Behind the Bastards: CZM Rewind – The Zizians: How Harry Potter Fanfic Inspired a Death Cult & The Zizians: Birth of a Cult Leader

December 30, 2025
Host: Robert Evans (Cool Zone Media)
Guests: David Borey, Langston Kerman, Sophie (Producer)

Overview:

This two-part episode unpacks the bizarre, chilling, and deeply online world of “the Zizians”—an Internet-formed, cult-adjacent group linked to several recent murders in the U.S. Host Robert Evans, joined by comedians David Borey and Langston Kerman, traces the roots of this group through the rationalist subculture, effective altruism, and the writings of AI risk bloggers—particularly a foundational Harry Potter fanfic. The episode chronicles both the origins of "rationalist" thinking and follows the story of Ziz, a trans woman whose personal trajectory runs in parallel with the increasingly disturbing logic of the movement.

Episode Sections

1. Introduction & Satirical Banter (02:34–06:24)

• The hosts mock America's celebrity obsession and joke about making athletes president, before pivoting to the serious, peculiar story at hand.
• Quote: “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.” – Robert Evans [02:55]

2. The Border Patrol Shooting and the Emergence of the Zizians (06:24–11:20)

• Discusses an overlooked 2021 shooting on the Canadian border involving a German immigrant, a trans woman, and the growing realization that those involved are linked to a peculiar, online-based subculture.
• Early mainstream media portrayals get the story mostly wrong, sensationalizing the “trans vegan cult” angle.
• The group is not a centralized cult; rather, it’s a loose constellation of highly online, mostly trans, highly educated people bound by blog-discourse and philosophical arguments.
• Quote: “These are not like the normal shoot it out with the cops types… this is a very niche group.” – Robert Evans [10:11-10:15]

3. Cults vs. Cult Dynamics – How All Subcultures Have the Seeds (11:20–30:12)

• Deep dive into what defines a cult versus "cultish" dynamics.
• Many normal activities involve mild versions of cult behavior—inside jokes, niche fan language, or group bonding rituals—these become toxic when exploited to create dependency or paranoia.
• All cults, Evans argues, emerge from subcultures—not inherently bad, but incubators for people seeking meaning or community.
• Quote: “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.” – Robert Evans [18:36]
• Explains the burning need for belonging, the tendency of online subcultures to drift into extremity, and why “Swifties” are unlikely to become a cult.

4. Rationalism and Its Intellectual Foundations (30:12–41:48)

• Introduction to the “Rationalist” movement, centered around blogs like LessWrong and figures such as Eliezer Yudkowsky.
• Rationalism here is less about practicing reason and more an Internet community endlessly gaming out unlikely risks (especially AI apocalypse) using arcane logic and thought experiments.
• Foundational texts include not only philosophical treatises but popular science fiction and, infamously, Harry Potter fanfiction.
• The Yudkowsky story: Marketed himself as the expert on “AI risk,” despite little programming experience, by writing blog posts and fanfic.
• Many members pursue ideas like thought experiments and “timeless decision theory” to absurd, even dangerous extremes.

5. Deep Dives: Game Theory, Timeless Decisions, and Roko’s Basilisk (43:16–61:59)

• Describes "timeless decision theory," a convoluted logic suggesting that one must always stand their ground in any confrontation (leading, in some minds, to justifying murder as self-defense in all situations).
• Roko’s Basilisk explained: The belief that a future superintelligent AI will punish all those who didn’t help bring about its existence (essentially a secular, computational hell).
• This concept is called an “infohazard” for its purported mind-destroying potential; discussion of it is banned on some rationalist forums.
• Quote: “The gist is: a member of the less wrong community, a guy who goes by the name Roco, posts about this idea… The most logical thing for it to do post-singularity would be to create a hell to imprison all of the people… who had tried to stop it from being created.” – Robert Evans [57:50]

6. Fanfiction as Scripture – Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality (67:04–69:51)

• The central “sacred text” of the rationalist community is Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, a sprawling fanfic by Yudkowsky in which Harry is a hyper-rational, super-powered manipulator.
• Influences extend beyond entertainment; for example, Sam Bankman-Fried’s “effective altruist” philosophy and that of convicted accomplice Carolyn Ellison were shaped by this fanfic and the surrounding logic community.

7. Effective Altruism & the Slide into Moral Absurdism (69:51–76:22)

• Effective altruism, initially the sound idea of maximizing charitable impact, mutates within these forums into a logic where helping present-day people is “bad,” because AI billionaires could save billions of future lives.
• Leads to justifying real-world harm in pursuit of speculative “greater good” scenarios.
• Quote: "Anything you do to stop them [AI] is justified because so many lives are on the line.” – Robert Evans [75:24]

8. Introducing Ziz: Biography, Early Influences, and Philosophical Spiral (82:45–98:18)

• Ziz Lasota, born in Alaska (c. 1991), child of an AI researcher, talented and exceptionally bright, also an outsider.
• Discovering vegan ethics (Brian Tomasik), rationalist blogs, and AI risk in college, Ziz’s focus zeroes in on animal suffering and the “longtermist” mission to save all sentient creatures—including insects—from pain.
• As friction with rationalist leaders rose (they prioritized AI for human benefit), Ziz’s thinking turned increasingly radical and persecutory: “Maybe what I should do is optimize myself to cause as much harm to humanity and destroy the world to prevent it from becoming hell for mostly everyone.” [97:44]
• Her grandiose sense of purpose (“main character syndrome”) is egged on by the community’s language of heroism, optimization, and world-saving.

