Latest news with #Ziz
Spectator
3 days ago
- Spectator
The radical vegan ‘Zizians' are the cult we deserve
Every week brings a new revelation about the Zizians: the craziest, saddest cult in recent American history. Eight deaths have been linked to them so far, including 80-year-old Curtis Lind, stabbed with a samurai sword, US border patrol agent David Maland, shot by the roadside in Vermont, and the elderly parents of another member, shot dead at home in Pennsylvania. What's gripping the American press is that the young Zizians seem to have been such nice kids once. The leader of the cult, Jack Amadeus LaSota, has a degree in computer science from Alaska University and a father who still teaches there. Another Zizian, Daniel Blank, was a straight-A student, fluent in three languages, whose bewildered father said he was a model son. The Zizian murder trial is set to begin in October. Long investigative pieces have begun to appear, and interviews with parents and former teachers. I'll eat my tinfoil hat if Netflix doesn't have a Zizian true crime movie in the offing, whatever the outcome of the trial. But actually, I don't think there's a great mystery to solve here. More than any other cult I can think of, the Zizians seem to be a natural product of the culture we created, or let emerge around us. And what should scare us most about them is not how freaky the Zizians are, but how horribly inevitable. Jack LaSota, awaiting trial in prison in Maryland on different charges, identifies as trans, meaning he thinks he's female, His lady-name is 'Ziz', hence 'Zizians'. Almost all known Zizians are transsexuals, young men dosed-up with oestrogen, role-playing as women: Felix 'Ophelia' Bauckholt; Alexander 'Somni' Leatham; Maximilian 'Audere' Snyder. It's like a camp mafia movie. Without exception, the Zizians are fanatical vegans too. Daniel Blank cut ties with his parents around Christmas two years ago, and by way of explanation sent them a video of a slaughterhouse with the message: 'Look what you've done!' As his belief system took shape, Jack/Ziz began to consider animals to be 'people' and meat-eaters evil murderers who deserved to die. 'Trans vegan death cult!' You don't get clickbait of that calibre every day. But what did we all expect? Many of the Zizians awaiting trial were once gawky, mathematically minded boys – probably on the autism spectrum, say their old classmates. A defining feature of autism is that you take people literally, and that's what those kids did. They were taught in class, and perhaps at home too, that capitalism is corrupt, humans evil and that the world will soon boil up as a result of manmade global warming. It's enough to make anyone apocalyptic. They believe not just that they have an internal 'gender' that can differ from their biological born sex, but that it is a significant and revolutionary thing to do to 'change sex'. Of course they're 'trans'. As it happens all the long and interesting pieces I've read on the Zizians exploring their origins and philosophy refer to trans women simply as 'women' and faithfully follow the female pronoun rule. Wired magazine managed an otherwise excellent in-depth investigation – 'The Delirious, Violent, Impossible True Story of the Zizians' – in which it was impossible to tell which Zizians were female and which male. If the western media kowtows to cultists, what hope do future generations have? The Zizians first came together in tech-boy mecca Silicon Valley as part of what's known as the 'rationalist community' in San Francisco's Bay Area. The 'rationalists' are a group of earnest young men and women committed to the idea of leading considered, logical lives free from superstition. The big anxiety that preoccupies rationalists is that the world is soon to be destroyed by super-intelligent AI and Eliezer Yudkowsky, LaSota's one-time mentor, has a book out in September: If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies: Why Superhuman AI Would Kill Us All. LaSota joined the rationalists sometime in 2010 but other Zizians had attended rationalist summer camps when they were younger in which they were encouraged to identify and eliminate their 'cognitive biases'. I can't think of much more guaranteed to drive a fragile youngster crackers than to ask them to obsess on the workings of their own minds and Jack Ziz LaSota seems to have cracked pretty comprehensively. He developed a theory that humans contain two warring selves, sealed off inside the two hemispheres of their brains and that these selves can be male or female, good or evil. He encouraged followers to sleep with only one half of their brain at a time. Reports vary, but there seem to be two known cases of suicide among the group that practised Zizian self-improvement. By then LaSota was professing to follow the 'Sith' religion, which actively seeks conflict. '2016 was the year I made a 'turn to the dark side',' he wrote on his blog. Other blog posts include titles such as 'Punching Evil' and 'Self-Blackmail'. Why did more parents not get involved? How did these young adults manage to break away so completely from their previous lives? Perhaps one answer is that for decades it's been progressive orthodoxy that even loving parents can be toxic and that a chosen family can be far better and far healthier. 'Why so many people are going 'no contact' with their parents' read a cheerful headline in the New Yorker last year. The way to tell that Zizians often come from decent homes is the concern they show in court for their own wellbeing. 'I need the jail to have a vegan diet. It's more important than this hearing is,' LaSota told judge Eric Bean at his bail hearing in Maryland earlier this year, though according to the San Francisco Chronicle his still-devoted mother has been making quite sure that her boy gets his fill of vegan food, even in prison.
