re the zizian "death cult" thing:
My priors are that abuse is super common and my heuristics are that accusations are usually onto something so believe accusations of abuse. Thus when folks say that CFAR covered up widespread sexual abuse in rationalist circles, I'm like yeah, sure, makes total sense. And when folks say this Ziz person ran an abusive sleep deprivation cult, I'm like yeah, sure, makes total sense. That doesn't mean assigning absolute credence, but like, it's all a good bet.
Anyway, I've been vaguely aware that there was a protest of the Center For Applied Rationality (an org I have vaguely positive feelings towards, probably mostly because I don't deal with them) over sexual abuse coverups and that said lib rationalists freaked out and called the cops and got super huffy about it.
I was not really aware of this "Ziz" person at all, but any rationalist into anarchism is gonna know who I am, so it's unremarkable that she referenced and talked shit about me:
@rechelon I mean, even your posts sometimes make me feel bad about not killing anyone; is it really surprising some people might weaponize that?
I'm glad you acknowledge that it takes active diligent commitment to try to minimize killing here, but you *have* called people selfish and "craven" for not being able to pull the trigger when necessary. tho I know you're mostly talking about people who condemn assassinations/etc and not just random ppl who feel the fear but don't project it on others
I just think it's so wildly and obviously different to say that there are situations where you absolutely morally have to kill, and selfish virtue ethicist dithering is immoral, in contrast to people saying that you need to prove your virtue by killing, in general.
I'm studiously consequentialist, whereas the kind of argument Ziz made above is just an inversion of pacifist VE into murder-cult VE.
@rechelon Logically, yes; I'm not condemning your stance, just saying that emotionally, they're not so obviously different at first glance. You said you "never understood folks who fetishize killing as a test of commitment/bravery/etc", so I'm offering a perspective.
For me, at least, it's overcompensation/hedging. "there are situations where you morally have to kill" -> "there are people who need killing rn, so why am I not doing it? Is my 0 death count just a result of avoidance?"
There seems to be a deeper and wider psychological dynamic, whereby many people experience ethical checks as external pressures ossified locally into unreflective cops in their head. So like they don't know if they'd have the "courage" or "strength" to resist that check and kill. If someone is generally low-self-awareness / low-agency, then killing can seem to them a dramatic act of agency. But on the other end, taking responsibility for everything, it's an ever-present danger.
William Gillis 🏴
TheLemmaLlama