Do you really think "cult" is a useful category/descriptor here?
My view: things identified as "cults" have a bunch of good traits. EA should, where possible, adopt the good traits and reject the bad ones, and ignore whether they're associated with the label "cult" or not.
Not only is this real, I think this is a paraphrase of a thing Yud wrote. Which makes it even cultier. (A reason why I called the Rationalismsphere a cult incubator, as their teachings make you more susceptible to getting into cults).
“Look, all I’m saying is that Scientology managed to scale massively, both in members and funding! There’s obviously something there that we can learn from!”