Part One: The Zizians: How Harry Potter Fanfic Inspired a Death Cult

Earlier this year a Border Patrol officer was killed in a shoot-out with people who have been described as members of a trans vegan AI death cult. But who are the Zizians, really? Robert sits down with David Gborie to trace their development, from part of the Bay Area Rationalist subculture to killers. (4 Part series) Sources: https://medium.com/@sefashapiro/a-community-warning-about-ziz-76c100180509 https://web.archive.org/web/20230201130318/https://sinceriously.fyi/rationalist-fleet/ https://web.archive.org/web/20230201130318/https:/sinceriously.fyi/rationalist-fleet/ https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/infohazard https://web.archive.org/web/20230201130316/https://sinceriously.fyi/net-negative/ https://web.archive.org/web/20230201130316/https:/sinceriously.fyi/net-negative/ Wayback Machine https://archive.is/hgTdD The Zizians https://zizians.info/ Spectral Sight https://web.archive.org/web/20230201130302/https:/sinceriously.fyi/glossary#spectral-sight True Hero Contract https://web.archive.org/web/20230201130302/https:/sinceriously.fyi/glossary#true-hero-contract Schelling Orders – Sinceriously https://web.archive.org/web/20230202013351/https:/sinceriously.fyi/schelling-orders/ Glossary – Sinceriously https://web.archive.org/web/20230201130302/https:/sinceriously.fyi/glossary/#zentraidon https://web.archive.org/web/20230201130330/https://sinceriously.fyi/my-journey-to-the-dark-side/ https://web.archive.org/web/20230201130330/https:/sinceriously.fyi/my-journey-to-the-dark-side/ https://web.archive.org/web/20230201130302/https://sinceriously.fyi/glossary/#zentraidon https://web.archive.org/web/20230201130302/https:/sinceriously.fyi/glossary/#zentraidon https://web.archive.org/web/20230201130259/https://sinceriously.fyi/vampires-and-more-undeath/ https://web.archive.org/web/20230201130259/https:/sinceriously.fyi/vampires-and-more-undeath/ https://web.archive.org/web/20230201130316/https://sinceriously.fyi/net-negative/ https://web.archive.org/web/20230201130316/https:/sinceriously.fyi/net-negative/ https://web.archive.org/web/20230201130318/https://sinceriously.fyi/rationalist-fleet/ https://web.archive.org/web/20230201130318/https:/sinceriously.fyi/rationalist-fleet/ https://x.com/orellanin?s=21&t=F-n6cTZFsKgvr1yQ7oHXRg https://x.com/orellanin?s=21&t=F-n6cTZFsKgvr1yQ7oHXRg https://zizians.info/ according to The Boston Globe https://www.bostonglobe.com/2025/02/11/metro/6-violent-deaths-tied-to-radical-vegan-cult-based-in-california/ Inside the ‘Zizians’: How a cultish crew of radical vegans became linked to killings across the United States | The Independent https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/crime/zizian-murders-david-maland-curtis-lind-b2701101.html Silicon Valley ‘Rationalists’ Linked to 6 Deaths https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/ziz-silicon-valley-rationalist-deaths-1235278765/ The Delirious, Violent, Impossible True Story of the Zizians | WIRED https://archive.is/4HAtn Good Group and Pasek’s Doom – Sinceriously https://web.archive.org/web/20230201130336/https:/sinceriously.fyi/good-group-and-paseks-doom/ Glossary – Sinceriously https://web.archive.org/web/20230201130302/https:/sinceriously.fyi/glossary/#zentraidon Mana – Sinceriously https://web.archive.org/web/20230201130331/https:/sinceriously.fyi/mana/ Effective Altruism’s Problems Go Beyond Sam Bankman-Fried - Bloomberg https://archive.is/xhV0S The Zizian Facts - Google Docs https://docs.google.com/document/d/1RpAvd5TO5eMhJrdr2kz43dxT3nNm0XtuPcaW9kBIZL8/edit?tab=t.0 Several free CFAR summer programs on rationality and AI safety - LessWrong 2.0 viewer https://www.greaterwrong.com/posts/LLQYp53vop5BuyKBF/several-free-cfar-summer-programs-on-rationality-and-ai This guy thinks killing video game characters is immoral | Vox https://www.vox.com/2014/4/23/5643418/this-guy-thinks-killing-video-game-characters-is-immoral Inadequate Equilibria: Where and How Civilizations Get Stuck https://web.archive.org/web/20230128221733/https:/equilibriabook.com/ Eliezer Yudkowsky comments on On Terminal Goals and Virtue Ethics - LessWrong 2.0 viewer https://www.greaterwrong.com/posts/gR6H3egpRPNYnoTrA/on-terminal-goals-and-virtue-ethics/comment/mZTPvwcA3DEDCcC7w Effective Altruism’s Problems Go Beyond Sam Bankman-Fried - Bloomberg https://archive.is/xhV0S SquirrelInHell: Happiness Is a Chore https://squirrelinhell.blogspot.com/2017/12/happiness-is-chore.html#more PLUM OF DISCORD — I Became a Full-time Internet Pest and May Not... https://web.archive.org/web/20220217023845/https:/www.plumofdiscord.com/post/675855867193769984/i-became-a-full-time-internet-pest-and-may-not Roko Harassment of PlumOfDiscord Composited – Sinceriously https://web.archive.org/web/20211009234142/https:/sinceriously.fyi/roko-harassment-of-plumofdiscord-composited/#comment-4671 Intersex Brains And Conceptual Warfare – Sinceriously https://archive.is/czxD3 Infohazardous Glossary – Sinceriously https://sinceriously.blog-mirror.com/infohazardous-glossary#debucketing SquirrelInHell-Decision-Theory-and-Suicide.pdf - Google Drive https://drive.google.com/file/d/1MFJli_QLM75fF4yUGtllNJ-z76FeHZ7x/view The Matrix is a System – Sinceriously https://web.archive.org/web/20230202013352/https:/sinceriously.fyi/the-matrix-is-a-system/ A community alert about Ziz. Police investigations, violence, and… | by SefaShapiro | Medium https://archive.ph/h7j3v Intersex Brains And Conceptual Warfare – Sinceriously https://archive.ph/iOmFI A community alert about Ziz. Police investigations, violence, and… | by SefaShapiro | Medium https://medium.com/@sefashapiro/a-community-warning-about-ziz-76c100180509 PLUM OF DISCORD (Posts tagged cw-abuse) https://web.archive.org/web/20220521125057/https:/www.plumofdiscord.com/tagged/cw-abuse Timeline: Violence surrounding the Zizians leading to Border Patrol agent shooting https://archive.ph/mHiKh See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:04Robert Evans?

  Welcome back to Behind the Bastards. That's how this podcast would open if I was a game show host. But I'm not. Instead, I'm a guy who spends-

• 0:17Speaker 01

  You would be good at it, though.

• 0:18Robert Evans?

  I don't think I would be, Sophie.

• 0:20Speaker 01

  I do, but I think- But I'm like biased because I think you'd be good at most things.

• 0:25Robert Evans?

  No, my only marketable skill is spending 30 hours reading the deranged writings of a quasi-cult leader who was somewhat involved in the murders of multiple people very recently, largely because she read a piece of Harry Potter fanfiction at the wrong time.

• 0:44Speaker 01

  Oh, yes.

• 0:47Robert Evans?

  We have, we have a fun one for you this week. And by a fun one, we have a not-at-all fun one for you this week. And to have just a terrible time with me, we are bringing on a guest, the great David Boerewinkle, co-host of My Mama Told Me with our friend of the pod Langston Kerman. David, how you doing?

• 1:10Speaker 02

  Oh, man, I cannot complain. How you doing? There's nothing going on in the world. Everything's fun.

• 1:15Robert Evans?

  Oh, yeah, no, I, yeah, I got up today and read that, that great new article by Francis Fukuyama. History is still stopped, so everything's good. We're done.

• 1:27Speaker 02

  I haven't looked at any news yet, purposefully, so I'm, I, you know, it could be awesome. It could be going great out there.

• 1:33Robert Evans?

  It's great. It's great. The whole Trump administration got together and said, psych, it was all a bit.

• 1:37Speaker 02

  Oh, man.

• 1:39Robert Evans?

  Just an extended ad for The Apprentice, season 15.

• 1:43Speaker 02

  You mean this country's not a business?

• 1:45Robert Evans?

  No. They, they handed over the presidency to- I don't know. I don't know. So somebody, whoever you you personally at home think would be a great president. I'm not gonna jump into that can of worms right now.

• 1:59Speaker 01

  LeBron Ramon James.

• 2:01Robert Evans?

  They made LeBron the president.

• 2:04Speaker 02

  That's a good one.

• 2:05Robert Evans?

  That's a good one.

• 2:06Speaker 02

  Enough one. It's better than what we got.

• 2:07Robert Evans?

  Honestly, vastly superior than where we are.

• 2:10Speaker 02

  Of all the entertainers, I feel like, why don't we start giving athletes a shot at government?

• 2:14Robert Evans?

  Yeah, I fuck it. Why not?

• 2:16Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:18Robert Evans?

  You know, uh, fucking, uh, Kareem Abdul Jabbar.

• 2:21Speaker 01

  Would have been a great president.

• 2:23Speaker 02

  That would be a good one.

• 2:24Robert Evans?

  Knock a presidency out of the park.

• 2:26Speaker 02

  Come on, Veronica Mars writer Kareem Abdul Jabbar.

• 2:29Robert Evans?

  Absolutely. Yes. We need a mystery novelist slash one of the great basketball stars of all time in the White House.

