As of May 2026, four Zizians have tried to explain what they were doing:
Ziz Lasota had her blog and sometimes speaks briefly in court
Michelle Zajko, who is accused of arming the Zizians who got into a gunfight in Vermont, sent a 20-page handwritten letter to her lawyer who shared it with reporters
Maximilian Snyder (sometimes spelled Maximillian with two Ls), accused of murdering his former landlord in California, dictated a 1500-word letter to Eliezer Yudkowsky urging him to become a vegan (SF Chronicle with full transcription at the bottom)
Gwen Danielson left after inventing the “good brain hemisphere, bad brain hemisphere” theory and talked to reporters in 2026
I think the chances are good that the 20-page letter has specific claims about sexual misconduct by senior rationalists in California but a small-town reporter in Vermont chose not to explore them. In the screenshot below, Ziz claims that Ana Salamon told him that trans women are not real women (waves a copy of Alfred Korzybski and a textbook on semantics and sighs).
As of May 2026, four Zizians have tried to explain what they were doing:
I think the chances are good that the 20-page letter has specific claims about sexual misconduct by senior rationalists in California but a small-town reporter in Vermont chose not to explore them. In the screenshot below, Ziz claims that Ana Salamon told him that trans women are not real women (waves a copy of Alfred Korzybski and a textbook on semantics and sighs).
Christopher Beam asked many Rationalists about the Zizians for the NYT and did not push back when they made excuses.