Today, we will be revisiting one of the first zarticles (Ziz articles) we ever read: which, at the time (about a month ago) really impressed us for its thoroughness, & its thoughtfulness in laying out its main point: that Ziz is a mesmeric, cray-cray demon aflame w/ bloodlust. This article left us shaking in our boots! It did its job exceptionally.
What, we wondered, would we think of it now— now that we are one month older, a bit wiser, & luckily, now that we have our bingo chart to guide us:
& so we turn our eyes across the pond— to The Guardian: "They wanted to save us from a dark AI future. Then six people were killed."
No complaints so far— we just hope “They” refers to the Rationalists as wel- op, but then we read the subheader: “How a group of Silicon Valley math prodigies, AI researchers and internet burnouts descended into an alleged violent cult” 😑
“Alleged” is a nice touch! A lil overshadowed by the next two words, but we’ll take what we can get. This piece is by J. Oliver Conroy.
A stroll thru his bylines reveals that J.— just like us— is a cult girlie! He’s written on Jonestown, on those wacky Sovereign Citizens, on “controversial guru” Rashad Jamal (two of whose followers— if J. is anything to go by— “allegedly lured a driver to his death”)— on a wide range of mayhem, which we’d be eager to read were we not up to our ears in ZMAYHEM (Zi… ahhh, you get it.)
We share J.’s enthusiasm for the macabre, but by para. 4– where Ziz’s blog is said to betray “provocative and increasingly extreme ideas about confrontation and retaliation”— we find ourselves begging him w/ the same words our loved ones have used so often to beg us: “Can’t you write about something less… violent?”
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We suspect that J. is referring to Ziz’s 2019 post “Punching Evil”— about which, as we’ve written, the central questions are: whom does Ziz hypothetically confront, & when does she hypothetically confront them? (a. Nazis; b. After 3 years of being wrung thru the Rationalist ringer— which is quite juicy, if J. wishes to turn his juice-seeking eye thataway 👀)
Alas, our Rationalists are introduced only as “the targets of Ziz’s ire”. They are described as “odd, though often charming”, & their ideology is framed as being “less about specific ideas than… about an ethos– applying rigorous, mathematically informed thinking to AI, philosophy, psychology and the big questions of our time.”
This— given the Rationalists’ over-wielding emphasis on one specific idea… to the exclusion of all other “big questions of our time”…— is quite inexplicable. Also, the vast majority of mainstream AI experts would dispute whether Rationalists apply “rigorous, mathematically informed thinking” to the field— or if what they bring to the table is not narrow, Eliezer-informed thinking! As for whether the Rationalists apply their big brains to either philosophy or psychology… we’ll merely direct readers here and here.
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Amidst this morass, Ziz is described as “[earning] a school, of sorts”— again, a weird way to describe “making friends”— which “an opponent” is said to have dubbed… the you-know-whos.
We dk if “opponent” fully captures John David Pressman, alleged author of The Unnamed Site, but we like how J. isn’t framing John’s (alleged) motives as wholly public-spirited.
However, J. follows this up w/ the silly sentence: “Very few people had ever heard of Zizians until this January…”— again, making “Zizians” sound like the residents of a small island nation or like an ethnicity currently under attack.
Soon enough, we cross “leftwing anarchist group” off our bingo card— & incidentally learn that Audere, in 2023, won an $11,000 prize for AI research, which, given their $200,000 trust fund, strikes us as out of pocket.
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The “Zizians” are further described as “militant” vegans— and just for good measure, as “far-left” encore. It’s noted that they are mostly trans, but— while one might think that common lived experiences could bring a group of friends together— J. demurs & posits instead that what unifies this cabal is:
[A] kinship with a philosophy, which Ziz largely promulgated, that takes abstract questions from AI research to extreme and selective conclusions.
We hate to repeat ourselves, but J., in that sentence, is beautifully describing the Rationalists— it is the Rationalists, not Ziz, who promulgate both extreme & selective AI conclusions. Namely, it is Eliezer Yudkowsky.