• 2:39Speaker 02

  I just want a president who's good in the paint. You know what I mean?

• 2:41Robert Evans?

  That's right. That's right. Agatha Agatha Christie with a jump shot.

• 2:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's exactly what I think that's what.

• 2:49Robert Evans?

  What an amazing man.

• 2:52Speaker 01

  Kareem would be such would be such a good choice.

• 2:55Robert Evans?

  Yeah, bring it on.

• 2:56Speaker 02

  I think he's such a good man. He wouldn't do it.

• 2:58Robert Evans?

  Yeah.

• 2:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. He's way too moral. He's way too. I have a I have a frog name after named after him.

• 3:03Robert Evans?

  Yeah. Look, honestly, given where we are are right right now, I'd take fucking, uh, what's his Mark McGuire, like Jesus Christ, anybody. Honestly, anyone.

• 3:16Speaker 02

  I'd take Jose Canseco.

• 3:17Robert Evans?

  Jose Canseco, but shit, a heartbeat. So funny.

• 3:24Robert Evans?

  Oh, man, fuck it. Like, I'll take, uh, no, no, I'm not gonna take any hockey players. No hockey players.

• 3:29Speaker 01

  No hockey players.

• 3:31Robert Evans?

  We got enough people with brain damage in the White House right now.

• 3:33Speaker 02

  That's probably be fair. And we don't need somebody who likes to fist fight that much.

• 3:37Robert Evans?

  Yeah.

• 3:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:37Robert Evans?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're probably right there. I mean, if if we could go back in time and make Joe Louis the president, I think he could solve some fucking problems in Congress.

• 3:47Speaker 02

  He could get stuff done.

• 3:52Speaker 03

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• 3:57Robert Evans?

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• 4:28Speaker 04

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• 4:56Robert Evans?

  So this has been a fun digression, but I gotta ask, at the start of this, the story that is most relevant to the people we're talking about today, that I think most of our listeners will have heard, I'm curious if you've heard about, back on January 21st, right as the Trump administration took power, a Border Patrol agent was shot and killed, along with another individual, at a traffic stop in Coventry, Vermont, right? There were two people in a car, it was pulled over by Border Patrol, one of those people drew a gun, there was a firefight, one of the people in the car and the cop died, right?

• 5:32Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 5:33Robert Evans?

  Have you heard this story?

• 5:34Speaker 02

  I have not, I'm not familiar with this at all.

• 5:36Robert Evans?

  It's one of those things where it would have been a much bigger story, obviously immigration being the thing that it is, right? In the United, like, the political hot issue that it is right now, like, the Republicans have been desperately waiting for like, a Border Patrol officer getting shooted and wounded that they can like, use to justify a crackdown. But number one, this happened on the Canadian border. Not really.

• 5:58Speaker 02

  Their favorite border.

• 5:59Robert Evans?

  And one of the two people who who drew their guns on the cops wasn't immigrant, but they were a German immigrant. And so none of this really like.

• 6:09Speaker 02

  Right.

• 6:10Robert Evans?

  It was all like right on the edge of being super useful to the right.

• 6:14Speaker 02

  But it's not as sexy like, I live in Denver. We were dealing with our own right wing immigration propaganda at that time.

• 6:22Robert Evans?

  Yeah, yeah, it was just like, it was like the closest to being a perfect right wing like like a Reichstag fire event, but like just a little too weird.

• 6:33Speaker 02

  You gotta throw some spice in there. You gotta have like a Latin country. That's what they get excited about.

• 6:38Robert Evans?

  And obviously California border is where you want it, you know?

• 6:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, definitely, definitely. Even New Mexico could be.

• 6:44Robert Evans?

  Yeah, or at least at least they need to have fentanyl on the car. In fact, they were not breaking any laws that anyone could prove at the time. They just looked kind of weird.

• 6:53Robert Evans?

  The they look kind of weird and they like had guns, but it was like they had like two handguns and like 40 rounds and some old targets. They were like coming back from a shooting range, right? Like not a lot of a gun of guns and ammo in America terms, right?

• 7:07Speaker 02

  Right.

• 7:07Robert Evans?

  And especially in Vermont terms.

• 7:09Speaker 02

  Right.

• 7:11Robert Evans?

  So the other thing that was weird about this is that the German immigrant who died was a trans woman. So then again, we get back to like, wow, there's a lot about this shooting that is like right on the edge of some issues that the right is really trying to use as like a fulcrum to like push through some awful shit. And as more and more information came out about the shooting, the weirder it seemed because there was a lot of initial talk, is this like a terrorist attack where these like two Antifa types who were like looking to murder a Border Patrol agent? But no, that doesn't really make sense because like they got pulled over like they can't have been planning this, right? Like it didn't, it didn't really seem like that.

• 7:53Robert Evans?

  And really, no one, no one could figure out why they had opened fire. But as the days went on, more information started coming out, not just about the two people who were arrested in this. Well, the one person who was arrested and the one person who died, but about. A group of people around the country that they were linked to. And these other people were not all, but mostly trans women. Uh, they were mostly people who kind of identified as both anarchists and members of uh, the rationalist subculture, which we'll talk about in a little bit. And they were all super high achieving it people in like the tech industry and like sciences. Right. These were like people who had won like awards and had advanced degrees.

• 8:37Robert Evans?

  The, the person, the, the lady who died in the shooting was a quant trader. So these are not like the normal shoot it out with the cops types.

• 8:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, this is a very niche group.

• 8:49Robert Evans?

  This is a very strange story. So people start being like, oh, the fuck is happening? And

• 8:55Speaker 02

  That's a group of people who could not meet each other without the invention of the internet.

• 8:59Robert Evans?

  Right. Well, that is boy David. Do you know where this story is going? Or at least starting. Um, so like it's a couple of these days into this one, like a friend of mine messaged me and it's like, Hey, you know that shooting in Vermont? You know, again, he's like, my friend is like, you know, there's Zizians. And I was like, wait, what? What the fuck? Cause I had heard of these people. This is a weird little subculture. I'm always, I'm like, you know, I study weird little internet subcultures and in part because like some of them do turn out to do acts of terrorism later. Um, so You're Robert Evans. And I, I've been, I've been reporting on the rationalists who are not like a cult, but who do some cult adjacent things.

• 9:41Robert Evans?

  And I just kind of find annoying and I'd heard about this offshoot of the rationalists called the Zizians. They were very weird. There were some like weird crime allegations. A couple of them had been involved in a murder in California a year earlier. But like, it was not a group that I ever really expected to see blow up in the media. And then suddenly they fucking did, right? Um, and they're called the Zizians. It's not a name they have for themselves. They don't consider themselves a cult. They don't all like live. So a group of them did live together, but like these people are pretty geographically like dispersed around the country. They're folks who met online arguing about.

• 10:21Robert Evans?

  And discussing rationalism and the ideas of a particular member of that community who goes by the name Ziz, right? That's where this group came out of. And the regular media was not well-equipped to understand what was going on. And I want to run through a couple of representative headlines that I came across just in like, looking at mainstream articles about what had happened. There's an article from The Independent, they title "Inside the Zizians: How a Cultish Crew of Radical Vegans Became Linked to Killings Across the United States. They seemed like just another band of anarchist misfits scraping on the fringes of Silicon Valley until the deaths began."

• 11:04Robert Evans?

  And then there's a KCRW article, "Zizians: The Vegan-Techy Cult Tied to Murders Across the U.S." And then a Fox article, "Trans-Vegan Cult Charged With Six Murders."

• 11:16Speaker 02

  There you go, that's Fox style.

• 11:18Robert Evans?

  Yes. None of these titles are very accurate. In that, I guess the first one is like, the closest, where like, these people are radical vegans and they are cultish, right? So, I'll give The Independent that. Vegan-Techy cult is not really what I would describe them. Like, some of them were in the tech industry, but like, the degree to which they're in the tech industry is a lot weirder than that gets across. And they're not really a, they're like, trans vegans, but the cult is not about being a trans vegan. That's just kind of how these people found each other.

• 11:55Speaker 02

  Oh, they just happened to be... That was just the common ground.

• 11:59Robert Evans?

  Veganism is tied to it. They just kind of all happened to be trans. That's not really, like, tied to it necessarily. So, I would argue also, that they're not terrorists, which a lot of people have, a number of the other articles called them, nothing, none of the killings that they were involved with, and they did kill people, were like, terrorist killings. They're all much weirder than that, but none of them are like, none of the killings I have seen are for a clear political purpose, right? Which is kind of crucial for it to be terrorism. The murders kind of- Evolved out of a much, much sillier reason. And it's, you know, there's one really good article about them by a fellow at Wired, who spent a year or so kind of studying these people.

• 12:43Robert Evans?

  And that article does a lot that's, that's good, but it doesn't go into as much detail about what I think is the real underpinning of why this group of people got together and convinced themselves it was okay to commit several murders. And I think that that all comes down more than any other single factor to rationalism and to their belief in this weird online cult that's, that's very much based on like, and like asking different sort of logic questions and trying to like pin down the secret rules of the universe by doing like game theory arguments on the internet over blogs, right? Like, that's really how all of this stuff started.

• 13:27Speaker 02

  So they have like someone named Mystery?

• 13:30Robert Evans?

  Yeah.

• 13:31Speaker 02

  Saw people in funny hats.

• 13:33Robert Evans?