Time of India
07-07-2025
- Science
- Time of India
The Sith of Silicon Valley: Ziz LaSota's AI cult left six dead – who is she?
Once upon a time in the cold expanse of Alaska, a homeschooled child stared at the aurora borealis and wondered if the world was real. Years later, that same child – taller than most men, cloaked in black, calling herself Ziz – would terrify Silicon Valley's Rationalists, faking her own death, wielding a samurai sword, and leaving six bodies in her wake. This is the tale of Ziz LaSota, the transgender AI doomsday cultist who believed humanity would perish under artificial intelligence – unless she saved it first. Born under northern lights, reborn in the shadow of AI Ziz LaSota's early life was unremarkable: eldest of three, father a university instructor, homeschooled through lonely Alaskan winters. But teenage depression twisted her mind inward. Puberty felt like death. She wrote that she was 'horrified at being overwritten by a new self.' Logic became her religion. LessWrong and the Rationalist forums her sacred texts. At the University of Alaska, she read of 'x-risk' – existential risk – and decided AI was the harbinger of humanity's doom. She dropped out of graduate school and arrived in the Bay Area in 2016, ready to 'save the world.' But Silicon Valley is a cruel temple for prophets. She was just another zealot in a city full of them. The Sith emerges She became Ziz: more than six feet tall, blond curls tumbling past her black cape, declaring her faith in the Sith – the dark side order of Star Wars. She called Rationalists 'master Jedi.' The community tolerated her eccentricities. After all, they believed AI could destroy us all. Peter Thiel, Sam Altman, Sam Bankman-Fried – they had all passed through the Rationalist forge. But Ziz took it further. Her blog listed categories of people to be 'airlocked.' She advocated radical veganism, sleep deprivation rituals, and violent moral tests. She recruited a cadre of mostly transgender and nonbinary tech aspirants from Google, Oracle, NASA – they called themselves the Zizians. To them, Ziz was the messiah AI safety had awaited. From cult to killing field The timeline of blood is as absurd as it is tragic. 2019: Zizians don Guy Fawkes masks and robes to disrupt a Rationalist event in California. No guns were found, but SWAT stormed the venue. Arrests followed. Their chanting was described by police as 'speaking in tongues.' 2020: In Vallejo, California, landlord Curtis Lind was stabbed with knives and a samurai sword after demanding unpaid rent. He shot two Zizians in self-defence. One died. Ziz faked her death by falling off a boat, her obituary running in Alaska newspapers. 2023: The parents of Michelle Zajko, a close Zizian, were found shot dead in Pennsylvania. Bullets matched Zajko's gun, but evidence fell short. Ziz was arrested with them in a hotel, bailed out, and disappeared again. 2025: Lind was stabbed to death before he could testify against the group. Days later, in Vermont, two Zizians fired at Border Patrol agents. One agent and one Zizian died in the shootout. The philosophy that eats itself Rationalism always prided itself on logic untainted by emotion. But Ziz turned logic into madness. Roko's Basilisk, the infamous AI thought experiment predicting torture for those who don't create AI, haunted her. She believed any attempt to stop AI would condemn her to eternal torture by future malevolent superintelligences. Her solution: don't back down, escalate, airlock the doubters. Eliezer Yudkowsky, the Rationalist guru who warned of AI extinction, called Ziz's descent 'sad,' writing that weirdness attracted weirder people, some of whom turned out to be 'genuinely crazy and in a contagious way among the susceptible.' The Rationalist reckoning Today, Ziz sits in a Maryland jail, awaiting trial on gun, drug, and obstruction charges. She is not accused of wielding the murder weapons herself, but prosecutors say she orchestrated the violence. The Rationalist community is left with a bitter aftertaste. Was Ziz simply an unwell woman who found justification in AI apocalypse theory, or did Rationalism's own doomsday fetish birth her? Zvi Mowshowitz, a Rationalist blogger, asked if Ziz would have simply created another cult if AI philosophy hadn't ensnared her. 'The odds are, like, 55 percent,' he guessed. But perhaps the final lesson is simpler, as one Rationalist writer put it: even if the world is ending in five years, you cannot live like it is. That way lies madness, murder, and a black-caped prophetess clutching a samurai sword under flickering fluorescent lights.
