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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'

#371

Earlier 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".

Trying to reason everything out from first principles can lead to some seriously bizarre conclusions if there's even a little bit you missed or got slightly wrong. It can be a fun exercise if you make sure to constantly look for predictions to check against observable reality, but if you're young and naive and take it too seriously without doing that...

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

#372
post #316

This title here is editorialized. The original title on the website is "String of recent killings linked to Bay Area 'death cult'" No mention of "rationalist".

But it’s an accurate and useful summary. This group is specifically organized around the principles of veganism and Rationalism.

Ziz clearly doesn't consider himself/herself a "Bay Area rationalist": E.g. he/she uses that term twice here, both times to talk negatively about them:

https://web.archive.org/web/20230531043930/https://sinceriou...

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

#373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I shudder to ask, but what exactly is a math pet?

Someone that you introduce to free group actions and the Cox-Zucker machine, hairy ball theorems, stuff like that

Have you seen it come up with bott periodicity and the onto ele in twister space?

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

#374
post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> any evil one trans person does, is used to stain all trans people. recognize this tendency; don't let this become like blood libel. As a Christian, I can empathize. The wrongs and hypocrisies of so many are heaped on those who have no relation to the actions.

I don't think that you need to be a Christian to empathise with anyone. The big geezer's (JC) teachings imply to me that keeping quiet about your faith and simply doing good (for a given value of good) is the Way. Declaring a religion might rile someone, before you have even engaged. I suggest that you simply proffer a hand. Empathise as best you can. Be careful. At best, with mentioning religion, you have declared y…

> At best, with mentioning religion, you have declared your rightful intentions and at worst you have added yet another layer of tribalism to a ... debate.

I don't think you understood what they were saying. They were saying that as a Christian, they've experienced being blamed for the misdeeds of other Christians which they personally had nothing to do with.

The most important part of that statement isn't the word "Christian": you could replace "Christian" with Muslim or atheist or whatever and there'd be someone else who could truthfully say it.

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

#375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's somewhat odd to represent a community as being right wing when the worst thing to come from it was a trans vegan murder cult. Most "rationalists" vote Democrat, and if the franchise were limited to them, Harris would have won in a 50 state landslide. The complaint here seems to be that rationalists don't take progressive pieties as axiomatic.

>The complaint here seems to be that rationalists don't take progressive pieties as axiomatic. A trans vegan gang murdering police officers is what's come out of this milieu. I don't see how anyone can say they aren't taking "progressive pieties as axiomatic". The OP is just taking the "everything I don't like is fascist" trope to it's natural conclusion. Up next: Stalin actually a Nazi.

>The OP is just taking the "everything I don't like is fascist" trope to it's natural conclusion. Up next: Stalin actually a Nazi.

That's terminologically wrong, yet practically sensible conclusion. Some European countries in fact ban both communist and nazi ideologies and public display of their symbols as their authoritarian and genocidal tendencies are incompatible with democratic principles in said countries constitution.

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

#376
post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> any evil one trans person does, is used to stain all trans people. recognize this tendency; don't let this become like blood libel. As a Christian, I can empathize. The wrongs and hypocrisies of so many are heaped on those who have no relation to the actions.

I don't think that you need to be a Christian to empathise with anyone. The big geezer's (JC) teachings imply to me that keeping quiet about your faith and simply doing good (for a given value of good) is the Way. Declaring a religion might rile someone, before you have even engaged. I suggest that you simply proffer a hand. Empathise as best you can. Be careful. At best, with mentioning religion, you have declared y…

> I don't think that you need to be a Christian to empathise with anyone. The big geezer's (JC) teachings imply to me that keeping quiet about your faith and simply doing good (for a given value of good) is the Way.

I encourage you to read the four gospels at the beginning of the New Testament. Jesus didn't teach "shut up and let your good works speak for you". No, he was very much more in your face than that. He spent all of his ministry preaching (IE, talking about God and religion) and teaching and healing.

> ... tell you to keep it quiet

Uh, no? See Matthew 28:18-20

    And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.

    Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:

    Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen.

The "Great Commission" as we call it, is a command to spread the good news of Jesus Christ; His death, resurrection, and the promise of eternal life for those who choose to follow him.

> There is no need to put your religious heart on your sleeve

I spoke as one aggrieved class to another. Modern Christians get a lot of hate for things that have happened in the past, because we wear the name of our God.

As for wearing a 'religious heart on my sleeve', I have nothing if not the hope of forgiveness and grace from the Almighty. Of course I'm going to wear it on my sleeve.

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

#377
post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Fix the world and these problems don't exist. Hard disagree. Plenty of antisocial (or worse) behaviour has been promulgated by those indisputably at the top of the social food chain -- almost every war of conquest, for example. Did the British Empire expand throughout the world because the British felt marginalised? No, the rest of the world considered them to be a great power and many other cultures voluntarily ado…

> Plenty of antisocial (or worse) behaviour has been promulgated by those indisputably at the top of the social food chain. This isn't a counterpoint to "fix the world," because those "at the top of the social food chain" are, of course, partners in an oppressor/oppressed dynamic that prevents both parties from realize their full human potential. "As the oppressors dehumanize others and violate their rights, they the…

If you consider the winners to also be "dehumanised" by their ongoing winning in cultural and financial terms, as this Freire apparently did, then sure. But they themselves -- the ongoing winners -- certainly did not, that being the reason for their actions in the first place.

The other relevant opinion would be that of the "losers" -- the people oppressed by the winners. Did they feel that the winners were oppressing themselves? I'm certain they did not!

I think Freire is either deluded, or deliberately conflating the notion of what a powerful party views as good for itself with some higher, ethically tinged notion of how we all ought to behave.

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

#378
post #49

Most 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…

it's been an exhausting couple of weeks for me, as a trans person. one executive order after another, explicitly attacking us. scrambling to update all my documents, navigating a Kafkaesque bureaucracy with constantly shifting rules. now this. there are like six Zizians. there are millions of trans people. I'm sure that many of the Zizians being trans says something about the Ziz cult, but Ziz doesn't say anything ab…

Absolutely. I think the rationalists feel this way too.

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

#379
post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> any evil one trans person does, is used to stain all trans people. recognize this tendency; don't let this become like blood libel. As a Christian, I can empathize. The wrongs and hypocrisies of so many are heaped on those who have no relation to the actions.

I don't think that you need to be a Christian to empathise with anyone. The big geezer's (JC) teachings imply to me that keeping quiet about your faith and simply doing good (for a given value of good) is the Way. Declaring a religion might rile someone, before you have even engaged. I suggest that you simply proffer a hand. Empathise as best you can. Be careful. At best, with mentioning religion, you have declared y…

I think their point was that they feel they have experienced the same treatment that the trans person is describing, but because of their faith. So it was kinda necessary to bring it up in order to convey that.

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

#380

This whole rabbit hole of rationalism, less wrong, and ziz feels like a fever dream to me. Roaming trans veganist tatical death squads shooting border officers and stabbing 80 year olds with swords. This is the kind of thing where it is warranted that the feds gets every single wiretap, interception, and surveillance possible on everyone involved in the zizian movement.

Yes, thank you for saying so- reading about all this, but especially all the people chiming in who already knew about a lot of it? The fact that the founder of LessWrong coined the term “alignment,” a subject I’ve read about many times… it feels like learning lizard people always walked among us
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