Warning: the (real world) point of the fanfic is to recruit people into a cult whose goal is to prevent evil artificial intelligence from taking over the world.
Seriously.
Seriously.
Many smart people find good reasons to care about that. But even if it's a personal goal for the author, it doesn't mean it's what he wants other people to do.
http://lesswrong.com/lw/66/rationality_common_interest_of_ma...
> into a cult
Oh well, you realize you're writing this on another cult's news page? ;).
I love how he implicitly acknowledges that he does a lot of things that smacks of cultishness :)
But yes, believe it or not, I was the first person who posted "Paul Graham Ate Breakfast" as a comment in reddit, and someboy created a fake news webpage and submitted it.
Well he does and doesn't hide from it, and the "Eliezer Cult" is a running joke on LessWrong. Someone close to him even made a cover for his writings [0] ;).
Most of his writings are basic maths + some good thinking, but there are points where he holds opinions many find eccentric. He also discusses cults at length, you might find [1] interesting ;).
[0] - http://hg.ciphergoth.org/scrape-sequences/raw-file/8504183da...
[1] - http://lesswrong.com/lw/md/cultish_countercultishness/
I'm not going to justify myself (okay, a little bit[1]), but I must say I'm at a point where such assumptions make me raise an eyebrow.
When we solve those insights, we will be more able to accurately estimate when AI is due. It may be no time at all however, if hardware proves to be capable enough already.
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Roko%27s_basilisk
No rational person could describe that groupthink madness as a cult. :)
I used to be involved with a religious group many outsiders consider to be a cult. There was always this event that everyone outside kept bringing up - that one little prediction 40 years ago that some people took too seriously and ended up making stupid life decisions. (I'm not close to that group anymore, but I still value those people as the most honest and consistent in their thinking folks I ever met)
Yes, people who extrapolate things from their beliefs to guide their life decisions can and do make mistakes. They will reach stupid conclusions and believe them until they figure out that those conclusions are stupid and rethink things again. I still respect them more than the usual crowd (both in religious and non-religious groups) who claim to believe (or believe that they believe) one thing and actually believe something else. I value consistency in thinking.
EDIT:
Disclaimer, before I get labelled as a cult priest for replying in the cult thread for the fourth time: I have my pet peeve with cult accusations, because I've been close with many groups accused of cultishness - both religious and secular, and I know how this is an impossible accusation to defend from. If you try to tell "hey, it's not a cult, because X" then it's definitely a cult, because that's obviously what a cult member would say.
Also, you want to see real cults? Try political parties ;).
- Cults usually employ a number of heavy-handed psychological manipulation techniques, often together (e.g. 12-hour conference sessions; speakers that drone on at at about 50 beats per minute; loud, lengthy chanting that exhausts your brain's oxygen and makes you less critical; preying on people who are desperate for some reason)
- It's not enough for a cult to have you as a member - they also have to remove the influence of other movements from your life, lest you might realise who stupid it all is and break off. So part of a cult's mode of control will involve breaking off your relationships with other groups important in your life: family, religion, work... and replacing them with social ties within the cult.
- Cults generally require escalating levels of contribution. At first maybe you just need to donate a bit of money, but by the end your entire life is at the service of the cult.
If the accused cult doesn't fit any of these criteria, it's probably not a cult, just a bunch of very devoted zealots. If it fits even one of these criteria, start to worry. If it fits more than one, it's almost certainly a "bad" cult.
Source: my dad's a psychologist and studied cults, but this is just from memory.
They are more frustratingly ignorant, over-certain of thing that are far from knowable, than a cult. People really want to be certain, they want answers, and they will latch onto all kinds of things to get it, even believing in an 'friendly AI' as an ersatz God, with an inevitable singularity as an ersatz rapture, and quantum mechanics substituting for metaphysics.
"Silly over-extrapolations of local memes, jargon and concepts are posted to LessWrong quite a lot; almost all are just downvoted and ignored. But for this one, Eliezer Yudkowsky, the site's founder and patriarch, reacted to it hugely. The basilisk is completely banned from discussion on LessWrong, where almost any mention of it is deleted.[4]"
[1]: http://web.archive.org/web/20140618083128/http://www.reddit....