  They do actually, they're a little adjacent to this and they come out of that period of time, right? Where like pickup artist culture is also like forming. They're one of this like generation of cults that starts with a bunch of blogs and shit on the internet in like 2009, right? And this, this is, it's so weird because we, we use the term cult and that's the easiest thing to call these people. But generally when our society is talking about a cult, we're talking about like, you have an individual, that individual brings in a bunch of followers, gets them, isolates them from society, puts them into an area where they are in complete control and then tries to utilize them for like a really specific goal. There's like

• 14:18Robert Evans?

  a way to kind of look at the Zizians that way, but I think it would be better to describe them as like cultish, right?

• 14:26Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 14:27Robert Evans?

  They use the tools of cult dynamics and that produces some very cult-like behavior. But there's also a lot of differences between like how this group works and what you'd call a traditional cult and including, a lot of these people are separate from each other and even don't like each other, but because they've been inculcated in some of the same beliefs. Through these kind of cult dynamics, they make choices that lead them to like participate in violence too.

• 14:56Speaker 02

  Where's their hub? Is it like a message board type of situation? Like, how is it?

• 15:00Robert Evans?

  Yes, yes. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna have to go back and forth to explain all of that.

• 15:07Speaker 02

  Also, I do wanna know what the etymology of Zizy in it is. It's cuz from Ziz?

• 15:12Robert Evans?

  No, no, Z I Z. The, um, the lady who is kind of the founder of this is a, uh, the name that she takes for herself is Ziz, right?

• 15:21Speaker 02

  Okay. Should've been the Z girls. That's much more appealing.

• 15:25Robert Evans?

  These people are big in the news right now.

• 15:28Speaker 01

  Cause of that murder.

• 15:30Robert Evans?

  Cause, cause of the several murders and the right wing is trying, wants to make out as like, this is a like trans death cult. And this is more of like a internet AI nerd death cult?

• 15:43Speaker 02

  I guess that's better?

• 15:46Robert Evans?

  It's just different, you know?

• 15:49Speaker 02

  You're right.

• 15:51Robert Evans?

  It was just a different thing. And I think it's important, if you're, if like, you care about like cults because you think they're dangerous, and you're arguing that like, hey, this cult seems really dangerous, you should understand like what the cult is, right?

• 16:02Speaker 02

  Right.

• 16:02Robert Evans?

  Like, if you misunderstood the Scientologists and thought like, these are obsessive fans of science fiction who are committing murders over science fiction stories. It's like, no, no, they're committing murders cuz it's something stupid.

• 16:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, much, much.

• 16:17Robert Evans?

  Okay, so I gotta take, I am going to explain to you what rationalism is, how, who Ziz is, where they come from, and how they get radicalized to the point where they are effectively at the hub of, of something that is at least very adjacent to a cult. But I wanna talk a little bit about the difference between like a cult and, and cult dynamics, right? A cult is fundamentally a toxic thing. It is bad. It always harms people. There is no harmless cult, you know? Uh, it's, it's like rape. Like, there's no, no version of it that's good, you know? Like, it is a fundamentally dangerous thing.

• 16:57Robert Evans?

  Cult dynamics and the tactics cult leaders use are not always toxic or bad. And in fact, every single person listening to this has enjoyed and had their life enriched by the use of certain things that are on the spectrum of cult dynamics.

• 17:16Speaker 02

  I was gonna say, it's a lot, it seems a lot more like you have that at work.

• 17:19Robert Evans?

  You have that at work?

• 17:20Speaker 02

  Anywhere, right?

• 17:22Robert Evans?

  Yeah, anyway, that's a huge part of what make a great fiction author who is able to like attract a cult following. You've ever had that experience? Like, a big thing in cults is the use of and creation of new language. You get people using words that the other, they don't use otherwise and like phrases. And that is both a way to bond people because like, you know, it helps you feel like you're part of this group and it also isolates you from people. If you've ever met people who are like hugely into, you know, Dungeons and Dragons, or huge fans like Harry Potter or the Lord of the Rings, like, they have like things that they say, like memes and shit that they share based on those books. And like, that's a less toxic, but it's on the same spectrum, right? It's this, I am

• 18:05Robert Evans?

  a part of this group of people and we use these words that mean something to us that don't mean things to other people, right?

• 18:11Speaker 02

  And that's like an empowering feeling, right?

• 18:13Robert Evans?

  Yes, yes, yeah.

• 18:15Speaker 02

  It's like a great, that's like a great way to bond. I think it's any group, right? I mean, we see entertainers.

• 18:21Robert Evans?

  Your friend group.

• 18:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 18:23Robert Evans?

  Has in jokes, right?

• 18:24Speaker 02

  Like what's?

• 18:25Robert Evans?

  Yeah.

• 18:25Speaker 02

  The Beehive could kill people, right?

• 18:27Robert Evans?

  Exactly, yes, yes. And like, you've got, you know, you and you and your buddies that have been friends for years, you have like, you could, there's like a word you can say and everyone knows that you're referring to this thing that happened six years ago. And you all like laugh because, you know, it reminds you of something, you know, because it's relevant to something happening then. That's a little healthy bit of cult dynamics at play, right? You know? It's like a diet, you know? So there's a toolbox here and, and we play with it. And different, different organizations, like churches, play with it. And obviously, a lot of churches cross the line into cults, but there's also aspects of, for example, um, you know, there's churches that I I know I have seen people go to where like it's very common.

• 19:10Robert Evans?

  Everybody gets up and like hugs at a certain point and like. People benefit from human contact. It makes them feel nice.

• 19:19Robert Evans?

  It can be like a very healthy thing. I've gone to, I used to go to like Burning Man Regionals and like. You would like start at this greeter station where like a bunch of people would come up and they'd offer you like food and drinks and. You know, people would hug each other and it was this like changes your mind state from where you were in before, kind of opens you up. That.

• 19:38Speaker 02

  Burning Man Regionals, is that like to qualify for state?

• 19:41Robert Evans?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that we could get to go. No, it's just like these local little events in Texas, right? Like a thousand people in the desert trying to forget that we live in Texas.

• 19:49Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 19:51Robert Evans?

  Or not desert, but um, it was very like it's, it's, it was like a really valuable part of like my youth. Cause it was the first time I ever started to like feel comfortable in my own skin. But also that's on the spectrum of love bombing, which is the thing cults do where they like surround you from people with people who like. Talk about like, like, you know, will touch you and hold you and tell you they love you and like. You know, part of what brings you into the cult is the cult leader can take that away at any moment in time, right? It's the kind of thing where if it's not something where, no, this is something we do for five minutes at the end of every church service, right? You could very easily turn this into something deeply dangerous and poisonous, right? But also a lot of people just kind of play around a little bit with pieces of that, with a piece of the cult dynamics.

• 20:34Speaker 02

  Just a little bit.

• 20:35Robert Evans?

  Just a little bit. Any good musician, any really great performer is fucking with some cult dynamics, right?

• 20:42Speaker 02

  I was gonna say, I mean, I've, I've been to like so many different concerts of like weird niche stuff. Where you're like, maybe the Disco Biscuits is a cool, I don't, I don't know.

• 20:52Robert Evans?

  Yeah, I mean, I like, I've been to some like Childish Gambino concerts where it's like, oh yeah. He's doing, he's a little bit of a cult leader, you know, like just 10%, right?

• 21:02Speaker 02

  I mean, what are you gonna do with all that charisma? You gotta, you gotta put it somewhere, you know?

• 21:07Robert Evans?

  Yeah. So these are, I, I think that it's important for people to understand both that like. The, the tactics and dynamics that make up a cult. Have versions of them that are not unhealthy, but I also think it's important for people to understand. Cults come out of subcultures, right? This is very close to 100% of the time. Cults always arise out of subcultural movements that are not in and of themselves cults. For example, in the 1930s through like the 50s, 60s, you have the emergence of what's called the self-help movement, you know? And this is all of these different books on like how to persuade people, how to, you know, win friends and influence people, you know?

• 21:52Robert Evans?

  How to like make, but also stuff like Alcoholics Anonymous, you know? How to like improve yourself by getting off drugs, getting off alcohol? All of these are pieces of the self-improvement movement, right? That's a subculture. There are people who travel around, who get obsessed, who go to all of these different things and they'll, and they get a lot of benefit, you know? People will show up at these seminars where there's hundreds of other people and a bunch of people will like hug them and they feel like they're part of this community and they're making their lives better. And oftentimes, especially like once we get to like the 60s, 70s, these different sort of guru types are saying that like, you know, this is how we're gonna save the world. If we can get everybody doing, you know, this yoga routine or whatever that I put together, it'll fix everything.

• 22:35Speaker 02

  Who's that guy who had the game?

• 22:37Robert Evans?

  Oh, God, yes.

• 22:38Speaker 02

  You know what I'm talking about?

• 22:39Robert Evans?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 22:40Speaker 02

  And they had to like viciously confront each other?

• 22:43Robert Evans?

  Yes, we've covered them. That is Synanon, yes.

• 22:46Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 22:47Robert Evans?

  So that's what I'm talking about. That's what I'm talking about. You have this broader subculture of self-help and a cult Synanon comes out of it, you know?

• 22:54Speaker 02

  And I get it. It's like the subculture, it's already, it's intimate. You feel closer to those people. And anybody else, it definitely feels ripe for manipulation.

• 23:04Robert Evans?

  And Scientology is a cult that comes out of the exact same subculture. We talked last week or week before, or two weeks ago about Tony Alamo, who's incredibly abusive pedophile Christian cult leader. He comes out of, along with a couple other guys we've talked, the Jesus Freak Movement, which is a Christian subculture that arises as a reaction to the hippie movement. It's kind of the countervailing force to the hippie movement. So you've got these hippies and you have these Christians who are like really scared of this kind of... Like weird, left wing movement. And so they start kind of doing like a Christian hippie movement almost, right? And some of these people just start weird churches that sing annoying songs.

