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String of recent killings linked to Bay Area 'Zizians'

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Re: String of recent killings linked to Bay Area 'Zizians'

#11

Post by pjc50 »

mnky9800n wrote: post #3
rdtsc wrote: post #2

> self-described “vegan Sith” ideology Had it not been in a serious article I would have believed it had to a parody or a joke of some sort. “We are just like Darth Maul, but we like salads and drink soy milk instead of regular milk… and then kill people while dressed in tactical black outfits”? What is even going on? Real life now sounds like some kinda of a broken LLM hallucination.

people can and do have mental illness. it doesn't absolve them from knowing right from wrong however.

We really need a phrase for "appears to behave normally in regular matters and is capable of independent living, does not match other DSM symptoms, but believes insane things". It's a very common component in mass shootings.

Re: String of recent killings linked to Bay Area 'Zizians'

#12

Post by incrudible »

pjc50 wrote: post #11
mnky9800n wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

people can and do have mental illness. it doesn't absolve them from knowing right from wrong however.

We really need a phrase for "appears to behave normally in regular matters and is capable of independent living, does not match other DSM symptoms, but believes insane things". It's a very common component in mass shootings.

The things they believe are quite possibly internally consistent and not insane at all, just so far outside the overton window of an ordinary person so as to sound insane. Rather, they are the fringes of the fringes of political ideology and in my view the prime cause of falling prey to these is social alienation.

Re: String of recent killings linked to Bay Area 'Zizians'

#13

Post by thehappyfellow »

For related background read the (horrifying) description of Leverage, a “research” institution with links to Zizians: https://medium.com/@zoecurzi/my-experience-with-leverage-res...

There’s an undercurrent of cults and cult-like institutions in the rationalist crowd (think: lesswrong.com folks) and this is one instance of this.

Re: String of recent killings linked to Bay Area 'Zizians'

#14

Post by MrLeap »

pjc50 wrote: post #11
mnky9800n wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

people can and do have mental illness. it doesn't absolve them from knowing right from wrong however.

We really need a phrase for "appears to behave normally in regular matters and is capable of independent living, does not match other DSM symptoms, but believes insane things". It's a very common component in mass shootings.

> "appears to behave normally in regular matters and is capable of independent living, does not match other DSM symptoms, but believes insane things"

I have met a lot of people in my life who fit this criteria. Not one of them has gone on to become a mass shooter.

Saying we need a phrase to label people like this in order to _stop mass killings_ sounds crazy to me.

If you really had the option to explore the psyche of everyone to the depth necessary to check for "believes insane things" if we could even agree on what that means, I wouldn't be surprised if the test came back positive on 40-70% of the population. A strict enough test and I think we could get that number to 100%.

Isn't it a meme at this point how people win the nobel prize in one field, and then say some nutty nonsense about a completely different field? The human species is rational, insane, brilliant, stupid, compassionate and vicious, ugly and beautiful all at once. All of us.

More compassion for self and others would be my preference.

Re: String of recent killings linked to Bay Area 'Zizians'

#16

Post by s1artibartfast »

Neonlicht wrote: post #9
rdtsc wrote: post #2

> self-described “vegan Sith” ideology Had it not been in a serious article I would have believed it had to a parody or a joke of some sort. “We are just like Darth Maul, but we like salads and drink soy milk instead of regular milk… and then kill people while dressed in tactical black outfits”? What is even going on? Real life now sounds like some kinda of a broken LLM hallucination.

[flagged]

define insane here.

I think modern social acceptability hinges more on the degree to which personal beliefs infringe on others, at least in the west.

If someone refuses to personally eat pasta because they believe in the great spaghetti monster, they can knock themselves out for all I care.

Re: String of recent killings linked to Bay Area 'Zizians'

#17

Post by matthewdgreen »

thehappyfellow wrote: post #13

For related background read the (horrifying) description of Leverage, a “research” institution with links to Zizians: https://medium.com/@zoecurzi/my-experience-with-leverage-res... There’s an undercurrent of cults and cult-like institutions in the rationalist crowd (think: lesswrong.com folks) and this is one instance of this.

I think it’s worth discussing the fact that many folks in EA- and rationalist-adjacent circles are deeply panicked about developments in AI, because they believe these systems pose a threat to human existence. (Not all of them, obviously. But a large and extraordinarily well-funded contingent.) The fear I have with these organizations is that eventually panic - in the name of saving humans - leads to violent action. And while this is just a couple of isolated examples, it does illustrate the danger that violent action can become normalized in insular organizations.

I do hope people “on the inside” are aware of this and are working to make sure those organizations don’t have bad ideas that hurt real people.

Re: String of recent killings linked to Bay Area 'Zizians'

#18

Post by matthewdgreen »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #16
Neonlicht wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

define insane here. I think modern social acceptability hinges more on the degree to which personal beliefs infringe on others, at least in the west. If someone refuses to personally eat pasta because they believe in the great spaghetti monster, they can knock themselves out for all I care.

To the extent that your neighbors believe in false or unprovable things that don’t exist in our tangible reality, that should concern you. This can absolutely lead to horrifying violence, and has repeatedly done so in the past. The good thing about most major organized religions is that they’ve developed (some) guardrails against murdering the non-believers based on the theory that some intangible being requires this of them.

Re: String of recent killings linked to Bay Area 'Zizians'

#19

Post by tolerance »

rdtsc wrote: post #2

> self-described “vegan Sith” ideology Had it not been in a serious article I would have believed it had to a parody or a joke of some sort. “We are just like Darth Maul, but we like salads and drink soy milk instead of regular milk… and then kill people while dressed in tactical black outfits”? What is even going on? Real life now sounds like some kinda of a broken LLM hallucination.

Look up Joshua Citarella’s coverage of the ideological milieus that Generation Z cultivated during COVID on platforms like Discord.

And then check out the term “metairony” or “postirony” and this story make more sense…at least as much sense as the absurdity of it all will allow you to make of it.

Re: String of recent killings linked to Bay Area 'Zizians'

#20

Post by teachrdan »

tolerance wrote: post #19
rdtsc wrote: post #2

> self-described “vegan Sith” ideology Had it not been in a serious article I would have believed it had to a parody or a joke of some sort. “We are just like Darth Maul, but we like salads and drink soy milk instead of regular milk… and then kill people while dressed in tactical black outfits”? What is even going on? Real life now sounds like some kinda of a broken LLM hallucination.

Look up Joshua Citarella’s coverage of the ideological milieus that Generation Z cultivated during COVID on platforms like Discord. And then check out the term “metairony” or “postirony” and this story make more sense…at least as much sense as the absurdity of it all will allow you to make of it.

We seem to live in a post-ironic moment. Look no further than the Boogaloo Boys. They want to start a second American civil war and are named after the 1984 movie "Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo".

It would be a joke except they've engaged in violent attacks up to and including murder in the service of trying to start that aforementioned civil war. Are they serious or a joke? I think their embrace of a ridiculous name makes them almost more frightening because it shows their contempt for reasonableness, for lack of a better term.

It's comparable to how the Nazi "goose step" march was terrifying precisely because it was so awkward and unnatural. It's like, if these guys are capable of doing this with a straight face, what else are they capable of?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boogaloo_movement

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