4 ms·

Very smart people join cults all the time, and it's quite well understood that you don't get them to leave a cult by showing them how irrational it is.

by cpa 4y ago

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
MichaelZuo 4y ago
I think the parent is saying that ipso facto joining a cult means that they weren't actually 'very smart', only in appearance.
- hnarn 4y ago
  At least I think it might be a good idea to question what we individually mean by "intelligent" or "very smart" when we see people that we think harbor these traits behaving in a way that we strongly dislike. The definition of intelligence is not a completely uncontroversial subject.
- akimball 4y ago
  As is often said of GPT.
  - MichaelZuo 4y ago
    That's an interesting way to put it.
- Spooky23 4y ago
  Cults are like a confidence grift. Everyone has weaknesses, and the people running these things target and exploit them. Smart people often make dumb choices.
- thwayunion 4y ago
  > I think the parent is saying that ipso facto joining a cult means that they weren't actually 'very smart', only in appearance. If by "intelligent" we mean the conventional thing -- learns new things easily, capable of reasoning through complex tasks, would do well in med school/law school/phd programs/finance/engineering, picks up creative disciplines quickly, etc -- then are we sure it's not exactly the other way around? People become invested in cults and conspiracies for emotional reasons, not rational reasons, and conventionally intelligent people are extraordinarily good at post hoc rationalization. More importantly, they're often better at mitigating or managing some of the downsides (eg, maintaining good-enough status in a cult, avoiding talking about the conspiracy in certain circumstances, etc.). At least, this has been my experience with some extended family who fell into a cult: the ones I could consider "smartest" were stuck in the cult the longest, because they could rationalize their way into an answer for everything.
  - MichaelZuo 4y ago
    The truly intelligent, or 'very smart', people reliably detect when they are falling for post hoc rationalizations. At least in my experience. Most other people make claims or may appear to be but in practice do not demonstrate it on a broad basis, as in your example. Maybe a different terminology is needed to describe the latter case, 'selectively smart'?
    - js2 4y ago
      You're making a No True Scotsman argument here, no?
      - MichaelZuo 4y ago
        I don't see it? You will need to elaborate.
        js2 4y ago
        This entire subthread seems to be an argument over the definition of "intelligent". In no dictionary definition that I can find does it exclude people who join cults. Yet that seems to be the argument being made here. From the Wikipedia: > No True Scotsman, or appeal to purity, is an informal fallacy in which one attempts to protect their generalized statement from a falsifying counterexample by excluding the counterexample improperly. So I think it's a No True Scotsman argument to make to say "well, if they joined a cult, they must not have been intelligent in the first place." But now I suppose we're arguing over the definition of the No True Scotsman fallacy and that's just a bit too meta for me on a rainy Sunday afternoon, so I'm going to go walk my dog. :-)
        MichaelZuo 4y ago
        There clearly exist people who can see their own post hoc rationalizations? It's not some abstract speculation. Even HN comments often demonstrate it one way or the other.
Eddy_Viscosity2 4y ago
The oc likened conspiratorial thinking to other addictions like alcohol or gambling and, while not perfect, I think this is a good analogy. People don't join cults because of its reasoning, they join because the cult provides them with something that was otherwise missing in their lives, such as a strong feeling of dependent community or whatever. The intelligent mind then post-rationalizes that being in the cult is good and reasonable (even over-riding blatant evidence to the contrary). The stronger the mind, the better this rationalizing will be. Conspiratorial thinking follows a similar trend -- it is giving them something they were missing. Gambling addictions, abusive relationships, and so on all have similar rationalization processes where a person's own intelligence is weaponized against them to continue in self-destructive behavior. Humans are weird that way.

Very smart people join cults all the time, and it's quite well understood that you don't get them to leave a cult by showing them how irrational it is.

by cpa 4y ago

Very smart people join cults all the time, and it's quite well understood that you don't get them to leave a cult by showing them how irrational it is.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

MichaelZuo 4y ago

I think the parent is saying that ipso facto joining a cult means that they weren't actually 'very smart', only in appearance.

hnarn 4y ago
At least I think it might be a good idea to question what we individually mean by "intelligent" or "very smart" when we see people that we think harbor these traits behaving in a way that we strongly dislike. The definition of intelligence is not a completely uncontroversial subject.
akimball 4y ago
As is often said of GPT.
- MichaelZuo 4y ago
  That's an interesting way to put it.
Spooky23 4y ago
Cults are like a confidence grift. Everyone has weaknesses, and the people running these things target and exploit them. Smart people often make dumb choices.
thwayunion 4y ago
> I think the parent is saying that ipso facto joining a cult means that they weren't actually 'very smart', only in appearance. If by "intelligent" we mean the conventional thing -- learns new things easily, capable of reasoning through complex tasks, would do well in med school/law school/phd programs/finance/engineering, picks up creative disciplines quickly, etc -- then are we sure it's not exactly the other way around? People become invested in cults and conspiracies for emotional reasons, not rational reasons, and conventionally intelligent people are extraordinarily good at post hoc rationalization. More importantly, they're often better at mitigating or managing some of the downsides (eg, maintaining good-enough status in a cult, avoiding talking about the conspiracy in certain circumstances, etc.). At least, this has been my experience with some extended family who fell into a cult: the ones I could consider "smartest" were stuck in the cult the longest, because they could rationalize their way into an answer for everything.
- MichaelZuo 4y ago
  The truly intelligent, or 'very smart', people reliably detect when they are falling for post hoc rationalizations. At least in my experience. Most other people make claims or may appear to be but in practice do not demonstrate it on a broad basis, as in your example. Maybe a different terminology is needed to describe the latter case, 'selectively smart'?
  - js2 4y ago
    You're making a No True Scotsman argument here, no?
    - MichaelZuo 4y ago
      I don't see it? You will need to elaborate.
      - js2 4y ago
        This entire subthread seems to be an argument over the definition of "intelligent". In no dictionary definition that I can find does it exclude people who join cults. Yet that seems to be the argument being made here. From the Wikipedia: > No True Scotsman, or appeal to purity, is an informal fallacy in which one attempts to protect their generalized statement from a falsifying counterexample by excluding the counterexample improperly. So I think it's a No True Scotsman argument to make to say "well, if they joined a cult, they must not have been intelligent in the first place." But now I suppose we're arguing over the definition of the No True Scotsman fallacy and that's just a bit too meta for me on a rainy Sunday afternoon, so I'm going to go walk my dog. :-)
        MichaelZuo 4y ago
        There clearly exist people who can see their own post hoc rationalizations? It's not some abstract speculation. Even HN comments often demonstrate it one way or the other.

Eddy_Viscosity2 4y ago

The oc likened conspiratorial thinking to other addictions like alcohol or gambling and, while not perfect, I think this is a good analogy. People don't join cults because of its reasoning, they join because the cult provides them with something that was otherwise missing in their lives, such as a strong feeling of dependent community or whatever. The intelligent mind then post-rationalizes that being in the cult is good and reasonable (even over-riding blatant evidence to the contrary). The stronger the mind, the better this rationalizing will be. Conspiratorial thinking follows a similar trend -- it is giving them something they were missing. Gambling addictions, abusive relationships, and so on all have similar rationalization processes where a person's own intelligence is weaponized against them to continue in self-destructive behavior. Humans are weird that way.