Comment by CoolestBeans
1 month ago
As someone on the periphery looking in, it's because they make up a large web. Its an extended community that shares a lot of people between its many arms. There are also some shared values between all these people, even at the very extended edges. For example, they share a superiority complex. From my experience, most of these people believe that they see further or know more because they believe in certain things that are, on their face, unintuitive. I don't want to pass more judgement than to say, having members believe contradictory or outright falsehoods is a thing that cults do. I'm not saying this is a cult because I haven't seriously sat down and thought about it but that is reminiscent of something cults do.
Read HPMOR. Unlike what I thought it might be, the protagonist does not solve problems through pointing out logical fallacies or something. Harry Potter is a straight-up superhero who is infinitely smarter and more talented than anyone around him. It's not so much rationality as a narcissistic fantasy that goes on for hundreds (thousands?) of pages.
Even though I had been well-disposed to rationalism and read HPMOR to learn more, I could not take Yudkowsky seriously in any way after I gave up halfway through.
Had a similar experience trying to read that. You know you meet or have to work with people like that in your life and hopefully you use those experiences to remind yourself what kind of person you don't want to be.
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For those of you not familiar with the acronym, "AGW" stands for Anthropogenic Global Warming.
(Though, Istodd, please correct me if there is another meaning of which I am not aware. I would be embarrassed to have impugned your credibility in error.)
I mean they did claim that pointing to science to support your position in an argument is tantamount to dogmatic faith, so I don’t think you need to worry about impugning what isn’t there
3 replies →
Look I started my comment saying I'm on periphery. If its guilt by association then I'm right there. My contention isn't the association, its the shared values that associate them to each other. Its their values I have an issue with.