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.

▲

woah 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

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.

	▲	CoolestBeans 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		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.

▲

lstodd 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

"There are also some shared values between all these people" is guilt by association by definition.

The rest of your comment is even worse. Cults? Consider AGW cult where people reject any attempt of a discourse because "science is settled". Which is equivalent to "God told us this".

▲

eszed 2 hours ago | parent [-]

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.)

▲

totallymike an hour ago | parent [-]

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

▲

lstodd an hour ago | parent [-]

pointing to a "consensus" which is antithetical to science method.

but ye, who I am to persecute people based on their beliefs, this is for religious people to do.

	▲	totallymike 31 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		This is the last reply you get because you’re already convinced you’re smarter than I am. Who knows, maybe you are, but disbelieving scientists sounds pretty stupid to me. Science is peer reviewed by field experts who constantly test and develop said expertise in order to defeat their own biases, and their work backed by data. Scientists openly invite criticism and deconstruction of their work. That, nominally, is the whole point of getting your work published. That’s a far cry from the dogmatic acceptance of faith that you’re pretending it is