more cultishness: Zizianism, masked attackers in the woods, Roko's Vegan Basilisk...
(http://zizians.info/)
posted on October 21, 2021 02:33 PM by
u/mtraven
56
u/notdelet41 pointsat 1634829759.000000
This part jumped out at me: > Her posts become progressively more
bitter over time, until the latest ones outright accuse CFAR and MIRI of
sexual and financial crimes.
Maybe that was a more far flung accusation to make when this was
written?
I think the author is part of CFAR/MIRI so I'd take both sides with a heavy dose of salt (from those evaporation ponds on the southeast corner of the bay).
The whole thing seems like a Branch Davidians kind of situation. It is all fun and games to start a cult, then David Koresh joins it.
it feels like everyones trying to provide cover for their own cult-like groups by outing other cults, as if learning the behaviour of the zizians or vasserites will make MIRI look better. Of course, all of these people were heavily involved with each other, so from the outside it just makes the whole lot of them look like cult city, which it apparently is.
I genuinely believe that the Rationality community reached the critical mass, where the leaders no longer care about growing it further by inducting newcomers. What they want is to maintain those already inside.
Scott's scapegoating (blame concentrating, that is) of Vassar was met extremely favorably by the in-group. Same with NYT “doxxing” nonsense—he looked batshit to the normies, but the amount of support he got from his readers and his friend circle was enormous. Hell, now that I'm typing it, maybe that's why he shut down his blog to begin with: victimize yourself to get a gargantuan narcissistic supply of adoration.
Yeah, Ziz is pretty caustically radical - in a political as well as an ideological sense - but I'm not inclined to disbelieve her when e.g. she describes a culture of institutional sexual harassment and assault among Bay Area rationalists.
It seems clear to me the author of this article is trying to disparage some people because they dared to insult miri-cfar's honor or something. The miri-cfar leadership are huge transphobes and abusers, and the ziz crew has been some primary targets.
idk i would just warn people reading the article to be careful who you are siding with.
The great thing about sneering is that we don't have to side *with* anyone, we can just side *against* the whole toxic culture that gives rise to these insane abusive micro-cults.
Ziz has some good points in her anti miri cfar flyer, the problem is that she still believes in the project. It is more a schism or the birth of protestantism (for zizs sake I hope it is that and not more like the hussites), vs our motley collection of atheists, nihilists, apostates, jews and muslims. (To go full into the Christian church analogy).
(So yeah, the writer of this website also has a few axes to grind and their information is also, as they say, sus (e: trying to link zizs ideas to militant vegans (without proof as far as I can tell, the actual image doesn't mention veganism but people trying to build rokos basilisk) is very suspect))
E: edit a year later. https://www.reddit.com/r/SneerClub/comments/12dxwf4/nsfl_those_warnings_against_ziz_were_fake_and/ some info about the trustworthiness (or more lack of it) re the site op posted has come out.
I need to take a break from reading up on these millenarian
rationality cults, because at this point a group trying to hack the
corpus callosum as preparation for the Vegan Singularity barely moves
the needle.
I think it prob is a bit of both so they can be all wishy washy on what it all means. Doesn't help that people who have a psychic break into it being legit tend to not be pushed to professional help by the cults.
There's been a tendency the last decade or so toward incorporating mystical/esoteric/occult vocabulary into rational discourse. It's one of the lines of demarcation between "rats" and "postrats." Think of the weirder Jungian bits of Jordan Peterson, or Scott's Meditations on Moloch.
One rational case for post-rationality is that words like "demon" or "egregore" can be truer to lived experience and in certain ways more useful than words like "meme" or "memeplex." Meditations was influential partly because Scott's representation of the death drive as a Canaanite god allowed him to discuss the apparent malice and intentionality displayed by an abstract system of systems.
But not everyone in this scene uses "demon" rhetorically. There's something of a scale of literalism running from 0 (= *'Demon' is just a convenient metaphor for 'meme'*) through 5 (= *I'm something of a panpsychist, and I believe that ideas and systems can possess a kind of consciousness and intent*) to 10 ( = *The Ars Goetia is real*). Determining where on the scale any given demonologist falls can be difficult without a lot of tedious forum anthropology. In the case of these last couple cults, there's not enough information to be sure.
I have seen it suggested that episodes of depersonalization can shift people violently towards 10: acute schizophrenia, psychedelic drugs, overuse of meditation. And cult programming, I would imagine.
Given the references to demons from both CFAR and Leverage, and the
culturally very Christian references to “Vassar is G-d” and “Vassar is
the Devil(not really a figure in Judaism IIRC)” the founders of
rationalism, despite being raised in Judaism, seem to have reinvented
the apocalyptic cult version of Christianity without god
This articles treatment of veganism is really weird and grating (like
obviously vegans don’t think non-veganism can be described as good, so
what?), but yeah, this group seems like a micro-cult. I’d love to see
actual studies on inducing unihemispheric sleep on humans if any
exist.
