“You went dancing in live fire and dodged a bullet, and that’s excellent. Others may not be so lucky, particularly including those who are sure they could never be fooled (since such certainly has no observed correlation with a detailed working awareness of human cognitive biases).”
You really think he dodged a bullet? I assume lots of people are in no danger of being brainwashed by Scientology and lukeprog is probably one of them.
lukeprog,
Did you judge you were in danger of being brainwashed into Scientology at any point during this class? Or seriously in danger of being otherwise mind damaged?
I didn’t know when I wrote that that Luke had interviewed Russell Miller and had read extensively on Scientology. So I think he would likely have more immunity than most :-) I think his dangerous error is in casually assuming that others are as immune as he is. Perhaps they are, but I wouldn’t risk betting that way myself.
I think one is not in much danger of being brainwashed by another if one has a broader perspective on life than the would be manipulator.
I think most people who try heroin or Scientology suffer no lasting ill effects. If it worked on most people Scientology would be a lot more virulent than it is.
I think most people who try heroin or Scientology suffer no lasting ill effects. If it worked on most people Scientology would be a lot more virulent than it is.
Both are true. I’m as unlikely to recommend Scientology to people as I am to recommend them heroin, though. (But, kids—fifty million dead junkies aren’t wrong. Opiates are great! I’m a big fan of codeine when my back’s playing up, and I have no doubt heroin would be even nicer.)
If it worked on most people Scientology would be a lot more virulent than it is.
I’m not sure about this. The steps of getting someone to take a look at what one is doing is difficult when it has weirdness aspects. Note that even altruistic causes that take minimal effort have a lot of trouble recruiting people. People are disinclined to to search out for new ideas in general. This hurts both the good and the bad memes. Even if a set of memes is very strong, getting people to try it is tough.
Do you think most people subjected to the mind control techniques of Scientology are successfully brainwashed into Scientology or not?
I don’t know the data but bet it’s a smallish fraction. I believe less than 10% of the people who are subjected to the mind controlling properties of heroin become addicted.
lukeprog has apparently looked into Scientology more than I have, is conceded to be aware of the dangers, and yet there is not even a hint in his piece that he thought the young girl he was partnered with was in danger. Surely people would have reacted differently to this article if he cheerfully recounted shooting heroin with a twelve year old. So clearly he was very confident that what was going on in the room was a lot less dangerous than shooting heroin. But how could that be if Scientology is more persuasive than heroin?
Retention rates for cults and cult-like groups tend to be low. I seem to recall numbers in the 2-4% range for most; this paper corroborates that, giving numbers from 0.5% to 5% for the Unification Church (“Moonies”) depending on what your threshold for membership is.
Accurate data for Scientology is difficult to come by, given its infamous propensity for spin, but what I have been able to find seems to give similar numbers. This claims a little over 2% retention based on demographic calculations, but may be biased toward underreporting.
If most people succumbed when exposed to such techniques we’d see a lot more explosive growth.
This caused me to modify my priors:
“Most cult converts were children of privilege raised by educated parents in suburban homes. Young, healthy, intelligent, and college educated, they could look forward to solid careers and comfortable incomes. Psychologists searched in vain for a prevalence of “authoritarian personalities,” neurotic fears, repressed anger, high anxiety, religious obsession, personality disorders, deviant needs, and other mental pathologies. They likewise failed to find alienation, strained relationships, and poor social skills. In nearly all respects – economically, socially, psychologically – the typical cult converts tested out normal.”
I expected those at risk to be more easily identifiable. If they are not identifiable than the risk of conversion of most people is much higher than I thought.
On the other hand
“Moreover, nearly all those who left cults after weeks, months, or even years of membership showed no sign of physical, mental, or social harm.”
Supports the view that the supposed danger of cults is overblown.
And..
“Stated somewhat more abstractly, the fundamental sociological “law” of conversion asserts that conversion to religious groups almost never occurs unless the recruit develops stronger attachments to members of the group than to non-members. Among other things, the law explains why the establishment of a new religion, cult, or sect almost always begins with the conversion of the founder’s own family members and close friends.11 The law likewise predicts that as long as people remain deeply attached to the social networks of one faith, they rarely ever switch to another faith.”
...does seem to provide some criteria by which you could assess risk to yourself or another individual.
“Most cult converts were children of privilege raised by educated parents in suburban homes. Young, healthy, intelligent, and college educated, they could look forward to solid careers and comfortable incomes. [...] In nearly all respects – economically, socially, psychologically – the typical cult converts tested out normal.”
“Stated somewhat more abstractly, the fundamental sociological “law” of conversion asserts that conversion to religious groups almost never occurs unless the recruit develops stronger attachments to members of the group than to non-members.”
This seems to imply that children of privilege raised by educated parents in suburban homes may tend to be deficient of strong attachments; and that economic, social, and psychological definitions of “normal” are not capable of detecting this?
For example, if some other group G (perhaps children not of privilege not raised by educated parents in suburban homes) has stronger attachments, resulting in members of G having a lower chance of being converted, then we can say they are deficient relative to G. This theory is testable, at least in principle.
