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Gurdjieff the cult leader / charlatan? Who used to paint birds in yellow to sell them as canaries? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Gurdjieff https://en.m

Gurdjieff the cult leader / charlatan? Who used to paint birds in yellow to sell them as canaries? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Gurdjieff https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Gurdjieff I agree he is brilliant but at the same level as the founder of the Scientology or other cult leaders who became awfully rich Talking about a good book to read on cults / religion : https://infidels.org/library/historical/unknown/three_impostors.html https://infidels.org/library/historical/unknown/three_impost...

qwerty456127 7y ago
IMHO it doesn't matter much who the author of a book was and what other things did he do if you can extract useful information from the book. What if Charles Ponzi himself would have personally invented a (real) cure for cancer or something before he died? Would we dismiss it just because he was a professional charlatan? I believe we would rather rest it to actually find out whether it works or doesn't.
- oska 7y ago
  > What if Charles Ponzi himself would have personally invented a (real) cure for cancer or something before he died? This is a pretty strained argument. The much more likely scenario would have been Ponzi claiming that he had invented a cure for cancer and, given his history of gross fraudulent behaviour, would rightfully be ignored as a sensational claim being made by a known huckster.
  - qwerty456127 7y ago
    It seems to me that ignoring the claim would be irrational unless checking it is not extremely hard. The fact a claim is made by a known huckster affects our perception but says nothing about whether it is true or false. Outside purely theoretical exercises in logic, there are no liars who are guaranteed to lie in every single claim they make.
carapace 7y ago
He wasn't a cult leader nor did he become rich (his fortunes waxed and waned) despite being able to fleece people apparently at will. The fake canary caper is assumed to be autobiographical, as is the brazen theft of the "IP" of the plaster statue-maker, but the time he almost initiated an orgy and then shook everyone down for donations was reported by a (sympathetic!) eye-witness. It's not included in "Beelzebub's Tales" at any rate. You don't think L. Ron Hubbard is brilliant do you? I mean "Battlefield Earth" is pretty good (the book not the movie.) To me, comparing Hubbard to Gurdjieff is like comparing Nicholas Taleb to Isaac Newton.

qwerty456127 7y ago

IMHO it doesn't matter much who the author of a book was and what other things did he do if you can extract useful information from the book. What if Charles Ponzi himself would have personally invented a (real) cure for cancer or something before he died? Would we dismiss it just because he was a professional charlatan? I believe we would rather rest it to actually find out whether it works or doesn't.

oska 7y ago
> What if Charles Ponzi himself would have personally invented a (real) cure for cancer or something before he died? This is a pretty strained argument. The much more likely scenario would have been Ponzi claiming that he had invented a cure for cancer and, given his history of gross fraudulent behaviour, would rightfully be ignored as a sensational claim being made by a known huckster.
- qwerty456127 7y ago
  It seems to me that ignoring the claim would be irrational unless checking it is not extremely hard. The fact a claim is made by a known huckster affects our perception but says nothing about whether it is true or false. Outside purely theoretical exercises in logic, there are no liars who are guaranteed to lie in every single claim they make.

carapace 7y ago

He wasn't a cult leader nor did he become rich (his fortunes waxed and waned) despite being able to fleece people apparently at will. The fake canary caper is assumed to be autobiographical, as is the brazen theft of the "IP" of the plaster statue-maker, but the time he almost initiated an orgy and then shook everyone down for donations was reported by a (sympathetic!) eye-witness. It's not included in "Beelzebub's Tales" at any rate. You don't think L. Ron Hubbard is brilliant do you? I mean "Battlefield Earth" is pretty good (the book not the movie.) To me, comparing Hubbard to Gurdjieff is like comparing Nicholas Taleb to Isaac Newton.