But it is our mistake that we didn’t stand firmly against drugs, didn’t pay more attention to the dangers of self-experimenting, and didn’t kick out Ziz sooner.
These don’t seem like very relevant or very actionable takeways.
we didn’t stand firmly against drugs—Maybe this would have been a good move generally, but it wouldn’t have helped with this situation at all. Ziz reports that they don’t take psychedelics, and I believe that extends to her compatriots, as well.
didn’t pay more attention to the dangers of self-experimenting—What does this mean concretely? I think plenty of people did “pay attention” to the dangers of self experimenting. But “paying attention” doesn’t automatically address those dangers.
What specific actions would you recommend by which people? Eliezer telling people not to self experiment? CFAR telling people not to self experiment? A blanket ban on “self experimentation” is clearly too broad (“just don’t ever try anything that seems like maybe a good idea to you on first principles”). Some more specific guidelines might have helped, but we need to actually delineate the specific principles.
didn’t kick out Ziz sooner—When specifically is the point when Ziz should have been kicked out of the community? With the benefit of hindsight bias, we can look back and wish we had separated sooner, but that was not nearly as clear ex ante.
What should have been the trigger? When she started wearing black robes? When she started calling herself Ziz? When she started writing up her own homegrown theories of psychology? Weird clothes, weird names, and weird beliefs are part and parcel of the rationalist milieu.
As it is, she was banned from the alumni reunion at which she staged the failed protest (she bought tickets in advance, CFAR told her that she was uninvited, and returned her money). Before that, I think that several community leaders had grey-listed her as someone not to invite to events. Should something else have happened, in addition to that? Should she have been banned from public events or private group houses entirely? On what basis? On who’s authority?
What should have been the trigger? When she started wearing black robes? When she started calling herself Ziz? When she started writing up her own homegrown theories of psychology? Weird clothes, weird names, and weird beliefs are part and parcel of the rationalist milieu.
FWIW, I think I had triggers around them being weird/sketchy that would now cause me to exclude them from many community things, so I do think there were concrete triggers, and I did update on that.
After the shootout, investigators who searched the car reported finding a cache of tactical gear, including a ballistic helmet, a night-vision device, face respirators, two-way radios and dozens of hollow-point bullets. They also located Youngblut’s journal, which according to prosecutors contained “cypher text” and writings about her psychedelic experiences.
“This lsd trip seems pretty mellow,” she allegedly wrote. “i fell kinda high vibrationy maybe more so than other lsd trips?”
I wasn’t there, so who knows how I would have reacted, it probably looks different in hindsight, but it seems like there were already red flags, some people noticed them, and others ignored them:
Salamon told Open Vallejo that LaSota attended three CFAR events between 2014 and 2018. Concerned by their “weird” behavior and interactions with other CFAR attendees, Salamon tried to convince a joint admissions committee between the Machine Intelligence Learning Institute and CFAR to not admit LaSota into their month-long summer fellowship in 2018. Salamon, however, was overruled.
“When LaSota attended the final program in summer 2018, I was physically afraid in a way I’ve never been with anyone else,” Salamon said in an email to Open Vallejo.
Salamon was concerned with some of the ideas that LaSota talked about during the workshops and with her in private. They included theories on “hemispheric sleep,” in which LaSota claimed that humans can split their consciousness between two sides of the brain, allowing one side to sleep while the other is awake, she said. In addition, these two sides of the brain may be “good,” “evil,” or both.
These don’t seem like very relevant or very actionable takeways.
we didn’t stand firmly against drugs—Maybe this would have been a good move generally, but it wouldn’t have helped with this situation at all. Ziz reports that they don’t take psychedelics, and I believe that extends to her compatriots, as well.
didn’t pay more attention to the dangers of self-experimenting—What does this mean concretely? I think plenty of people did “pay attention” to the dangers of self experimenting. But “paying attention” doesn’t automatically address those dangers.
What specific actions would you recommend by which people? Eliezer telling people not to self experiment? CFAR telling people not to self experiment? A blanket ban on “self experimentation” is clearly too broad (“just don’t ever try anything that seems like maybe a good idea to you on first principles”). Some more specific guidelines might have helped, but we need to actually delineate the specific principles.
didn’t kick out Ziz sooner—When specifically is the point when Ziz should have been kicked out of the community? With the benefit of hindsight bias, we can look back and wish we had separated sooner, but that was not nearly as clear ex ante.
What should have been the trigger? When she started wearing black robes? When she started calling herself Ziz? When she started writing up her own homegrown theories of psychology? Weird clothes, weird names, and weird beliefs are part and parcel of the rationalist milieu.
As it is, she was banned from the alumni reunion at which she staged the failed protest (she bought tickets in advance, CFAR told her that she was uninvited, and returned her money). Before that, I think that several community leaders had grey-listed her as someone not to invite to events. Should something else have happened, in addition to that? Should she have been banned from public events or private group houses entirely? On what basis? On who’s authority?
FWIW, I think I had triggers around them being weird/sketchy that would now cause me to exclude them from many community things, so I do think there were concrete triggers, and I did update on that.
From https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/ziz-lasota-zizians-rationalism-20063671.php:
I wasn’t there, so who knows how I would have reacted, it probably looks different in hindsight, but it seems like there were already red flags, some people noticed them, and others ignored them:
-- ‘Zizian’ namesake who faked death in 2022 is wanted in two states