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Speaker 1: The past few episodes, we've talked about the influence of

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Speaker 1: social media and the Internet as a whole and how

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Speaker 1: it very much shapes our daily lives today. We all

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Speaker 1: use it and for some people it could definitely make

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Speaker 1: your career, as we've seen with people like my husband Kevin.

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Speaker 1: A lot of the friends that I've made in Chicaina, like,

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Speaker 1: we've seen their careers before Chakaina start and really take

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Speaker 1: off the more they've used social media. And we each

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Speaker 1: definitely have our own sections of the Internet, you know,

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Speaker 1: like the feeling that you get when you and your

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Speaker 1: friend are both on specific niches of the Internet.

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Speaker 2: You mention it to them and they know.

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Speaker 1: Exactly what you're talking about and you're like, oh my gosh,

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Speaker 1: I'm on that part too. But what happens when that

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Speaker 1: niche evolves into real world consequences. So there was a

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Speaker 1: recent arrest in western Maryland of three people that are

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Speaker 1: known as Zizian's and it brought a lot of attention

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Speaker 1: to this small group which preaches really obscure ideas about

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Speaker 1: the human mind, and it's tied to a string of

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Speaker 1: killings across the country.

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Speaker 3: Okay, definitely has not crossed my algorithm but please continue.

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Speaker 1: So there were three people from the Zizian group that

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Speaker 1: were arrested. It was jackz's Lesota, Michelle Zajko, and Daniel

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Speaker 1: Arthur Blank. They were arrested Maryland and some of the

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Speaker 1: charges included trespassing, obstruction, and gun possession. These three are

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Speaker 1: also potentially linked to a string of murders and across

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Speaker 1: the entire country. How do we get here and what

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Speaker 1: are the Zizians? Let's get into it. So a little

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Speaker 1: bit of the background of the Zizians. So in order

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Speaker 1: to know what they are, we need to know about

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Speaker 1: rationalism and the AI thought movement. So these have their

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Speaker 1: origins in Silicon Valley. They focus on logical reasoning and

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Speaker 1: eliminating cognitive bias. There is a lot of these online

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Speaker 1: forums where a bunch of deep philosophical discussions took place.

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Speaker 1: So rationalists have a very serious approach to the ideas

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Speaker 1: and it sometimes led them to very radical conclusions. Basically,

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Speaker 1: their main idea is that human beings should develop better

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Speaker 1: reasoning skills to better the world.

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Speaker 3: Okay, I can appreciate that.

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Speaker 1: So Jack zis Lesota. She's a graduate from the University

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Speaker 1: of Alaska. She moved to San Francisco to work in

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Speaker 1: tech like a lot of people do, and she was

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Speaker 1: very much aligned with the rationalists. She began blogging under

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Speaker 1: the alias Zizz. She utilized social media and these online

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Speaker 1: forms we talked about to share all of her beliefs.

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Speaker 1: Her blog content consisted of pop culture, technology coding, her

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Speaker 1: personal theories on philosophy, morality, and anarchism. Later on, Ziz

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Speaker 1: faced financial problems and her and her like minded friends

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Speaker 1: tried to establish a community, living on sailboats and later

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Speaker 1: purchasing a tugboat and eventually moving to Valeo, California, renting

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Speaker 1: a parcel of land on someone's property and living out

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Speaker 1: of box trucks.

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Speaker 3: Interesting lot of layers there.

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Speaker 1: So they move into these box trucks in Valao. They're

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Speaker 1: isolating themselves from society, but are furthering their online community

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Speaker 1: and presence. And this is a small group, mind you.

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Speaker 1: Some of Zizz's beliefs are the brain hemispheres have separate values. Specifically,

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Speaker 1: she believed in the concept of uni hemispheric sleep, suggesting

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Speaker 1: that individuals could justly control the activity of one brain

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Speaker 1: hemisphere while the other one rested, and the hemispheres are

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Speaker 1: at odds and often desired to kill each other.

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Speaker 3: That feels exhausting. Its going to be a pass for me.

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Speaker 1: So Ziz also had a very strong pursuit of moral

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Speaker 1: purity through extreme measures. Her very unconventional theories led to

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Speaker 1: her and her community being pushed out of the mainstream

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Speaker 1: rationalist organizations like the Center for Applied Rationality or the CFAR,

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Speaker 1: and also the Machine Intelligence Research Institute RII. The Zizzy

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Speaker 1: in practices and ideals are really rationalist principles taken to

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Speaker 1: an extreme. So one of the ideas is that AI

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Speaker 1: and machine intelligence play a role in human destiny. So

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Speaker 1: they believe that sometimes crime is necessary to further their

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Speaker 1: moral imperatives. They also have internal discussions of the importance

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Speaker 1: of radical action and again and they really utilize their

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Speaker 1: online presence. So one of their big beliefs is to

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Speaker 1: utilize forums, blogs, and encrypted communicational channels to get their

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Speaker 1: ideas out. Now we're going to get back into Ziz

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Speaker 1: herself and her disappearance and death. In twenty twenty two,

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Speaker 1: there was warrant issued for Ziz after skipping a court

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Speaker 1: hearing relating to a protest outside of a rationalist meeting.

