Previous: The Exposé Mirage
The lights are flashing, the audience is milling as we settle into our seats. What, after such astonishing maneuvers, could J. deliver next?
J. opens w/ a big name: Oliver Habryka— a prominent Rationalist who, in 2019, was tasked w/ “moderating discussions”, & “curating content” on LessWrong— both of which tasks he performed admirably by banning Ziz & Gwen from the platform, & then explaining this move w/ what Gwen called the “false accusation that we had a ‘track record of being aggressive offline (and Ziz also online)’”.
Oliver is quoted wondering why Rationalists “sometimes go crazy”. Based on our reading, it’s due to a few factors.
Tho many Rationalist activities are geared towards self-help/-improvement, our Rationalists have been widely criticized for both exacerbating & ignoring mental ill-health among their adherents.
Side-effects of engaging w/ Rationalism may include:
• Perfectionism & excessive self-monitoring in pursuit of "perfect reasoning"
• Depression, existential despair, & existential fear of demon AIs
• Emotional suppression & disconnection from feelings
• Social isolation & alienation: this may be worsened by the fact that many Rationalists only socialize w/ other Rationalists, & spend lots of time working on Rationalism-related projects. Also, many young Rationalists (esp. in the overpriced Bay Area) tend to live in desperately overcrowded apartments— overcrowded, it hardly bears saying, by other Rationalists.
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Unfortunately, a Rationalist suffering from these Rationalism-induced afflictions will likely find no sympathy among the Rationalists.
By the Rationalists, anxiety is dismissed as a sign of an "unoptimized" brain, depression as a "cognitive error" Emotions are your "monkey brain" - sthng to be "fixed" & nothing more.
Add to that their reactionary attitudes, disregard for most concerns of the common man, & tendency to enjoy “breaking people”— it’s no wonder why some in their midst experience mental turmoil!
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J. ignores all of the above, & instead muses that, among other faults, Rationalists have “a tendency to treat ppl like ‘gurus’”— this, in the case of Eliezer, is certainly true!
But J. does not bring up Eliezer; he instead brings up Alice Monday— who (✨New News✨) we’re delighted to hear was “eventually banned from CFar events for confrontational behavior.”
We learn that, once upon a time, Ziz called Alice her “mentor”— but hear nothing of the crimes which lost Alice their mentee! Jamie is briefly trotted on as Alice’s “roommate”, again w/ no references to the traumata they endured at Alice’s hands.
We should have added to our bingo card: “Journalist could not reach Alice”! Alice, as mentioned, is v. shy, & perpetually unavailable for comment.
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In Act One, we saw J. boldly going where no journalist has gone before: saying nice things abt Ziz’s blog! Now, in a daring reversal, he has this to say:
To someone who is not a rationalist or AI-risk thinker, let alone a Zizian, much of Ziz’s writing would look like gibberish, perhaps even written by someone suffering from hallucinations.
We— who thankfully are not a Rationalist, nor an AI-risk thinker— & who, believe it or not, are not even a Zizian— beg to disagree.
As said before: Ziz’s blog, at first blush, appears quite dense to those unacquainted w/ STEM & sci-fi terms— but a closer look reveals its mysteries: that is to say, a closer look reveals a girl pouring her heart out on the page wrt her past, her inner life, & her current quandaries w/in a terminally transphobic high-control group.
J., tho, will have you believe that “The only way to understand Ziz’s writing [is] to learn her language and theories”. He calls it a “cipher”, “targeted to an extraordinarily specific reader – someone who knows computer jargon, has mathematical ability, has read hundreds of pages of Yudkowsky’s canonical work, understands decision theory, and is familiar with an array of niche fantasy and sci-fi references.”
J., we’ll have you know that our mathematical ability faltered at about the 8th grade— in that sense, we are not so different from Eliezer! We have never and will never read a word from the dreaded Eliezer, could not tell you what decision theory is; & we do ofc love the “Lord of the Rings” movies, but never even made it thru the 3rd audiobook: yes, audio— we’re not going to sit around reading Tolkien w/ our eyes!
