Weāre 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 ārationalistsā 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 itās just nonsense
i donāt get what youāre saying after reading it 2-3 times. can you explain more?
what is the connection between AI and rationalists? i donāt see it.
and what does āzizziansā 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 itās a weird corner of the internet so the rundown is as follows:
ārationalistsā are a subculture which while not really a cult it has a ton of cult-like tendencies. Theyāre 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 ānet positiveā and rational way. There is a good amount on the rationalist cult on the internet and itās 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). Anywayā¦
There are a lot beliefs rationalist discussions tend towards but generally itās 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 resourcesā¦ this leads to more dark ideas such like pondering if itās a ānet positiveā 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 āzizziansā are a more radicalized group of people who broke out of the rationalist movement and started their own cult. They have wild beliefs like āto succeed in saving the planet one has to make themselves into a sociopath to not be burdened by sociatal expectationsā. 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 itās a small group within an already small subculture.
There is a fantastic 4 part episode about the zizzians on the behind the bastards podcast. Itās a wild ride and I highly recommend it.
Is the Harry Potter fanfic that āmethods of rationalityā one?
Yes, it was weird learning itās connected to a cult while reading it.
Now that Iām thinking about it, I remeber hearing that thereās a another HP fanfic thatās connected to a cult, anybody know the name? I might be tweaking tho
There definitely is and I canāt remember for the life of me what it is. But that other one wasnāt a rewrite of the first book but like an 1800 page full on fanfic. Youāre definitely not trippin on this one
ah i see, so itās basically rokoās basilisk all over again. i see, yeah.
my only critique to these people would be āthen, what?ā; like, assume AGI has been achieved. Then what do these people do? Killing themselves? They can do that IMHO, but iām not gonna do that.
There is a ton more to critique of these people. Itās 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 ārationalistsā add to society
iāll help you with the last one:
bro the whole world is made of information, itās all just variables; the world is a database and reality is the user interface; weāre probably in a computer game & just donāt know it (for better immersion) wake up neo youāre in the matrix.
Something, something, basilisk. You know, just some headcannon to excuse being a fascist.
is this a reference to Rokoās Basilisk?
or is it something else? because i know about more than one basilisk from mythology ā¦
thereās another story that goes like āthe basilisk is a creature that is so intelligent that it can paralyze you with its gazeā but iām not sure whether thatās what youāre talking about.
also, i think the thing with AI isnāt about Rokoās Basilisk, at least not in most peopleās minds? Itās about replacing human white collar workers with machinery, in order to āsave costā. So, itās mainly being pushed for by people who think theyāre doing it āfor the economyā, not by some religious lunatics?
Yeah I was referencing Rokoās 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.
Youād suffocate
The whole seeing the universe is probably not just because we invented wheels. Thereās been many people whoāve all described seeing different versions of āThe Wheelā during salvia trips - but also in near death experiences sometimes.
Itās 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, Iāve 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 youāre doing fine.
also, maybe hallucinations are partially influenced by what weāve seen before, and by what is in our subconscious. wheels are pretty widespread, so one coming up in a dream isnāt particularly unlikely, i would say.
It wore off, and I havenāt 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 thatās fairly normal.
I could definitely see the āflipbookā effect experienced being heavily influenced by past experiences. The āwheelā, though, is a massive circular thing of colors and geometries, so itās 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.
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 arenāt that far fetched. the above image is sometimes called āDharmaā (the wheel of dharma), and it represents householding: āwhatever you want to protectā 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. iād consider it ārunning in circlesā. so itās a useful image.
also the thing with the information, especially the ābook of lifeā, has meaning to it if you consider DNA / genetic code is a scripture that contains the blueprint for life. So, itās literally āyou are a scripture on some kind of writing materialā.