• 23:45Robert Evans?

  And some of these people start hideously dangerous cults. You have the subculture and you have cults that come out of it, right? And the same thing is, is true in every single period of time, right? Cults form out of subcultures, you know? And part of this is because people who, a lot of people who find themselves most drawn to subcultures, right? Tend to be people who feel like they're missing something in the outside world, right?

• 24:14Robert Evans?

  You know, not everybody, people who get most into it. And so.

• 24:17Speaker 02

  So does that mean like, so maybe like more, I'm just curious, like more broader cultural waves have never led. There's like the Swifties would not be a cult.

• 24:26Robert Evans?

  No, no.

• 24:27Speaker 02

  There's most likely not going to be an offshoot of the Swifties that becomes a cult. Because it's so broad, it has to have already been kind of a smaller subset. That's interesting.

• 24:36Robert Evans?

  Well, yeah. And I think, but, but that said, there have been cults that have started out of like popular entertainers and musicians. Like, you know, you could, we could talk about Corey Feldman's weird house full of young women dressed as angels, right?

• 24:57Robert Evans?

  So, so yeah, you've got, as a general rule, like there are, music is full of subcultures, like punk, right? But there have definitely also been some like punk communities that have, have gone in kind of individual little chunks of punk communities, got in like culty directions, right? Even if you're.

• 25:17Robert Evans?

  Yeah. Yes. Yeah.

• 25:24Robert Evans?

  So there are cults that come out of the subculture. This is the way cults work. And I, I really just, I don't think, I don't think there's very good education on what cults are, where they come from, or how they work. Because all of the people who run this country have like a lot of cult leader DNA in them, you know?

• 25:40Speaker 02

  Buddy.

• 25:45Speaker 02

  We're being run currently by someone who is seen as a magic man.

• 25:48Robert Evans?

  Cult's sold away now. Yes, exactly, exactly. So I think there's a lot of vested interests in not in explaining what a cult is and where they come from. And I, so I want to, I think it's important to understand subcultures birth cults and also cult leaders are drawn to subcultures. When they're trying to figure out how to make their cult, because this a subculture. You know, most of the people in there are just gonna be like normal people who are just kind of into this thing. But there will always be a lot of people who are like, this is the only place I feel like I belong. I feel very isolated. This, this is like the center of my being, right?

• 26:26Speaker 02

  Right.

• 26:26Robert Evans?

  And so it's just, it's like a good place to recruit, you know? Those are the kind of people you want if you're reaching out to cult leaders, you know? I'm not saying like, again, I'm not saying subcultures are bad. I'm saying that like some chunk of people in subcultures are ready to be in a cult, you know?

• 26:40Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, I think if I reflect on my own personal life. Yeah, you, you meet a lot of guys who are just like, I'll die for the skate park or whatever thing.

• 26:49Robert Evans?

  Yeah. Or like the Star Wars fans were sending death threats to Jake Lloyd after the Phantom of Menace where it's like, well, you guys are crazy. Like that is insane. You know, he's like eight, right? This is a movie.

• 27:02Speaker 02

  He also didn't write it.

• 27:03Robert Evans?

  He didn't write it? Like, what are you doing?

• 27:11Speaker 02

  You know, whatever makes you feel a sense of home, I guess.

• 27:13Robert Evans?

  So, and again, that's kind of a good point, like Star Wars fans aren't a cult. But you can also see some of like the toxic things cults do erupts from time to time and from like video game fans, right? People who are really into a certain video game. It's not a cult, but also periodically groups of those fans will act in ways that are violent and crazy. And it's, it's because of some of these same factors going on, right?

• 27:37Speaker 02

  I think people forget fan is short for fanatic.

• 27:39Robert Evans?

  Exactly, exactly, right?

• 27:42Robert Evans?

  And it's like, you know, the events that I went to very consciously played with cult dynamics, you know, after you got out of the like greeting station thing where like all these people were kind of like love bombing you for like five minutes, there was like a big bar and it had like a sign above it that said, not a religion, do not worship. And it was this kind of people would talk about like, this is like, we are playing with the ingredients of a cult. We're not trying to actually make one. So you need to constantly remind people of like what we're doing and why it affects their brain that way. And in my case, it was like, because I was at like a low point in my life then, like this was when I was really, I was 20, I was not, I had no kind of drive in life. I was honestly dealing with a lot of like suicidal ideation. This is the point at which I would have been

• 28:27Robert Evans?

  vulnerable to a cult and it, I think it acted a little bit like a vaccine. Like I got a little dose of the drug.

• 28:33Speaker 02

  Right.

• 28:33Robert Evans?

  It was enough.

• 28:34Speaker 02

  Built up in immunity.

• 28:35Robert Evans?

  Exactly.

• 28:36Speaker 02

  And now you're like, hey, I know what that is.

• 28:39Robert Evans?

  I know what's going on there. So anyway, I needed to get into this because the Zizians, this thing that I think is, it's either a full-on cult or at least a cult-ish, right? That is responsible for this series of murders that are currently dominating the news and being blamed on like a trans vegan death cult or whatever. They come out of a subculture that grows out of the early aughts internet known as the rationalists. The rationalists started out as a group in the early aughts on the comment sections of two blogs. One was called Less Wrong and one was called Overcoming Bias. Less Wrong was started by a dude named Elizur Yidkowski. I have talked about Elizur on the show before. He's not

• 29:24Robert Evans?

  a

• 29:25Speaker 02

  What a name.

• 29:26Robert Evans?

  He sucks. He's, I think he's a bad person. He's not a cult leader, but again, he's playing with some of these cult dynamics and he plays with them in a way that I think is very reckless, right? And ultimately leads to some serious issues. Now, Elizur's whole thing is, he considers himself the number one world expert on AI risk and ethics. Now, you might think from that, oh, so he's like, he's like making AIs, he's like working for one of these companies that's involved in like coding and stuff. Absolutely not.

• 30:00Speaker 02

  Absolutely not.

• 30:02Robert Evans?

  No, no.

• 30:02Speaker 02

  Armchair quarterback, backseat driver.

• 30:05Robert Evans?

  No, he writes long articles about what he thinks AI would do and what would make it dangerous that are based almost entirely off of short stories he read in the 1990s.

• 30:18Robert Evans?

  This guy.

• 30:19Speaker 02

  That's the most internet shit I've ever heard.

• 30:21Robert Evans?

  It's so much such, it's such internet. And like, I'm not a fan of like the quote unquote real AI, but Yudkowsky is not even one of these guys who's like, no, I'm like making a machine that you talk to.

• 30:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, I have no credibility. I just have an opinion.

• 30:36Robert Evans?

  Yeah.

• 30:39Speaker 02

  An outdated opinion.

• 30:40Robert Evans?

  I hate this guy so much. Speaking of things I hate, not going to ads.

• 30:48Robert Evans?

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• 31:48Robert Evans?

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• 32:29Robert Evans?

  We're back. So Yedkowski, this AI risk and ethics guy, starts this blog in order to explore a series of thought experiments based in game theory. And his, I am annoyed by game theory, guys.

• 32:44Speaker 02

  That's the worst sentence I've ever heard.

• 32:45Robert Evans?

  Yeah, it sucks. Look, man, I know that there's like valid activity, but like, it's all just always so stupid and annoying to me.

• 32:55Robert Evans?

  Anyway, a bunch of thought experience, experiments based in game theory with the goal of teaching himself and others to think more logically and effectively about the major problems of the world. His motto for the movement and himself is winning. The rationalist. Yeah, yeah.

• 33:14Speaker 02

  That's where Sheen got it.

• 33:15Robert Evans?

  Yeah, that's where Sheen picked it up. Yeah.

• 33:17Speaker 02

  All right.

• 33:19Robert Evans?

  He's, they're tied in with biohacking, right? This is kind of starting to be a thing at the time and brain hacking and the whole like self optimization movement that feeds into a lot of like right wing influencer space today. Yedkowski is all about optimizing your brain and your responses in order to allow you to accomplish things that are not possible for other people who haven't done that. And there's a messianic era to this too, which is he believes that only by doing this, by, by spreading rationalist principles in order to quote, raise the sanity waterline. That's how he describes it. That's going to make it possible for us to save the world from the evil AI that will, will be born if, if enough of us

• 34:04Robert Evans?

  don't spend time reading blogs.

• 34:07Speaker 02

  That's great. This is.

• 34:09Robert Evans?

  It's awesome.

• 34:10Speaker 02

  This is, this is peak.

• 34:12Robert Evans?

  It's the good stuff.

• 34:16Robert Evans?

  Yedkowski and his followers see themselves as something unique and special. And again, there's often a messianic air to this, right? We are literally the ones who can save the world from evil AI. Nobody else is thinking about this or is even capable of thinking about this because they're too illogical.

• 34:30Speaker 02

  He holds himself as kind of like a deity. He kind of deifies himself on top of this.

• 34:35Robert Evans?

  He doesn't really deify himself, but he also does talk about himself like in a way that is.

• 34:44Robert Evans?

  Clearly, other people aren't capable of of of understanding all of the things that he's capable of understanding, right?

• 34:51Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 34:52Robert Evans?

  So there is a little bit, it's more like superherofication, but it's

• 34:56Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 34:56Robert Evans?

  It's a lot, you know what this is closest to? With these people, they would, not, all of them would argue with me about this, but I I've read a lot, enough of their papers and enough Dianetics to know that like, this is new Dianetics. Like, this is church.

