something that's scary.
You should know that "cult" is obviously loaded language. Carries associations with murder and things, with mass suicides; hell, even the dictionary definition says they're "regarded by others as strange or sinister or as imposing excessive control over members." thanks, oxford languages.
zizians, merveilles, bell labs.
where is the inherent difference between these three?
the zizians are a rationalist group that have been linked to murder!! obviously! big difference from merveilles & one hundred rabbits and then bell labs, which are maybe better characterized as similarly-philosophically-oriented hacker groups. i have yet to read enough cat-v about bell labs to pretend to be an expert but there really do seem to be some similarities.
god i mean actually the merveilles town page has some shit about not allowing pictures of animal products. i really do hope the rationalists haven't gotten to them.
the zizians are a natural response to rationalism---something like that was always going to happen. i will make no attempt to hide that I Do Not Know Everything about rationalism;
i think rationalism is sacreligious and maybe that's stupid; you are never going to be truly rational, there is no Truly Rational. check baudrillard's shit about human value systems.
from tumblr:
smoke-in-the-wind: it's fun that Mormonism is based off pseudo-archaeology and Scientology is based off pseudo-psychiatry. By that logic the big American New Religious Movement of the 21st century is gonna be based on... pseudo-computer science?
filthburger: Roko's basilisk
although maybe AI is more accurate.
There is always of course the inherent religiosity of the word cult. Internet calls it a derivative of cultus meaning worship (latin) and god man people who throw around the word referring to legitimate religion (although of course who is to say what a legitimate religion is --- walter benjamin, can you help us by describing the aura of an act of worship) --- piss me off. In this vein it is important to be as clear with your words as possible even though in my typing I am not. So many people do not tell the difference between Catholic and Christian and aaaaaagggghh as a church fan this is an important difference (to theorize: What is an important difference?). There are criticisms that are levelable at a certain group that are not at a broader standpoint and those that are broader and not more specifically. So
Deconstruction is what ex-evangelicals call their critical analysis of their faith post-exit. I think this is rational. For such a freaky thing, something that screwed us over, how can we decide what we take with us into our daily lives and what to leave behind? How can we acknowledge etc? This is the stance I believe needs to be taken towards the cults. The true nature of what is terrifying is, as i established prior and in my glossary, I find myself on the other side of a mirror from them---as though one rogue thought and boom I'm in. This is the general terror of cults: they lie in the uncanny valley!! Deconstruction is important because for many people the cult contaminates the mainstream culture. This is how I feel about rationalism; that LessWrong and Roko's and the Zizians contaminated any good Yudowksy had to say. My friend Ink noted well that the people who take Yudowsky's word as sacred are the ones who corrupt it. For me, the culture of the rationalists corrupts the generally-okay idea of rationalism (generally we need to be more rational). For Ink this leads to post-rationalism (his deconstruction has the rational root as incontroverted) and for me it leads to Internet Esotericism (ha ha ha). That's a joke but not really, it is a conscious design choice I make. I try to show very clearly here that I feel on the other side of a mirror from these people, that I like computer. Etc; I try to type like them, I try to have this thing where I establish what I'm saying at various points throughout the essay. But the point is that for me, rationalism and the internet cults---hell everyone---are forever tainted by their philosophy. That is harsh. It is not how i generally feel. But welcome to the internet, baby. So here is my philosophy and in these words!! While once I would've become a rationalist, an AI hyper, I am forever divorced from them by my deconstruction. Never will I be a Luddite and forever will I subjugate the machine. Rationalism is too linked to tech bros to not die a hard death ... and maybe in the Sixth Republic we will have a fairer system.
For a discussion of deconstruction, see this page.