I think this is worthwhile flagging, but I also wonder how useful we should expect this kind of relatively shallow pattern matching to be in terms of making decisions?
For example, sure we have gathering, but all community organisations have gathering. How similar are our gatherings to religious gatherings? Most EA meetups I’ve been to tend to either be social or have a talk/discussion like all other kinds of groups interested in a particular topic. There doesn’t seem to be anything specifically religious about how we go about these.
I imagine that if you went through some of the other similarities you identified, then I suspect mightn’t find the similarity to run very deep. I think this is especially likely if you also look at other causes generally considered non-religious, such as environmentalism or political parties in order to establish a baseline.
I think this is worthwhile flagging, but I also wonder how useful we should expect this kind of relatively shallow pattern matching to be in terms of making decisions?
For example, sure we have gathering, but all community organisations have gathering. How similar are our gatherings to religious gatherings? Most EA meetups I’ve been to tend to either be social or have a talk/discussion like all other kinds of groups interested in a particular topic. There doesn’t seem to be anything specifically religious about how we go about these.
I imagine that if you went through some of the other similarities you identified, then I suspect mightn’t find the similarity to run very deep. I think this is especially likely if you also look at other causes generally considered non-religious, such as environmentalism or political parties in order to establish a baseline.