Does anyone here know what exactly happened to lesswrong to become so cult-y? I had never seen or heard anything about it for years, back in my day it was seen as that funny website full strange people posting weird shit about utliltarianism, nothing cult-y, just weird. The aritcle on TREACLES and this sub’s mentioning of lesswrong made me very curious about how it went from people talking out of their ass for the sheer fun of “thought experiments” to a straight-up doomsday cult?
The one time I read lesswrong was probably in 2008 or so.

  • swlabr@awful.systemsEnglish
    6·
    1 year ago

    prefacing this with IANALCUM (i am not a legit cult understanding mechanism)

    I imagine it has been a cult from the start, or at least the primordial soup of factors before any of this hit the internet in earnest had all the right ingredients for a cult:

    • A leader claiming to have nigh omnipotence, and some version of high charisma amongst potential followers (Yud, who despite everything, is charismatic within the confines of the ratsphere)
    • A framework of lore (in this case rationalism) in which recruits are to be indoctrinated and taught how to think
    • An upwards power structure in said lore that concentrates authority at the apex of the heirarchy (iq as intelligence metric, blindly doing what higher iq people say)
    • Purity tests that create a positive feedback cycle that reinforces adherence to doctrine (either you believe yud about many worlds/AGI/whatever and are on the road to smartness, or you don’t and you will be cast out of the ratsphere)

    I mean the list goes on. As to when it became culty? To use a trusty thought experiment, it’s the paradox of the heap.