Comment by dang | Hacker News Reader

Comment by dang | Hacker News Reader

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After puzzling over the threads on this head-spinning story, my sense is that maybe the most neutral thing to do is re-up this submission of a news report and merge most of the comments hither.

The other recent threads are/were:

The Zizians (2020) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42898323

The Zizians and the rationalist death cult - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42897871

Suspects in 2 murder cases shared connection to 'Zizian' rationalist group - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42849281

Edit: I guess we can have the current thread be about the recent events and keep https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42897871 for discussing / arguing about the generic aspects. Sorry for the complexity but in this case it appears to be essential not accidental.

i’ve seen so many posts about this on HN i can’t help but wonder if it’s a recruiting drive…

I'm sure it's just the usual sensationalism, but if there are other recent posts with comments, I'd appreciate links in case it makes sense to merge them.

Edit: incidentally, I hadn't seen anything about it on HN until today. A reminder of how much randomness affects these perceptions.

The submitter of this story inserted 'rationalist' into the title; it's not in the headline and IMO it's calumny. Would you take it back out?

I also inserted “rationalist” into my submission of this story because it’s an accurate description of the group.

HN guidelines: "Otherwise please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize."

Perhaps you would also describe the Manson family as a Christian death cult.

Probably not the Manson family, but probably the Branch Dividians. Just like I’d call the Salvation Army a Christian paramilitary.

Sure.

Edit: I think "death cult" is linkbaity though, so I replaced it with "Zizians". I hope that's neutral enough for everybody because I'll be offline soon.

(Replacing a general-sensational term with a proper noun is often a good debaiting trick.)

Thanks!

Neat term, debaiting -- though I misread it for a moment.

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