I don't know if these statistics are even kept, but the current social environment in the US feels like a ripe breeding ground for cults. I've had so many people in the past couple years be like "I just want to farm with my friends and family and get away from all this".
String of recent killings linked to Bay Area 'Zizians'
341–350 of 952 posts
Re: String of recent killings linked to Bay Area 'Zizians'
#342Earlier quoted context omitted.
The Ziz method of indoctrination involves convincing his minions they are trapped inside a mental framework they need to break free of. Trans people already feel trapped in a body not aligned with who they are, and are naturally susceptible to this message (and therefore natural targets for recruitment).
I was wondering if it's relevant that so many of them are young people with "data science" degrees and they call themselves "rationalists". Sounds like they have some sort of superiority complex that might make them more susceptible to justifying acts of violence when it's "rational".
Perhaps. Rationalists are also known for updating[changing] their beliefs. They do this under the guise of "doing" Bayesian reasoning. It may be that susceptibility to cults is an edge case of this meta-congnitive position. Or in other words, stubbornness of beliefs may be a defense mechanism against cults.
Re: String of recent killings linked to Bay Area 'Zizians'
#343Doesn't sound rationalist to me (from Ziz quoted section of article linked below): "Ziz Impostors keep thinking it's safe to impersonate single goods. A nice place to slide in psyche/shadow, false faces, "who could ever falsify that I'm blaming it on my headmate!" Saying you're single good is saying, "Help, I have a Yeerk in my head that's a mirror image of me. I need you to surgically destroy it, even if I'm then cr…
what the heck does any of this mean??
I'm sure it makes sense to the most indoctrinated of the cult members.
Re: String of recent killings linked to Bay Area 'Zizians'
#344Re: String of recent killings linked to Bay Area 'Zizians'
#345Most of the news coverage I've seen of this story is omitting what some might consider a relevant detail: almost all the members of this group are trans. This is a divisive topic, but failing to mention this makes me worry a story is pushing a particular agenda rather than trying to tell the facts. Here's what the story looks like if the trans activism is considered central to the story: https://thepostmillennial.com…
In what way is this supposed to be a relevant detail? Unless you think that they are killing people because they are trans, why should you report that they are part of a marginalized group? If they were mostly blondes or had freckles, should that be part of the story too?
It's basically impossible that it's a random irrelevant detail, I'd say any such detail is fair to share.
For example, if every member of this group was Indian American I'd consider that a fair detail to note, the chances of that happening at random are minuscule, yet that's orders of magnitude more probable than all of them being trans for no reason.
Re: String of recent killings linked to Bay Area 'Zizians'
#346Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Weird to see a community I followed show up so close to home and negatively like this. I had some coworkers who were really into LessWrong and rationality. I thought it was fun to read some of the selected writings they would share, but I always felt that online rationalist communities collected a lot of people with reactionary, fascist, misogynistic, and far-right tendencies. There’s a heavily sanitized version of…
The community/offshoot I am part of is mostly liberal/left. My impression that lesswrong is also liberal/left.
> The community/offshoot I am part of is mostly liberal/left
There isn't an official "rationalist" community. Some consider LessWrong to be the center, but there have always been different communities and offshoots. As far as I know, a lot of the famous rationalist figures haven't participated much in LessWrong for a long time now.
The far right offshoot I was referring to is known as "TheMotte" or "The Motte". It was a gathering point for people who were upset after the Slate Star Codex comment section and subreddit banned "culture war" topics because they were becoming an optics problem.
It's easy to forget because it's a "don't talk about it" topic, but after culture war topics were banned from SSC, The Motte subreddit had significantly more activity than the SlateStarCodex subreddit. They eventually left Reddit because so many posts were getting removed for violating Reddit policies. Their weekly "culture war" threads would have thousands of comments and you'd find people "steelmanning" things like how Trump actually won the 2020 election or holocaust denial.
The other groups I was referring to were CFAR, MIRI, and Leverage, all of which have been involved with allegations of cult-like behavior, manipulation, and sexual abuse. Here's one of several articles on the topic, which links to others: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/MnFqyPLqbiKL8nSR7/my-experie...
Every time I discuss this on HN I get downvoted a lot. I think a lot of people identify as rationalists and/or had fun reading LessWrong or SSC back in the day, but don't understand all of the weirdness that exists around rationalist forums and the Bay Area rationalist community.
Re: String of recent killings linked to Bay Area 'Zizians'
#347Most of the news coverage I've seen of this story is omitting what some might consider a relevant detail: almost all the members of this group are trans. This is a divisive topic, but failing to mention this makes me worry a story is pushing a particular agenda rather than trying to tell the facts. Here's what the story looks like if the trans activism is considered central to the story: https://thepostmillennial.com…
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Re: String of recent killings linked to Bay Area 'Zizians'
#348Earlier quoted context omitted.
The community/offshoot I am part of is mostly liberal/left. My impression that lesswrong is also liberal/left.
Perhaps there are people in power who would benefit from portraying those communities in a different light.
I have no skin in the game. I was just around to witness this all go down.
The rationalist community I was talking about is well known. They split from SSC after the ban on culture war topics. They left Reddit a couple years ago because so many of their posts were getting flagged by Reddit for policy violations.
I'm not making this up. You can go see for yourself: https://old.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/uaoyng/meta_like_...
Re: String of recent killings linked to Bay Area 'Zizians'
#349Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think that’s a drastic oversimplification.
And yet trump is president.
Why Trump won is an interesting topic. There is a mixture of reasons but I think high up there was Biden pulling out last minute and Kamala being unpopular with little time to do a campaign. She also had the backfoot of having been in power while there was inflation and support for the Gaza genocide. Therefore Trump won less then Kamala lost.
There is a subreddit dedicate to people both democrats who refused to vote, as well as Trump voters whose policies as promised would severely harm them and their family's interesf (severe as in life/death). Why did they vote against their interests.
For example anyone on any kind of benefits, or whose mum and dad are, vets or if your cousin or uncle is one, Latino, even if you are from a long line of american citizens you may have friends who are 1st gen. More generally anyone not white, male and in the top 5-10% of wealth. Because tariffs won't be good for poor people. And poor is probably: under $1m assets.
Google trends for tariffs surged after the election. People voted on feelings. Anger, despair or some sense of "Trump means them not me" or maybe "He is successful in business so he must be good".
Unfortunately the rational thing to do often sucks eggs!
Re: String of recent killings linked to Bay Area 'Zizians'
#350Earlier quoted context omitted.
Making a rationalist community seem right-wing would - make right-wingers feel vindication as if they were rational all along, - cause suspicion and division within the left/liberal rationalist community, and - make the community, its people and their ideas less palatable to the general public.
Curious: Do you think J.D. Vance unintentionally dog-whistling a Scott Alexander article when he's on the Joe Rogan podcast was orchestrated or just what happened?[0] --- [0] https://www.reddit.com/r/slatestarcodex/comments/1ggl0mh/jd_...
What is "unintentionally dog-whistling" supposed to mean?
Isn't intention the essence of the concept of the "dog whistle"?
I'd also like to observe that Scott Alexander does a yearly survey, which provide unusually robust evidence that if we're going to impute to him the cultural affiliations of those who read his posts, his politics can only be "all of it".