Evaporative Cooling of Group Beliefs - LessWrong
Early studiers of cults were surprised to discover than when cults receive a major shock—a prophecy fails to come true, a moral flaw of the founder is revealed—they often come back stronger than befo…
x Evaporative Cooling of Group Beliefs — LessWrong Death Spirals Groupthink Social & Cultural Dynamics Frontpage 203 Evaporative Cooling of Group Beliefs by Eliezer Yudkowsky 7th Dec 2007 4 min read 51 203 Early studiers of cults were surprised to discover that when cults receive a major shock—a prophecy fails to come true, a moral flaw of the founder is revealed—they often come back stronger than before, with increased belief and fanaticism. The Jehovah’s Witnesses placed Armageddon in 1975, based on Biblical calculations; 1975 has come and passed. The Unarian cult, still going strong today,
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