It’s a minor thing, but at least the inevitable seasteading is
because the rent is too high and not just because there’s no IRB or AoC
in international waters.
Ziz believes there are two kinds of core, “good” and “nongood”.
“Nongood” cores are the most common (about 95% of the population). A
“nongood” core is one that only grants full agency when dealing with
issues of self survival or protecting offspring. This is enforced by a
filter that only unlocks full agency when it detects those objects in a
situation. Sometimes this filter breaks, producing a “good” core.
Because people have two cores, there are three basic alignments:
“nongood”, “single good”, and “double good”. “Single good” is about 5%
of the population, having one broken core which allows limited
altruistic agency. Ziz seems to believe the probability of cores
breaking is independent. That means the “double good” alignment only
occurs in one fourth of one percent of people. This is important because
double goods are the only people who can have full altruistic agency in
Ziz’s worldview.
Wait, isn’t this terminology lifted straight out of the evil
government in 1984? If you’re gonna start an evil abuse cult, you could
at least be original about it. (or don’t start one at all, jesus christ
this is awful)
> That means the "double good" alignment only occurs in one fourth of one percent of people. This is important because double goods are the only people who can have full altruistic agency in Ziz's worldview.
i.e I am special and everyone else is an NPC, but in self made obscurantist jargon.
Nah it's just good business.
You go on and on about how your cores are predetermined or whatever and then five years later you "discover" a very expensive, arduous way to change the cores. It's a miracle. You are a genius.
Only problem is that it requires full attention so you need to be living in the core treatment center full time for it to work. Also, the treatment center has to be purchased etc.
They are probably just waiting till they catch a sufficiently rich person, then they'll miraculously discover the core treatment.
You got to layer your grifts in this game. Always have multiple scams on the go.
This is a 3/2-ass disaster. It's a whole-ass cult with a half-assed mythos.
Seriously, though, is this an accurate accounting of this person? It reads a lot like what Scientologists write when they go after splinter factions and SPs.
I'm an east coast weird-nerd, not a west coast weird-nerd, so I have no personal connection with anyone involved. In the past have tried to read Ziz's blog (with the emphasis on *tried*). I did so out of sheer perverse curiosity. Anyway, I think I have a vague "feel" of the situation. Make of that what you will.
To me this appears to be a very dysfunctional person having a giant beef with a larger dysfunctional social group, each piece creating feedback loops driving the overall dysfunction. Among the socially vulnerable people likely to get sucked into the rationalist sphere, some number of them will then get sucked into the "Ziz-sphere," and round it round it turns. The system has no brakes because no one involved has even the most basic social calibration.
Honestly, I've seen queer polycules melt down this way. Hell, I once participated in such a meltdown. Thus the "Ziz situation" feels very familiar. In my case, after the dust settled I was left wondering how I let myself get sucked into such a mess, along with a comittment not to do that again.
(And indeed, I've managed to avoid situations like that, after getting burned so hard the last time.)
Short version: this whole mess is exactly what it appears to be.
LessWrong attracts alienated nerds who don’t fit into msinstream society, like cults and terror groups. Why can’t the goverNment subsidize subcultures, create rules and regulations for them etc. as a Healthy Outlet for non-normies?
Yeah, in 1984 newspeak had the goal to make certain types of thoughts unthinkable or expressible. In this case sort of evil people don't exist I guess. Which if you look at Eichmann you could sort of argue, but holy shit there is no need to setup a new language about this, esp when you then use that to deny agency of others.
Also please Rationalist, at least start using 2x2 grids compared to binary options/a single spectrum.
I told a story about a time I had killed 4 ants in a bathtub where I
wanted to take a shower before going to work.
I considered getting paper and a cup and taking them elsewhere. And I
figured, there were decent odds if I did I’d be late to work.
How I had considered, can I just not take a shower, and presumed me
smelling bad at work would, because of big numbers and the fate of the
world and stuff, make the world worse than the deaths of 4
basically-causally-isolated people.
rearranged from Ziz. This is a funny, very rationalist thing to do -
sweeping the ants away with my hand would take too long, so I am going
to kill them. Killing them is OK because I’m going to save the
world.
That said, the author’s both sides-ing is ridiculous. They also don’t
seem to notice that the liberal society they support is doing
evil on a mass scale. Surprising since this is a straightforward
consequence of e.g., wondering why the popular EA charities are
needed.
In the mind of a Zizian, liberalism means the same thing it does for
a Communist or Nazi: an opportunity for decadence, vice, and corruption.
Because we “already know” the correct moral policy is a ruthlessly
enforced altruism towards all or almost all living creatures; supporting
liberalism is to participate in crime on a mass scale.