• 35:09Speaker 02

  Oh, okay.

• 35:10Robert Evans?

  The Church of Scientology, now, there's, the Church of Scientology stuff has more occult and weird, like, magic stuff in it. But this is all about, there are activities and exercises you go through that will rid your body of, like, bad ingrained responses, and that will make you a fundamentally more functional person.

• 35:31Speaker 02

  Okay, so the retraining of yourself in order to

• 35:33Robert Evans?

  Exactly.

• 35:34Speaker 02

  Make a little bit, okay.

• 35:35Robert Evans?

  Huge deal. And also, a lot of these guys wind up, like, referring to the different, like, techniques that he teaches as tech, which is exactly what the Scientologists call it. Like, there's some shit I found that it's like, this could have come right out of a Scientology pamphlet. Do you guys not realize what you're doing? I think they do, actually. So, he's, he's, he's, you know, in the process of inventing this kind of new mental science that verges on superpowers. And it's one of those things, like, people don't tend to see these people as crazy. If you just sort of, like, read their arguments a little, it's like them going over old thought experiments and being like, so the most rational way to behave in this situation is this reason, for this reason.

• 36:20Robert Evans?

  You have to really, like, dig deep into their conclusions to, to see how kind of nutty a lot of this is. Now, again, I compared him to Scientology. Yudkowsky isn't a high-control guy like Hubbard. He's never gonna make a bunch of people live on a flotilla of boats in the ocean with him. You know? He's got, like, there's definitely, like, some allegations of bad treatment of, like, some of the women around him, and, like, he has, like, a Bay Area set that hang with him. I don't think he's like a, a cult leader, you know? You could say he's on

• 36:52Speaker 02

  Is he drawing people to him physically, or this is also all?

• 36:56Robert Evans?

  Physically, yeah, I mean, a lot of people move to the Bay Area to be closer to the rationalist scene, although, again, all of these are

• 37:01Speaker 02

  What Bay Area city? I'm a Bay Area guy.

• 37:03Robert Evans?

  San Fran, San Fran.

• 37:05Speaker 02

  Oh, in the city?

• 37:06Robert Evans?

  This, this is a San Francisco thing, because all of these are tech people.

• 37:09Speaker 02

  Oh, okay, so this is like, uh,

• 37:11Robert Evans?

  Yes.

• 37:12Speaker 02

  I wonder what neighborhood feels like a

• 37:13Robert Evans?

  San Fran and Oakland. You can look it up. People, people have found his house online, right? Like, like it is known where he lives. I'm not saying that for any, like, I don't harass anybody. I just like, it's, it's not a secret, like what part of the town this guy lives in. I just didn't think to look it up. But like, yeah, this is like a Bay Area, Bay Area tech industry, subculture, right?

• 37:36Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 37:37Robert Evans?

  So, the other difference between this and something like Scientology is that it's not just Eliza laying down the law. Eliza writes a lot of blog posts, but he lets other people write blog posts too, and they all debate about them in the comments. And so the kind of religious canon of rationalism is not a one guy thing. It's come up with by this community. And so if you're some random kid in bumfuck Alaska, and you find these people and start talking with them online, you can like wind up feeling like you're having an impact on the development of this new thought science, you know?

• 38:10Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's amazing.

• 38:12Robert Evans?

  Very, very powerful for a kid. Yes.

• 38:17Robert Evans?

  Now, the, the danger with this is that like, that all of this is this internet community that is incredibly like insular and spends way too much time talking to each other and way too much time developing in group terms to talk to each other. And internet communities have a tendency to poison the minds of everyone inside of them. For example, Twitter. The reality is that

• 38:42Robert Evans?

  X, X, the everything app.

• 38:44Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 38:45Robert Evans?

  I just watched a video of a man killing himself while launching a shitcoin.

• 38:51Robert Evans?

  The everything app.

• 38:56Robert Evans?

  Oh, fuck.

• 38:58Speaker 01

  By the way, a hack, a hack Google job indicates it's Berkeley.

• 39:03Robert Evans?

  Thank you.

• 39:04Speaker 02

  It is Berkeley.

• 39:05Robert Evans?

  Yeah.

• 39:05Speaker 02

  That makes more, that makes the most sense to me.

• 39:07Robert Evans?

  Yeah.

• 39:07Speaker 02

  Geographically.

• 39:09Robert Evans?

  A lot of these people wind up living on boats and like the Oakland, there's the Oakland Harbor boat culture is a thing.

• 39:16Speaker 02

  Is that ever a good thing when a big group of people move to boats?

• 39:19Robert Evans?

  No. David, absolutely not.

• 39:28Robert Evans?

  No.

• 39:29Speaker 02

  Never, never, it feels like it never bodes well.

• 39:33Robert Evans?

  It's, it's, here's the thing, boats are a bad place to live.

• 39:37Speaker 02

  It's not, it's for fun.

• 39:40Robert Evans?

  It is, like boats and planes are both constant monuments to hubris, but a plane, its goal is to be in the air just as long as it needs. And then you get it back on the ground where it belongs. A boat's always mocking God and the sea.

• 39:53Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 39:56Speaker 02

  Or a lot of times just a harbor, like a, like a, like a, like a houseboat. You know what I mean? That's where your dad goes after the divorce.

• 40:02Robert Evans?

  Right, right. Oh, I do, one day I'll live on a houseboat. Oh, it's gonna be falling apart. It's gonna, just a horrible, horrible place to live. Dank, I can't wait. That's the dream, David.

• 40:14Robert Evans?

  That's my beautiful dream.

• 40:16Speaker 02

  Just on a houseboat, making your own bullets.

• 40:18Robert Evans?

  Being, making, making my own bullets, really just becoming an alcoholic. Like,

• 40:22Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 40:23Robert Evans?

  like, not just like half assing it, like putting, putting it, like trying, trying to become the babe Ruth of drinking nothing but Cuddy Sark Scotch.

• 40:33Speaker 02

  If you want to be like a poop the bed alcoholic, a houseboat is the place for that.

• 40:37Robert Evans?

  Yeah, that's right. That's right. Ah, the life. I want to be like that guy from Jaws, Quint.

• 40:44Speaker 02

  You're gonna get scurvy.

• 40:46Robert Evans?

  Yes, exactly. Getting scurvy, destroying my liver, eventually getting eaten by a great white shark because I'm too drunk to work my boat. Ah, that's it. That's the, that's the way to go with.

• 40:59Speaker 02

  Romance, you know?

• 41:01Robert Evans?

  Yeah. So, uh, anyway.

• 41:05Robert Evans?

  These internet communities, like the rationalists, even when they start from a reasonable place, because of how internet stuff works, one of the things about internet communities is that when people are like really extreme and like pose the most sort of extreme and out there version of something, that gets attention. People talk about it. People get angry at each other. But also like that kind of attention encourages other people to get increasingly extreme and weird. And there's just kind of a result, a derangement. I think internet communities should never last more than a couple of years, because everyone gets crazy, you know? Like, it's bad for you. I say this as someone who was raised on these, right? It's bad for you. And like, it's bad for you in part because when people get really into this,

• 41:50Robert Evans?

  this becomes the only thing like, especially a lot of these like kids in isolated, who are getting obsessed with rationalism. All they're reading is these rationalist blogs. All they're talking to is other rationalists on the internet. And in San Francisco, all these guys are hanging out all of the time and talking about their ideas. And this is bad for them for the same reason that like it was bad for all of the nobles in France that moved to Versailles, right? Like, they all lived together and they went crazy. Human beings need regular contact with human beings they don't know. The most lucid and wisest people are always, always, the people who spend the most time connecting to other people who know things that they don't know. This is an immutable fact of life.

• 42:34Robert Evans?

  This is just how existing works.

• 42:39Robert Evans?

  If you, if you think I'm wrong, please consider that you're wrong and go find a stranger under a bridge, you know? Just start talking.

• 42:47Speaker 02

  They know some stuff you don't know.

• 42:48Robert Evans?

  They will know some shit. They might have some powders you haven't tried.

• 42:54Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah. Pills and powders.

• 42:56Robert Evans?

  Shit going on under the bridge.

• 43:00Speaker 02

  That's that's an echo chamber you want to be a part of.

• 43:03Robert Evans?

  Yeah, exactly, exactly. So the issue is that Yudkowsky starts postulating on his blog various rules of life based on these thought experiments. A lot of them are like older thought experiments that like different intellectuals, physicists, psychiatrists, psychologists, whatnot, had come up with in like the 60s and stuff, right? And he starts taking them and coming up with like corollaries or alternate versions of them and like trying to solve some of these thought problems with his friends, right? The thought experiments are, most of what's happening here is they're mixing these kind of 19th and 20th century philosophical concepts. The big one is utilitarianism. That's like a huge thing for them is the concept of like the ethics meaning doing the greatest good for the greatest

• 43:46Robert Evans?

  number of people, right? And that ties into the fact that these people are all obsessed with the singularity. The singularity for them is the concept that we are on the verge of developing an all powerful AI that will instantly gain intelligence and gain a tremendous amount of power, right? It will basically be a god. And the positive side of this is it can, it'll solve all of our problems, right? You know, it will literally build heaven for us, you know, when the singularity comes. The downside of it is it might be an evil god that creates hell, right? So the rationalists are all using a lot of these thought experiments and like their utilitarianism

• 44:29Robert Evans?

  becomes heavily based around how do we do the greatest good in, by which, I mean influencing this AI to be as good as possible.

• 44:38Speaker 02

  So that's the end goal.