Fox News
02-07-2025
- Fox News
Trump admin fast-tracks death penalty case for transgender cult suspect in Border Patrol killing: attorneys
Attorneys for Teresa Youngblut, the woman accused in the Jan. 20 shooting that killed U.S. Border Patrol Agent David Maland, are accusing the Justice Department of orchestrating a fast-tracked path to capital punishment that violates her constitutional rights. In a June 30 motion filed in federal court, Youngblut's defense team called the government's timeline for deciding whether to pursue the death penalty "unprecedentedly tight" and warned it could render the pretrial process "a near-pointless formality." "This Court should step in to ensure Ms. Youngblut receives a meaningful opportunity to persuade the government not to pursue the death penalty," the motion says. Youngblut, 21, has been linked by investigators to "Ziz," a fringe, self-described vegan, anti-government, transgender-rights collective that federal authorities say may be connected to multiple homicides throughout the U.S. According to a federal affidavit, Youngblut was driving a Prius with German national Felix Bauckholt, who is also an alleged member of Ziz, when they were stopped by Border Patrol agents in Coventry, Vermont, on Jan. 20. Prosecutors allege Youngblut drew a .40-caliber Glock and fired without warning, starting a shootout that left both Bauckholt and Maland dead. READ THE MOTION – APP USERS, CLICK HERE In their motion, Youngblut's defense attorneys, Steven Barth and Julie Stelzig, argued that the Department of Justice is pushing forward with a July 28 deadline to present mitigating evidence to its Capital Case Review Committee, despite not having filed a death-eligible indictment. The typical federal timeline, they argued, allows for more than a year. "The timeline being imposed in this case is vastly out of step with the historical practice of the Department of Justice," they wrote, citing data showing a nearly 15-month average between indictment and mitigation presentation in comparable cases. The defense asked the court to extend the deadline to Jan. 30, 2026, arguing that the current pace denies Youngblut due process. READ ATTORNEY GENERAL PAM BONDI'S FEB. 5 MEMORANDUM – APP USERS, CLICK HERE The defense argued that Youngblut's case has been fast-tracked due to a Feb. 5 memorandum issued by Attorney General Pam Bondi. In the memorandum, Bondi specifically named the Maland case as an example where "absent significant mitigating circumstances," the death penalty should be sought for the murder of a federal law enforcement officer. Bondi's directive lifted the federal moratorium on executions set in place by the Biden administration. Fox News Digital has reached out to the Department of Justice and the U.S. Attorney's Office in Vermont for comment. Youngblut's team argued in the motion that the defense had limited time to prepare for the case, noting that Youngblut's "learned counsel," an attorney with experience in capital cases, was only appointed on June 12 after a previous lawyer withdrew. The motion also noted that only recently has the team retained a mitigation specialist, and they are still working through thousands of pages of discovery as well as facing limited access to Youngblut, who is detained over two hours away from counsel. The DOJ's deadline, the defense said, "virtually ensures that [Youngblut's] mitigation presentation has no realistic chance of serving its purpose." In a Jan. 27 motion for pretrial detention, the government alleged that Youngblut had no stable residence, had an extensive travel history and associations with individuals under investigation in a double homicide in Pennsylvania and another killing in Vallejo, California. The government also pointed to Youngblut's journal, which allegedly referenced LSD usage and "high vibration" trips that led prosecutors to argue that she was a flight risk. The June 30 motion also included supporting letters from defense counsel and a declaration from Matthew Rubenstein, the director of the Capital Resource Counsel Project, who attested that the DOJ's current timeline falls outside established norms in federal death penalty proceedings. If the court declines to intervene, Youngblut's attorneys warned that the current course could trigger costly delays and the misuse of capital punishment. "An artificial rush in the authorization process may end up backfiring," the defense cautioned, "resulting in avoidable delay, wasted resources, and the arbitrary imposition of the most serious punishment our legal system allows." Fox News Digital has reached out to the Federal Public Defender – District of Vermont for comment.
