Excuse me if I'm mistaken, but it seems to me that the FoF falls under the more pejorative sense of cult, rather than NRM, given the central role of leadership and the abuses of power. It seems distinct from, say, neo-paganism in that sense.
If you're referring to the parent comment's description of Google, then there's really no point in trying to make a distinction, since they were using it as a polemic anyways. That said, I don't think describing capitalism as the cult is necessarily useful either, in that it implies a reliance on _active_ belief and conscious performance of rituals which doesn't seem to be the case. It seems to me that the more useful framework is Fisher's capitalist realism, which more accurately describes this neoliberal end of history that inspires so much pessimism (and a more Foucaultian sense of power which is pervasive and defines the discursive space, rather than religious, which identifies a moral power within entities). Regardless, theorizing endlessly on capitalism is probably not going to solve actual issues of corporate overreach and abuses of power, so it's infinitely easier to just call Google a cult and hope it shifts public opinion and motivates political action lmao.
If you're referring to the parent comment's description of Google, then there's really no point in trying to make a distinction, since they were using it as a polemic anyways. That said, I don't think describing capitalism as the cult is necessarily useful either, in that it implies a reliance on _active_ belief and conscious performance of rituals which doesn't seem to be the case. It seems to me that the more useful framework is Fisher's capitalist realism, which more accurately describes this neoliberal end of history that inspires so much pessimism (and a more Foucaultian sense of power which is pervasive and defines the discursive space, rather than religious, which identifies a moral power within entities). Regardless, theorizing endlessly on capitalism is probably not going to solve actual issues of corporate overreach and abuses of power, so it's infinitely easier to just call Google a cult and hope it shifts public opinion and motivates political action lmao.