Cult-like behaviour [was Re: Kindness]

[Chris Angelico]

On Sat, Jul 14, 2018 at 9:56 AM, Steven D'Aprano
<steve+comp.lang.python at pearwood.info> wrote:
> On Fri, 13 Jul 2018 19:04:39 -0400, D'Arcy Cain wrote:
>
>> On 2018-07-13 05:45 PM, Marko Rauhamaa wrote:
>>> Yeah, that is cult behavior. Here's a few boxes to tick on:
>>>
>>>    <URL: http://www.csj.org/infoserv_cult101/checklis.htm>
>>
>> I couldn't find a single item that applies to this group.  What's your
>> point?
>
> I think that Marko sometimes likes to stir the ants nest by looking down
> at the rest of us and painting himself as the Lone Voice Of Sanity in a
> community gone mad *wink*
>
> Let's look at the very first point on the checklist:
>
>     "The group displays excessively zealous and unquestioning
>     commitment to its leader and (whether he is alive or dead)
>     regards his belief system, ideology, and practices as the
>     Truth, as law."
>
>
> Apparently Marko didn't notice the irony of suggesting that we display
> excessive commitment to GvR in the middle of a thread that started with
> Guido resigning his leadership position with these words:
>
>     "I don't ever want to have to fight so hard for a PEP and
>     find that so many people despise my decisions."
>
>
> Yeah, the *hundreds if not thousands* of emails, posts, tweets and other
> messages telling Guido off for getting it idiotically wrong *really*
> sounds like cultists taking the words of their leader as divine truth. /s
>

Ahh but you misunderstand. The cult does not worship Guido. It
worships Tim Batchelder, an infallible being that few people have ever
actually heard from.

> "Ever since I learned about confirmation bias, I've been seeing
> it everywhere." -- Jon Ronson

You don't say.

ChrisA