What is a Cult?

If you don't like a group, call them a cult. Some totally deserve it, such as People's Temple, Aum Shinrikyo, and Heaven's Gate. Was the Manson family religious enough to count as a cult?

Critics accuse cults of using mind control or brain washing. Isolation, sleep deprivation, etc. make persons more vulnerable to manipulation. Hard to resist the love bomb.

The stereotypical cult leader gathers followers through charisma and indulges in corrupt practices.

Deceptive recruitment hides the true doctrine of the cult from the recruits until after they have made an emotional commitment. Initiates may excuse this behavior because "The recruit is not ready for that knowledge." And it is true that you don't learn trigonometry before you learn geometry. But something is different... You can study trigonometry without understanding geometry first, but you will struggle and fail, or struggle and reinvent geometry and succeed with difficulty. Most importantly, there is no reason to hide the principles of trigonometry from people who studying geometry. So this obfuscation looks suspicious to me.

Cult members feel deep loyalty and motivation and willingly depart from social conventions. They often feel a profound sense of purpose and belonging. If their loyalty is born of the manipulative influence of the leader, and they embrace their beliefs uncritically, then their loyalty and motivation is misplaced, their belonging is a sham, their purpose is warped.

Normal, intelligent persons are vulnerable to recruitment by cults. One of the greatest strengths of advertising is that few people seriously consider the possibility of their vulnerability to manipulation.

I think everyone from a young age should study how to recognize and resist cult recruitment techniques and other forms of manipulation.

Can persons manipulate themselves using similar techniques, act as their own guru? Or will self-manipulation breed self-deception? Is it possible to form cohesive groups with intense loyalty and motivation that have no charismatic leader or stultifying dogma? Or is that the glue that holds a cult together, and ending the leader worshiping dogmatism will inevitably end the cult?

Group dynamics make people act strange. Haidt believes that our "groupishness" allows us to cooperate. This impulse gives fuel to civil society, the part of our lives that requires neither government coercion nor market incentives. In the age of the Internet, civil society can accomplish a lot.

Centralization Bias

Caplan lists 4 biases that he thinks explain bad government policies (anti-foreign bias, make work bias, pessimistic bias, and anti-market bias). I'd like to add a fifth, centralization bias. Or pehaps this is the flip side of anti-market bias?

Decentralized, voluntary solution solutions are hard to understand. Centralization and coercion seem deceptively simple and clear. Our imaginations eagerly overlook the true cost, our impatience, arrogance, and cowardice increase our willingness to skip the experiments and go straight to our favorite solution.

Centralization bias combines with anti-market bias while remaining distinct.

Criticizing Libertarian Rhetoric

Libertarians blame all problems on the government, including my hangnail, insomnia, the common cold, and halitosis. We tend to give credit to markets or civil society for any improvements in our lives. Some even expect human nature to change, a lot like the "New Soviet Man" that the Bolsheviks kept trying to create.

Libertarians propose radical solutions where other people hardly see a problem. Many of us love to dwell on doomy gloomy scenarios and conspiracy theories.

If we could convince everyone to embrace the nonaggression principle (NAP), would that really accomplish much? Statists do not believe they are initiating force with their mass incarceration and foreign policy adventures. They think they are defending society against serious threats. Even some libertarians think spanking children should be exempted from the NAP.

So, have I convinced myself I'm wrong, or that placing blame should come second to finding practical solutions to concrete everyday problems? I am willing to consider radical social change, so long as it is voluntary. I hope to focus on what we can gain, rather than moralizing or spreading doom and gloom. Is that just spin doctoring? What alternatives can I seriously consider? I have rejected violence, what remains? Standard politics, left, right and center? Apathy and indifference? Or getting involved where I can actually make a difference?

Can a Skeptic Test Their Own Political Beliefs?

Even full-time political scientists dropped this ball, how should an ordinary person proceed? How do I test libertarianism vs. liberalism or conservatism? Various countries have tried various policies and ideologies, with no clear result. Bryan Caplan explains the peculiarities of political ideologies by pointing out how one's political beliefs have no direct consequences to provide us with feedback.

Persuasion

Neurology and psychology have made impressive advances in recent years. I'd like to take these threads of skepticism, epistemology, sociology of knowledge, motivation, persuasion, and group psychology and synthesize a science of knowledge, belief, and understanding.


I've been reading "The Righteous Mind" by Jonathan Haidt, which has something to say about persuasion. Other titles include "Influence" by Cialdini, "The Power of Persuasion" by Levine, and the old standard "How to win friends and influence people" by Dale Carnegie.

property is theft?

People who make this claim are trying to make a subtle point with a simple statement, and it just causes confusion.  As long as you and I cannot use the same object at the same time for different purposes, we need some understanding or rule to determine who gets to use it now and who has to wait or find some other solution. I am perfectly happy calling that ownership or property.

Even if you don't buy deontology for individuals, you should want deontology for society en masse. Utilitarianism  is too arbitrary to suffice as a means of coordination.

People who use that slogan want to change the rules regarding property, rather than eliminating it. 

"Taxation is theft" - now that is pretty clear.

Comment on tokenlibertariangirl's video

The controversy surrounding Julie Borowski's video underlines how easy it is to push people's buttons. The basic issue Julie raised is important, interesting and difficult - why so many white males? Because obviously, gender is not the only demographic where libertarians are skewed. We're totally skewed!

Julie typically satirizes ideas she disagrees with, and rants a bit. This red meat looks delicious to us old libertarian hands, and might inspire an epiphany for a few newbies. So as "inreach" I think it works, but as outreach it misses the target.

In this case, I think Julie switched to prescription before she finished her diagnosis. She raised an issue I care about, but did not persuade me that she understood the causes and cures. When the video ended, I did not feel energized to help with a solution or pursue further investigation. (On the other hand, it did make me stop and think, and inspired me to make this comment.) And although I don't agree with the bleeding heart libertarians who got bent out of shape, I can understand their perspective. I'm not sure what motivated Julie to make the video, what she hoped to accomplish. I guess I'm asking her to aim higher, because I believe she has a lot of spark and so could accomplish more than this if she put her mind to it.

I want more outreach. If we want to increase the size and demographic diversity of the libertarian movement, we need to persuade people better. Rather than criticizing, we need to provide tempting alternatives. This has led me to want to learn more about persuasion, motivation, and communication. I invite you to join me.