It’s a plot a fiction writer might reject as too far-fetched: A group of radical transgender vegans, convinced AI will take over the world, allegedly go on a homicidal spree that leaves eight dead, including a US Border Patrol agent and a key murder trial witness.
uncertain
that → ’ → agent
But the Zizians, as they are called, are quite real.
asserted
they → call → ?
In his new book, “The Zizians: Inside a Trans Death Cult,” investigative reporter Andy Ngo explains the twisted ideology behind the group, and its links to the faddish beliefs of many in Silicon Valley.
asserted
Ngo → explain → Valley
In January 2016, Jack LaSota, a 23-year-old aspiring tech entrepreneur from Alaska, headed to Silicon Valley with big dreams.
asserted
LaSota → head → dreams
Before that, he was an engineering student at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, researching space weather events.
asserted
he → research → events
But his passions veered elsewhere: video-game design, rationalism and effective altruism.
asserted
passions → veer → ?
One of his creations was titled Dystheism, ancient Greek for “bad god.”
asserted
One → title → god
It was a puzzle game where players controlled the souls of dead people represented by humanoid, single-horned, faceless creatures with crackled, black-burned flesh.
asserted
players → control → flesh
Players navigated lost souls through block-puzzle landscapes of the afterlife.
asserted
Players → navigate → afterlife
His pitch: “This game will push your brain to the breaking point, just like your character’s soul.”
asserted
game → push → soul
The imagery would later feel like foreshadowing.
asserted
imagery → feel → foreshadowing
Not long after Jack had begun coding Dystheism, his outward appearance began to change.
asserted
appearance → begin → Dystheism
He started wearing a long, hooded black cloak around campus.
asserted
He → start → campus
He would call it a “Sith” robe — the garb of the dark-side warriors in the Star Wars universe — but with the hood pulled forward, he resembled something more ominous.
asserted
he → call → something
Jack spent most of 2015 refining the game and applying for jobs in the Bay Area.
asserted
Jack → spend → Area
His blog, Sinceriously, documented this period.
asserted
blog → document → period
He used an image of a purple-tinted, fantasy-style female humanoid spirit as his avatar.
asserted
He → use → avatar
“I moved to the Bay Area for proximity to the tech industry which I considered sort of my destiny,” he wrote.
asserted
he → move → industry
He believed he could “best contribute to saving the world” by donating his income to various causes.
uncertain
he → believe → causes
In a 2022 court declaration, he elaborated, “All the smartest people I knew said there was a global emergency in the neglect of ethics and even care [for] the future by AI researchers.”
asserted
I → elaborate → researchers
But life in the Bay Area proved difficult and demoralizing for Jack.
asserted
life → prove → Jack
He bounced between jobs, being fired or denied contract renewals.
asserted
He → bounce → renewals
It was during this period that LaSota began to absorb the ideas that have become popular among young tech workers today — beliefs he would warp into his murderous cult.
asserted
he → begin → cult
Jack adopted the alias Ziz, drawn from the fantasy web serial by John McCrae called Worm.
asserted
Jack → adopt → McCrae
He viewed himself as a savior, writing that he was “willing to go to Hell to save everyone else.
asserted
he → view → everyone
But in the story, Ziz is a winged female monster that poses as benevolent while plotting humanity’s destruction.
asserted
that → pose → destruction
The abomination uses mass psychological manipulation to turn people homicidal or into walking time bombs who are later destructive.
asserted
who → use → bombs
With Jack’s life unraveling, he sought validation in Bay Area rationalist meetups — gatherings of high-IQ tech professionals, many on the autism spectrum, obsessed with abstract questions about artificial intelligence and humanity’s future.
asserted
he → unravel → intelligence
Rationalism — loosely defined as the belief that reason, probability, and evidence can be applied to understand the world and optimize decision-making — functions in Silicon Valley like a secular megachurch, complete with conferences, workshops, social gatherings, internal debates, and even doomsday narratives.
asserted
reason → define → conferences
Outsiders struggled to grasp it; insiders believed they were solving humanity’s most urgent problems.
asserted
they → struggle → problems
Many young rationalists became involved in the movement through the forum and blog LessWrong, founded in 2009 by rationalist philosopher Eliezer Yudkowsky.
asserted
rationalists → become → Yudkowsky
By 2022, the forum had grown to thousands of members.
asserted
forum → grow → members
They called themselves the “rat community.”
asserted
They → call → themselves
Yudkowsky, born in 1979, is widely regarded as one of the godfathers of contemporary rationalism.
asserted
Yudkowsky → bear → rationalism
Raised in Chicago in an Orthodox Jewish family, he dropped out before starting high school and educated himself.
asserted
he → raise → himself
His writings on epistemology, artificial intelligence safety (often called “AI alignment”), and transhumanism are so influential that critics sometimes describe his following as cultlike or quasi-religious.
asserted
critics → call → following
To devotees — occasionally characterized as groupies — he is known simply as “Yud.”
asserted
he → characterize → Yud
The Bay Area’s rationalist community was disproportionately composed of STEM brainiacs — professors, engineers, start-up founders.
asserted
community → compose → brainiacs
They debated AI and how to save humanity from self-destruction, toggling in the span of a few sentences between Bayesianism, probability theory, timeless decision theory, behavioral economics, evolutionary psychology, utilitarianism, and even Harry Potter fan fiction.
asserted
They → debate → Bayesianism
Bay Area rationalists were particularly drawn to debates over how to discover truths and how to systematically pursue goals derived from those truths.
asserted
rationalists → draw → truths
…and 56 more, not listed.
The Aporia