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Speaker 1: A lawyer came out and claimed that Ziz died in

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Speaker 1: a boating accident in the Bay Area, and their obituary

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Speaker 1: noted her interest in adventure, friends, family, music, blueberries, biking

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Speaker 1: and computer games and animals.

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Speaker 3: Whoa way to throw in the blueberries. So at this

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Speaker 3: point in twenty twenty two, she wasn't actually dead because

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Speaker 3: you mentioned earlier that she was arrested recently.

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Speaker 2: So yes, this is where it gets wacky.

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Speaker 1: Let's get into a timeline of the murders that take

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Speaker 1: place all over the United States. So in twenty twenty two,

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Speaker 1: eighty two year old landlord Curtis Lynde went to court

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Speaker 1: to evict Ziz and other tenants who had stopped paying

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Speaker 1: rent in Balao. Prosecutors say that two days before the

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Speaker 1: eviction deadline, three of them attacked him. Those three did

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Speaker 1: not include Zizz. Lynch shot at his attackers, killing one

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Speaker 1: and wounding another. Crazy enough, he survived being impaled by

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Speaker 1: a sword but lost an eye. The prosecutors concluded that

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Speaker 1: he had acted in self defense and charged the two

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Speaker 1: surviving attackers with violent crimes.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, they came out.

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Speaker 3: With him like they came at their landlord with a sword.

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Speaker 3: That is self defense. It does kind of remind me

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Speaker 3: of the notorious cult leader Charles Manson and the Manson murders,

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Speaker 3: so kind of reminiscent to that.

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Speaker 1: But yes, about a month later, on New Year's Eve,

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Speaker 1: Rita and Richard Zashko were shot and killed in Chester Heights, Pennsylvania.

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Speaker 1: The Zashkos were parents of Michelle Zoshkoh, another alleged Zizian.

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Speaker 1: The police questioned Michelle at her home in Vermont following

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Speaker 1: the murders of her parents, and a few weeks later,

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Speaker 1: officers briefly took her into custody at a Pennsylvania hotel,

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Speaker 1: but eventually released her without charges. But ziz was staying

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Speaker 1: at the same hotel and was arrested and charged with

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Speaker 1: obstructing the homicide investigation and disorderly conduct.

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Speaker 2: Jumping forward to.

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Speaker 1: This year, a couple of months ago, you remember Curtis,

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Speaker 1: the landlord that we were talking about earlier.

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Speaker 2: Yes, he was stabbed to death.

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Speaker 1: Maximilian Snyder, a twenty somethter Oxford educated data scientists who

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Speaker 1: had applied for a marriage license with Teresa Youngbolton, Washington

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Speaker 1: State in November, was charged with his murder in the case.

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Speaker 2: This is forgiveme for I have followed, We'll be right back.

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Speaker 3: Welcome back to forgive me for I have followed. Now

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Speaker 3: back to our conversation. So in twenty twenty two, Curtis

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Speaker 3: is stabbed with a sword. He is not killed, he

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Speaker 3: wins in self defense. So the two Zizians that were

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Speaker 3: the attackers are charged. So then now this year he's

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Speaker 3: killed by a potential Zizian.

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Speaker 1: They came back for him because allegedly they didn't want

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Speaker 1: him to testify.

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Speaker 3: Golly, to get a job in Silicon Valley and to

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Speaker 3: work in the tech industry. Like it's not just Joe

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Speaker 3: Schmoe off the street. Like these are well educated, y

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Speaker 3: smart individuals doing this crazy ass shit. Okay, I'm in it.

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Speaker 3: I'm like fully in it.

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Speaker 1: So I want to bring up another Zizion to the mix,

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Speaker 1: Ophelia Backholt. Ophelia was a very intelligent German citizen who

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Speaker 1: was doing it really big in New York City. So

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Speaker 1: she's like mid twenties in her own apartment, has a

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Speaker 1: really great friends living in the Big Apple, and she's

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Speaker 1: working at a trading firm, so she's making bank. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: in twenty twenty three, she began to retreat from her friends.

