posted on October 20, 2021 11:45 PM by
u/textlossarcade
56
u/4smodeu245 pointsat 1634776565.000000
Seems to be saying here that he doesn’t want to believe they exist,
but finds this instance hard to ignore. Not what the title is really
implying.
(Actually this is an interesting problem in terms of the rational
model because cults do pose basic issues to that sort of behavioral
framework. In some mainstream theories of sociology of religion, they
insist essentially that cults DON’T exist because brainwashing, etc. is
impossible i.e. at odds with the rational model)
The rational model? Do you just mean rationality generally? Rational choice theory? Scott Alexander refers to 'basic liberal model' and I don't know what that refers to, either. Enlightenment, subject-centered reason? Why is this referred to as a 'model'? Are we talking about public reason?
Like, I'm blown away that people are discovering this now and are blown away. It's not like the 20th century didn't happen.
IIRC brainwashing as a concept originally came around to explain the fact that American pilots who were shot down and captured by Nork/Chinese in the Korean war were behaving a lot more apologetically in captivity than they should have. According to themselves it was the realization about doing warcrimes to rural people that brought the turnaround but that hypothesis was a bit hard to swallow for the folk back in Washington so _obviously_ it had to be communist mind magic that did the trick.
So it might be less that cults don't exist and more that it's not very informative trying to shove Jonestown and People's Republic of China into the same conceptual framework (as say Robert Jay Lifton, cited in the original Leverage expose as the authority on cults, has spent a lot of time doing).
I mean, it' not like POWs where on the road to Damascus, they heard Karl Marx asking them "Paul, Paul, why are you dropping bombs me?", and they became prophets of Maoism.
"Communism mind magic", if by that you mean quite sophisticated techniques of indoctrination, was definitely a thing. And why should it not be? Like, if you had thousands of POWs in your hands, why not try to recruit a couple, and why not doing that scientifically by asking psychologist? That "mind magic" was just the systematic application of pretty basic notions, like rationalization
BTW, Americans did the same, it's full of letters of camp guards complaining that in order to show capitalism's plenty, Chinese and North Korean POWs were fed better and had more amenities than the average UN soldier as long as they said a couple of cheesy things about capitalism and democracy.
Ok, but I was specifically addressing the term 'brainwashing', not the idea that feeding people better makes them more cooperative (which seems fairly straightforward).
The manson family were mostly normal people with no record of violence, who were separated from society by a charismatic psychopath, fed massive doses of LSD and led through ritual orgies, who then carried out some of the most brutal slayings in US history. This was accompanied by all kinds of bizzarre behavior and beliefs, for example during the trial they would speak in tongues in the courtroom, and carved crosses into their foreheads in imitation of their leader, and so on. The killers showed no remorse for their actions, due to their indoctrinated belief that death wasn't real in some sense.
If this counts as "manchurian candidate" style brainwashing is up for debate, but there was certainly something done to those people.
The details of the story are fascinating, even if you don't swallow the theory that it was an MKULTRA experiment. There's a book about it called Chaos by Tom O'Neil.
Oh, I can definitely believe that kind of effort having an effect on someone's psyche. In fact it's pretty terrifying, reading all this Vassar "jailbreaking" stuff, pretty glad I wasn't around folks like him during some of my own, ahem, more vulnerable moments so to speak.
Askhistorians actually had a question about it, and how the term developed but I can't seem to find it. Basically it seems to have started out in the early 20th century as a term for basically "getting rid of old ideas", IE: it was something you did to yourself.
I am truly mystified as to how one can simultaneously (a) be a
psychiatrist and (b) have a model of the human mind so weak and
impoverished that the existence of cults is a threat to it. Cults and
cult-like behavior are not exactly a rare or mysterious phenomenon; they
are about as basic to being human as anything. It’s etymologically close
to “culture” and that is not an accident.
That whole thread is one big yikes. Maybe also NSFW, since this is
less “I am very smart” and more “how do we avoid directly discussing all
the lives we’ve indirectly ruined.”
Yeah if you look at the post Scott is reacting to it is even weirder, scott totally agrees with that post but also says the cult is was just due to Vassar.
He is saying 'I agree with you, but you are wrong' aka saying she is wrong in the most beige way. And iorc this is the same person who ~~later~~ earlier (e: checked the timeline) wrote about the cult behaviour in MIRI so he is trying to gaslight her.