Btw, it’s weird that J.— given his interest in cult-y figures— has yet to indicate that he knows of Eliezer— weirder still bc, in the next paragraph, he proudly tells us how much research went into this piece:
In reporting this story, I obtained exclusive chatroom logs that chart the Zizians’ radicalization and ultimate acceleration into violence. I examined thousands of words of blogposts, court filings and other documents, and spent weeks interviewing people familiar with Ziz and her circle.
😮💨 We’re jealous!! We want exclusive chatroom logs! …On the other hand, maybe we don’t: we don’t know— yet— whether these are chatroom logs of the “Zizians” themselves, or whether these are the highly suspect chatlogs of LessWrong & related Rationalist servers— which indeed, during the ‘19 pile-on, did make much of “charting” the “radicalization” of Ziz, Gwen, Somni, & Emma— & which, we have no doubt, spent the next few years excitedly following the girls’ alleged “acceleration into violence”.
We hope that by “thousands of words of blogposts”, he means the girls’ blogs 🙏; “other documents” will just have to remain a mystery; as for those “people familiar with Ziz and her circle”… call us pessimists, but we fear these may encore be the architects of & eager participants in the pile-on, who— spoiler— have since become eager interviewees in our news coverage on ‘Zizians’!
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Next, J. quotes one of his unnamed subjects saying, “it’s just, you know… a murder cult”; and calls Ziz an apostate— which we had to look up, & which J. could perhaps have benefitted from looking up more thoroughly, bc its meaning reveals a few uncomfortable truths abt life chez the Rationalists.
An “apostate” was originally a religious term, & still carries religious implications: apostates have renounced their former beliefs, & have left the fold(s)— often in a way which is seen as a betrayal by their former communities. Our definition notes that apostates tend to be viewed “with suspicion or hostility by those they leave behind”— “sometimes even more so than outright opponents of the group”!
👏👏👏 Here J. has summarized both the millenarian true beliefs of the Rationalists— in contrast to his earlier “rigorous, mathematically informed” fiddle-faddle— & has provocatively cracked the code on why Rationalist sources might speak ill of the Zizster.
Yet, just two paragraphs later, J. can be seen throwing this framework out the window, & settling on a wholly unexpected angle: he will be telling our “strange saga” as “a… collision of internet culture and the real world– and perhaps [as] a harbinger of more uncanny tidings to come.”
We have question, & we have concerns— but we will let J. continue.
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😮💨 It’s a good thing we did— FINALLY, J. introduces us to Eliezer, accurately calls him a “doomer”, nods to his 8th-grade education, explains how he “wanted to flesh out a philosophy that could provide ethical frameworks without religion”, & 👏👏👏 lets the world know:
This, when we first read it, scared the pants off us! We called it— still do call it— a thought-terminating cliché: a cult-y gambit meant to shut down dissent & debate. J. could easily have ridden the implications of this— of all we’ve just learned abt Eliezer— a bit longer…
…but instead, down he dips into Ziz, whom he describes as (in her youth, at least) “interested in… utilitarianism” (a dubious claim which we fear betrays, among J.’s research, the fingerprints of The Unnamed Site….) He then introduces MIRI & CFAR as “Two organizations [which shaped] Ziz’s thinking – then become bedrocks of her rage.” 🙃 Why is Ziz “raging”, J.? Does she just hate rational thinking?
We still don’t know if J.’s “thousands of words of blogposts” include Ziz’s blog— we almost, at this point, hope they do not; bc if they do, then J.— in this framing— is yet another journalist to gloss over Ziz’s legitimate beef w/ these orgs, in order to paint a picture of Ziz as unhinged, & of the Rationalists as her hapless, happenstantial quarry.
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The scandalous Peter Thiel is again brought up— & again pushed off-stage in a rush, w/ nary a scandalous achievement explored. Ziz again pops up to fill the silence: here we find her (allegedly) being “consumed by visions of damnation”, & we find some charming tableaux from her childhood: young Ziz & friends hacking their middle school’s payroll system, lavishing bonuses on their favorite teachers— & slashing the salaries of those they dislike 😆 We find a teacher from these years saying Ziz had been “tantrum”-prone, which we think we’re supposed to read w/ ominous music in the background, but which we read w/ tears of recognition in our eyes*.
