We’re on to AI now, and when you let some secluded online communities of empirically smart but socially dumb people cook on this idea and you get the “rationalists” cult. You let that fester for a bit and you get zizzians and sexual assault/murder.
Weird that this is a valid observation in a lighthearted space. Usually it’s just nonsense
i don’t get what you’re saying after reading it 2-3 times. can you explain more?
what is the connection between AI and rationalists? i don’t see it.
and what does “zizzians” mean, and what does it have with sexual assault?
TLDR: rationalists are basically a cult that worships AI and have some practices that lead to abuse and sometimes suicide. Zizzians are an even more extremist branch of rationalists and their members killed a few people in recent years.
Totally understandable because it’s a weird corner of the internet so the rundown is as follows:
“rationalists” are a subculture which while not really a cult it has a ton of cult-like tendencies. They’re a group that likes to discuss AI (predating the LLM boom of recent years) and the possibility of humans creating a singularity - an all powerful ai that will effectively solve all our problems and run the earth in the most “net positive” and rational way. There is a good amount on the rationalist cult on the internet and it’s a fun but kinda sad rabbit hole to research (it involves a ton of smart people falling for some rather weird logical fallacies as well as a fan-fiction of Harry Potter they effectively treat as a holy text). Anyway…
There are a lot beliefs rationalist discussions tend towards but generally it’s an agreement that the singularity is the most beneficial thing that could happen to humans and anyone trying to help the human race should work towards a singularity level AI with all their resources… this leads to more dark ideas such like pondering if it’s a “net positive” for some people to commit suicide as they do not contribute to society enough to justify the resources they take up. Pretty harmful and has lead to multiple suicides in their circles which they sort of just shrug off.
This sort of environment is conducive to people who take advantage of their status. There have been plenty of allegations around the rationalist community leaders abusing younger women (they have an organization whose name escapes my memory atm).
Now “zizzians” are a more radicalized group of people who broke out of the rationalist movement and started their own cult. They have wild beliefs like “to succeed in saving the planet one has to make themselves into a sociopath to not be burdened by sociatal expectations”. Through a bizarre chain of events zizzian cult members ended up killing multiple people around the end of 2018 including a border patrol agent on the border of Vermont. There is relatively little about zizzians out there as it’s a small group within an already small subculture.
There is a fantastic 4 part episode about the zizzians on the behind the bastards podcast. It’s a wild ride and I highly recommend it.
Is the Harry Potter fanfic that “methods of rationality” one?
Yes, it was weird learning it’s connected to a cult while reading it.
Now that I’m thinking about it, I remeber hearing that there’s a another HP fanfic that’s connected to a cult, anybody know the name? I might be tweaking tho
There definitely is and I can’t remember for the life of me what it is. But that other one wasn’t a rewrite of the first book but like an 1800 page full on fanfic. You’re definitely not trippin on this one
ah i see, so it’s basically roko’s basilisk all over again. i see, yeah.
my only critique to these people would be “then, what?”; like, assume AGI has been achieved. Then what do these people do? Killing themselves? They can do that IMHO, but i’m not gonna do that.
There is a ton more to critique of these people. It’s a trap for high intelligence but low mental health individuals that effectively looks to abuse and extract value out of them. Really nothing positive the “rationalists” add to society
i’ll help you with the last one:
bro the whole world is made of information, it’s all just variables; the world is a database and reality is the user interface; we’re probably in a computer game & just don’t know it (for better immersion) wake up neo you’re in the matrix.
Something, something, basilisk. You know, just some headcannon to excuse being a fascist.
is this a reference to Roko’s Basilisk?
or is it something else? because i know about more than one basilisk from mythology …
there’s another story that goes like “the basilisk is a creature that is so intelligent that it can paralyze you with its gaze” but i’m not sure whether that’s what you’re talking about.
also, i think the thing with AI isn’t about Roko’s Basilisk, at least not in most people’s minds? It’s about replacing human white collar workers with machinery, in order to “save cost”. So, it’s mainly being pushed for by people who think they’re doing it “for the economy”, not by some religious lunatics?
Yeah I was referencing Roko’s basilisk. Some of the accelerationist tech bro bent can be attributed to it, not sure how much though.
Travel in the USA in 3-4 years.
You’d suffocate
btw you image contains redundant information:
it contains systems of organizing/structuring information twice (books and IT), and it also contains the idea of the wheel twice (consider a cog a wheel though).
also both of these ideas aren’t that far fetched. the above image is sometimes called “Dharma” (the wheel of dharma), and it represents householding: “whatever you want to protect” stands in the middle of it, with you always running in circles around it. consider you go to work in the morning, come home in the evening, just to repeat it the next day. i’d consider it “running in circles”. so it’s a useful image.
also the thing with the information, especially the “book of life”, has meaning to it if you consider DNA / genetic code is a scripture that contains the blueprint for life. So, it’s literally “you are a scripture on some kind of writing material”.
The whole seeing the universe is probably not just because we invented wheels. There’s been many people who’ve all described seeing different versions of “The Wheel” during salvia trips - but also in near death experiences sometimes.
It’s quite possible that these types of hallucinations could have contributed to the concept of the samsara, and possibly angels and other concepts relating to divinity.
Edit: to add personal anecdote, I’ve previously seen this hallucination after taking a bad rip off a bong. No one else had issues. My guess is that my brain was not getting enough oxygen since I was having trouble breathing. I basically tripped this while laying face down on a bean bag for several hours.
hah lol good story :D on a more serious note, i hope you’re doing fine.
also, maybe hallucinations are partially influenced by what we’ve seen before, and by what is in our subconscious. wheels are pretty widespread, so one coming up in a dream isn’t particularly unlikely, i would say.
It wore off, and I haven’t had that experience since. There was a solid week after, though, where I was paranoid that I would go back into that hallucination. I imagine that’s fairly normal.
I could definitely see the ‘flipbook’ effect experienced being heavily influenced by past experiences. The ‘wheel’, though, is a massive circular thing of colors and geometries, so it’s not really based on any experiences. The depictions of the samsara do have interesting similarities, and it would not surprise me if ancient people tripped, then tried to describe the trip they had, and came back with the samsara. I could also see how describing the wheel as having many eyes could make it fit the description of biblically accurate angels.
