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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'

#521

Post by adastra22 »

zozbot234 wrote: post #508
adastra22 wrote: post #493

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The specific technique here is unihemispherical sleep. Stimulating one side of the body while resting the other (one eye closed) to get one hemisphere to fall asleep. I think Gwen originally developed this trick to probe the mind and see if behavior was altered when one hemisphere was asleep versus the other. However, it turns out that when you do this, the brain as a whole does not get adequate sleep, even if you al…

Please note that there's no real evidence that single-hemisphere sleep is a thing in humans. Some sleep researchers suggest that a brain hemisphere can spontaneously be awake during ordinary sleep in "unfamiliar" places, and that this can be a cause of poor quality sleep - but that's a very different thing from what Ziz claims to be able to do. Also, to the best of my knowledge, Gwern has never written anything on hi…

Gwen, not Gwern. Gwen Danielson, if he is still alive, is wanted for his possible involvement in multiple homicides related to the Ziz cult. Not Gwern.

And unihemispheric sleep (Gwen’s word for what they do; they like to invent their own terms) is one of the techniques the Ziz cult uses.

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

#522

Post by Unit327 »

scarmig wrote: post #205
Aurornis wrote: post #169

Earlier 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…

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.

"trans vegan murder cult" is the best band name ever

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

#523

Post by sudoshred »

YurgenJurgensen wrote: post #426
radpanda wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not a big George W Bush fan but this quote of his has stuck with me for years: > Too often, we judge other groups by their worst examples while judging ourselves by our best intentions

The more readily a group tries to restrict some behaviours, the more it implicitly endorses behaviours it doesn’t attempt to restrict.

Strongest argument in favor of libertarianism that I have considered.

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

#524

Post by JumpCrisscross »

EA-3167 wrote: post #283
rexpop wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or, perhaps, we're very far from an adequate society.

That's probably true, but the larger issue is that we're unlikely to redefine society in the name of making less than 1% of the population feel better. The US has struggled for centuries with the question of how to better treat far more number minorities, such as black people... and women. At some point the, "change society" approach is bound to create backlash that such a small movement can't sustain, and frankly we…

> we're unlikely to redefine society in the name of making less than 1% of the population feel better

If I can deal with idiot conspiracy theorists the evangelicals can deal with trans people.

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

#526

Post by mightyham »

SequoiaHope wrote: post #261
nkurz wrote: 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…

Andy Ngo is not a credible source of news about trans people. Media Matters describes him as a “right wing troll” who spread misinformation about this issue [1] and The Advocate points out that right wing media have repeatedly ignored the facts around supposed trans shooters and continued to spread misinformation on the subject. [2] [1] https://www.mediamatters.org/diversity-discrimination/apalac... [2] https://www.a…

Media matters is just as biased as Andy Ngo. They are the definition of a hit piece mill, and will find any reason possible to criticize popular figures with right wing beliefs.

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

#528

Post by ImJamal »

neves wrote: post #148
wahnfrieden wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1.6% Marxist Did you confuse Liberal with Leftist? Liberals are anti-left Some portion are Libertarian but there's no distinction between so-called "ancap" and libcom so that one is murky or more often coded for the former (the Libertarian party in the US is anti-left)

Just in USA Liberals are considered leftist

The original definition of left and right came from the French Revolution. The liberals were the left wing. It is only in modern times that some people have rejected the original definition.

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

#529

Post by zozbot234 »

adastra22 wrote: post #521
zozbot234 wrote: post #508

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please note that there's no real evidence that single-hemisphere sleep is a thing in humans. Some sleep researchers suggest that a brain hemisphere can spontaneously be awake during ordinary sleep in "unfamiliar" places, and that this can be a cause of poor quality sleep - but that's a very different thing from what Ziz claims to be able to do. Also, to the best of my knowledge, Gwern has never written anything on hi…

Gwen, not Gwern. Gwen Danielson, if he is still alive, is wanted for his possible involvement in multiple homicides related to the Ziz cult. Not Gwern. And unihemispheric sleep (Gwen’s word for what they do; they like to invent their own terms) is one of the techniques the Ziz cult uses.

Thanks for correcting that mixup! So there's no source whatsoever for this bizarre notion other than the Zizian death cult itself. That makes it even crazier that some people (whether here or in the news media) seem to be taking it at face value, though.

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

#530

Post by o11c »

cycomanic wrote: post #511
o11c wrote: post #455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Despite what news headlines love to say, I'm not sure "circling the wagons when someone is caught" has been accurate in the English-speaking world since the 1990s. Often it's more "please don't blame the people who had no knowledge and who had already made rules that would've prevented the situation if actually followed." By far the majority of pedophiles are lone operators within the organization. Two things that ar…

I encourage you to read up on George Pell. Circling wagons and protecting abusers definitely comes to mind.

There's a reason I qualified "since the 90s". For the sake of this argument I'll assume all allegations are true related to him, but that doesn't invalidate my statement.

Since the 90s we have seen 2 things, which change the picture entirely:

* organizations are acutely aware of the issue, and thus make structural actions to both make offenses less likely and improve documentation regardless; and

* technology has improved so there is much more evidence, both to convict and to acquit.

... I can't actually locate a single allegation where the occurrence was after 2000, now that I look for them.

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