The Inner Sanctum of the GloFlo movement

As a reminder of what we covered in my last article on the Global Flourishing movement, also called ∑±, it's a new group setup in Auckland recently by a member of the New Zealand Association of Rationalists and Humanists. The group claims to be aligned with skepticism, humanism and rationalism, but appears to have some concerning characteristics that make it look less like a group of skeptically-minded people, and more like a cult - at least to me.

In my last article, I'd entered the inner sanctum of the group in search of more information about how the group was operating, what their membership levels were, and what they were discussing, only to find out that I was the first member to have passed the test and been admitted to their hidden chat channels in Discord.

Thankfully, over the next few days, a few other members agreed to the group's basic tenets and joined me and Paul (also known as either Ui or ∑±78c7e). The conversations over the next few weeks made it clear to me that the new members all appeared to know Paul personally on some level, and also made it obvious that none of these people were really on board with the group's Evidence-based reasoning “tent pole”. For example, there's a certain irony to these thoughts on science and culty behaviour from user “Mechanikilla”:

Not even science is immune to parasitism

Science is literally the pursuit of questions & answers through constant testing, and yet questioning so called science today is akin to herecy

If you can't question it, the it's not science, even if you're wrong

But even still, Some humans are deeply attached to religious activity regardless the religion, even some "athiests" can be more religious or dogmatic than many existing religions, attaching themselves to any new church of beliefs without realizing or being able to admit to their new dogmas, going so far as to forming new original sins, etc

It's these behaviors that lead to so many tents turning sour, driven purely on crowd emotion or becoming puppets for someone else's agenda, & I don't know how but those people & behaviors also need to be addressed in some way that doesn't result in its own cult like practice

And this response from “sahyel” felt a little heavy on claims, but light on evidence (any reference to Carl Jung tends to make my skeptical radar go off):

So i think what @Mechanikilla said there identifies the problem, and the difficulty is i dont think rationalism, humanism, or skepticism are sufficiently equipped to address the issues of the interface between the human existence and the collective existence where the tent finds itself pitched. To echo @Mechanikilla , atheists who hold themselves to those same camps of thought (rationalism, humanism, skepticism) can be as zealous as any other ideologically posessed group, and its because of the neglect of the fundamentally indispensable human nature which we have to know how to navigate within ourselves. Part of why i have proposed the joining of the powerlines and cruciform banners to the central pole of human flourishing in the new-tentpole-proposals is because i believe strongly that the only way for us to flourish as a species is to flourish as individuals (along maslows hierarchy), familially (a core network of lifelong relationships) and intersocially (the tent, and other communities we participate in)

One of the reasons people turn to religion is because they are more willing to starve their rationality than abandon their humanity. And we have to remember this first and foremost

Carl jung provides deep insights into the elements of the human mind which are not rational and yet are very real, and there is an entire world within the mind that is neglected by modern philosophies, because of the overarching need of modern people to quantify everything. We should learn to understand the values of immergence, qualia, gestalt, subconscious, and self reflection, history, and get more of a holistic view of ourselves as beings.

“Sahyel” had more to say about those pesky atheists, and how he considers religion to potentially offer more to humanity, and to the group, than non-believers do:

What is the goal behind creating atheists though? When someone turns away from a religion and towards atheism, it doesnt make them more rational, it just deconstructs a system of belief they used to have which provided meaning.

…

Would you have the same barrier to entry upon the ideologically possessed? You would like to, but you will find it hard to implement, because with religion you can bar some people, but with disenchanted atheists with no central ethos, no core fundamental cultural ties but always longing for belonging, you will in fact attract atheistic disenchanted people, who will inflate the group and create fractures from inside

…

Yes i agree. But i feel religion has much to teach, even in its mistakes

…

And knowing which things to take and which to leave out is the right of any person or movement, but to cast aside all religion is foolish, and makes no logical sense

Rationalism seemed almost to be a dirty word, which was ironic given that Paul had explicitly been talking about elevating rationalism and skepticism. Beyond a simple jibe at the Rationalists group in Auckland - “the rationalists have a council 😆 how rational of them” (disclaimer: I'm a member of the NZ Rationalists council) - there were plenty of opinions to go around:

sahyel — 01/04/2023 17:52

its interesting, it certainly feels like the rationalists have left their evidence behind 🧐 😆 i understand the need for rationality as a tool, but im not convinced it is worthy of being one of the three functional tentpoles, as i predict it will conflict heavily with the storytelling tentpole, and im curious to see how it could be that a system which refutes hierarchy when hierarchy is essential to structure will persist, but i also respect why it is there, to prevent the worse aspects of human nature from coming to the fore.

ultimately, i agree entirely with your aspirations, but i come from a completely different perspective, which is why i really value your imput and the dynamic we could have debating these ideas

∑±78c7e — 01/04/2023 17:56

Yes, I think it would be great to continue this discussion about the Rationalists (I'm talking about NZ Rationalists here, is that who you mean?). ... with some, there is a strong desire to support and partner with ∑± (e.g., they are not charging anything at all for the use of their building, and are happily hosting posters, and postings all over the building and on various digital channels to promote the talk etc.)...

