Why “Scientology” is being discussed
The most recent Hacker News stories and comments contributing to this topic's mentions.
Try bringing up Scientology in Hollywood. I think you can now but there was a time when saying anything bad about that cult would get you blackballed from the industry. It’s sti…
by api · Sep 19, 2026
> This is quite clearly accusing them of being a cult in the sense of Scientology or Jonestown, not in the sense of Britney Spears lovers. If that were true, I believe you would…
by roenxi · Sep 19, 2026
Oh my, where did you get this from? I happen to know both. The founder of Scientology was a scientist who started with a somewhat decent idea, got popular in the US, but his fam…
by akomtu · Sep 18, 2026
> There is substantial doubt, I don't think the article did accuse them of being any of those things. The article says: > Rationalism as a whole is a religious movement. Not eve…
by tsimionescu · Sep 18, 2026
IMO if they didn’t have proper licensing to train on the data the model should not be copyrightable. In the long term though I think models have no moat, so the cost will fall t…
by api · Sep 18, 2026
Scientology is an evil cult, while Falun Gong is more like Buddhism. You can't really compare them.
by akomtu · Sep 17, 2026
Interest
Proportion of Hacker News items mentioning "scientology" over time.
Mentions
Total number of Hacker News items mentioning "scientology" over time.
Scientology is a set of beliefs and practices created by the American author L. Ron Hubbard. Hubbard initially presented his ideas in 1950 as a form of talk therapy called Dianetics. He later expanded and reframed those ideas as a religion, which he named Scientology. In 1953, he founded the Church of Scientology, which, by one 2014 estimate, had around 30,000 members. Read more on Wikipedia