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Speaker 1: So now they're noticing the little bits of isolation. And

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Speaker 1: she started talking on the phone for hours and hours

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Speaker 1: and hours of people that her friends didn't know or recognize.

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Speaker 1: And she would often fly out of town and never

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Speaker 1: mention where she was going. And at the end of

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Speaker 1: twenty twenty three, she left New York, cut all of

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Speaker 1: her ties to her friends, and no one heard from

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Speaker 1: her again until January twentieth, twenty twenty five. A US

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Speaker 1: Border Patrol agent, David Miland was killed in a shootout

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Speaker 1: following a traffic stop near the Canadian border. Washington State

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Speaker 1: resident Teresa Youngbolt, who he mentioned, faces two weapons charges

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Speaker 1: in a connection with the killing. She was traveling with

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Speaker 1: German citizen Ophelia. Both of them had connections to hisiz.

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Speaker 1: The pair had been under the surveillance of authorities for

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Speaker 1: several days after an employee at the hotel they were

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Speaker 1: staying at reported c Young Bolt carrying a gun. According

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Speaker 1: to sf Gate, they carried weapons openly and wrapped their

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Speaker 1: phones in aluminum oil so in the shootout. Ophelia unfortunately

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Speaker 1: died and Young Bolt pleaded not guilty in federal court.

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Speaker 1: Earlier this month, NBC News reported the following Backold's friends

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Speaker 1: have spent hours digging deeper into the soul called Zizians

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Speaker 1: and comparing notes on the conversations that they had with

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Speaker 1: the person they knew as Ophelia. They suspect that she

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Speaker 1: didn't recognize the warning signs as she gradually became more

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Speaker 1: and more entangled into the group's nefarious activities. Her former

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Speaker 1: roommate said, I know Ophelia well enough to know that

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Speaker 1: she would not have voluntarily ended up in that situation.

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Speaker 2: That she did.

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Speaker 1: She adds this came as a result of a long

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Speaker 1: string of bad decisions that were made on the basis

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Speaker 1: of her falsely thinking that she didn't have other options.

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Speaker 1: She is very naive, ultruistic, and trusting, and that makes

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Speaker 1: her exploitable.

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Speaker 3: It so sad.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I really feel for her friends who had to

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Speaker 1: find out, you know, she had picked up and left

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Speaker 1: her life in New York and they hadn't heard from her,

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Speaker 1: and then after hearing about her in this tragic incident,

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Speaker 1: having to dig into the whys, like why did she

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Speaker 1: leave now? What was this group that she was tied to,

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Speaker 1: what did they have for doing? What were the ideas

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Speaker 1: that were circulating in the belief system that she had

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Speaker 1: like attached onto, especially like as a friend that you

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Speaker 1: would describe as like naive and like and trusting, and

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Speaker 1: you know, it really reminds me of just all of

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Speaker 1: the friends that and family members and sisters that were

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Speaker 1: cut off from Chicaina and seven Am once we decided

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Speaker 1: to join this church group. It's like gradually cutting those

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Speaker 1: ties to your friends and family.

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Speaker 3: When they said that Ophelia was on the phone for

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Speaker 3: hours and hours and hours and her friends were unaware

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Speaker 3: of who it was, it kind of I remember hearing

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Speaker 3: stories that in Chicina, if you went and traveled to

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Speaker 3: your family, sometimes they're like outside checking in with their

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Speaker 3: mentor and talking to them for hours at a time.

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Speaker 3: So it goes back to what you were saying earlier,

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Speaker 3: the isolation and how you start to pull away and

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Speaker 3: become so deeply entwined with the teachings or whatever. I mean,

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Speaker 3: who knows what's being stated on the other side of

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Speaker 3: that phone call, but right it's fascinating and heartbreaking.

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Speaker 1: Absolutely, and I think also the roommate mentioning she would

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Speaker 1: not have voluntarily ended up in the situation that she

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Speaker 1: did where it's like I know her at her core

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Speaker 1: before the alleged brainwashing or whatever the case may be

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Speaker 1: in these high control groups, like they wouldn't have made

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Speaker 1: those decisions just on their own. And I feel like

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Speaker 1: we see that a lot in people who have been

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Speaker 1: really indoctrinated into a belief system, right.

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Speaker 3: I think also this particular group, the Zizians. I mean,

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Speaker 3: this is really we've been talking about extremes and how

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Speaker 3: it's cult versus cult like and high controlled groups. But

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Speaker 3: like there seems to be some control that's happen. There's isolation,

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Speaker 3: but then that level of crimes and these extreme circumstances

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Speaker 3: needing to be done, that is on a different level.

