• aio@awful.systems
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    2 days ago

    The Zizians believe in IQ, that animals are ethically equivalent to humans, that all people contain exactly two personality cores corresponding to the two hemispheres of their brains, that every personality core is either intrinsically good or intrinsically evil and less than 5% are good. They believe in violence as a form of mutually assured destruction: you should always escalate every conflict to the maximum in order to dissuade hypothetical agents from blackmailing you. And the stuff about Skynet.

    I think to understand properly it should be recognized that while the personality-core stuff is out of left field, all of the other beliefs are pretty much just logical conclusions of mainstream rationalist thought. For instance Yudkowsky has to repeatedly explain that he’s not in favor of violence (except when he’s advocating for bombing data centers) precisely because it’s really easy to reach that conclusion from what he’s written. The Zizians mainly differ by reaching that logical conclusion and being willing to act on it.

    • mountainriver@awful.systems
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      21 hours ago

      all people contain exactly two personality cores corresponding to the two hemispheres of their brains, that every personality core is either intrinsically good or intrinsically evil and less than 5% are good

      If you have one of each, does that make you neutral? Now how is the Lawful-Chaotic alignment constructed? Does it reside in the kidneys?

      I want to roll up a Chaotic Neutral Rogue Halfling.

    • Architeuthis@awful.systems
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      1 day ago

      in order to dissuade hypothetical agents from blackmailing you

      There’s also a whole thing with Yud accepting the many worlds interpretation as obvious truth that leads to (some) rationalists believing that getting killed in one timeline helps your surviving parallel selves by bolstering your case of being unblackmailable by said hypothetical agents, who are also from the future, which is why you can’t negotiate with them directly.

    • Soyweiser@awful.systems
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      1 day ago

      you should always escalate every conflict to the maximum in order to dissuade hypothetical agents from blackmailing you.

      Ah not understanding the escalation ladder (or knowing it exists, and just going all in every time because they don’t get it) a common issue, slightly more common among younger nerds it seems (Made worse by Enders Game), but also fascists (somebody shared a story on bsky where they had violently (fists etc) gotten rid of some fascists at an event, who later returned to do a drive by shooting).

      • Architeuthis@awful.systems
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        1 day ago

        Also “return the offense thousandfold” figures in LaVeyan satanism I think (cross referencing unsuccessful; too many black metal bands in search results) as a counterpoint to by far the least observed christian guideline of turn-the-other-cheek.

        • Soyweiser@awful.systems
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          1 day ago

          LaVeyan satanism

          As I said. Nerds.

          black metal bands

          Again. (Love that there seem to be two kinds of Black Metal bands (well three kinds, but the popular ones are posers and not trve nor kvlt, except for their first album), the ones very proud they are basing their songs on lord of the rings, and the other kind you know the one)