I'm not sure how being polyamorous, having kinks and not hiding them makes someone part of a cult, even if I generally don't agree with Yud's entire thesis.

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tsimionescu 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

The article presents widely how the people it describes all live in communal housing, engage in harmful psychological practices, have a shared belief in the imminence of the Apocalypse, etc.

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dumberquestions 2 days ago | parent [-]

Can you confidently list which names specifically live together and the specific harmful psychological practices?

	▲	tsimionescu a day ago \| parent [-]
		The currently most upvoted comment is a much bigger article containing vritulaly the same claims, and naming some names. It spefically Mentions Eliezer Yudkowsky as living in shared housing with others. It also mentions that Dario Amodei and Holden Karnofski used to live together, sometime before Karnofski married Dario's sister, Daniela, the other co-founder of Anthropic. Separately, SBF was also known to live in communal housing with many of the other chief executives of FTX. Separately, that other article also mentions harmful psychological practices like "debugging" and sleep deprivation. Note that I make no claims of my own - for all I know both articles could be complete fabrications. I'm merely listing what these articles claim. I personally know none of these people, and live halfway around the world from them.

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timmytokyo 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

I don't think the argument is that their sexual practices inherently make them part of a cult. Rather, the argument is that it's very common for cults to include communal sexual practices that fall outside typical social norms.

Common signifiers of cults include:

1. Apocalyptic world view.

2. Charismatic and/or exploitative leader.

3. Insularity.

4. Esoteric jargon.

5. Lack of transparency or accountability (often about finances or governance).

6. Communal living arrangements.

7. Sexual mores outside social norms, especially around the leader.

8. Schismatic offshoots.

9. Outsized appeal and/or outreach to the socially vulnerable.

Rationalism checks most of these boxes.