The group is focused on a living leader to whom members seem to display excessively zealous, unquestioning commitment.
If you count karma penalties as “punishment” as you do later, this adds up to the claim that LW both displays unquestioning commitment to and routinely punishes (~150 times in the last 30 days) its leader. I suspect that’s an unusual behavior pattern for a cult; I wonder if there’s any useful conclusion we could draw from it.
Members’ subservience to the group causes them to cut ties with family and friends, and to give up personal goals and activities that were of interest before joining the group. (not sure about this)
At the level of analysis you’re doing here, you could probably force anti-akrasia techniques into this mold. That is, someone spends all their time playing video games and then gets caught up in all of the productivity/mindhacking stuff that is popular on LW and then gives up playing video games! Eek!
Members are encouraged or required to live and/or socialize only with other group members. (not sure about ‘only’ part, )
Well, without the ‘only’ part, you get “Members are encouraged or required to live and/or socialize with other group members,” which is certainly true of LW. Again: eek!
Agreed that semantic discussions are rarely productive, and that the important thing is to honestly evaluate these various potentially harmful conditions and determine whether they apply… and, insofar as they do, attend to them and work out how to mitigate whatever harm they potentially cause.
If you count karma penalties as “punishment” as you do later, this adds up to the claim that LW both displays unquestioning commitment to and routinely punishes (~150 times in the last 30 days) its leader. I suspect that’s an unusual behavior pattern for a cult; I wonder if there’s any useful conclusion we could draw from it.
At the level of analysis you’re doing here, you could probably force anti-akrasia techniques into this mold. That is, someone spends all their time playing video games and then gets caught up in all of the productivity/mindhacking stuff that is popular on LW and then gives up playing video games! Eek!
Well, without the ‘only’ part, you get “Members are encouraged or required to live and/or socialize with other group members,” which is certainly true of LW. Again: eek!
Agreed that semantic discussions are rarely productive, and that the important thing is to honestly evaluate these various potentially harmful conditions and determine whether they apply… and, insofar as they do, attend to them and work out how to mitigate whatever harm they potentially cause.