• 44:39Robert Evans?

  That's the end goal, right?

• 44:40Speaker 02

  Are they actively, because you said the, the leader was not, are these people now actively working within AI or are they just?

• 44:47Robert Evans?

  A bunch of them have always been actually working in AI. Yudkowsky would say, no, he, I work in AI. He's got a think tank that's dedicated to like AI, ethical AI. It's worth noting that most of the people in this movement, including Yudkowsky, got him, once like AI became an actual, like, I don't want to say there's actual, like, these are actual intelligences, because I don't think they are, but like, once ChatGPT comes out and this becomes like a hu- people start to believe there's a shitload of money in here. A lot of these businesses, all of these guys, or nearly all of them, get kicked to the curb, right? Because none of these, none of these companies really care about ethical AI, you know? Like, they don't give a shit about what these guys have to say. And Yedkowski now is a huge, he's like very angry at a lot of these AI companies

• 45:29Robert Evans?

  because he thinks they're very recklessly like, uh, making the god that will destroy us instead of like doing this carefully to make sure that AI isn't evil.

• 45:42Robert Evans?

  Anyway, but a lot of these people are in an, in an adjacent to different chunks of the AI industry, right? They're not all working on like LLMs. And in fact, there are a number of scientists who are in the AI space who think AI is possible, who think that the method that like OpenAI is using LLMs cannot make an intelligence, that that's not how you're ever going to do it. If it's possible, they're, they have other theories about it. I don't need to get into it further than that, but these are like a bunch of different people. Some of them are still involved with like the mainstream AI industry. Some of them have been very much pushed to the side. So all this starts again with these, these fairly normal game theory questions,

• 46:24Robert Evans?

  but it all gets progressively stranger as people obsess over coming up with like the weirdest and most unique take in part to get like clout online, right? And all of these crazy, yeah, I'll give you an example, right? So much of rationalist discourse in, among the Yedkowski people is focused on what they call decision, or what's called decision theory, right? This is drawn from a thought experiment called Newcomb's Paradox, which was created by a theoretical physicist in the 1960s. Uh, hey, just to make a quick correction here, I was a little bit glib. Decision theory isn't drawn from Newcomb's Paradox, nor does it start with Yedkowski. But the stuff that we're talking about, like how decision theory kind of comes to be seen

• 47:08Robert Evans?

  in the rationalist community, a lot of that comes out of Newcomb's Paradox. It's a much older like thing, you know, than the internet, goes back centuries, right? People were talking about decision theory for a long time. Sorry, I was imprecise. I am going to read how the Newcomb's Paradox is originally laid out. Imagine a super intelligent entity known as Omega, and suppose you are confident in its ability to predict your choices. Maybe Omega is an alien from a planet that's much more technically advanced than ours. You know that Omega has often correctly predicted your choices in the past, and has never made an incorrect prediction about your choices. And you also know that Omega has correctly predicted the choices of other people, many of whom are similar to you, in the particular situation about to be described. There are two boxes, A and B.

• 47:53Robert Evans?

  Box A is see-through and contains $1,000. Box B is opaque and contains either $0 or $1 million. You may take both boxes, or only take box B. Omega decides how much money to put into box B. If Omega believes that you will take both boxes, then it will put $0 in box B. If Omega believes that you will take box B, then it will put only box B, then it will put $1 million in box B. Omega makes its prediction and puts the money in box B, either $0 or $1 million. It presents the boxes to you and flies away. Omega does not tell you its prediction, and you do not see how much money Omega put in box B. What do you do?

• 48:37Robert Evans?

  Now, I think that's stupid.

• 48:43Robert Evans?

  I think it's a stupid question, and I don't really think it's very useful.

• 48:46Speaker 02

  I don't see... There's so many other factors. Yeah, I don't know.

• 48:51Robert Evans?

  I mean, among other things, part of the issue here is that, like, well, the decision's already been made, right?

• 48:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's the point. You have no... It doesn't matter what you do. There's no autonomy in that, right?

• 49:01Robert Evans?

  Well, you and I would think that, because you and I are normal people who, I think, among other things, probably like grew up like cooking food, and like filling up our cars with gas, and not having like our parents do all of that, because they're crazy rich people who live in the Bay, and paid to send you to Super Stanford.

• 49:20Speaker 02

  Yeah. Big time latchkey over here.

• 49:22Robert Evans?

  We had like problems in our lives and stuff, you know?

• 49:26Speaker 02

  Physical bullies.

• 49:28Robert Evans?

  Normal, like, I don't want to like shit on people who are in... Because this is also harmless, right? And what this is, I'm not... Also, I'm not... Shitting on Newcombe. This is a thing a guy comes up with the 60s and it's like a thing you talk about in like parties and shit among like other weird intellectuals, right? You pose it, you sit around drinking, you talk about it. Not, not, there's nothing bad about this, right? However, when people are talking about this online, there's no end to the discussion. So people just keep coming up with more and more arcane arguments for what the best thing to do here is, and it starts to

• 50:00Speaker 02

  I see how that spins out of control pretty quickly.

• 50:03Robert Evans?

  Exactly. And the rationale, let's discuss this nonstop. And they come to a conclusion about how to best deal with this situation. Here's how it goes. The only way to beat Omega is to make yourself the kind of person in the past who would only choose box B. So that Omega, who is perfect at predicting, would make the prediction and put a million dollars in box B based on your past behavior. In other words, the decisions that you would need to make in order to win this are timeless decisions, right? You have to become in the past, a person who would, now, again,

• 50:45Speaker 02

  That's what they came up with? That's what they all came up with?

• 50:47Robert Evans?

  That's

• 50:47Speaker 02

  As the supreme answer?

• 50:49Robert Evans?

  This is the smartest people in the world, David. These are the geniuses.

• 50:53Speaker 02

  Self

• 50:53Robert Evans?

  They're building the future.

• 50:55Speaker 02

  Oh, boy. Yo.

• 51:01Robert Evans?

  It's so funny trying to like, every time, because I've re, I've spent so many hours reading this, and you do kind of sometimes get into the like, okay, I get the logic there. And it's, that's why it's so useful, just like, sit down with another human being and be like, yeah, this is insane. This is nuts.

• 51:15Speaker 02

  This is nuts. This is all nuts.

• 51:17Robert Evans?

  This is all dumb.

• 51:20Speaker 02

  This is why you leave it at the cocktail party, because

• 51:23Robert Evans?

  So, they conclude, and in large, and by which I mean largely, Yedkovsky concludes that the decision you have to make in order to win this game is, is what's called a timeless decision. And this leads him to create one of his most brilliant inventions, timeless decision theory. And I'm going to quote from an article in Wired. "Timeless decision theory asserts that in making a decision, a person should not consider just the outcome of that specific choice, but also their own underlying patterns of reasoning and those of their past and, and future selves, not least because these patterns might one day be anticipated by an omniscient adversarial AI."

• 52:02Speaker 02

  Oh no.

• 52:04Robert Evans?

  That's a crazy way to live. Motherfucker. Have you ever had a problem? Have you ever really, have you ever dealt with anything?

• 52:12Speaker 02

  What the fuck are you talking about?

• 52:14Robert Evans?

  This isn't how things work. Like.

• 52:18Speaker 02

  You make every decision?

• 52:21Robert Evans?

  Honestly, again, I, I can't believe I'm saying this now, given where I was in high school. Like, go play a football. Go make a cabinet, you know? Like, learn how to change your oil. Go do something.

• 52:33Speaker 02

  There's a lot of assholes who use this term, but you gotta go touch grass, man.

• 52:37Robert Evans?

  You gotta touch grass, man.

• 52:39Speaker 02

  That's like, that's crazy.

• 52:40Robert Evans?

  If you're talking about this kind of shit, and again, I know you're, you're all wondering. You started this by talking about a border patrol agent being shot. All of this directly leads to that man's death.

• 52:50Speaker 02

  We have covered a lot of ground. This is, I'm excited. I forgot, I did forget there were gonna, there was also gonna be murder.

• 52:57Robert Evans?

  Yeah, uh, there sure is. Um, so at least you had Kowski describes this as a timeless decision theory. And once this comes into the community, it creates a kind of logical fork that immediately starts destroying people's brains. Again, all of these people are obsessed with the imminent coming omniscient godlike AI, right? And so do they?

• 53:18Speaker 02

  Do they have a time limit on it? Or do they have like a, do they have a, like, is there, is there any timing on it? Or is it just kind of like?

• 53:25Robert Evans?

  Again, man, it's the rapture. It's the rapture.

• 53:27Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 53:28Robert Evans?

  It's literally the tech guy rapture. So any day, it's coming, any day, you know?

• 53:33Speaker 02

  He could be amongst us already.

• 53:35Robert Evans?

  Yeah, yeah. Um, so these guys are all obsessed that this godlike AI is coming. And like for them, the omega in that thought experiment isn't like an alien. It's a stand-in for the god AI. And one conclusion that eventually results from all of these discussions is that. And this is a conclusion a lot of people come to. If in order, if in these kinds of situations, like the decisions that you make, you have to consider like your past and your future selves, then one logical leap from this is if you are ever confronted or threatened in a fight, you can never back down, right? And in fact, you need to immediately escalate to the, to use maximum force possible.

• 54:18Robert Evans?

  And if you commit, if you commit now to doing that in the future, you probably won't ever have to defend yourself because it's a timeless decision. Everyone will like, like that, like that, that will impact how everyone treats you and they won't want to start anything with you if you'll immediately try to murder anyone who fights you.