*& somewhat wondering whether tween Ziz’s “tantrums” were related at all to the severe gender dysphoria she got hit w/ during these years.
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J. is indeed reading the Zizster’s blog: he quotes from one scene where Gwen, at the start of her friendship w/ Ziz, divulges her dragon otherkin identity— but J. leaves out the (in our opinion) best part: the part when Gwen (who has yet to come out) tells Ziz that she’d “asked to be a girl” as a child, “had been turned down”, & now wears a “dragon-shaped necklace” & dreams of becoming a dragon after ~the singularity~… eventually admitting that, to her, “becoming a dragon” symbolizes “keeping [her] femininity alive in a hostile world”, while giving her the means to not “say so outright” 😭😭😭
Example dragon from Gwen's blog
This happens to be one of our fav Gwen facts— but J. omits it in favor of quoting how, post-singularity, dragon-Gwen plans on eating her human form, “since that seemed like the most fitting way to dispose of it”.
We like Gwen’s plan ofc, but, sans context, we rather fear that it paints her character as ~quirky~ or eccentric— which, unfortunately, both feeds in to the “crazy cultists” narrative, and continues a trend of portraying trans ppl as outliers or as sensationalized oddities— rather than as ppl whose journeys & emotional backstories may be readily, empathically understood.
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Gwen is then described— by “people”— as “gradually [becoming] so deferential to Ziz that others were concerned.” This is not the Gwen we recognize from her blog, where— incidentally— we find her railing against these “deferential” insinuations.
As we’ve said: Gwen strongly dislikes when ppl imply she & friends were in any way “deferring” to Ziz, bc this has been used to imply that they would never have criticized CFAR & MIRI were it not for Ziz’s wicked influence. To her mind, it strips them of their autonomy.
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J. then says Ziz says that her “radicalization” was due in part to Bay Area rent prices… we know “radicalization” wasn’t quite the word Ziz used, but J. provides no link w/ this paraphrase 🤷🏻♀️
Ziz’s blog is given a shoutout for being rather an oasis of truth-telling “[in] an insular community in which many people believed that airing dirty laundry could harm the cause”.
👏👏👏 Excellent characterization of the Rationalists & of their motives— & this is the nicest thing any news outlet has said abt Ziz’s blog to date!
Ziz’s oasis of a blog is then said to have drawn the thirsty minds of many “young, leftwing Rationalists”— nothing wrong w/ that! Ziz may be “unhappy”, J. reports, but her “worldview hadn’t yet hardened into cynicism” 🙃
It is, alas, our worldview which soon hardens into cynicism, once we read the next sentence, & find J. quoting 😮 Zack M. Davis???
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Let us explain: Zack is chief among the pack of whom we have hitherto been calling, for the sake of convenience, “Rationalist clowns”. Zack, ca. 2016-18, is a friend/frenemy of Ziz’s: it is Zack who—
• Has principally been bedeviling her w/ Blanchard’s disgraced autogynephilia hypothesis— “transness is just a fetish”. It is to Zack that Ziz has responded: this is “unfalsifiable” “Freudian nonsense”.
• Has forced Ziz to "endure the constant assertion” that she “is a lying perverted man", that "gender identity" is "logically-incoherent" & that a trans person's reaction to being misgendered is nothing but "narcissistic rage": "trans women have too much pride".
• With the above— and much more— has been making Ziz feel "A sort of persistent background creeping pain" filling her "mind, day by day".
In 2018, it is Zack who calls Anna his “friend”, & begs Ziz not to expose her transphobery.
It is Zack who reads Ziz’s clear & comprehensive list of Anna’s transphobery, & expresses confusion over what, exactly, she thinks Anna's done wrong.
Soon after reading this list, it is Zack who suddenly turns on Ziz in front of Michael Vassar, & starts yelling at her abt bathrooms— to which Michael responds by he/him-ing Ziz, “perhaps to sooth” Zack.
