For me, it’s social dancing, specifically West Coast Swing. Because while there is just social dancing, and some who only do it, there’s a bit of a culture of competition, and it has its own governing body for determining where you place in competitions, and when it does sound like a cult when described.
barbershop quartet idk
Hexbear
I absolutely don’t want to try to convince anyone I know to join Hexbear.
See the big brain move is to start an actual cult and then get the cult into that hobby
Emacs
“who wants to study religion and metaphysics?” [everyone running for the door like i’m charles manson] no wait like we just hang out smoke weed and read stuff like the timae- [a sawed off shotgun levelled at my head]
It do be like that sometimes. What a lot of people don’t realise is that everyone has a metaphysics, the question is have you interrogated it, thought it through etc.
As always, the alternative to philosophy is not no philosophy, but instead really bad philosophy.
I feel the same way about theology and religion: whether people like it or not, the religious impulse is a cultural universal. Do we utilise it for good, or surrender the territory without a fight to religious conservatives?
Yeah this recuperative perspective on philosophy was very popular on places like the badphilosophy subreddit. It is significantly undermined by “good” philosophy largely being total dogshit. The effective altruists are what this “good” philosophy looks like.
No one likes effective altruistists, least of all most academic philosophers. They’re a punchline.
Not that this in any way undermines my point. It’s very anti intellectual to point at one shit philosophical movement and wash one’s hands of the responsibility of thinking.
But that’s the entire point, the account of philosophy you are espousing attempts to capture for itself the entire concept of thinking.
That’s… that’s always been the point, yes. I mean the word itself means love of wisdom, which is quite literally thinking well.
All specialised disciplines of inquiry are downstream of and emerge out of philosophy, and any self-reflexive internal dialogue within these disciplines is inherently philosophical.
Most languages don’t make the hard difference between Science and Philosophy like we do in English, and trying to sustain the difference in any absolute sense is basically impossible.
Philosophy is just radically open thought: the willingness to investigate seriously and update one’s views, and, as best as possible, to keep one’s ego out of what one finds.
I think that’s a very self-important account of philosophy that lends the academic practices generally associated with philosophy far, far greater relevance and weight than they should be given. Philosophers like to think of themselves as being at the base of some hierarchy of truth, beyond even mathematicians. It’s nonsense.
Lol effective altruists like the whole FTX Sam bankman fried thing? Gtfoan you’ve lost the plot.
Acro yoga and contact improv, but that probably has more to do with everyone being mega hippies that probably are already in a cult
contact improv
I only play flag improv after my injury
I like to play full contact nude improv if the vibes are right
Ballroom Dancing
Me trying to get my friend into a niche modding community of a dead and de-listed music mixing game just because he once DJ’d.
Tabletop miniature games. >!Except we probably are a cult send help they wont let me do anything except basecoat.!<
This gets double bad if there’s two of you (tabletop games) and one of them.
BJJ is notorious for this
Many martial arts have a heavy lifestyle component to them, so they feel kind of culty to people who compartmentalize those bits of their life and other parts. But if you use your martial art as meditation or spiritual practice, you do you.
D&D
Any sort of TTRPG stuff. Most people would enjoy it, but explaining it does sound weird to someone who’s never participated
ancient demonic black magic
In my experience, modern demonic black magic has a much more beginner-friendly community with less gatekeeping.
Modern demonic black magic is called “investing.”
Look, we may consort with damned beings whose twisted souls know nothing but hunger, but we’re at least principled about it.
sick shit!
King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard. They’re not a jam band, they’re a band that jams. Very fine distinction.
Oh jeez, I’m the most annoying person in the entire universe about this. Everyone actually likes king gizz, some just haven’t listened to the right album yet.
Oh my god, I’ve been thinking about this on and off since weeks. I need to make playlists for my friends showcasing stuff they would like. But there’s so much to choose from!
A friend of mine got obsessed with KGATLW and he would seriously evangelize about it every chance he’d get.
Tbh, fair, because King Gizz rocks hard as shit, and they have something for almost anyone.
Table top role playing
