@iwriteok.bsky.social tells David Gborie about the early life of Ziz LaSota, a bright girl from Alaska who came to the Bay Area with dreams of saving the cosmos or destroying it, all based on her obsession with Rationalist blogs and fanfic. @whysophiewhy.bsky.social www.iheart.com/podcast/105-... - ThreadSky

coolzonemedia.bsky.social • 14 days ago

@iwriteok.bsky.social tells David Gborie about the early life of Ziz LaSota, a bright girl from Alaska who came to the Bay Area with dreams of saving the cosmos or destroying it, all based on her obsession with Rationalist blogs and fanfic.

@whysophiewhy.bsky.social

https://www.iheart.com/podcast/105-behind-the-bastards-29236323/episode/part-two-the-zizians-birth-of-270107103/

Comments

captaincreepy.bsky.social•3 days ago

brain. hurts.

sylent-m.bsky.social•14 days ago

I didn’t think about it for the first episode, but right before I started on the second I had the thought ‘did this chick get her name from Worm’? To then have Robert do an aside about how that is where it’s from was fucking great. That explains so much about the fandom.

aloemancer.bsky.social•14 days ago

That revelation was the single biggest hit of psychic damage I've ever taken from the pod.

Of COURSE she's a Worm fan, none of us can ever be normal.

azbikenerd.bsky.social•12 days ago

Folie à polycule

differentsmoke.bsky.social•9 days ago

I will never not bring up that my first brush with the Rationalists was reading Yudkowsky's short story "Three Worlds Collide" for a sci-fi book club and having to stop midway to Google the author after 2 characters casually discuss how legalizing rape made everything better in their civilization.

differentsmoke.bsky.social•9 days ago

A society where that level of stupid can be this level of influential deserves extinction.

alaskanweeb.bsky.social•13 days ago

Hey, small bit of feedback - not sure that referring to someone’s first big intellectual influence as a “heartthrob” when I’m pretty sure that verbiage has never been used for men’s influences in previous episodes is a good choice.

alaskanweeb.bsky.social•13 days ago

I do get what you were going for later with the “heartbreak” of being shot down when she reached out to him, but it’s a tad belittling in ways it maybe shouldn’t be, and wouldn’t be applied at all were she a cis man.

alaskanweeb.bsky.social•13 days ago

Still loved the episode. Rare to see someone from home get mentioned. Doubly weird in that I went to UAF - she was probably on campus during my freshman year, even if I never met Ziz.

adrianlwaller.bsky.social•14 days ago

holy podcast world crossover this is cool

nebraskamomo.bsky.social•14 days ago

I hate to suggest Catholicism as a solution to any problem, but I think the concept of Reconciliation could do wonders for people worried about Roko's Basilisk. Just confess your sins to the Basilisk, do a penance, and you no longer need to worry that an all powerful AI might kill you in the future

wasivywrongtho.bsky.social•14 days ago

As someone who was both very into the rationalist boards before they apparently went nuts and a huge fan of HPMOR, these episodes hurt my heart, but you know, if they suck I want to believe they suck 😜

solonisonomia.bsky.social•14 days ago

A standout moment for me is when I thought "Oh boy, here come the sales guys to really fuck things up!"

routmac.bsky.social•13 days ago

I always thought Revelations was the silliest part of Christianity; but apparently if you reskin it, it still grabs people.

plumpandunfiltered.bsky.social•14 days ago

Just listening to this story is breaking my brain.

blackthorne-null.bsky.social•13 days ago

Is Roko's Basilisk really just The Game?

azbikenerd.bsky.social•12 days ago

Fun fact, Roko's basilisk also kills everyone who tried to break The Game by creating a meme or post to free people from The Game, rip @xkcd.com

mgermanlortie.bsky.social•14 days ago

As a programmer, it annoys me that they named their AI god the Singleton. Any programmer who's worked on a project bigger than "small school project" knows that singletons are a bad design pattern and cause all sorts of bugs

mgermanlortie.bsky.social•14 days ago

(also, a sign that they're dork-ass losers)

lucas-d-richmond27.bsky.social•13 days ago

This series is shaping up to be one of my all-time favorites. It's so bizarre and crazy. Lol.