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Next J. makes us giggle bc he points out— correctly!— that Mz. Ziz’s talent for coining neologisms is such that it requires a glossary. The Zizster has helpfully provided her own glossary (not alphabetized, to our distress)— and very kindly, the entity who wrote the mea culpa (TEWWTMC) has passed this glossary along to J. J., tho, has misunderstood this as being TEWWTMC’s glossary— we know he has misunderstood this bc he says in despair that, when he saved this glossary, it came out to 78 pages! Indeed, we, too, have saved Z’s invaluable glossary, & it is precisely 78 pages.
W/ glossary in hand, J. grudgingly admits that “Ziz’s writing [is], at least in some sense, coherent”— but quickly warns us that it is therefore “SEDUCTIVE”, & that taking the time to understand Mz. Ziz at all brings w/ it a problem: “the problem [is] that this [has] a tendency to turn people into Zizians.”
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As said: we, after a month of marinating in Ziz’s notorious blog, have yet to transform into this monstrous creature the “Zizian”. We have, instead, deepened our empathy towards the Zizster, & deepened our skepticism of official narratives. Perhaps these in & of themselves are signs that the Zizian infection has begun!
If so, then we hope such “corruption” spreads far & wide: we would like to see more ppl feel empathy for marginalized, villainized figures. We would like to see more ppl feel skeptical of official narratives! This neatly sums up the ethos & motivating force behind zizians.co.
Ironically, J. casts Ziz’s blog as a kind of “dark magic” artifact that might cause us to lose our critical thinking, & be forced to take on Ziz’s thinking in a slavish, zombie-like way. Yet in saying this, it is J. who has blocked readers’ capacity to engage w/ ideas in a critical & independently-minded mode. It is J. who has created a situation where readers— unable to form their own conclusions abt this verboten blog— must take on J.’s analysis unquestioningly.
J.’s theatrical framing of the blog’s perils ultimately risks him being hoisted by his own petard. If the “non-Zizian” worldview is so fragile that encountering Mz. Ziz’s perspective might make someone “flip sides”, is the issue really w/ Ziz’s “seductive” stylings, or w/ the opposing worldview’s own paper-thin tenuousness?
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J. next— at long last— takes on the matter of 2019: the year of the protest & the pile-on. He sets the scene delicately, saying that “fissures were creeping into the rationalist community”: among such fissures, MIRI’s alleged crimes & coverups. J. dismisses these as rumors by citing WIRED, who in turn cites the president of MIRI, who assures us that MIRI has investigated MIRI, & has found MIRI’s done nothing wrong.
Ziz is described as being “enraged” by this state of affairs— who wouldn’t be! J., tho, is seemingly continuing his reliance on Wired, bc he too frames her indignation as ~kooky~ concern over Timeless Decision Theory,
which we have responded to here.
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It’s shadily noted that Ziz, Gwen, & Somni are all “having trouble finding employment” at this time, & it’s implied that this— rather than Anna’s statements & Somni’s statisticsizing— is what leads them to conclude that CFAR is being discriminatory, & not hiring trans women. J. seems to settle the matter w/ this statement: “CFar disagrees with that characterization.”
The girls’ protest flyer is called “rambling”, & the girls are described as being “booked [and] subjected to what they later said were humiliating strip searches”. See Gwen’s & Somni’s full description of what they actually endured here.
We zoom in once more on Ziz, who J. says is “consumed with revenge”!
We know we would be consumed w/ revenge if we’d gone thru what Ziz & the girls have gone thru— but we dk if their actions in the coming months speak to “revenge” so much as they speak to “more desperate attempts to be heard by the Rationalist establishment”. J. fails to mention either these attempts, or the ensuing pile-on, & instead cuts to 2020: when the girls are living in Rationalist exile.
He says they’ve been “banned from CFar functions” (omitting that Anna’s ban came before the protest, perhaps in violation of CFAR’s own whistleblower policy)— & he, in an absurd understatement, calls them “outcasts of outcasts, too weird even for a community that prided itself on weirdness.”
We wish that our Bay Area Rationalists prided themselves on weirdness— rather than on depressing hyper-normativity! We also would not call this merry band of tech & finance workers “outcasts”.
Annnd next we WIN AT BINGO, thanks to J.’s introduction of a “person… who later told police [their] name was Suri Dao.” 🙏
Note that we filled out this chart *after* finishing J.’s miserable article. W/ our weary readers top of mind, tho, we will now usher him off stage,
& advise him to save the rest of the performance for an encore 👏👏👏👏 —during which, J. has informed us, he will be gracing us w/ 3 pieces of New News!
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