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Speaker 3: And that's like I was saying the Charles Manson, like

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Speaker 3: that's taking things to an extreme that is beyond cult.

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Speaker 1: Like.

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Speaker 3: When we returned the conclusion of our conversation, this is

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Speaker 3: forgive me for I have followed.

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Speaker 1: Welcome back to forgive me for I have followed. Here's

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Speaker 1: the conclusion of our conversation. So Ziz was officially arrested

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Speaker 1: on February sixteenth, twenty twenty five, along with two others

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Speaker 1: via a video conference for bail hearings in Allegheny District

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Speaker 1: Court in Maryland. The state attorney said that ziz faked

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Speaker 1: her own death in the past and quote appears to

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Speaker 1: be the leader of an extremeist group known as Zizian's

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Speaker 1: unquote that has been linked to multiple deaths, the ones

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Speaker 1: that we've talked about in this episode. The judge in

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Speaker 1: the case ordered ziz to be held without bail because

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Speaker 1: of their concerns that she's a flight risk and a

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Speaker 1: danger to public safety.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I'll say, but also, like what scares me about

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Speaker 3: Zizz is that I think her control on these other

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Speaker 3: people are having them commit crimes. So it's one thing

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Speaker 3: to charge her, but there is still that concerned for

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Speaker 3: me that you have this group of people that are

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Speaker 3: not isolated to one place. It's not just Vieho, California

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Speaker 3: that sounds like Zizians, go across the US and potentially

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Speaker 3: even Canada.

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Speaker 1: It's really scary, and it really leans into the power

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Speaker 1: of the Internet and social media and being able to

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Speaker 1: connect with people in different factions that you might not

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Speaker 1: regularly run into in your local area.

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Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, I wanted to go back because I think

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Speaker 3: I mentioned I had and so many questions earlier, and

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Speaker 3: one question I did have was a little more about

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Speaker 3: their beliefs and like their thoughts for this particular.

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Speaker 2: Group, I do have some of those. So one of.

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Speaker 1: Zizz's thoughts was, she wrote, I'd been a vegan first,

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Speaker 1: and my primary concern upon learning about the singularity was

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Speaker 1: how do I make this benefit all sentient life, not

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Speaker 1: just humans. I described my feelings towards flesh eating monsters

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Speaker 1: who had created hell on earth for more people than

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Speaker 1: those they had helped. In Zizu's writing, anyone who eats

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Speaker 1: meat is a flesh eating monster, and the sentient animals

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Speaker 1: that she's referring to are people.

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Speaker 3: Oh yes, that means something very different when you know

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Speaker 3: the meaning of those words from her perspective, right.

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Speaker 1: And we talked about like trigger language and things that

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Speaker 1: really illicit emotional response, and I see it in some

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Speaker 1: of her writings. And so another one that she had

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Speaker 1: written a was about the boat communities, and so Ziz

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Speaker 1: had written, we are trying to build a cabal. The

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Speaker 1: aim was to find abnormally intrinsic good people and turn

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Speaker 1: them all into Jervais sociopaths, creating a fundamentally different kind

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Speaker 1: of group than I have heard of it existing before.

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Speaker 1: The Jervaise principle articulated by the writer Venkatesh Rao based

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Speaker 1: on an extensive but lighthearted analysis of the office, is

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Speaker 1: a theory that at the top of any organization there

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Speaker 1: are quote sociopaths who know how to acquire and manipulate power.

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Speaker 1: Beneath them are the loyal, clueless, and the disaffected losers.

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Speaker 3: Wait, so the Jervase principle is actually like Ricky Gervais

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Speaker 3: that created the office? Is that what that is?

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Speaker 2: Yes?

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Speaker 1: And it's really interesting to me that she herself referred

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Speaker 1: to it as a cabal, Like she said specifically, we're

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Speaker 1: trying to build a cabal.

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Speaker 3: I mean, put it in your diary, babe. Fuck, it's

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Speaker 3: right there for everyone to know what you're trying to do.

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Speaker 1: Right. And it's like the only time that I hear

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Speaker 1: the word cabal is when they're saying the phrase evil cabal,

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Speaker 1: like it usually leans negative.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Another blog post from one of the Zizian's right, if

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Speaker 1: you truly irreconcilably disagree with someone's creative choice, i e.

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Speaker 1: Their choice extending arbitrarily far into the past and future,

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Speaker 1: ultimately your only resource is to kill them. And in

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Speaker 1: the comments, ziz wrote, I'm so fucking glad to finally

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Speaker 1: have an equal golly, but the fact that zizz Co

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Speaker 1: signed on that as like finally someone is an equal,

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Speaker 1: you also believe that your only choice is to kill

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Speaker 1: someone who disagrees with your creative choices.