....there are some others who have big quetion marks in their minds about this whole thing, who we still need to win the hearts of 🙂

sahyel — 01/04/2023 17:59

yeah, which is great, and i can see why you are leaning into it so much, as they also stand to gain and are doing you a great favour, but also they are imparting a significant ideological influence on the movement. Im not against rationalism, i find it a useful, even indispensable tool, i just think there are certain key aspects to cognition that often get overlooked, which ends up not evenly displaying human nature.

∑±78c7e — 01/04/2023 18:08

right,....... I don't think there is a lot of "ideological influence" coming from the Rationalists here in NZ towards ∑±.... much more so the other way around 😉😂.... e.g., I am very openly saying to Rationalists members and council-members (e.g., one who should arrive in here soon, maybe tomorrow) etc., that I think NZARH needs to move past the preoccupation it's had for many decades on being primarily just anti-religious. While I think that religion is a net-negative force in the world, and holds us back from "the best possible future world" and may help tip us over into an existential catastrophe... and certainly interferes with good "evidence-based reasoning"! (i.e., I think current NZ rationalism is mostly a pure subset of ∑±), I think that there could/should be much more to NZ Rationalism than just opposing religion.... and there needs to be, otherwise that organization will continue to atrophy, decay, and die 😢.

......... I think Rationalism was initially, and should definitely now be, about evidence-based reasoning, and the scientific method and that type of thing ... i.e., basically what this tent pole is meant to represent:

https://discordapp.com/channels/1077093251825274910/1077125481540894771

sahyel — 01/04/2023 18:15

well i agree that the rationalists picked a poor war with religion in hindsight, as the more ground they gain in combatting religion, the less relevant they themselves become in terms of counter culture towards religion, no body cares about being an atheist in a world where god is believed to be dead, its a moot point

The idealism of fanciful futurist ideas also shone through in the conversations:

∑±78c7e — Yesterday at 13:05

I think selling "merch" is one way we could start to fund this ∑± social enterprise. What do people @here think of that?

sahyel — Yesterday at 13:09

only time will tell if they are better, but i was thinking we could sell things that actually help our customers of our merch improve their own lives, either helping them prosper or reduce dependency on things which take up their time/money and other things. one idea i have is about making a modular indoor aeroponics plant system so people can grow their own plants in their homes even if they are short on space and get little light, something that works even scaling up to larger spaces

sahyel — 01/04/2023 17:42

what would the ideal partners be? the reasons for partnering i would see as:

public exposure, ideological alliance, growth, intellectual contribution and financial growth.

∑±78c7e — 01/04/2023 17:49

wow, yes, totally,... to be honest I hadn't thought it through much, but I think you have nailed it pretty much.... there might be some other reasons to partner with organizations that we haven't thought of yet though.... like maybe utilizing a large indoor space where "∑± art" could be hung and ∑± events and "games" held?..... 😉.

........ on the flip side, the sorts of organizations I think we should avoid partnering with are any that have antithetical "poles in their tents".... e.g., we shouldn't partner with any group that is seeking to promote a particular political movement and breed hate towards one or more other groups right?

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sahyel — 01/04/2023 17:56

as for partnering with large indoor areas, i see that more as a joint venture, where we rent out the top space when the group is large enough, and use it for experimentation, organisation, and learning how we can improve our immediate environment, i have a few ideas already on how we could do that

Paul, the group's founder, was full of ideas on how he could increase the reach of his group, which he shared in one of the hidden channels on his Discord server, called “#what-shall-we-talk-about-in-here”:

If you are seeing this text, you are one of the first people to see this text 😉... let's work together from here to figure out where to take this thing next!

......some ideas I have are:

1: Regular in-person and online meetups... for the in-person ones, I have some ideas around activities and "games" that I think might be fun and hopefully lead to some great creative thinking around progressing this ∑± movement in whatever ways we can. There are also some people I have in mind who might like to help with some other great ideas around that (with luck, you're one of those people dear reader 😉)

2: A subreddit

3: A YouTube channel...

..... since initially putting together this Discord message board thing, and working hard on putting together and promoting the "In-person Reason and Passion meetup group event in Auckland", we've learnt a whole heap about what we're likely to be faced with a lot from all sorts of people in trying to progress anything with this "∑±" movement.... basically a lot of what's talked about in the following diagram, but also some subtly different stuff,.... and some totally different stuff 😂.... and some of it with a fair amount of force:

..... one common thing we're getting a lot of is something along the lines of: "why should anyone get excited about (or even care about), any of what you're saying here? why is it any different to anything anyone else is saying?.... and why don't you just forget about all this ∑± movement stuff, and just go support e.g., the Effective Altruists with what they're doing?"

