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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'

#731

Post by snickerbockers »

bbwbsb wrote: post #451
adastra22 wrote: post #404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Following on because the edit window elapsed, the specific method of indoctrination used by ziz (but invented by Gwen) involved in novel method of sleep deprivation to induce split personalities. It’s been called “installing demons.” I wouldn’t be surprised either if the causality is the other way around: Ziz reworked these people to be trans. Ziz certainly seems to have treated the minds of the people around him/her…

Wow what a blast from the past. Sounds like /r/Tulpas. I've always thought it was a purely rhetorical trick + disassociation, and obvious what is happening and why. Sleep deprecation has always been part of it since that makes it harder to notice the errors at the edge of your perception. It goes back to at least the 2010s I think. There is some precedent; the Twin Flame cult coerced transition in some members if I r…

This might be a different thing with the same name, but on 4chan's /x/ (paranormal) board there have always a lot of people trying really hard to summon a tulpa to be their ghost waifu. For a lot of them it's an ironic meme but I'm pretty sure some of them are serious and do it because they (perhaps correctly) believe it's more likely to work than talking to women that actually exist.

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

#732

Post by fallingfrog »

zozbot234 wrote: post #180
cgh wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Trans vegan 'Siths' who kill people with katanas" is not a sentence I thought I'd ever read, let alone type, yet here we are, in the most ludicrous timeline.

It's an actual Zizian belief that you must always do the craziest thing you can possibly think of, in order to "collapse" the weight of your current timeline in some sort of totally counterfactual probability space... This is arguably the closest linkage they share to actual Rationalist-ish ideas. (Many Rationalists do genuinely advocate for some sort of improvement to animal welfare - but I don't know of any Rationa…

Isn’t that a plot point in “everything everywhere all at once”? Did she watch that movie and take the silliest element way too seriously?

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

#733

Post by hackandthink »

bowsamic wrote: post #697
mikhmha wrote: post #579

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So did Fyodor Dostoevsky.

Even Aristotle knew that reason was just an aspect of being a human and not the whole thing To be honest the only philosopher I know of who convincingly argued that everything is reason is Hegel, but he did so more by making the idea of reason so broad that even empiricism (and emotion, humour, love, the body, etc.) falls under it...

Hegel still has a really bad reputation regarding atrocities and his Philosophy of history.

"History as the slaughter-bench" - and yet the aims of reason are accomplished."

But there are also Hegel scholars (Walter Jaeschke for example) who simply consider these accusations to be uneducated and that he does not see the atrocities of history as reasonable, but on the contrary makes criticism possible in the first place.

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

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

#734

Post by snoopertroop »

nullc wrote: post #166
rachofsunshine wrote: post #149

[Former member of that world, roommates with one of Ziz's friends for a while, so I feel reasonably qualified to speak on this.] The problem with rationalists/EA as a group has never been the rationality, but the people practicing it and the cultural norms they endorse as a community. As relevant here: 1) While following logical threads to their conclusions is a useful exercise, each logical step often involves some…

> Rationalists, by tending to overly formalist approaches, But they don't apply formal or "formalist" approaches, they invoke the names of formal methods but then extract from them just a "vibe". Few to none in the community know squat about actually computing a posterior probability, but they'll all happily chant "shut up and multiply" as a justification for whatever nonsense they instinctively wanted to do. > Preci…

[flagged]

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

#735

Post by the_af »

hollerith wrote: post #604
the_af wrote: post #497

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What puzzles me about Eliezer Yudkowsky is this: He has no formal education. He hasn't produced anything in the actual AI field, ever, except his very general thoughts (first that it would come, then about alignment and doomsday scenarios). He isn't an AI researcher except he created an institution that says he is one , kind of as if I created a club and declared myself president of that club. He has no credentials (…

It is true that he has no academic credentials, but people with academic credentials have been employed on the research program led by him: Andrew Critch for example, who has a PhD in math from UC Berkeley, and Jesse Liptrap who also has a math PhD from a prestigious department although I cannot recall which one. Also, this page lists 3 ex-Googlers as being currently employed by Eliezer's org: https://intelligence.or…

It's not only that he has no academic credentials, he also has no accomplishments in the field. He has no relevant peer reviewed publications (in mainstream venues; of course he publishes stuff under his own institutions. I don't consider those peer reviewed). Even if you're skeptical about academia and only care about practical achievements... Yudkowsky is also not a businessman/engineer who built something. He doesn't actually work with AI, he hasn't built anything tangible, he just speaks about alignment in the most vague terms possible.