Agreeing with u/4smodeu2 Alexander is writing in a beige way but
basically saying that he thinks Vasserites are cultlike, while also
expressing the idea that cults are a problem for the liberal order
because they challenge reason or something, so he’s doing a lot of weird
hedging. I don’t really see how cults challenge reason because I don’t
see how under a thin liberal conception of reason it was necessarily
irrational to stay in Heaven’s Gate (his example).
I’m also not sure why charisma or cognitive dissonance are creepy
explanations either, to be blunt.
Or the connection running through emotionally abusive relationships,
cults, and rationality.
Basically this just seems like of those times where Alexander sees
great significance in something, vaguely implies but doesn’t spell it
out in any real detail, and constrains his actions / speech in
accordance with his barely worked out fears.
> he's doing a lot of weird hedging
That’s pretty much a given, though.
> I'm also not sure why charisma or cognitive dissonance are creepy explanations either, to be blunt.
Because Scott is on the spectrum, and doesn’t intuitively comprehend how the median person thinks. Hence this desire to be able to successfully model the world in a libertarian economists way, filled entirely with perfectly rational actors. Breaking that model destroys his preferred conception of how the world works, and that’s creepy and disturbing for anyone.
I think he pretty much understand how people think, that's why he is able to write 10k words posts that slowly make easier for people to believe the absurdities they want to believe. As Sandifer proved by close reading a couple of his posts, they are reasonably well constructed if that is the aim one has in mind.
it seems like he's found it in his best interests to adopt a "meek, mild-mannered unless pushed to the limit, doesn't really understand social interactions well enough to manipulate those around him" persona; I think he's a disingenuous enough little shit that we can't draw any conclusions from this about how he actually thinks
I didn’t say he wasn’t manipulative. It’s not like, as a psychiatrist, he doesn’t know that people can fall victim to these things. He at least ought to.
His audience also prefers to see the world as perfect rational actors (some more perfectly rational than others). Less wrong is even more appealing to those on the spectrum than Scott's main audience. Echoing his own feeling of unease about this is playing to the crowd.
It feels like a specific version of some generalized fear of ever meeting someone on the street and feeling "What a charming fellow! I think I'll do what they're doing without introspecting too much about it!"
If you are very caught up in your ideas being your own, personally created ex nihilus original, correct ideas, then I can see how this would be scary.
I’m actually very worried about this! I hate admitting cults are
possible! If you admit cults are possible, you have to acknowledge that
the basic liberal model has gaps,
Dude, why would you even bother with a “model” that is trivially
falsified by a casual encounter with, you know, history?
and then you get things like if an evangelical deconverts to atheism,
the other evangelicals can say “Oh, he’s in a cult, we need to kidnap
and deprogram him since his best self wouldn’t agree with the
deconversion.”
Wait, what? The evangelicals of whom you speak are, pretty much by
definition, a group of people who reject “Reason” [Scott capitalizes
this like I do when I’m making fun of it]. They can say that kind of
shit whether you believe cults exist or not. They’re not looking to you
for legitimacy.
Isnt one of the first lessons of the sequences 'the mal isnt the territory' this all a bit embarrassing, clearly Scott should actually read the sequences.
And yes the evangelicals example here is really weird. Almost seems like he is splitting here. The weird black and white thinking I mean.
>Isnt one of the first lessons of the sequences 'the mal isnt the territory' this all a bit embarrassing, clearly Scott should actually read the sequences.
If any of them read the sequences, we'd have nothing to sneer at
>Vassar was central to my delusions, at the time of my arrest I had a notebook in which I had scrawled "Vassar is God" and "Vassar is the Devil" many times. This was partly due to a conversation I had had with him in which he said my "pattern must be erased from the world" in response to me defending EA, but was mostly due to indirect ripples of his influence flowing through someone who joined his group who I had much greater contact with.
