I understand that there are ways this can work really well for people but jesus christ the failure modes on that are numerous and devastating.
I really agree with this. The reason spiritual communities can go more quickly and more disastrously off the rails is because they are aiming to tinker with the rules by which we live at a really fundamental level, whereas most organizations generally opt to work on top of a kind of cultural base operating system.
I would generally find it unwise to tinker at all with one’s operating system except that our cultural operating system seems so unable to address some really really huge and pressing problems including, seemingly to me, all of x-risk.
I think part of what the rationalist community has done well (that incidentally I think EA has done less well) is be willing to discard some of the cultural operating system we inherited, in a deliberate and goal-oriented way.
I really agree with this. The reason spiritual communities can go more quickly and more disastrously off the rails is because they are aiming to tinker with the rules by which we live at a really fundamental level, whereas most organizations generally opt to work on top of a kind of cultural base operating system.
I would generally find it unwise to tinker at all with one’s operating system except that our cultural operating system seems so unable to address some really really huge and pressing problems including, seemingly to me, all of x-risk.
I think part of what the rationalist community has done well (that incidentally I think EA has done less well) is be willing to discard some of the cultural operating system we inherited, in a deliberate and goal-oriented way.