I think cults are a useful lens to understand other social institutions, including EA.
I don’t like most “is a cult”/”is not a cult” binaries. There’s of often a wide gradient.
To me, lots of academia does do highly on several cult-like markers. Political parties can do very highly. (Some of the MAGA/Proud Boys stuff comes to mind).
The inner circle of FTX seemed to have some cult-like behaviors, though to me, that’s also true for a list of startups and intense situations.
All that said, I do of course get pretty annoyed when most people criticize EA as being a cult, where I often get the sense that they treat it as a binary, and also are implying something that I don’t believe.
I think cults are a useful lens to understand other social institutions, including EA.
I don’t like most “is a cult”/”is not a cult” binaries. There’s of often a wide gradient.
To me, lots of academia does do highly on several cult-like markers. Political parties can do very highly. (Some of the MAGA/Proud Boys stuff comes to mind).
The inner circle of FTX seemed to have some cult-like behaviors, though to me, that’s also true for a list of startups and intense situations.
I did like this test, where you can grade groups on a scale to see how “cult-like” they are.
http://www.neopagan.net/ABCDEF.html
All that said, I do of course get pretty annoyed when most people criticize EA as being a cult, where I often get the sense that they treat it as a binary, and also are implying something that I don’t believe.