What is a cult? It is a faith based organization that disallows exit. The open secret is that faith need not be supernatural, but can easily be theoretically provable, and yet still be just faith. Since human science controls are typically unethical, political organizations are faith based. Even worse, fundamentalist political organizations that are both corrupt and more focused on rules than identity may make exit impossible, becoming a stealthy cult.
The human conscience grows stronger to recognising risk as it is exposed. In some cases opponents may be few, but unanimous political support at scale indicates oppression. People then carry the flag of their faith based organization as though it gives them wizardly powers of truth, joyous in their lack of opposition. In reality they are supporting an organization that limits opportunities for external criticism and has removed the opportunity of exit of their perceived opponents. There are always externalities, a lack of their observers indicates the absence of freedom.
When a rule focused hierarchy faces opposition of it’s procedures or plans, it’s mechanizations slow. Warnings elicit groans and frustration from committees and meetings as the cost of ordinary business begins to rise. Risk/impact analysis can elude even well meaning actors and resources are squandered. If a hierarchies leaders are flawed through incompetence, naivete, or actively defecting, the hierarchy can suffer and ultimately fail.
If they hear every risk, resources are squandered, but if they miss even one high impact risk, the result is the same. Hierarchies need to get this right. High frequency risks have high currency(social or monetary) rewards for discovery, a feedback loop is naturally created. The low frequency risks are the ones that pose typical systemic threats.
Cults are dangerous because the low frequency risk examination is blocked with ultimate authority, or in other words, physical force. Just like any hierarchy it blocks the disruptions caused by low frequency risks to cut costs (or something worse from corrupt psychopathic defectors) You have been deplatformed, so you can not repair the system, and because it is an ultimate authority, you can not exit it. Traditionally, all non mainstream thinkers are trapped in cult.
This systemic risk has been accepted because of a lack of resources to correct it. Books and widely distributed publications, and the freedom of speech that protected them, have been the only externalities. These publications require enormous resources to utilize them. A lifetime can be spent popularizing a single externality enough that public pressure forces the review of it’s risk. Thanks to technology, this limitation is no longer the case.
The Internet has the power to be the uncult. It can identify the intent of ‘cost cutting’ to ignore or externalize low frequency risks. Risks without feedback loops no longer need to be deplatformed, they can be replatformed. Hierarchies can no longer hide behind natural resource limits. A simple address, redirecting people to low frequency risk resource sites can be employed for no cost, rather than cutting them off all together. Use their old platform to point to their new one. Allowing people to explore the risk for themselves, possibly leading to a failure avoiding fork.
The only coherent argument against this policy in general, is the lack of people’s ability to govern themselves in democracy, which I wholly reject. Democracy works because hierarchy attracts psychopaths and their behavioural spectrum, and the furthest people from that center are the least likely to harbour opportunistic ill intent. Make a personal change, absent clear and present danger, only accept the uncult. Hierarchies that replaform instead of deplatforming. It’s free, so anything less is a rejection of the viability of democracy itself.