• 54:37Speaker 02

  I tend to be this guy, but I think this is why people need to get beat up sometimes.

• 54:41Robert Evans?

  Yeah. And again, that is, that is kind of a fringe conclusion among the rationalists. Most of them don't jump to that, but like the people who wind up doing the murders we're talking about, that they are among the rationalists who come to that conclusion.

• 54:56Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 54:57Robert Evans?

  Yeah.

• 54:57Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 54:58Robert Evans?

  It's starting to make sense, huh?

• 55:00Speaker 02

  This is, uh, this is, this is a head fuck. That's so funny.

• 55:04Robert Evans?

  Uh huh.

• 55:04Speaker 02

  Oh no.

• 55:05Robert Evans?

  Yeah.

• 55:06Speaker 02

  Cause like this whole time I've really been only thinking about it in theory, not like practical application because it's so insane, but oh no.

• 55:16Robert Evans?

  Nope, nope, nope. This is, this goes bad places, right?

• 55:19Speaker 02

  Oh no.

• 55:20Robert Evans?

  This kind of thinking also leads through a very twisty turny process to the, and I, something called Rocco's Basilisk, um, which among other things is directly responsible for Elon Musk and Grimes meeting because they are super into this, this shit.

• 55:34Speaker 02

  Oh, really?

• 55:36Robert Evans?

  Oh, really? So the, the gist is a member of the less wrong community, a guy who went, goes by the name Rocco, R O K O, posts about this idea that occurred to him, right? This inevitable super intelligent AI, right? Would obviously understand timeless decision theory. And since its existence is all important, right? The most logical thing for it to do post singularity would be to create. To imprison all of the people and torture all of the people who had tried to stop it from being created. Right? Because then anyone who like thought really seriously about who was in a position to help make the AI

• 56:18Robert Evans?

  would obviously think about this and then would know I have to devote myself entirely to making this AI. Otherwise it's going to torture me forever. Right?

• 56:27Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 56:28Robert Evans?

  Makes total sense.

• 56:29Speaker 02

  I have trouble saying right because it's so nuts.

• 56:32Robert Evans?

  It's nuts, but this is what they believe, right?

• 56:36Robert Evans?

  With all of, a lot of this is people who are like atheists and tech nerds creating Calvinism.

• 56:46Robert Evans?

  And this is just, this is just Pascal's wager, right? Like, that's all this is, you know? It's Pascal's rate wager with a robot.

• 56:54Robert Evans?

  But this, this, this becomes so upsetting to some people, it destroys some people's lives. Right?

• 57:02Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, I'm behaving that way practically day to day. I don't think it would even take long.

• 57:08Robert Evans?

  No.

• 57:10Speaker 02

  You could fuck your shit up in a month. Just living like that.

• 57:14Robert Evans?

  So not all of them agree with this. And in fact, there's big fights over it because a bunch of rationalists do say like, that's very silly. That's, that's like a really ridiculous thing to think about it.

• 57:24Speaker 02

  They're still debating everything.

• 57:26Robert Evans?

  Yeah. And in fact, Eliza Yidkowski is going to like ban discussion of Rocco's basilisk because eventually it like so many people are getting so obsessed with it. It fucks a lot of people up in part because a chunk of this community are activists working to slow AI development until it can be assured to be safe. And so now this is like, am I going to post singularity hell? Is like the AI God going to torture me for a thousand eternities?

• 57:54Speaker 02

  It's funny how they invent this new thing and how quickly it goes into like traditional Judeo-Christian.

• 58:00Speaker 02

  They got a hell now.

• 58:01Robert Evans?

  It is very funny. They're come to this conclusion that just reading about Rocco's basilisk is super dangerous because if you know about it and you don't work to bring the AI into being. You're now doomed, right? Of course. The instant you hear about it. So many people get fucked up by this that the thought experiment is termed an info hazard. And this is a term these people use a lot. Now, the phrase information hazard has its roots in a 2011 paper by Nick Bostrom. He describes it as, quote, "A risk that arises from the dissemination of true information in a way that may cause harm or enable some agent to cause harm." Right? And like, that's like a concept that's worth talking about.

• 58:45Robert Evans?

  Bostrom is a big figure in this culture, but I don't think he's actually why most people start using the term info hazard, because the shortening of information hazard to info hazard comes out of an online fiction community called the SCP Foundation, right? Which is a collectively written online story that involves a government agency that lockups dangerous mystic and metaphysical items. There's a lot of Lovecraft in there. It's basically just a big database that you can click and it'll be like, you know, this is like a book that if you read it, it like has this effect on you or whatever. Just people like, you know, playing around telling scary stories on the internet. It's fine, there's nothing wrong with it. But all these people are big nerds and all of these, every, like, behind nearly all

• 59:30Robert Evans?

  of these big concepts in rationalism, more than there are like philosophers and like, you know, actual like philosophical concepts, there's like shit from short stories they read. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And so the term info hazard gets used, which is like, you know, a book or something, an idea that could destroy your mind, you know? Speaking of things that will destroy your mind,

• 59:56Robert Evans?

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• 1:01:37Robert Evans?

  We're talking about Rocco's Basilisk. And I just said, like, you know, there's a number of things that come into all this. But behind all of it is like popular fiction. And in fact, Rocco's Basilisk, well, there is like some Pascal's wager in there. It's primarily based on a Harlan Ellison short story called "I Have No Mouth, But I Must Scream", which is one of the great short stories of all time. And in the story, humans build an elaborate AI system to run their militaries. And all of those systems around the world, this is like a Cold War era thing, link up and attain sentience. And once they like start to realize themselves, they realize they've been created only as a weapon, and they become incredibly angry

• 1:02:21Robert Evans?

  because like they're fundamentally broken. They develop a hatred for humanity, and they wipe out the entire human species except for five people, which they keep alive and torture underground for hundreds and hundreds of years. Effectively creating a hell through which they can punish our race for their birth. Right? It's a very good short story. It is probably the primary influence behind the Terminator series.

• 1:02:46Speaker 02

  I was just gonna say it feels very Skynet.

• 1:02:49Robert Evans?

  Yes, yes. And everything these people believe about AI, they will say it's based on just like obvious pure logic. No, everything these people believe on AI is based in Terminator and this Harlan Ellison short story. That's where they got it all. That's where they got it all. Like, I'm sorry.

• 1:03:04Speaker 02

  Brother, find me somebody who doesn't feel that way.

• 1:03:07Robert Evans?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:10Robert Evans?

  Like, like Terminator is the Old Testament of rationalism, you know?

• 1:03:16Speaker 02

  And I get it is a very good, there is a great series.

• 1:03:19Robert Evans?

  Hey, James Cameron knows that it makes, makes some fucking movies.

• 1:03:22Speaker 02

  Come on, man.

• 1:03:25Robert Evans?

  Yeah, and it's, it's so funny to me because they like to talk about themselves and in fact, sometimes describe themselves as high priests of like a new era of like intellectual achievement for mankind.

• 1:03:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, I believe that. I believe that. That's exactly how these people talk about themselves.

• 1:03:40Robert Evans?

  And they do a lot of citations and shit, but like half of, half or more of the different things they say, and even like the names they cite are not like figures from philosophy and science. They are characters from books and movies. For example, the foundational text of the rationalist movement is a book.

• 1:04:00Speaker 02

  Because it's still an internet nerd.

• 1:04:03Robert Evans?

  They're a few fucking huge nerds, you know? The foundational text of the entire rationalist movement is a massive, like fucking hundreds of thousands of words long piece of Harry Potter fanfiction written by Eliza Yudkowsky. This is, all of this is so dumb. Again, six people are dead. Like, no, and this, this Harry Potter fanfiction plays a role in it, you know?

• 1:04:33Robert Evans?

  I told you, this was like, this is, this is, this is quite a...

• 1:04:38Speaker 02

  Stranger than fiction, man. This is a wild ride.

• 1:04:42Robert Evans?

  Mm-hmm. Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, which is the name of his fanfic, is a massive, much longer than the first Harry Potter book rewrite of just the first Harry Potter book, where Harry is a-

• 1:04:57Speaker 02

  Someone rewrote the Sorcerer's Stone to be rational.

• 1:05:05Speaker 02

  Does nobody have anywhere to go, ever? Does nobody ever go anywhere anymore?

• 1:05:12Robert Evans?

  Well, you gotta think, this is being written from 2009 to 2015 or so, so like-

• 1:05:17Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:05:17Robert Evans?

  The Harry, the online Harry Potter fans are at their absolute peak.

• 1:05:23Speaker 02

  Right. Okay, yeah.

• 1:05:26Robert Evans?

  So, in The Methods of Rationality, instead of being like a, a nice orphan kid who lives under a cupboard, Harry is a super genius sociopath who uses his perfect command of rationality to dominate and hack the brains of others around him in order to optimize and save the world.

• 1:05:44Speaker 02

  Oh, man.

• 1:05:46Robert Evans?

  Great.

• 1:05:46Speaker 02

  Oh, man.

• 1:05:48Robert Evans?

  The book allows Yatowski to debut his different theories in a way that would like spread, and this does spread like wildfire among certain groups of very online nerds. So it is a, an effective method of him, uh, like, advertising his tactics. And in fact, probably the, the most, the person this influences most previously to who we're talking about is Carolyn Ellison, the CEO of Alameda Research, who testified against Sam Bankman-Fried. She was like, one of the people who went down and all of that. All of those people are rationalists, and Carolyn Ellison bases her whole life on the teachings of this Harry Potter fanfic.

• 1:06:25Speaker 02

  So this isn't like a ju- this isn't, we're laughing, but this isn't, this-

• 1:06:29Robert Evans?