OTOH, if no such group G exists, but we want to alter our economic, social, and psychological evaluation such that children we evaluate as normal don’t become cult converts, then this sounds more like a matter of how we define the word “normal” than any kind of statement about the world.
I wonder if there’s a test for how easily people are influenced. If an easily influenced person is in a benign environment, then such a person might do well in life (perhaps better than someone who’s more generally resistant) until they run afoul of a group or an individual that isn’t benign.
If it worked on most people Scientology would be a lot more virulent than it is.
I agree with this. When I was reading the comparison with Islam upthread, I imagined how bad it would be if Scientology took over a government. On the other hand, there doesn’t seem to be any current risk of that happening, and I wonder why.
Did you judge you were in danger of being brainwashed into Scientology at any point during this class? Or seriously in danger of being otherwise mind damaged?
Somehow, I think that this isn’t the best question to ask, considering that Luke can’t root his own brain to find out. Introspection is a notoriously bad tool for discovering subconscious motivations.
You really think he dodged a bullet? I assume lots of people are in no danger of being brainwashed by Scientology and lukeprog is probably one of them.
lukeprog,
Did you judge you were in danger of being brainwashed into Scientology at any point during this class? Or seriously in danger of being otherwise mind damaged?
I didn’t know when I wrote that that Luke had interviewed Russell Miller and had read extensively on Scientology. So I think he would likely have more immunity than most :-) I think his dangerous error is in casually assuming that others are as immune as he is. Perhaps they are, but I wouldn’t risk betting that way myself.
I would assume a lot of LWers are pretty immune.
I think one is not in much danger of being brainwashed by another if one has a broader perspective on life than the would be manipulator.
I think most people who try heroin or Scientology suffer no lasting ill effects. If it worked on most people Scientology would be a lot more virulent than it is.
Both are true. I’m as unlikely to recommend Scientology to people as I am to recommend them heroin, though. (But, kids—fifty million dead junkies aren’t wrong. Opiates are great! I’m a big fan of codeine when my back’s playing up, and I have no doubt heroin would be even nicer.)
Both what are true?
Both sentences I quoted.
I’m not sure about this. The steps of getting someone to take a look at what one is doing is difficult when it has weirdness aspects. Note that even altruistic causes that take minimal effort have a lot of trouble recruiting people. People are disinclined to to search out for new ideas in general. This hurts both the good and the bad memes. Even if a set of memes is very strong, getting people to try it is tough.
Do you think most people subjected to the mind control techniques of Scientology are successfully brainwashed into Scientology or not?
I don’t know the data but bet it’s a smallish fraction. I believe less than 10% of the people who are subjected to the mind controlling properties of heroin become addicted.
lukeprog has apparently looked into Scientology more than I have, is conceded to be aware of the dangers, and yet there is not even a hint in his piece that he thought the young girl he was partnered with was in danger. Surely people would have reacted differently to this article if he cheerfully recounted shooting heroin with a twelve year old. So clearly he was very confident that what was going on in the room was a lot less dangerous than shooting heroin. But how could that be if Scientology is more persuasive than heroin?
Retention rates for cults and cult-like groups tend to be low. I seem to recall numbers in the 2-4% range for most; this paper corroborates that, giving numbers from 0.5% to 5% for the Unification Church (“Moonies”) depending on what your threshold for membership is.
Accurate data for Scientology is difficult to come by, given its infamous propensity for spin, but what I have been able to find seems to give similar numbers. This claims a little over 2% retention based on demographic calculations, but may be biased toward underreporting.
If most people succumbed when exposed to such techniques we’d see a lot more explosive growth.
This caused me to modify my priors:
I expected those at risk to be more easily identifiable. If they are not identifiable than the risk of conversion of most people is much higher than I thought.
On the other hand
Supports the view that the supposed danger of cults is overblown.
And..
...does seem to provide some criteria by which you could assess risk to yourself or another individual.
This seems to imply that children of privilege raised by educated parents in suburban homes may tend to be deficient of strong attachments; and that economic, social, and psychological definitions of “normal” are not capable of detecting this?
Deficient relative to what?
For example, if some other group G (perhaps children not of privilege not raised by educated parents in suburban homes) has stronger attachments, resulting in members of G having a lower chance of being converted, then we can say they are deficient relative to G. This theory is testable, at least in principle.
OTOH, if no such group G exists, but we want to alter our economic, social, and psychological evaluation such that children we evaluate as normal don’t become cult converts, then this sounds more like a matter of how we define the word “normal” than any kind of statement about the world.
I wonder if there’s a test for how easily people are influenced. If an easily influenced person is in a benign environment, then such a person might do well in life (perhaps better than someone who’s more generally resistant) until they run afoul of a group or an individual that isn’t benign.
I agree with this. When I was reading the comparison with Islam upthread, I imagined how bad it would be if Scientology took over a government. On the other hand, there doesn’t seem to be any current risk of that happening, and I wonder why.
Somehow, I think that this isn’t the best question to ask, considering that Luke can’t root his own brain to find out. Introspection is a notoriously bad tool for discovering subconscious motivations.