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Yudkowsky denies the accusations! several thousand words in, and ten years after they were made (x.com)
submitted 9 months ago by [M] to c/sneerclub@awful.systems
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yes, that's his high-volume account, linked from @ESYudkowsky

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[–] 9 points 9 months ago (2 children)

One of the only reasons I'm hesitant to call Rationalism a cult in its own right is that Yudkowsky and friends always seem to respond to this element of cultiness by saying "oh, let me explain our in-group jargon in exhaustive detail so that you can more or less understand what we're trying to say" rather than "you just need to buy our book and attend some meetings and talk to the guru and wear this robe..."

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  • [–] 14 points 9 months ago

    I would say that the in-group jargon is more of a retention tactic than an attraction tactic, although it can become that for people who are desperately looking for an ordered view of the world. Certainly I've seen it a lot in recovering Scientologists, expressing how that edifice of jargon, colloquialisms, and redefined words shaped their worldview and how they related to other people. In this case here, if you've been nodding along for a while and want to continue to be one of the cool guys, how could you not glomarize? Peek coolly out from beneath your fedora and neither confirm nor deny?

    I will agree that the ratsphere has softer boundaries and is not particularly competently managed as a cult. As you allude to, too, there isn't a clear induction ritual or psychological turning point, just a mass of material that you're supposed to absorb and internalize over a necessarily lengthy stretch of time. Hence the most clearly identifiable cults are splinter groups.

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