"smart people"
https://twitter.com/ESYudkowsky/status/1262838533120647168 …
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Replying to @togelius
It isn't uncommon for above-average IQ people to join cults. The psychological mechanisms of attraction to cults are emotional, not intellectual. As for those who *lead* cults, they tend to be fairly high-IQ and they know what they're doing.
6 replies 3 retweets 53 likes -
Side note: cults love cosmic thinking. "Here's the destiny of our universe / here's an evil threat that will destroy the Milky Way / we're descended from an alien race of Angels that lived millions of years ago in a different galaxy". You can never be grandiose enough.
1 reply 0 retweets 11 likes -
The bigger the claim, the more disconnected from reality, the easier it is to believe it (and the harder it is to refute it)
4 replies 0 retweets 9 likes -
Replying to @fchollet
I like sci-fi too. In particular sci-fi with grandiose, cosmic perspectives. It's what I consume instead of religion. Sometimes I let it influence my research directions. But not my immediate policy making.
1 reply 0 retweets 2 likes -
Replying to @togelius
Cults and sci-fi are pretty similar -- you could base a cult on the Alien series storyline -- but in one case there's a system of emotional and financial exploitation attached (and a cult of personality)
1 reply 0 retweets 1 like -
Replying to @fchollet
And the best illustration of that is probably L. Ron Hubbard, who seemingly effortlessly jumped from sci-fi writing to starting a religion, even reusing the same material. And he wasn't even a good sci-fi writer. Imagine if Iain M. Banks had started a religion...
1 reply 0 retweets 6 likes
Have you read Yudkowsky's Harry Potter fan-fiction? It's actually quite good (as far as fan-fiction goes). I think he'd be a decent sci-fi / fantasy writer.
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