Well, all of that was moderately horrible.

the nyt really wants you to know that ziz is trans. Surely innocent reasons for that given the nyt’s reasonable past positions on trans people right?

this article sucks, Ziz and zizians are just another classic cult spun out of a movement that is profoundly alienating, abusive, and impervious to criticism. It’s not the first time rationalism has gotten people killed (https://www.eruditorumpress.com/blog/the-beigeness-or-how-to-kill-people-with-bad-writing-the-scott-alexander-method is a good break down of the problematic attitudes and how they tie in to a tragic suicide) and it wont be the last.

Robert Evans did a reasonable deep dive into these people on his podcast behind the bastards if you want some better coverage that explores the cult dynamics more.

If you just want a crash course: Rationalism is a terrible hyper capitalist, white, male, anti humanities framework of ideas which starts with the premise that you, the reader, are inherently super smart for stumbling into them and wanting to learn how to be more smarter. There are like 5 big personalities who are all the smartest and because they are the smartest, and being the smartest necessarily means you think the most goodliest, and thinking the most goodliest means you can’t be wrong, and you should ignore all prior human philosophy and just study them. Absorb so much baffling jargon that the obviousness of the bits that are genuinely good is obscured and the nasty ideas can slide right in without triggering alarm bells. Soon you’ll be complete incomprehensible to normal people, and morally revolting to anyone who isn’t a rationalist. Don’t worry though, they’re waiting with open arms to explain why being racist is really important for stopping the machine Satan apocalypse.