I was shocked too. I was fortunate enough to read it and merely think “Huh… That was amusing. Anyway, back to Doctorow and Stephenson.” Apparently a fair few of EY’s readers were all “this is my life now”
I can’t make the claim that “the author started a death cult”, but I will say that they and their followers are closely patterned from the self-help grift template of endless seminars, and their ideology centres on moral absolutes and arguments that are intended to be so compelling that they describe some of their ideas as an “infohazard”.
Using only pop culture and fiction as primary sources, the “rationalism” subculture intended to create a system of ideas that was undeniable, according to its own logic - and then they accidentally spawned subcultures due to differences that were irreconcilable because of (I feel) their own absolutism. And if you follow these things, a subculture within a subculture is, 7 or of 10 times, a cult.
It is a dire amount of ink spilled in service of bullshit and, ultimately, murder. If your time has any value at all to you or your loved ones, I will gently suggest one of the podcasts that go over it. Behind the Bastards did a pretty okay job.
Still not the most disturbing fanfiction premise i’ve ever seen.
HP fanfic has no limit. I know of at least one that actually spawned a cult that has killed people.
I’m curious now, do you have a link?
It’s a fuck off massive rabbit hole, but look up “harry potter and the methods of rationality”, and then read about the zizians
Oh wow… I liked Methods of Rationality… Didn’t know it spawned a death cult somehow…
I was shocked too. I was fortunate enough to read it and merely think “Huh… That was amusing. Anyway, back to Doctorow and Stephenson.” Apparently a fair few of EY’s readers were all “this is my life now”
Some of the more, shall we say, dedicated HP fans seem to genuinely struggle to understand that it’s a story, and never happened.
If ever there was a fandom to go off the deep end like that, it’s Harry Potter.
Yeah, I don’t really care as long as it’s not the author starting a death cult, but it was an interesting read
I can’t make the claim that “the author started a death cult”, but I will say that they and their followers are closely patterned from the self-help grift template of endless seminars, and their ideology centres on moral absolutes and arguments that are intended to be so compelling that they describe some of their ideas as an “infohazard”.
Using only pop culture and fiction as primary sources, the “rationalism” subculture intended to create a system of ideas that was undeniable, according to its own logic - and then they accidentally spawned subcultures due to differences that were irreconcilable because of (I feel) their own absolutism. And if you follow these things, a subculture within a subculture is, 7 or of 10 times, a cult.
Well, that’s quite a read.
It is a dire amount of ink spilled in service of bullshit and, ultimately, murder. If your time has any value at all to you or your loved ones, I will gently suggest one of the podcasts that go over it. Behind the Bastards did a pretty okay job.