San Francisco Chronicle
24-06-2025
- Politics
- San Francisco Chronicle
Woman with ties to cultlike group appears in court after border agent's killing
BURLINGTON, Vt. (AP) — A woman charged in the death of a U.S. Border Patrol agent appeared in a Vermont federal court Tuesday in one of multiple criminal cases linked to a cultlike group known as Zizians. Authorities have said Teresa Youngblut fired the bullet that killed agent David Maland during the January traffic stop. Another agent fired back, wounding Youngblut and killing her companion, Felix Bauckholt, officials have said. The Zizians are a group of followers of Jack LaSota, a computer scientist who has blogged as 'Ziz' on subjects including veganism, gender identity and artificial intelligence. The group mostly consists of computer scientists who met online, shared anarchist beliefs and became increasingly violent. LaSota, who is facing state and federal weapons charges, was taken into custody in February in rural western Maryland with two other followers. Youngblut and Bauckholt were both affiliated with LaSota's group, which authorities have also linked to killings in Pennsylvania and California. Youngblut has pleaded not guilty to charges of intentionally using a deadly weapon towards law enforcement, and using and discharging a firearm during an assault with a deadly weapon. The Tuesday federal court appearance was a discovery hearing in Burlington. Youngblut entered the courtroom in handcuffs, wearing a face mask, an oversized burgundy shirt and baggy white pants. During the appearance, U.S. District Judge Christina Reiss put forth a proposal for how the pretrial review of case material will be handled, offering to appoint a special master. Defense attorney Steven Barth argued that the defense should have 'first review of pretrial records to determine what is privileged, what is protected and what is not.' U.S. attorney Dennis Robinson argued against the defense getting 'first crack on communications' and expressed support for a special master to review case material. He also stated that the government is still actively developing its case. Reiss ruled that she will be the reviewer and will use a special master if the workload becomes unmanageable for her. Prior to Youngblut's arrest, authorities had been watching her for several days after she and Bauckholt checked into a hotel wearing black tactical gear and carrying guns. Local border patrol agents also were told that Bauckholt was a German citizen with unknown immigration status. Authorities said Youngblut shot Maland after being pulled over. The shootout was one of several violent incidents that has been linked to the Zizians. Members of the group have been tied to the death of one of their own during an attack on California landlord Curtis Lind in 2022, Lind's subsequent killing, and the deaths of a Pennsylvania couple. Prosecutors in Baltimore announced last week that a federal grand jury indicted LaSota on charges of being an armed fugitive. LaSota uses feminine pronouns and in her writings says she is a transgender woman. Authorities said LaSota possessed several firearms and hundreds of rounds of ammunition when she and two other Zizians were arrested earlier this year after a resident called police to report that a group of people had parked box trucks on his property and asked to camp there. They were charged with trespassing, obstructing law enforcement and illegal gun possession. ___
NBC News
24-06-2025
- NBC News
Woman with ties to a cultlike group to appear in court after border agent's killing
A woman charged in the death of a U.S. Border Patrol agent in Vermont is due in federal court Tuesday in one of multiple criminal cases linked to a cultlike group known as Zizians. Authorities have said Teresa Youngblut fired the bullet that killed agent David Maland during the January traffic stop. Another agent fired back, wounding Youngblut and killing her companion, Felix Bauckholt, officials have said. The Zizians are a group of followers of Jack LaSota, a computer scientist who has blogged as "Ziz" on subjects including veganism, gender identity and artificial intelligence. The group mostly consists of computer scientists who met online, shared anarchist beliefs and became increasingly violent. Youngblut and Bauckholt were both affiliated with the group, which authorities have also linked to killings in Pennsylvania and California. Youngblut has pleaded not guilty to charges of intentionally using a deadly weapon towards law enforcement, and using and discharging a firearm during an assault with a deadly weapon. The Tuesday federal court appearance is a discovery hearing in Burlington. Discovery is a pre-trial proceeding in which both sides of a case exchange evidence and information. Both sides declined to comment in advance of the court date. The office of Steven Barth, who has represented Youngblut, said it had no comment on the case. Fabienne Boisvert-DeFazio, a spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Vermont, said the office "does not comment on ongoing cases beyond the public record." In Vermont, authorities had been watching Youngblut for several days after she and Bauckholt checked into a hotel wearing black tactical gear and carrying guns. Local border patrol agents also were told that Bauckholt was a German citizen with unknown immigration status. Authorities said Youngblut shot Maland after being pulled over. The shootout was one of several violent incidents that has been linked to the Zizians. Members of the group have been tied to the death of one of their own during an attack on California landlord Curtis Lind in 2022, Lind's subsequent killing, and the deaths of a Pennsylvania couple.
