Hello.

This is both a (re)introduction post and an attempt to tell the story of my interaction with Ziz in a way that I hope will clarify matters and mend some bridges.

I'm Gwen Danielson, a neuroscientist and bioengineer, who decided as a child that I would end Death (and bring people back if I could) and that I would become a dragon and help generally facilitate a fantastical transhumanist future.

I pivoted in 2014 to AGI development, then to AI safety research. I was briefly active in the Bay area rationality community in late 2016 and early 2017, then co-founded a housing startup with boats (named Rationalist Fleet) intended to free up a lot of rationalist brain-power away from corporate jobs so there would be more work on AI safety. In 2019, I shut the project down, in favor of open designs for custom RVs.

Late in that year I and my co-founder Ziz, along with a couple other rationalists, attempted to do a peaceful but annoying protest at the CFAR alumni reunion where I planned to give a series of talks about mental tech, about how to build off-grid RVs designed to support intellectual work, some things I had learned about psychology, some things that troubled me about the community, and how the community could pivot to improve AI outcomes.

We were immediately SWATted with a false report of a firearm, and then subject to what is hard for me to describe but I could call mobbing, discrediting, gaslighting, harassment, death threats. It was an incredible source of trauma, and deeply shook my faith in humanity, especially the rationalist community. I attempted to document it a few months later in this post.

I stayed in contact with Ziz and the other two who had joined us (Emma and Somni) for a couple years, while largely retreating from the internet, then I parted ways with all of them in March 2022, moved across the country, found a very caring community to which I'm deeply thankful, and spent the next few years focused on personal healing, thinking deeply about philosophy, and returning to threads of my alignment research that I had been neglecting for years due to the hectic conditions.

In terms of mental health and psychology, I'm doing more or less better than I ever have. And my research has advanced well, by my subjective evaluation.

After I parted ways, Emma and Somni and a few people that later affiliated with them did some horrible things, and Ziz has gott...

Elua

Elua