In the pamphlet distributed at Camp Meeker is a passage threatening
to punish “nongood” people:
Eliezer offered us heaven Ill considered-solace in hopes of heaven
worships hell
Two futures only? Extinction vs Utopia Why two? What really prevents
an evil/unjust singleton? “No motive for predation post scarcity??” -
false. Indifference is not enough 1. Evil cannot create (but can
capture) 2. Good will destroy hell and punish all those who would build
it
What the…I might be interested in playing a video game based on this
lunacy. Something like Layers of Fear, but based on batshit crazy
rationalism like this.
We can’t know for sure since he’s no longer with us but I really
think even Bentham would disagree with some of his older writings if he
could be brought back today. A lot of his forward looking ideas like
equality of sexes, acceptance of gay people, and animal rights are
really admirable but given what we know about the effectiveness of
torture and the knock on consequences of not having privacy a lot of his
ideas of how a justice system should work or how a society should be run
haven’t aged as well.
Also I think a lot of us in the modern world have gotten to a point
where happiness is no longer the only we thing we value or want out of
life which is harder to think about when you’re just trying to come up
with a philosophy that revolves around reducing suffering.
Isn’t agency a greater value than happiness? As in theoretically you can be deprived of agency and made happy but that really seems not worth it. Also knowledge as a better value
Considering there seem to be several dead links here, im wondering
when this was written. Im not a fan of this modern trend to either no
longer include dates or only backdate from now (this post was written 5
years and 4 days ago). (Both cause problems with putting stuff in the
correct historical context so gg rationalists for making finding truth
harder).
The intro references a Nov 2019 event, and the If-Modified-Since tags on the site range from Jan 2020-Apr 2020, so I'm guessing it was written and updated over that range.
For more info on this page see this post
https://www.reddit.com/r/SneerClub/comments/12dxwf4/nsfl_those_warnings_against_ziz_were_fake_and/
turns out this page was fake. ( or at least likely is)
This part jumped out at me: > Her posts become progressively more bitter over time, until the latest ones outright accuse CFAR and MIRI of sexual and financial crimes.
Maybe that was a more far flung accusation to make when this was written?
I need to take a break from reading up on these millenarian rationality cults, because at this point a group trying to hack the corpus callosum as preparation for the Vegan Singularity barely moves the needle.
Given the references to demons from both CFAR and Leverage, and the culturally very Christian references to “Vassar is G-d” and “Vassar is the Devil(not really a figure in Judaism IIRC)” the founders of rationalism, despite being raised in Judaism, seem to have reinvented the apocalyptic cult version of Christianity without god
This articles treatment of veganism is really weird and grating (like obviously vegans don’t think non-veganism can be described as good, so what?), but yeah, this group seems like a micro-cult. I’d love to see actual studies on inducing unihemispheric sleep on humans if any exist.
It’s a minor thing, but at least the inevitable seasteading is because the rent is too high and not just because there’s no IRB or AoC in international waters.
also cult stuff, but baby steps
the LessWrong/Worm crossover that not a soul on earth asked for
Wait, isn’t this terminology lifted straight out of the evil government in 1984? If you’re gonna start an evil abuse cult, you could at least be original about it. (or don’t start one at all, jesus christ this is awful)
rearranged from Ziz. This is a funny, very rationalist thing to do - sweeping the ants away with my hand would take too long, so I am going to kill them. Killing them is OK because I’m going to save the world.
That said, the author’s both sides-ing is ridiculous. They also don’t seem to notice that the liberal society they support is doing evil on a mass scale. Surprising since this is a straightforward consequence of e.g., wondering why the popular EA charities are needed.
What the…I might be interested in playing a video game based on this lunacy. Something like Layers of Fear, but based on batshit crazy rationalism like this.
Ziz made up bigender people?
We can’t know for sure since he’s no longer with us but I really think even Bentham would disagree with some of his older writings if he could be brought back today. A lot of his forward looking ideas like equality of sexes, acceptance of gay people, and animal rights are really admirable but given what we know about the effectiveness of torture and the knock on consequences of not having privacy a lot of his ideas of how a justice system should work or how a society should be run haven’t aged as well.
Also I think a lot of us in the modern world have gotten to a point where happiness is no longer the only we thing we value or want out of life which is harder to think about when you’re just trying to come up with a philosophy that revolves around reducing suffering.
Considering there seem to be several dead links here, im wondering when this was written. Im not a fan of this modern trend to either no longer include dates or only backdate from now (this post was written 5 years and 4 days ago). (Both cause problems with putting stuff in the correct historical context so gg rationalists for making finding truth harder).
Gnosticism is better than this shit
I talked to ziz once
For more info on this page see this post https://www.reddit.com/r/SneerClub/comments/12dxwf4/nsfl_those_warnings_against_ziz_were_fake_and/ turns out this page was fake. ( or at least likely is)
Looks like the movement’s focus on The Absolute Good and Absolute Truth allows people to twist the word’s meanings just like in Christianity