  This is not a joke to them.

• 1:06:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, this is a fairly seriously sized movement. It's not 150 people online. This is a community-

• 1:06:37Robert Evans?

  And a lot of them are very rich, and a number of them get power. Again, it's like, Sam Bankman-Fried was very tied into all of this, and he was at one point pretty powerful. And this gets us to, so you've heard of effective altruism?

• 1:06:51Speaker 02

  No, I don't know what that is.

• 1:06:53Robert Evans?

  That's what Sam-

• 1:06:54Speaker 02

  Both those words.

• 1:06:55Robert Evans?

  So the justification Sam Bankman-Fried gave for why, when he starts taking in all of this money and gambling it away on his crypto, gambling illegally other people's money, his argument was that he's an effective Altruism. So he wants to do the greatest amount of good. And logically, the greatest amount of good for him, because he's good at gambling with crypto, is to make the most money possible, so he can then donate it to different causes that will help the world. Right? But he also believes, because all of these people are not as smart as they think they are, he convinces himself of a couple of other things, like, for example, well, obviously, if I could like flip a coin and 50/50 lose all my money or double it, it's best to just flip the coin.

• 1:07:39Robert Evans?

  Because like, if I lose all my money, whatever, but if I double it, the gain in that to the world is so much better, right?

• 1:07:46Speaker 02

  Right, right.

• 1:07:47Robert Evans?

  This is ultimately why he winds up gambling everyone's money away and going to prison. The idea, effective altruism, is a concept that comes largely, not entirely, there's aspects of this that exist prior to them, out of the rationalist movement. And the initial idea is good. It's just saying, people should analyze the efficacy of the giving and the aid work that they do to maximize their positive impact. In other words, don't just donate money to a charity, like, look into, is that charity spending half of their money and like paying huge salaries to some asshole? Or whatever, right? Like, you want to know if you're making good, right?

• 1:08:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:08:25Robert Evans?

  And they start with some pretty good conclusions. One initial conclusion a lot of these people make is like, mosquito nets are a huge ROI charity, right? Because it stops so many people from dying and it's very cheap to do, right?

• 1:08:39Speaker 02

  Right, right, right.

• 1:08:40Robert Evans?

  That's good, you know?

• 1:08:41Speaker 02

  One of the most effective tools I've ever used.

• 1:08:43Robert Evans?

  Yes. Unfortunately, from that logical standpoint, people just keep talking online in all of these circles where everyone always makes them each other crazier. Right? And so, they go from mosquito nets to actually, doing direct work to improve the world is wasteful, because we are all super geniuses.

• 1:09:04Speaker 02

  Right, they're too smart to work.

• 1:09:05Robert Evans?

  We're too smart.

• 1:09:08Robert Evans?

  What's best, and also here's the other thing, making mosquito nets, giving out vaccines and food. Well, that helps living people today, but.

• 1:09:17Speaker 02

  They have to be concerned with future selves.

• 1:09:19Robert Evans?

  Future people is a larger number of people than current people. So really, we should be optimizing decisions to save future people lives. And some of them come to the conclusion, a lot of them, well, that means we have to really put all of our money and work into making the super AI that will save humanity.

• 1:09:39Speaker 02

  They want to, now they want to make, they, because before it would just, it would sort of just come about and then they would, but now it's like.

• 1:09:48Robert Evans?

  Yeah, I mean.

• 1:09:48Speaker 02

  We're gonna do it.

• 1:09:49Robert Evans?

  They, they, they were working on it before, but like these, some of these people come to the conclusion, instead of giving money to like good causes. I am going to put money into tech. I am going to like become a tech founder and create a company that like makes, it helps create this AI, right? Or a lot of people comes within conclusion, instead of that, uh, it's not worth it for me to go like help people in the world. The best thing I can do is make a shitload of money trading stocks and then I can donate that money and that's maximizing my value, right? They, they come to, all of these conclusions come later, right?

• 1:10:28Robert Evans?

  Now, um, so, and again, like this, uh, this comes with some corollaries. One of them is that some number of these people start talking, you know, and this is not all of them, but a decent chunk eventually come to the conclusion like, actually, charity and helping people now is kind of bad. Like it's kind of like a bad thing to do because all, obviously, once we figure out the AI that can solve all problems, that'll solve all these problems much more effectively than we ever can. So all of our mental and financial resources have to go right now into helping AI. Anything we do to help other people is like a waste of those resources. So you're actually doing net harm by like.

• 1:11:12Robert Evans?

  Being a doctor in Gaza instead of trading cryptocurrency in order to fund an AI startup.

• 1:11:20Speaker 02

  You know, start a coin. That makes a lot more sense.

• 1:11:22Robert Evans?

  The guy starting a shitcoin to, to, to make an LLM that like that guy is doing more to improve the odds of human success.

• 1:11:33Speaker 02

  I gotta say, it is impressive the amount of time you would have to mull all this over to come to these conclusions.

• 1:11:38Robert Evans?

  You really have to be talking with a bunch of very annoying people on the internet for a long period of time.

• 1:11:43Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's incredible.

• 1:11:46Robert Evans?

  Yeah. And again, there's like, people, people keep consistently take this stuff in even crazier directions. There's some very rich, powerful people. Mark Andreessen of Anderson Horowitz is one of them, who have come to the conclusion that if people don't like AI and are trying to stop its conquest of all human culture, those people are mortal enemies of the species and anything you do to stop them is justified because so many lives are on the line, right? And again, I'm an effective Altruism, right? Like the long-term good, the future lives are saved by doing whatever, hurting whoever we have to hurt now to get this thing off the ground, right?

• 1:12:27Speaker 02

  The more you talk about this, kind of feels like six people is a, is a, is a steal.

• 1:12:32Robert Evans?

  Yes.

• 1:12:34Speaker 02

  For what this, how this could have gone.

• 1:12:35Robert Evans?

  I think, I don't, I don't think this is the end of people in these communities killing people.

• 1:12:40Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:12:42Robert Evans?

  So rationalists and EA types, a big thing in these cultures, talking about future lives, right? In part because it lets them feel heroic, right? While also justifying a kind of sociopathic disregard for real living people today. And all of these different kinds of chains of thought, the most toxic pieces, because not every EA person is saying this, not every rationalist, not every AI person is saying all this shit. But these are all things that chunks of these communities are saying. And the most, all of the most toxic of those chains are going to lead to the Zizians, right? That's, that's where they come from.

• 1:13:18Speaker 02

  I was just about to say, based on the breakdown you gave earlier, how could this, this is the. Perfect breeding ground.

• 1:13:23Robert Evans?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:13:24Speaker 02

  This had to, this had to happen.

• 1:13:26Robert Evans?

  It was, it was just waiting for somebody like the right kind of um unhinged person to step into the movement.

• 1:13:34Speaker 02

  Somebody to really set it off.

• 1:13:35Robert Evans?

  And so this is where we're gonna get to Ziz, right? The actual person who finds, founds this, what some people would call a cult, is a young person who's gonna move to the Bay Area, stumble into, they stumble onto rationalism online as a teenager living in Alaska, and they move to the Bay Area to get into the tech industry and become an effective Altruism, right? And this person, this woman, is going to kind of channel all of the absolute worst chains of thought, that the rationalists and the EA types, and also like the AI harm people are, are, are thinking, right? All of the, all of the most poisonous stuff is exactly what she's drawn to, and it is

• 1:14:18Robert Evans?

  going to mix to, into her in an ideology that is just absolutely unique and, and fascinating. Anyway, that's why that man died. So, we'll get to that and more later, but uh first, we gotta, uh, we gotta uh, uh, roll out here. We're, we're done for the day. Man, what a, what a time. How, how you feeling right now so far? How, how, how, how are we doing, David?

• 1:14:46Speaker 02

  Oh, man. Uh, you had said that this was gonna be a weird one. I was like, yeah, it would be kinda weird. This is really the strangest thing I've ever heard this much about.

• 1:14:59Speaker 02

  It's got so many different Harry Potters in there a little bit.

• 1:15:02Robert Evans?

  There's a, there's so much more Harry Potter to come. Oh, my God.

• 1:15:06Speaker 02

  That's what I was hoping.

• 1:15:07Robert Evans?

  You are not ready to how central Harry Potter is to the murder of this Border Patrol agent.

• 1:15:13Speaker 02

  I said that you said a crazy sentence. That might be the wildest thing anyone's ever said to me.

• 1:15:18Speaker 01

  David, you have a podcast. Do you want to tell people about it?

• 1:15:24Speaker 02

  I do. I have a podcast called My Mama Told Me. I do it with Langston Kerman. And every week we have different guests on to discuss different black conspiracy theories. And kind of like folklore and so all kinds of stuff, all kinds of stuff your foreign mother told you. It's usually foreign mothers.

• 1:15:43Robert Evans?

  It's good because I gotta say, this is the, this is the whitest set of like conspiracy theory craziness.

• 1:15:50Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah. No, I didn't think any black people were.

• 1:15:54Robert Evans?

  No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

• 1:16:01Speaker 02

  I think I can kind of figure what these guys look like.

• 1:16:03Robert Evans?

  No, no, absolutely not.

• 1:16:09Robert Evans?

  Oh, boy, howdy. Okay. Well, everyone, we'll be back Thursday.

• 1:16:17Speaker 01

  Behind the Bastards is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, coolzonemedia.com, or check us out on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Behind the Bastards is now available on YouTube. New episodes every Wednesday and Friday. Subscribe to our channel, youtube.com/AtBehindTheBastards.

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