Yes, but the point is that we’re trying to determine if you are under “bad” social circumstances or not. Those circumstances will not be independent from other aspects of the social group, e.g. the ideology it espouses externally and things it tells its members internally.
What I’m trying to figure out is to what extent you came to believe you were “evil” on your own versus you were compelled to think that about yourself. You were and are compelled to think about ways in which you act “badly”—nearby or adjacent to a community that encourages its members to think about how to act “goodly.” It’s not a given, per se, that a community devoted explicitly to doing good in the world thinks that it should label actions as “bad” if they fall short of arbitrary standards. It could, rather, decide to label actions people take as “good” or “gooder” or “really really good” if it decides that most functional people are normally inclined to behave in ways that aren’t necessarily un-altruistic or harmful to other people.
I’m working on a theory of social-group-dynamics which posits that your situation is caused by “negative-selection groups” or “credential-groups” which are characterized by their tendency to label only their activities as actually successfully accomplishing whatever it is they claim to do—e.g., “rationality” or “effective altruism.” If it seems like the group’s ideology or behavior implies that non-membership is tantamount to either not caring about doing well or being incompetent in that regard, then it is a credential-group.
Credential-groups are bad social circumstances, and in a nutshell, they act badly by telling members who they know not to be intentionally causing harm that they are harmful or bad people (or mentally ill).
Yes, but the point is that we’re trying to determine if you are under “bad” social circumstances or not. Those circumstances will not be independent from other aspects of the social group, e.g. the ideology it espouses externally and things it tells its members internally.
What I’m trying to figure out is to what extent you came to believe you were “evil” on your own versus you were compelled to think that about yourself. You were and are compelled to think about ways in which you act “badly”—nearby or adjacent to a community that encourages its members to think about how to act “goodly.” It’s not a given, per se, that a community devoted explicitly to doing good in the world thinks that it should label actions as “bad” if they fall short of arbitrary standards. It could, rather, decide to label actions people take as “good” or “gooder” or “really really good” if it decides that most functional people are normally inclined to behave in ways that aren’t necessarily un-altruistic or harmful to other people.
I’m working on a theory of social-group-dynamics which posits that your situation is caused by “negative-selection groups” or “credential-groups” which are characterized by their tendency to label only their activities as actually successfully accomplishing whatever it is they claim to do—e.g., “rationality” or “effective altruism.” If it seems like the group’s ideology or behavior implies that non-membership is tantamount to either not caring about doing well or being incompetent in that regard, then it is a credential-group.
Credential-groups are bad social circumstances, and in a nutshell, they act badly by telling members who they know not to be intentionally causing harm that they are harmful or bad people (or mentally ill).