonderful/enlightening message from the benevolent aliens that suspiciously look like a bunch of French dudes in jumpsuits”.
Besides that, they care a lot about:
Science
This may sound funny, but yes, they think of themselves as supporters of “science” and “scientific” views (versus religion). And in their cheering/repeating phrases heard from the scientific crowd, they even got a few things right, especially those that were well established at the time when their “message” book was written.
World peace
They consistently put emotional effort into thinking about this, but I do not know of any instances when they achieved an outcome in the world.
Polyamory
This one seems to be a pretty real positive effect, especially in the context of Japan, with its overly rigid social rules that cause a lot of anxiety and unhappiness all around.
Emotional well-being of humans
While their epistemology is abhorrent, the methods they use for this are pretty efficient, and this aspect provides clear value to members.
I personally use “take a deep breath and feel grateful” as a primitive action, which is perfectly compatible with rationality, and has measurable effect on quality of life (especially in case of countering SNS responses). Most cults and religions know that it works, and use it in a “package deal” with brainwashing. But regardless of how often they are misused, techniques like this are valuable, and so is spreading their practice in communities.
Note: I kind of sound like I’m defending them, but please keep in mind that I only take this stance because it’s opposed to the default LW reaction, and therefore more likely to produce non-tautological conversations.