Okay like,,, what
I cannot believe how many posts there are like "oh yeah, Michael Vassar started an insane cult and was responsible for multiple peoples drug-induced psychotic breakdowns, but I'm sure he didn't mean it, he's nice, we shouldn't exclude him from anything, that would be mean :<"
Like, despite my shtick here, I don't actually follow this stuff that closely, I care about ethics in tech and AI but that means I don't actually care at all about these folks because they're irrelevant. So it's just wild that I actually recognize the name from past scandals and evil nonsense. It was like, wait, the Metamed guy was horrible again? In one sense it's comforting that maybe there aren't THAT many megalomaniacal abusive pricks in the movement (or it's not big enough to make that many), but also in another sense horrifying that either they don't care to get rid of people like this from their movement or the movement is small enough that it's pretty much just run by these abusive sorts.
I don’t want to call the Vassarites a cult because I’m sure someone
will confront me with a Cult Checklist that they don’t meet
I dont want to call them a cult because some people might
disagree.
There is so much wrong with this…
The whole post is just shit, waffling about how cults are bad for
your mental models of what reason are in an attempt to avoid actually
talking about the object level problem at hand. People are hurting
Scott, dont make this about your hangups, you wanted to be a leader
figure, and a psychologist here you are. Do your job.
But nope the conclusion is, actual virus could be a problem, and that
this is just limited to the vassar subgroup. Distract from the problems,
and find a good reason to ignore them.
E: more of a general remark about this whole business. I look forward
to us being blamed for all this. ‘Sneerclub sneered at Yud for taking
decisive action in regards to the Basilisk, and this is why we didn’t
react strongly now’.
“I’m actually very worried about this! I hate admitting cults
are
possible! If you admit cults are possible, you have to acknowledge
that
the basic liberal model has gaps, and then you get things like if
an
evangelical deconverts to atheism, the other evangelicals can
say”Oh,
he’s in a cult, we need to kidnap and deprogram him since his best
self
wouldn’t agree with the deconversion.”
Don't you just love how "Outside view" sounds so much better than "false equivalence"? I just hope that nobody gets so caught int their aesthetic rebranding and starts thinking that it is more than that!
I actually read this as a calculated rhetorical move: Scott
implicitly contrasting his own “wow, people can be bad?” pose
of naïveté with the possibility that Vassar’s deliberate
choices might have led to extremely fucked-up results. Prepping the
ground for “omg, no other prominent rationalists had any idea
that this kind of thing was going on” scapegoating of Vassar.
(To be clear, it seems undeniable that Vassar is a deeply shitty
human being; I just don’t buy for one second that Scott is shocked,
shocked, to find that gambling cult shit has been
going on in this establishment.)
God I fucking hated Scott doing his—quite skillful by the
way—shifting the blame maneuver, that is “akshualy it was all Vassar’s
fault, he’s just this outlier, but we noticed the skulls and got rid of
him, MIRI/CFAR proper are actually cool and good”.
I went to check out /r/SSC for the first time in months, one
commenter wrote:
I really hope someone level-headed and trustworthy (eg Scott) can
weigh in on this.
It’s blood-boiling for me that his reputation of “level-headed and
trustworthy” is so permeating, that he can instill any narrative he
wants at will.
>I want to be extremely careful in when we do things like that, which is why I'm not actually "calling for isolating Michael Vassar from his friends".
and Brutus is an honorable man!
I checked Vassars twitter, no mention of these accusations (which is
why I went to check), retweeting complaints about Vaccine mandates and
societies “oppressive USSR speech policing”. He has replied to Robin
Hanson and Yudkowsky in the last day, so he is still associated with the
Rationalist community. Why is this guy not blocked by the leading
figures? Anyone with accusations like these should be avoided like the
plague. And so many of the lesswrong comments are basically making
excuses for him.
Seems to be saying here that he doesn’t want to believe they exist, but finds this instance hard to ignore. Not what the title is really implying.
(Actually this is an interesting problem in terms of the rational model because cults do pose basic issues to that sort of behavioral framework. In some mainstream theories of sociology of religion, they insist essentially that cults DON’T exist because brainwashing, etc. is impossible i.e. at odds with the rational model)
I am truly mystified as to how one can simultaneously (a) be a psychiatrist and (b) have a model of the human mind so weak and impoverished that the existence of cults is a threat to it. Cults and cult-like behavior are not exactly a rare or mysterious phenomenon; they are about as basic to being human as anything. It’s etymologically close to “culture” and that is not an accident.
That whole thread is one big yikes. Maybe also NSFW, since this is less “I am very smart” and more “how do we avoid directly discussing all the lives we’ve indirectly ruined.”
