Some pretend to, though.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Cult_Awareness_Network

Sorry for the tangent, but from the outside I've also felt very "outside" the LW community. I'm not exactly sure how to "join" it. I know that I'm supposed to read the various required readings first, but then what? How do I see what LW is "talking about" or "fighting about" at a point in time? I mean this in a serious, logistical sense. Thanks!

The LW community has decentralized and deformalized things to a huge extent. It's not just you - the logistics of participating are much less clear than it used to be, and the whole system is far less legible.

Honestly the best strategy is attend local meet-ups, come across as intelligent and interested to the people who hold gatekeeping power over the informal non-public groups, and get in the loop that way. This is significantly easier in Berkeley, where a lot of folks end up moving to. You can also skip some of these steps by attending a CFAR workshop, which will both introduce you to many members of the LW community and put you on an alumni-only mailing list which houses a chunk of the general discussion.

I'm out of the loop now, but it used to be like everywhere else (HN included) - you follow the posts and participate in comments, and after a while you suddenly find yourself to be an established community member.