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Speaker 3: I will say this is one of those groups that

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Speaker 3: like it's so extreme that like when we talk about Chicaana,

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Speaker 3: we talk about you know, acting coaches, like there is

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Speaker 3: a bit of a relatability there that you're like, Okay,

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Speaker 3: m hmm. I think I could be understanding on how

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Speaker 3: someone can get sucked into that through religious beliefs or

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Speaker 3: through a passion they have for dance or the industry,

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Speaker 3: or honing it on a craft. This one is a

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Speaker 3: little hard for me because their ideals are.

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Speaker 1: Quite out there, right, and I think once it gets

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Speaker 1: past a certain point of like believing in whatever you

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Speaker 1: want your core belief system to be, where it's like

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Speaker 1: anything you can do to justify it is like you're like, yeah,

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Speaker 1: like let's not to make light of the situation because

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Speaker 1: the loss of anybody is tragic and so what. But

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Speaker 1: it's like it sounds like these murders were all very

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Speaker 1: like personal to the group, like someone who they owed

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Speaker 1: rent money to someone's parents, like these are very like

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Speaker 1: for personal gain, and so it almost just feels like

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Speaker 1: you're utilizing like the belief system as a means to

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Speaker 1: justify your horrendous actions.

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Speaker 3: The fact that she states that I was a vegan

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Speaker 3: first and describing that her feelings towards these flesh eating monsters,

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Speaker 3: which are people, it's just like those type of things.

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Speaker 3: And again maybe because I'm not a vegan, I don't

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Speaker 3: really understand that. I've never been. Really, yeah, I don't

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Speaker 3: really get that, But that just seems like a very

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Speaker 3: I keep using the word extreme, but an extreme take

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Speaker 3: on veganism, right, flesh eating monsters.

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Speaker 1: Whow The reason why they have the take on like

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Speaker 1: extreme veganism like we were referring to, is they believe

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Speaker 1: that the relationship between humans and animals is going to

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Speaker 1: be like really synonymous to the relationship between AI and humans.

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Speaker 1: So they're really equating the way that we treat animals

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Speaker 1: is like how AI will treat us. So they take

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Speaker 1: the veganism to the extreme because they feel like that's

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Speaker 1: how AI is going to play out because once again,

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Speaker 1: according to the Zizzians, AI has a part in human destiny.

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Speaker 3: So much to unpack here. Yeah, this is one of

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Speaker 3: those ones that I would be really intrigued to like

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Speaker 3: keep following and do more research on because I think

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Speaker 3: also like as a producer, i'd be lying if I said, like,

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Speaker 3: this is it's a really interesting documentary, right, really wild

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Speaker 3: and heartbreaking stuff.

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Speaker 2: And it's so recent.

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Speaker 1: It's all like come to we hope a conclusion at

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Speaker 1: the beginning of this year. But I mean, like we mentioned,

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Speaker 1: I do feel a little bit worried that, you know,

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Speaker 1: they utilize social media as a means to push out

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Speaker 1: their agenda. But hopefully the police have made the arrest

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Speaker 1: that they need to make and can shut it down

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Speaker 1: from there.

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Speaker 3: The fact that Ziz has been arrested, there is seemingly

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Speaker 3: hopefully some justice to be done for the victims of

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Speaker 3: this group. Yeah, justice for sure. Well, this story is

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Speaker 3: still developing.

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Speaker 1: And we will learn more about it in the coming months,

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Speaker 1: and we will definitely be following along. So thanks for

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Speaker 1: joining us. This is Forgive Me For I Have Followed.

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Speaker 1: Forgive Me For I Have Followed is a production from

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Speaker 1: wv Sound, Dirty Robert and iHeartMedia, Michael Tora podcast network,

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Speaker 1: hosted by me Khalia Gray.

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Speaker 3: And me Jess Cossovetto.

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Speaker 1: Forgive Me For I Have Followed is produced by Aaron

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Speaker 1: Burlson and Sophie Spencer's Zavos Our.

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Speaker 3: Executive producers are Khalia Gray myself, Wulmar Valderrama, Leo Klam

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Speaker 3: and Aaron Burlison at WV Sound.

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Speaker 1: This episode was edited by Sean Tracy and features original

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Speaker 1: music by Madison Davenport and Halo Boy. For more podcasts

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Speaker 1: from iHeart, visit the iHeartRadio apps, Apple Podcasts, or wherever

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Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows.

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Speaker 2: See you next week, See you next week,