[noqc]

Perhaps I will get downvoted to death again for saying so, but the obvious answer is because the name "rationalist" is structurally indistinguishable from the name "scientology" or "the illuminati". You attract people who are desperate for an authority to appeal to, but for whatever reason are no longer affiliated with the church of their youth. Even a rationalist movement which held nothing as dogma would attract people seeking dogma, and dogma would form.

The article begins by saying the rationalist community was "drawn together by AI researcher Eliezer Yudkowsky’s blog post series The Sequences". Obviously the article intends to make the case that this is a cult, but it's already done with the argument at this point.

[o11c]

> for whatever reason are no longer affiliated with the church of their youth.

This is the Internet, you're allowed to say "they are obsessed with unlimited drugs and weird sex things, far beyond what even the generally liberal society tolerates".

I'm increasingly convinced that every other part of "Rationalism" is just distraction or justification for those; certainly there's a conscious decision to minimize talking about this part on the Internet.

[twic]

I strongly suspect there is heterogeneity here. An outer party of "genuine" rationalists who believe that learning to be a spreadsheet or whatever is going to let them save humanity, and an inner party who use the community to conceal some absolute shenanigans.

[noqc]

No, I really mean atheists that crave religion.

[handoflixue]

> Obviously the article intends to make the case that this is a cult

The author is a self-identified rationalist. This is explicitly established in the second sentence of the article. Given that, why in the world would you think they're trying to claim the whole movement is a cult?

Obviously you and I have very different definitions of "obvious"

[noqc]

When I read the article in its entirety, I was pretty disappointed in its top-level introspection.

It seems to not be true, but I still maintain that it was obvious. Sometimes people don't pick the low-hanging fruit.

[mcv]

In fact, I'd go a step further and note the similarity with organized religion. People have a tendency to organize and dogmatize everything. The problem with religion is rarely the core ideas, but always the desire to use it as a basis for authority, to turn it dogmatic and ultimately form a power structure.

And I say this as a Christian. I often think that becoming a state religion was the worst thing that ever happened to Christianity, or any religion, because then it unavoidably becomes a tool for power and authority.

And doing the same with other ideas or ideologies is no different. Look at what happened to communism, capitalism, or almost any other secular idea you can think of: the moment it becomes established, accepted, and official, the corruption sets in.

[johnisgood]

I do not see any reasons for you to get down-voted.

I agree that the term "rationalist" would appeal to many people, and the obvious need to belong to a group plays a huge role.

[noqc]

There are a lot of rationalists in this community. Pointing out that the entire thing is a cult attracts downvotes from people who wish to, for instance, avoid being identified with the offshoots.