At best -- if one is feeling generous -- you could say he is a "philosopher of AI"... and not a very good one, but that's just my opinion.

Eliezer looks to me like a scifi fan who theorizes a lot, instead of a scientist. So why do (some) people pay any credence to his opinions on AI? He's not a subject matter expert!

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

#736

Post by cassepipe »

The fact that you can make a cult of the Rationalist movement is truly a testament to the fact that some humans are able to turn anything into a cult

If anything, the reading I have done (mostly SSC and LW) have made me less radical and much much more humble

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

#737

Post by username332211 »

subsistence234 wrote: post #673
kelseyfrog wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

let's stigmatize admitting when you were wrong. never changing your mind is the only way to avoid joining a murder cult!

At the same time, if psychological research proves there's a class of people who are only prevented from joining a murder cult by their unthinking devotion towards conformist beliefs, would you be surprised?

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

#738

Post by zozbot234 »

fallingfrog wrote: post #732
zozbot234 wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's an actual Zizian belief that you must always do the craziest thing you can possibly think of, in order to "collapse" the weight of your current timeline in some sort of totally counterfactual probability space... This is arguably the closest linkage they share to actual Rationalist-ish ideas. (Many Rationalists do genuinely advocate for some sort of improvement to animal welfare - but I don't know of any Rationa…

Isn’t that a plot point in “everything everywhere all at once”? Did she watch that movie and take the silliest element way too seriously?

Pretty much, except that Zizianism is like the evil nihilist version of the main character who has just looked into the Everything-Bagel, taken to the most ludicrous extreme; whereas in the movie, the good and empathetic version ultimately prevails.

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

#739

Post by Spooky23 »

red_admiral wrote: post #686
novok wrote: post #611

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of rationalists that go deep are on the autistic spectrum. Their feedback loops are often classic autistic thought traps of people who end up "committing to the bit". Add anxiety to it and you get autistic style rumination loops that go nuts. Edit: Funny enough, when I wrote "autistic thought traps", I thought I just made it up to describe something, but it is common terminology. An AI summary of what they are:…

> autistic A lot of people say this, but I think it's the wrong word in an important way. I'll give you P(autistic|rationalist) > P(autistic), but beware the base rate fallacy. My guess is you're focussing on a proxy variable. To show some important counter-examples: Temple Grandin, famously autistic and a lot of people's idea what autism means - not a rationalist in the sense you mean. Scott Alexander - fairly centr…

I think when you look at these types of groups that become cult or cult-like, they often appeal to a specific experience or need that people have. My guess is the message that many trans and autistic people take away is fulfilling for them. Many people in these communities share similar traumas and challenges that affect them deeply. It makes them vulnerable to manipulation and becoming true believers capable of more extreme behavior.

The more common pattern is a false prophet cult where the influential leader is a paternal figure bringing enlightenment to the flock. It just so happens that free labor and sex with pretty girls are key aspects of that journey.

It doesn't mean that "all X are Y" or "Y's are usually X".

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

#740

Post by simplicio »

01100011 wrote: post #639
rachofsunshine wrote: post #149

[Former member of that world, roommates with one of Ziz's friends for a while, so I feel reasonably qualified to speak on this.] The problem with rationalists/EA as a group has never been the rationality, but the people practicing it and the cultural norms they endorse as a community. As relevant here: 1) While following logical threads to their conclusions is a useful exercise, each logical step often involves some…

Another thing I'll add after having spent a few years in a religious cult: It's all about the axioms. If you tweak the axioms you can use impeccable logic to build a completely incorrect framework that will appeal to otherwise intelligent(and often highly intelligent) people. Also, people are always less rational than they are able to admit. The force of things like social connection can very easily warp the reasonin…

Im kinda skeptical these folks were following some hyper-logical process from flawed axioms that led them to the rigorous solution: "I should go stab our land-lord with a samurai sword" or "I should start a shootout with the Feds".

The rationalist stuff just seems like some meaningless patter they stuck ontop of more garden variety cult stuff.

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