So yeah, that's a good point. There isn't anything earth-shatteringly different about anything we're talking about in this message board (or in real 3D life).... but that's part of the fricken point 😂.... the 5 tentpoles we're on about in here are just 5 simple things that lots of people are already talking about. All we're trying to do is bring these things together into a new way to help promote the idea of "bringing people together to help avoid existential catastrophe, and build the best possible future world!"

....and yeah, yeah,! what the Effective Altruists are promoting overlaps with a lot of what we're on about here. If people are inspired by anything we say into e.g., pledging to donate 10% of their income for the rest of their lives to the most Effective charities, then fricken awesome! We should be very proud and happy and thrilled to hear that! And we totally intend to partner with EA in future events etc. because they are a great movement. We also, hope, wish, intend to partner with the Rationalists, Humanists, Skeptics and many other organizations that have overlapping interests (and nothing antithetical) around the world.

So what do you guys think? 🙂. Where shall we take this ∑± thing?

........ oh, and we have heaps of new ideas for future events for the "Reason and Passion" meetup group and helping the Rationalists to re-grow an immense and vibrant membership again..... here's a couple of us promoting the first R&P ∑± event on 14 April at Rationalist house 😁:

...... I'm thinking maybe we should get a custom-made caravan that we can drive around with billboards on either side to promote future events.... 🤔... 😂

I kind of despaired about the methods Paul was using to promote his upcoming meetings - a sandwich board, honestly, just makes me think of the stereotypical religious warnings of “the end is nigh” you more often see in newspaper cartoons than on the high street.

So I arranged to meet with Paul online to chat about my concerns - I really wanted to learn more about where Paul was coming from, and figure out whether I was misunderstanding his aims, or if his plans were indeed a little bit culty. I had an hour long video chat with Paul, and I came away from our conversation more concerned than I went into it. Paul had suggested during the chat that I should attend his first online meeting, where he was going to explain his ideas fully - and that I should suspend any judgement until then.

In the meantime, I sent a Facebook friend request to Paul. I figured that, as we're essentially on the same side, despite the wide differences in our methods, it would be good to be connected online. After a few days, I received a Facebook IM response from Paul:

hey thanks for the friend request Mark but I have declined, since, mate, to be honest, I don't trust what you want to do with that,.... I feel like maybe you're a cult leader yourself... I feel like you just want to destroy whatever I might try to stand for.... and me as well perhaps.... basically just like you don't trust me, I definitely don't trust you now…

.... and I definitely definitely don't think you really want to be my "friend" do you?

Hey Paul, I'm sorry you feel this way. I'm not sure what to say - I like you, you seem like a good guy. I definitely want to be friends with you as well.

But I obviously don't agree with everything you're doing at the moment. I've tried to be honest with you about that.

So if you don't think we can be friends because we see things differently, that's okay. I respect your right to pick and choose who you associate with.

It's not about not being friends "because we see things differently". It's about me not trusting what you want to do with FB friend status on me. ...

basically it seems like every chance you get, you have basically trolled me in every way you can in every forum you can ... so I'm wondering what you want to do with FB friend status... do you see how I might be suspicious?

Can you tell me how I've trolled you?

... if you'd like to discuss it, "man to man", then I'm always up for that. We could arrange another online meeting?

Okay, yeah, another meeting would be great. I'm a little confused right now about what you think I've been doing.

Ok. well, there's every chance I could be wrong about aspects, (or the entirety?), of what I feel about you right now 🙃... certainly I think the vice versa is the case 😉🙂

I'm super busy with stuff in the next several days, but could we meet maybe after 5 May?... also, we have the "online ∑± talk" on 12 May, were you thinking of seeing that? If you do, hopefully your thoughts around the nature of this whole ∑± thing might change to being much more favorable? 🤞🙂

Yes, I'm hoping to attend your talk of course.

So it seems that Paul was concerned that I had it in for him, that maybe I wanted to “destroy” him. I guess in a way he was right to be suspicious about the fact that I was poking around his movement, but at the same time I had tried to be as honest as I could that I was not there to swallow whatever he was pushing, I was there because I had concerns about the direction his group was taking. I wonder if maybe his bombastic choice of wording was a hint that he was viewing things in overly simplistic way, as very black and white - the “you're either for me or against me” kind of rhetoric that lacks the subtlety of real life.

Next time will be the final part of my adventures in Global Flourishing, where I talk about the meeting I attended online, and try to summarise Paul's Big Idea in a way that hopefully does it justice. Needless to say, as a skeptic I'm still not convinced that Paul's plan is anything other than a case of wishful thinking, misunderstanding of the world and our place in it, and a liberal sprinkling of internet-fuelled tech-bro nonsense.