> It's funny but this article is actually the strongest evidence of cult behaviour. Teaching you how to be "happy" is pretty much the initial selling point of almost every cult out there.
This is nonsense. It's an article posted to a curated community blog by some guy who happens to like reading tons of psychology papers and wanted to do some research into the state of scientific understanding of happiness. Is Wikipedia selling a cult too now[0]?
> This is nonsense. It's an article posted to a curated community blog by some guy who happens to like reading tons of psychology papers and wanted to do some research into the state of scientific understanding of happiness...
...and is executive director of MIRI, the organization hosting and providing most of the content to Less Wrong.
Which would be an equivalent of pg posting his essay to HN, and then people accusing HNers of cultishness because of that essay.
Hmm... actually, that happens every now and then and is exactly as fair as the accusations against lukeprog and LessWrong.
Also, MIRI was created years after LessWrong.
MIRI is the continuation of SIAI which predates (and started) LessWrong.
Though Luke's involvement does not, not that that really means much.
Re:How to Be Happy
by davidgerard on Monday July 21, 2014 @02:09PM
(#8065045)
Luke didn't walk by Scientology, he walked in:
http://lesswrong.com/lw/58m/build_small_skills_in_the_right_...
You'll see me in the comments going "WHAT THE HELL, HERO."
Also from the wiki you linked [1]
> Some people familiar with the LessWrong memeplex have suffered serious psychological distress after contemplating basilisk-like ideas — even when they're fairly sure intellectually that it's a silly problem.[5] The notion is taken sufficiently seriously by some LessWrong posters that they try to work out how to erase evidence of themselves so a future AI can't reconstruct a copy of them to torture
Wow either that article is hyperbolizing this or... wow.
[1] http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Roko%27s_basilisk#The_LessWrong...
[5] (reference from the quote) http://lesswrong.com/lw/fq3/open_thread_december_115_2012/80...