9. Ziz's Descent: Tech Aspirations & Social Alienation (108:09–124:14)

• Earns NASA and Oracle internships but is increasingly alienated, both from peers (due to inflexible standards and refusal to work unpaid overtime) and from rationalist "heroes" like Yudkowsky.
• Fails to launch “Uber for prostitutes” startup, drops out of grad school, tries Bay Area tech jobs but collides with cutthroat, exploitative industry demands.
• Quote: "She thinks it's wrong to be asked to work overtime and not get paid for it. And so on her first day at the job, she leaves after eight hours and her boss is like, what the fuck are you doing? And he's like, I'm supposed to be here eight hours, eight hours is up, I'm going home. And he calls her half an hour later and fires her." – Robert Evans [122:14]

10. Exposure to Cult Tactics & Final Spiral (134:19–156:47)

• Attends seminars run by the “Center for Applied Rationality,” which mirrors cultish self-help workshops: confession circles, doom discussions, love-bombing, and assessment of human value as a mathematical equation.
• Within these spaces, Ziz and others are encouraged to contemplate whether it would be better for the world if they committed suicide and donated their insurance payout—an attitude justified under twisted effective altruism logic.
• When told she might be of “net negative value” by peers, Ziz’s isolation deepens; she contemplates remaking herself as a “psychopath” and sith-style villain in order to have the power to save (or punish) the world.

11. The Cult Leader is Born (153:32–161:02)

• Ziz resolves to “become a Sith Lord to save the animals,” essentially embracing an “ends-justify-the-means” worldview to a psychopathic degree.
• The most damaged, isolated, and grandiose individuals within this subculture—given the vocabulary, value systems, and social feedback loops—are the most likely to take these dangerous ideas from theory into action.
• Quote: "...she tells them she's come to the conclusion I need to make myself into a psychopath in order to have the kind of mental power necessary to do the things that I want to do. And she largely justifies this by describing the beliefs of the Sith from Star wars because she thinks she needs to remake herself as a psychopathic evil warrior monk in order to save all of creation." – Robert Evans [153:32]

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• "Six people are dead. And this Harry Potter fan fiction plays a role in it." – Robert Evans [67:25]
• “These game-theory obsessed tech dudes turned ‘saving the A.I. God’ into a new kind of Christianity—and Harry Potter is their Bible.” – Paraphrased summary of multiple sections.
• “They're big nerds. The foundational text of the entire rationalist movement is a massive, like fucking hundreds of thousands of words long piece of Harry Potter fan fiction…” – Robert Evans [67:07]
• “Roko’s Basilisk… is Pascal’s Wager with a robot.” – David Borey [59:03]
• “It is impressive the amount of time you would have to mull all this over to come to these conclusions.” – Langston Kerman [74:37]

Episode Tone

• Wry, sardonic, but also empathetic—especially towards the damaged individuals caught in the subculture.
• Constant incredulity and gallows humor as the guests react to increasingly absurd or disturbing turns.
• Deeply critical of both Bay Area tech culture and the way vigilance for intellectual purity becomes self-devouring.

Key Segment Timestamps

• [06:24] – Vermont Shooting and media narrative
• [11:20–30:12] – Cults, cult dynamics, and subcultures
• [34:43–41:48] – Rationalists' online origins
• [46:38–53:55] – Game theory & Timeless Decision Theory
• [57:50–61:59] – Roko’s Basilisk and the emergence of “infohazard”
• [67:07] – Harry Potter fanfic as rationalist “scripture”
• [75:24] – Effective altruism’s dark mutations
• [82:45–98:18] – Ziz’s biography; journey into the rabbit hole
• [134:19–156:47] – CFAR seminars & Ziz’s transformation
• [153:32] – “Becoming a Sith Lord to save the animals”

Summary for Listeners

Behind the Bastards’ double-length rewind episode offers a chilling, engrossing investigation of how an obscure rationalist subculture—fueled by online groupthink, obsessive AI risk arguments, and even Harry Potter fanfic—helped breed the "Zizians," a group whose warped logic and isolation led to real-world violence. Through Ziz's tragic story, the hosts illuminate both the seduction and the dangers of utopian internet philosophy gone wrong—delivering trenchant criticism, historical context, and sharp, humane humor throughout.

Recommended for anyone fascinated (or alarmed) by the intersection of Silicon Valley, online subcultures, cult psychology, philosophical absurdity, and true crime.