dotslashdrp.bsky.social•13 days ago

Thinking about AI and how it's trained on our collective conversations, some of which include truth and beauty, while others are hate filled perversions... Yo, what if the singularity was the baby from Preacher? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preacher_(comics)

lots42.bsky.social•11 days ago

Speaking of, I'm glad the tv show 'The Mentalist' had multiple episodes featuring fictional evil cults and describing how easy it is to get caught up in their nonsense.

squeakmoans.bsky.social•9 days ago

hey y'all could you seriously not do the betterhelp ads that shit is evil and doesn't help folks, like I get y'all don't pick most of the sponsors but this one you should absolutely avoid because that shit is heinous

tmink128.bsky.social•14 days ago

I took collateral damage listening to this. I can't wait to hear more

vivekr.bsky.social•9 days ago

This series is incredible!

karlrolson.com•14 days ago

toxic chuunibyous.

mirthfulowl.bsky.social•14 days ago

This is maybe the most maddening story I've ever heard, and I'd like to think I'm above such incredibly stupid and harmful ideas, but I too was once a closeted trans girl who was way too invested in science fiction and online forums. Maybe I'm lucky I got into furries instead of tech bro culture

alaskanweeb.bsky.social•13 days ago

I was big into the skeptic community for a while, and hearing where that whole cadre has gone has just had me repeating “bullet dodged” to myself over and over for the past decade

azbikenerd.bsky.social•12 days ago

Yeahhhh I went through the whole skeptic and atheist movement thing, and had a few weird interactions with 60+ white guys that pushed me away about ten years ago.
They just want the gender roles and racism of white Christian patriarchy without the unnecessary spectacle or mysticism.

mirthfulowl.bsky.social•12 days ago

It seems like a lot of those people were contrarians who wanted to score points by poking logical holes in scripture, but they weren't as interested in interrogating the conservative values themselves. A lot of them joined the alt right after and apparently some of them invented robot Christianity

alaskanweeb.bsky.social•12 days ago

*nodding* Roko’s Basilisk and The AI Singularity and a dozen other “This is just Christianity with the serial numbers scratched off.”

Keeps happening, probably means nothing 🙂

azbikenerd.bsky.social•11 days ago

Yeah, the guy who gave me the final straws tried to tell me not to come out as nonbinary because of the kids, but I was like 21 and still seen as a kid by most ppl over 30 so he had to do this weird dance around someone he saw as a 21 year old girl working as a teachers' aide somehow being a threat

aloemancer.bsky.social•14 days ago

It actually makes too much sense that Ziz named herself after the (primarily in-fandom) nickname for a cataclysmic monster that mind controls people by aligning their brains with the future timeline that causes the maximum amount of suffering.

And knowing that means I'm also irrecoverably insane.

athenarose.bsky.social•14 days ago

I thought my brain couldn't get any more melted after the last one. I was wrong.

It's also frightening just how many elements of this story I've had peripheral involvement with in over the years (i.e. Harry Potter, the SCP Foundation, Harlan Ellison...)

athenarose.bsky.social•14 days ago

Like it feels like there's an alternate universe somewhere where me as a young vulnerable person might have gotten sucked into this shit and that is very frightening to me.

harveyknight.bsky.social•14 days ago

2000s internet stuff is always very "there but for the grace of God go I" for me.

athenarose.bsky.social•14 days ago

Very much so. It's also why I don't believe anybody who insists they're too smart to get sucked into a cult. That's exactly the type of thinking that lands you in one.

aloemancer.bsky.social•14 days ago

There's definitely a version of me that got sucked into this instead of almost going alt-right as a teen during Gamergate.

Hard to say which would have been worse.

dqspider.bsky.social•14 days ago

Ziz might be one of the best examples of toxic rationality. When you decide in advance that your every thought is rational, anything becomes possible. The reduction of moral choices to numbers on a spreadsheet is a nightmare too.

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