Agreeing with u/4smodeu2 Alexander is writing in a beige way but basically saying that he thinks Vasserites are cultlike, while also expressing the idea that cults are a problem for the liberal order because they challenge reason or something, so he’s doing a lot of weird hedging. I don’t really see how cults challenge reason because I don’t see how under a thin liberal conception of reason it was necessarily irrational to stay in Heaven’s Gate (his example).
I’m also not sure why charisma or cognitive dissonance are creepy explanations either, to be blunt.
Or the connection running through emotionally abusive relationships, cults, and rationality.
Basically this just seems like of those times where Alexander sees great significance in something, vaguely implies but doesn’t spell it out in any real detail, and constrains his actions / speech in accordance with his barely worked out fears.
Dude, why would you even bother with a “model” that is trivially falsified by a casual encounter with, you know, history?
Wait, what? The evangelicals of whom you speak are, pretty much by definition, a group of people who reject “Reason” [Scott capitalizes this like I do when I’m making fun of it]. They can say that kind of shit whether you believe cults exist or not. They’re not looking to you for legitimacy.
Yikes, I’d skimmed that thread a few days ago and seen the generic cult stuff (and the beginnings of the “is our cult worse than our sister cult” debate). But hoo boy I wasn’t expecting a blow-by-blow from the guy who just got out of prison for attempted murder.
Not believing cults can exist: this is the twelfth type of liberalism.
I dont want to call them a cult because some people might disagree.
There is so much wrong with this…
The whole post is just shit, waffling about how cults are bad for your mental models of what reason are in an attempt to avoid actually talking about the object level problem at hand. People are hurting Scott, dont make this about your hangups, you wanted to be a leader figure, and a psychologist here you are. Do your job.
But nope the conclusion is, actual virus could be a problem, and that this is just limited to the vassar subgroup. Distract from the problems, and find a good reason to ignore them.
E: more of a general remark about this whole business. I look forward to us being blamed for all this. ‘Sneerclub sneered at Yud for taking decisive action in regards to the Basilisk, and this is why we didn’t react strongly now’.
“I’m actually very worried about this! I hate admitting cults are
possible! If you admit cults are possible, you have to acknowledge that
the basic liberal model has gaps, and then you get things like if an
evangelical deconverts to atheism, the other evangelicals can say”Oh,
he’s in a cult, we need to kidnap and deprogram him since his best self
wouldn’t agree with the deconversion.”
the wise man bowed his head solemnly and spoke: “theres actually zero difference between good & bad things. you imbecile. you fucking moron”
(rare non-shitpost)
I actually read this as a calculated rhetorical move: Scott implicitly contrasting his own “wow, people can be bad?” pose of naïveté with the possibility that Vassar’s deliberate choices might have led to extremely fucked-up results. Prepping the ground for “omg, no other prominent rationalists had any idea that this kind of thing was going on” scapegoating of Vassar.
(To be clear, it seems undeniable that Vassar is a deeply shitty human being; I just don’t buy for one second that Scott is shocked, shocked, to find that
gamblingcult shit has been going on in this establishment.)God I fucking hated Scott doing his—quite skillful by the way—shifting the blame maneuver, that is “akshualy it was all Vassar’s fault, he’s just this outlier, but we noticed the skulls and got rid of him, MIRI/CFAR proper are actually cool and good”.
I went to check out /r/SSC for the first time in months, one commenter wrote:
It’s blood-boiling for me that his reputation of “level-headed and trustworthy” is so permeating, that he can instill any narrative he wants at will.
Interesting coming from Siskind given that he’s an exalted figure in the rationalist cult.
the acausal robot god would not allow a cult to exist
I checked Vassars twitter, no mention of these accusations (which is why I went to check), retweeting complaints about Vaccine mandates and societies “oppressive USSR speech policing”. He has replied to Robin Hanson and Yudkowsky in the last day, so he is still associated with the Rationalist community. Why is this guy not blocked by the leading figures? Anyone with accusations like these should be avoided like the plague. And so many of the lesswrong comments are basically making excuses for him.
They are in self-denial but this only makes incidents progressively worse
Saw this thread randomly in my feed but can’t make sense of it because no context. Can somebody explain what I’m looking at please?