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We know all about Zack’s mortal clownery thanks to Ziz’s blog: J., ipso facto, knows it too. Yet he chooses to cite Zack in the process of painting a “fuller picture” of his subject Mz. Ziz— never mind that Ziz herself has written widely on her inner life & personal experiences! (For just a few examples, see above.) J., meanwhile, paints Zack as “a Rationalist who later drew Ziz’s anger in an intellectual disagreement about gender identity” 🤯
After all this, what Zack has to say abt Ziz is quite sweet: in 2017, he had a psychotic break, & she brought him chocolates, saying they were “allegedly good against dementors”.
This J. frames as a ~rare moment~ of kindness from Ziz. We might frame Zack’s telling of this story— in 2023, after the Vallejo incident & long after the pile-on— as a rare moment of humanizing Ziz; & Ziz’s box of chocolates as one in a series of tragic kindnesses she persisted in paying to one who was harassing her.
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Miss Jessica Taylor gets brought on next! We thought we might have the pleasure— once J. dangled the promise of “people familiar with Ziz and her circle”!
Jessica also had a mental breakdown in 2017, & Ziz also offered to help her: not w/ chocolates this time, but w/ mental tech.
Jessica says, “in hindsight”, she’s “glad” she declined 🤷🏻♀️ We agree it’s better practice to see a therapist than to see a 20-something software engineer, but we disagree w/ J. when he says darkly in response: “Taylor may have been lucky”. J. is officially on board the “mesmeric Ziz” bandwagon— forcing us to frantically scroll up & re-read our own summary: did we miss something?
So far, we have “people” saying Gwen is “deferential”, & Gwen disputing this.
We have J. saying, in his own words, that high rent “radicalized” the Zizster.
We have Ziz bringing a raging transphobe chocolates, & ofc we have Miss Taylor’s distaste for Ziz & the gang— which is fine, she leans Libertarian & prob. wouldn’t have fit in anyway.
Are we missing something? Why does J. immediately call Somni & Emma “two of the most extreme apostles of Zizian ideas”? WHAT Zizian ideas? That rent’s too high? That institutionalized transphobia should be called out? The first is not so much an idea as an observation, & the second idea is widely held among a wide range of people— dare we surmise, excluding J.
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As further proof that Jessica got lucky, J. will point out that Emma is dead & Somni in jail— neither of which, directly & so far as we know (or J. knows), is Ziz’s fault. Here, like our old foe Wired Mag, J. seems to be relying on a number of logical fallacies:
1. Guilt by Association– J. suggests that, because ppl associated with Ziz have experienced tragedy or committed (alleged) crimes, Ziz must herself be inherently dangerous.
2. Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc (False Cause)– This fallacy assumes that, because one event follows another, the first must have caused the second. Here again, the implication is that Ziz’s influence led to violence, even though no directly causal relationship is shown.
3. Appeal to Emotion– J. has, in his presentation of poor Somni & Emma, used fear & tragedy to imply wrongdoing rather than presenting logical arguments. By focusing on distressing personal stories, he has nudged the reader towards a particular conclusion without making a strong evidentiary case.
4. Begging the Question– J. seems to have dived into this piece assuming that Ziz a) has an “ideology”, b) that it is radical and dangerous. He has selected evidence that appears to support this assumption, but he has yet to prove it independently.
5. Hasty Generalization– By bringing in two (2) “apostles”— Somni & Emma— J. makes sweeping claims about a broader “ideology”. He implies that, because S&E are connected to Ziz, & had extreme experiences, everything Ziz does & believes must be suspect.
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😮💨 Be that as it may….
J. proceeds to lay out what he thinks is so dangerous about Ziz’s way of seeing the world.
When we first read this article, this section filled us w/ fear & trembling: it appeared well-researched & well-thought-out— definitively damning for Ziz.
We now reencounter it w/ butterflies in our stomach: will these, at last, be the pieces of evidence which make us see that we have been indulging the Zizster— that we have given her too much credit; that it is we— and not every news story we have covered to date— who are in the wrong? 🫢
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Questions abound, but our attention spans do not. J. has written a Long Read, & we are feeling antsy. We say 👋 to him for now, promising we will return to complete our J.nalysis.
And ofc, we fill out our winnings at Bingo:
