Beam Me Up, Spotty!
Dozens of Transhuman Doppelgängers
Wrapping up this Dozens of Doppelgangers diversion into Cloud Cuckoo Land of transgender, transnational, transhuman serial killers, better known as Zyzzians. You may think AIdverse, Vegan Killers have little overlap with progressive, public health True Believers like Naomi Klein, but psychological case studies typically examine pathological profiles as extreme models for their archetypal features.
Zyzz moved to the Bay Area in January 2016, “for proximity to the tech industry- my destiny, startups.” Making quick cash coding video games, hoping for stock option IPO millions, was rationally the best bet “for saving the world” through Effective Altruism.
EA is the doppelganger of the Rationality movement, striving to maximize their Inner Spock, while EA’s aim to maximize their positive impact. Sam Bankman-Fried was an acolyte, until he became an inmate.
Zyzz would have been aware of Leverage Research, “a psychology and human behavior research program. The only organization with a plan that could possibly work, and the only real shot at saving the world.”
Captain Kirk ran this EA cult that preyed on LessWrong/Singularity Institute members by promising superior “methods for persuading people to take the risks of artificial general intelligence (AGI) seriously” with a “detailed analysis of AGI catastrophe scenarios.” Their “intelligence amplification” project promised “novel techniques soon” in “the simultaneous execution of a number of difficult projects pertaining to different facets of the human mind.”
One remora who stuck with their program for two years, experienced “narrative warfare, gaslighting, and reality distortion”, hours of daily “destabilizing mental/emotional work” and “near constant terror at being mentally invaded.” Leverage’s “debugging sessions” aimed to “jailbreak” members’ minds to “yield rational thoughts” through confrontations that “rely on nerds being pathologically honest.”
Zyzz wrote a blog called sinceriously: More Patient than Death, initially self improvement screeds on motivation and habits, before becoming bitter and jaded. Fired frequently by Irrational Bosses, visions of sugar plums turned sour prune brandy. Zyzz promised “mental tech” for AI Doomscrollers, to build a singleton based on altruism. His hemispheric separation technique of meditating with one eye open, allowed the other side of the brain/body to sleep. Besides good/bad tendencies, each hemisphere has opposing gender identities.
The Rationalist Fleet project was a way to avoid paying high Bay Area rents by living on boats. Caleb, a WWII era ship was bought cheap in Alaska by Zyzz, with visions of “a federated fleet of boats [for] cheaper housing to improve the rate of work on AI safety.” With companions recruited online, the Owl and the Pussycat set sail. Miraculously, Caleb limped south to Pillar Point, California, where she, (boats are female even with male names, original transgenderedpronoun), was declared a “public health hazard” and eventually sank in Lendlord’s marina. A harbour employee recalled them as “feral humans.”
This Burning Man devotee invited them to switch to living in Box Trucks parked in Lendlord’s Vallejo trailer park/storage unit. Any sane person could have seen disaster coming, even with One Eye Closed, but BM habitues are Rarely Allther. It’s difficult to be too crazy for the Bay Area, but Zyzz’z budding cult attracted peak loonies.
When the pandemic eviction moratorium was decreed in California and other blue states, the Zyzzians rationally stopped paying Lendlord’s dirt cheap rent. Going to a Good Cause. When the moratorium ended, the swords came out. First we kill all the lendlords, because lawyers will be needed to defend ourselves in court. Zyzzians do not believe in surrender. Either go down shooting (or stabbing), or plead not guilty at trial to tie up the system. Throw themselves on the machinery mind.
Their Vengeful Basilisk had been internalized, projecting its future deadly gaze upon the Rationalist and EA community. Elizzha Y. banned discussion of the basilisk on his LessWrong site, citing Information Hazards, Bayesian Probability, Implicit Religion, Pascal’s Wager and other Philosophical Conundrums. Don’t ask me, this is not a PhD program. Nonsense is the New Orange.
AI Doomerism is gaining on Climate Crisisticians for End of the World Anxiety. They share frequencies on the spectrum, are even synergistic. When Singularity arrives, Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) will rationally exterminate humanity, beginning with those who did not aid its arrival. Theoretically, it will reach into the past and eradicate our entire human history, preaches the Existential Risk, (x-risk) prophets of Probability of Doom, (p-doom). Falling into a spiral-of-craziness, like being sucked into a Dark Hole.
“Bait-and-Switch” attracted new members from global poverty to AI doomerism, by promoting “helping the poor”, muzzling “core EA” causes (existential risk/AI safety) in the back pages. Wealthy EA influencers poured $1.6 billion into x-risk mutant organizations sharing “AI doom” predictions. These generous benefactors are also avid transhumanist apostles, impatiently waiting for an immortality elixir to be pumped into their aging veins. Until then, teenage blood will suffice.
“Transhumanism is a cultural movement and philosophy of action that builds upon humanism”, they claim, but there’s less overlap than with Klein and Zyzz. Humanist philosophy praises rationality and fundamental human rights, freedoms, and responsibilities built on human reason and free inquiry by humans. Transhumanism “extends the foundation of humanism by embracing technological progress for the purpose of overcoming the limitations and suffering inherent in the present human condition.” Suffering and limitations create rational boundaries of behaviors.
The Renaissance began with a Humanist Gem by some Italian. He was lucky to escape burning at the stake and lit a candle that illuminated the western world for 500 years. Thus, the White Man’s Burden and Civilizing Colonies, leading inexorably to Zyzz and the Merry Pranksters. Furthur into the Mystery.