More of this madness coming out of the west coast of America, in particular California.

The Manson family, Heaven's Gate, NXIVM, Rationalists, Zizians... what next?

All turn out to be rotten to the core with their need to reshape and craft their own paradigm, which then gets warped by egos, individualism and power.

Hate to think what other madness is brewing.

California is on the West coast, i'm pretty sure. is not it?

This is the real San Francisco that I know, not the one that Hacker News always talks about. It's a haven for weirdoes that has attracted the strangest of each generation since at least the Beatniks in the 50s. It probably descends from all of the depression-era westward migration and people from earlier than that coming to Hollywood to become movie stars. San Francisco attracted a different type, artists and hippies, Tim Leary followers. The deserts are the strangest places. That's where most of the true cult shit happend. Jack Parsons trying to summon demons. Gram Parsons' friends stealing his corpse to bury him at Joshua Tree. The traveling folk that Chris McCandless took in with near the Salton Sea.

None of these people are actually from California. Eliezer's from Chicago. Zvi is from New York. Scott Alexander is from Michigan.

As an actual multi-generation California native (who hasn't lived there in over 16 years), let me tell what most of us are actually like. We're mostly Mexican. Catholic. Pro-labor but kinda socially conservative. There's also a shit ton of refugees from 20th century wars in Asia and the collapse of the Soviet Union. Huge populations of Laotians, Cambodians, Koreans, Vietnamese, Armenians, Persians. Tons of religious diverity. The largest Buddhist temple in the western hemisphere is in my hometown. Los Angeles has the second largest Mormon temple in the world. It's got the headquarters for Scientology.

I think that diversity is what plays into the cult haven atmosphere. There is no single dominant religion. Everyone can find acceptance somewhere, no matter how strange they are.