Another thing is that allowing this greatly hinders the “show me you’re not a cult” argument to someone coming to this site. Yes, having these rituals don’t actually make organizations more likely to be a cult, but most people coming to this site for the first time won’t be thinking about that.
Definitely a concern. But I’m actually less worried about it than I would have been a year or so ago.
People at the NYC group, despite trying not to, almost continuously end up introducing new people by saying “Oh we’re totally not a cult!” the moment something slightly weird happens. And people… seem to uniformly laugh, perhaps slightly nervously, but keep coming to meetings and then a few months later they’re talking about the Singularity and passing the chocolate and maybe even wearing vibrams.
At work, when I first mentioned “I’m going to a Rationality group,” the assumption was that I was going to an Ayn Randian meetup for young 20-somethings who’ve discovered Rationality™ and now like to talk obnoxiously about their political opinions but will grow out of it in another few years. (I’ve discovered that saying “Rationality Group” almost always makes people assume you are part of a political group that is the opposite of whatever the listener believes in.)
For a while, I felt like I had to treat the NYC meetup as a joke that I was self-aware of. But in the past month I’ve been talking more seriously at work about optimal philanthropy and commitment contracts and a few other things, and this has coincided with me also saying “So I’m planning this Lovecraftian Solstice Ceremony....”
And oddly enough, this didn’t make anyone freak out. Some people in the office assumed I was throwing a harmless party. But the ones I’d have pegged as our target demographic were interested enough to ask followup questions. (“Wait, seriously? Your rationalist group is throwing a Cthulhu party? What?”) and then I explained the story of Stonehenge and how it tied into the world being dark and terrible but how humanity may be able to overcome that. And they responded “Oh, huh. That’s actually kinda cool.”
I don’t expect either of them to attend meetups anytime soon because they already have pretty full lives, but their respect for what I was doing grew over the past month rather than decreased.
Frankly, the “are you a cult?” phenomenon may be a feature, not a bug. It grabs attention, and then the people who were actually going to be interested in the first place tend to stick around in spite of it.
I think that worrying about being a cult (as distinct from worrying about being seen as a cult) is a pretty good indication that thus far, LessWrong is not a cult. Yes, Raemon’s uze of ritual does push us slightly closer to cult territory, but not enough that I see any reasonable grounds for concern, given the benefits. Actual cults (more accurately, groups with a very high number of cult-indicators doing things that are demonstrably harmful) may worry about being seen as cults, but are probably protected by a bias shield or similar effect from seeing any problems with their own cultishness, and are certainly not likely to start an open discussion about it. This is very strong evidence that LessWrong is not a dangerous group of people propagating one ideology above all others and suppressing dissent.
In summary, I think this whole “cult/not cult” business is silly, and a disguised query for nothing. Yes, by developing rituals, LessWrong now has one more cult indicator, but does not have any particularly bad such indicators and as such is pretty okay.
think that worrying about being a cult (as distinct from worrying about being seen as a cult) is a pretty good indication that thus far, LessWrong is not a cult.
Any Rand’s group of proto-Objectivist friends and acquaintances jokingly called their group with a strong theoretical dedication to individualism “The Collective”.
Another thing is that allowing this greatly hinders the “show me you’re not a cult” argument to someone coming to this site. Yes, having these rituals don’t actually make organizations more likely to be a cult, but most people coming to this site for the first time won’t be thinking about that.
Definitely a concern. But I’m actually less worried about it than I would have been a year or so ago.
People at the NYC group, despite trying not to, almost continuously end up introducing new people by saying “Oh we’re totally not a cult!” the moment something slightly weird happens. And people… seem to uniformly laugh, perhaps slightly nervously, but keep coming to meetings and then a few months later they’re talking about the Singularity and passing the chocolate and maybe even wearing vibrams.
At work, when I first mentioned “I’m going to a Rationality group,” the assumption was that I was going to an Ayn Randian meetup for young 20-somethings who’ve discovered Rationality™ and now like to talk obnoxiously about their political opinions but will grow out of it in another few years. (I’ve discovered that saying “Rationality Group” almost always makes people assume you are part of a political group that is the opposite of whatever the listener believes in.)
For a while, I felt like I had to treat the NYC meetup as a joke that I was self-aware of. But in the past month I’ve been talking more seriously at work about optimal philanthropy and commitment contracts and a few other things, and this has coincided with me also saying “So I’m planning this Lovecraftian Solstice Ceremony....”
And oddly enough, this didn’t make anyone freak out. Some people in the office assumed I was throwing a harmless party. But the ones I’d have pegged as our target demographic were interested enough to ask followup questions. (“Wait, seriously? Your rationalist group is throwing a Cthulhu party? What?”) and then I explained the story of Stonehenge and how it tied into the world being dark and terrible but how humanity may be able to overcome that. And they responded “Oh, huh. That’s actually kinda cool.”
I don’t expect either of them to attend meetups anytime soon because they already have pretty full lives, but their respect for what I was doing grew over the past month rather than decreased.
Frankly, the “are you a cult?” phenomenon may be a feature, not a bug. It grabs attention, and then the people who were actually going to be interested in the first place tend to stick around in spite of it.
I think that worrying about being a cult (as distinct from worrying about being seen as a cult) is a pretty good indication that thus far, LessWrong is not a cult. Yes, Raemon’s uze of ritual does push us slightly closer to cult territory, but not enough that I see any reasonable grounds for concern, given the benefits. Actual cults (more accurately, groups with a very high number of cult-indicators doing things that are demonstrably harmful) may worry about being seen as cults, but are probably protected by a bias shield or similar effect from seeing any problems with their own cultishness, and are certainly not likely to start an open discussion about it. This is very strong evidence that LessWrong is not a dangerous group of people propagating one ideology above all others and suppressing dissent.
In summary, I think this whole “cult/not cult” business is silly, and a disguised query for nothing. Yes, by developing rituals, LessWrong now has one more cult indicator, but does not have any particularly bad such indicators and as such is pretty okay.
Any Rand’s group of proto-Objectivist friends and acquaintances jokingly called their group with a strong theoretical dedication to individualism “The Collective”.
Agreed. I wasn’t saying that we are a cult, just that this makes us seem like more of a cult to outsiders.