Who should write the definitive post on Ziz?

I can't vouch for this, but it sure seems interesting: https://medium.com/@sefashapiro/a-community-warning-about-ziz-76c100180509

I have only heard rumors about Ziz and her destructive effects on aspiring rationalists within her impact radius. Apparently young rationalists are very susceptible to the dark side of the force. Who could have thought. 

The Zizians post reads like any old cult beginning: brainwash, remove the ethical guardrails, isolate the flock, intimidate, use mind-altering techniques like sleep deprivation and trance. Fortunately it appears to fizzle before taking hold. Unfortunately, people died, and probably quite a few are still mentally scarred. 

I am guessing that the real lesson here is not for the susceptible youngsters, but for the wise elders who watched it all and didn't do much: if you notice an issue like that, speak up, take action, and protect the potential victims. Otherwise, what is your high morality good for?

As someone who loves to do a little vexing, I have probably already spent far more than is a healthy amount of time studying and writing about Ziz over the years, and have had an unfortunately close sidelong relationship with some of their group for an extended period.  But (ahem) "now that the author is dead it’s all dead un-adapting information for me to make “antibodies” from." So that's what I've been doing lately. I've in a sense already started writing the post you want, more for my own personal closure than anything else, but you're correct that it's a large large project.

I probably turned Ziz into something of a kismesis when I finally did my heel face turn away from the EA brainworms that were eating me, so I know that actually yes they are as bad as they seem.  The current death toll for folks deep in the memeplex is five, with another currently under arrest for murder charges. That is an insanely high KDR for a group their size.

Something I think does need to be said, is that having taken all of Ziz's blog content and stacked it chronologically end to end, it reads completely differently than it does in its original context. Divorced from the wiki-style links connecting everything, it goes from being a strange and unhinged manifesto to something of an apocalypse log, a found footage horror story about a brilliant person slowly breaking and going insane from the hostility of her local environment. At each step and time jump you can see the wheels come off the rails a bit more, finally culminating in the 80 page long expose of the entire rationalist community that is "intersex brains and conceptual warfare." 

I note that because when I look at the story of Ziz's destruction spiral, not just the damage she did and who all was caught up in it but the beats of the story and how her own state was affected at various points in the spiral, I have to say, it's not all on her. She is not the sole creator of the brainworms that consumed her, she came by them naturally and organically while participating in this community. Ziz is simply the loudest and most visible casualty of the same sort of mental knot that has consumed lots of other EAs at this point as well.

Zizians is a moderately decent if biased starting overview of her content but it fails to really engage with the actual teeth of the material very much and if you're going to take its word for things then you should also read the rebuttal. And yes you are wading into literal years worth of drama and back and forth attempts at character assassination by various individuals involved in this mess, so lol, beware. Feel free to DM me if you want to talk about this.

Analyzing whether EA is a cult is really interesting, so I will give it a shot:

Here's a link to signs of cults:

https://medium.com/@zelphontheshelf/10-signs-youre-probably-in-a-cult-1921eb5a3857

For EA

1. The leader is the ultimate authority

0.5, leaning towards 0 here. I think this might be happening with Will Macaskill, but for the most part EA has a semi-healthy relationship with it's leaders.

.

2. The group suppresses skepticism

This one is a 0, for the most part. EA isn't perfect at getting and integrating criticism, but it is far better than most organizations at criticism.

3. The group delegitimizes former members

Again, more or less a 0. I haven't seen this behavior from EA.

4. The group is paranoid about the outside world

0.5. Ultimately, I actually don't think EA is fearful about the outside world, but X-risk and to a lesser extent longtermism being at least considered prevents it from being a 0.

5. The group relies on shame cycles

Again, a 0 fits here. Thankfully, EA doesn't rely on shame cycles, nor have leaders used shame as a weapon in the way the post talks about.

6. The leader is above the law

More or less a 0 for this one. Yes, women have been assaulted in EA spaces, but EA more or less doesn't make excuses for that.

7. The group uses “thought reform” methods

More or less a 0, as far as I can tell.

8. The group is elitist

I'm giving this a 0.5-1 as far as this is concerned.

9. There is no financial transparency

0.5 is I think the rating I'd give.

10. The group performs secret rites

Definitely a 0 for this criterion.

So overall it's 1.5-2.5 depending on how you shake out the randomness. This is an okay sign for EA, for the most part. It has a few elements of cults, but not many elements of them.

To those reading the recent comments: I have unvoted this comment; please don't read it if you aren't ready for some of humanity's more difficult topics. It's... not a fun time.

wow that post sure is something. I think I mostly find it good enough and don't feel the need to call for new posts like it to clarify at this time, though I hope the history will exist to be resolved in further detail later on. but wow, you're not kidding about the content warnings; it's a sad history, and I'm glad I knew what it was going in. I might have called it a content warning instead of an infohazard, I think it's only an "infohazard" if one is highly credulous about it. It certainly contains references to ziz's impassioned speech.

the post walks through some ... some stuff. I sure understand her perspective about a lot of it, but phew, some of that is a lot... lot. severe misunderstandings of game theory in practice, false assumption that everyone is rational, severe misunderstanding of why weight personhood of ants (I do think they have nonzero personhood! but ... humans all have almost exactly the same amount of personhood in relative terms, but I'm pretty sure it takes an anthill to even approach the personhood level of a single mouse.) I agree with the direction of some of her criticisms of those orgs! but PHEW she took it way too far and, like, idk, seems like she violated her own principles without realizing because of radicalizing too hard? it's also interesting how traditional her radicalization seems to have been. Seems like [edit: comment from a friend off less wrong: the aesthetics of] destructive anarchism without sufficient praxis or constructive anarchism to make up for it [and with a high degree of actual authoritarianism seeded by the authority basilisk's authority]; I'm personally not really a fan of destructive anything, in my view vegans should be pragmatic about how to permanently end the death and torture industry. I sure agree that only a vegan singularity would be worth it, but I think we can also do away with post-hoc torture as part of that. like... dang, I hope she doesn't get to ruin everything she believed, because phew, she had a lot of kinda based takes, but the ones about "never surrender, no matter what" are just... just... dang.

and especially hearing what's happened with some of those folks in the past few months, is just. they didn't deserve to end up being the kind of people who would end up on this path... none of them did. that's always how I feel about those who cause serious harm. but also, from what I've heard of recent events, I ... understand how it happened... they did things nobody should ever do, trying to protect ants... talk about making a mountain out of a molehill? some of those people were once my friends, including her, and I never understood until reading this what decisions made them choose to turn against society quite so hard. I don't think I can ever encourage those choices, but I also do think it's wise to understand why they, and a great many radicals over the long history of human radicalism before them, made the choices they did. And the fact that there are better, more ethical ways to end the forms of suffering they'd chosen to. If only they'd understood boundedly rational game theory enough to be willing to forgive those who are products of their time, and instead aim for a singularity that offers society improved bargaining algorithms and an end to material scarcity for those who did the work...

I do think she's somewhat right about some forms of liberalism. If your liberalism isn't always pushing at the minarchist edge, your coprotection algorithms aren't seeking to heal. But for the same reason, I hope those of them who are still alive survive to see a future far better than the one they hoped to create...

damn...

I feel like I should downvote this post just to keep it off the front page. I certainly hope there are no more than about five comments on it, personally.

Any post on the Ziz cult that does not engage with the already explicitly cultic mileu of singulatarian thought from which they emerged (that is, here) is utterly incomplete.