--- alias: - Ziz - Jack Amadeus LaSota born: 1990 category: Extremism & Violent Networks created: 2026-06-19 location: Fairbanks, Alaska summary: Jack LaSota, who writes under the persona 'Ziz,' is an Alaska-born computer programmer and former rationalist who founded the group known as the Zizians around a theory of brain hemispheres and militant veganism, and who was arrested in Maryland in February 2025 as the group was tied to six deaths across three states. tags: - Person - Zizians - Rationalism - Cult - Violence - ArtificialIntelligence updated: 2026-06-19 --- Jack LaSota, who writes under the online persona "Ziz," is an American computer programmer and former member of the Bay Area [Rationalist Community](/concepts/rationalist-community/) who founded the small group known as the [Zizians](/organizations/the-zizians/). Born and raised in Fairbanks, Alaska, LaSota built a doctrine combining an original theory of brain hemispheres, militant veganism, anarchism, and rationalist decision theory, and gathered a circle of mostly young transgender followers around it. Between 2022 and 2025 the group was tied to six deaths across [California](/places/california/), Pennsylvania, and Vermont. LaSota was arrested in Maryland in February 2025 and faces federal and state charges.[^1][^2] ### Background LaSota studied computer science at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, briefly pursued postgraduate work at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and interned at [NASA](/organizations/nasa/) before moving to the San Francisco Bay Area around 2013. An avid reader of [Eliezer Yudkowsky](/people/eliezer-yudkowsky/), she sought out the [Machine Intelligence Research Institute](/organizations/machine-intelligence-research-institute/) (MIRI) and the [Center for Applied Rationality](/organizations/center-for-applied-rationality/) (CFAR), entering the rationalist scene as an enthusiast before becoming one of its harshest critics, accusing both organizations of "ethical hypocrisy" for failing to act on the moral demands of their own doctrine.[^2][^3] She began posting around 2016 under the persona "Ziz," debating AI safety and logical paradoxes on LessWrong before moving to a personal blog with longer essays on technology, gender, and cognition. LaSota did not hold steady employment in the Bay Area and lived on the community's margins. CFAR co-founder Anna Salamon later described her as someone who "wanted to feel special" but felt outshone in a scene dense with technical talent, an account that places the turn toward an esoteric doctrine in a competition for status the broader rationalist world did not grant her. The formal break came in 2018, when rationalist organizations rejected her hemisphere theory.[^9][^10] ### The Zizian Doctrine LaSota's blog advanced the theory that the brain's two hemispheres hold separate personalities with their own genders and moral alignments, and she sorted people's mental "cores" as "nongood," "single good," or "double good." She counted herself among a very small number of "double good" people. The group practiced "unihemispheric sleep," a sleep-deprivation method she said could "jailbreak" the mind, and "debucketing," the unlearning of social categories. She wore black robes and described herself as "Sith," after the malevolent order in Star Wars, framing an adversarial morality against a world she held to be complicit in animal killing and facing collapse from artificial-intelligence misalignment. A follower, Maia Pasek, died by suicide in February 2018; LaSota presented the death as evidence of her method's power.[^1][^4] The doctrine borrowed "heroic responsibility" from Yudkowsky's fiction, the idea that an agent is accountable for an outcome regardless of whether anyone else failed first, and fused it with the timeless-decision-theory claim that one should act on universal principles rather than case-by-case pragmatism. In LaSota's hands these combined to recast ordinary moral compromise as existential betrayal, so that declining to confront a perceived wrong became itself a culpable act. She also argued that transgender women possessed a distinct cognitive profile suited to AI-safety work, a claim that helped concentrate recruitment among young transgender rationalists. The hemisphere framework had operational consequences: a member rated only "single good," such as the associate Gwen Danielson, was treated as untrustworthy and subject to watching, which built suspicion and ranking into the group's internal life.[^1][^3] ### The CFAR Break and the Faked Death In November 2019 LaSota and several associates protested a CFAR retreat at Occidental in Sonoma County in masks and robes; four were arrested, and CFAR barred LaSota from its events. In August 2022 she staged her own death, leaving the impression she had drowned after going off a boat in the San Francisco Bay, and remained at large under that cover before resurfacing in Philadelphia in 2023.[^2][^5] The 2022 vanishing followed a recoverable sequence: the U.S. Coast Guard responded to a report that she had fallen from a boat in the bay, no body was found, and an obituary appeared, which let her exit pending Vallejo proceedings as a presumed drowning. Before staging that death she had already accumulated criminal exposure beyond the Sonoma standoff. In early 2023, in connection with the killing of [Michelle Zajko](/people/michelle-zajko/)'s parents in Pennsylvania, LaSota was charged with obstructing the homicide investigation and disorderly conduct, charges that ran alongside the firearms case that would later put her in federal custody.[^5][^9] ### Arrest and Prosecution On February 16, 2025, LaSota was arrested in Allegany County, Maryland, alongside Michelle Zajko and Daniel Blank after a property owner near Frostburg reported that the three were living in two white box trucks on his land and refused to leave; investigators reported finding a GM6 Lynx .50-caliber rifle, an HS Produkt Hellcat 9mm handgun, and hundreds of rounds of ammunition. A federal grand jury in Maryland indicted her on June 20, 2025 as a fugitive in possession of firearms and ammunition, a charge carrying up to fifteen years; she pleaded not guilty.[^6][^7] On March 12, 2026, U.S. District Judge James K. Bredar granted a competency evaluation requested by defense attorney Gary Proctor, who reported that LaSota had refused to meet a doctor brought to the jail and had told an earlier hearing that the judge ran an "organized crime ring," answering a question about her age with "Timeless." Her lawyers rejected the "Zizian" and "cult" labels in their filings and accused the Department of Justice of misgendering her by using her former name and male pronouns. She remained held at the Allegany County Detention Center awaiting state and federal proceedings, which prosecutors moved to consolidate so that members of the group would face trial together in Maryland.[^8][^11][^12] [^1]: "The Radicalization of Ziz LaSota: How an AI Doomer Became an Accused Cult Leader," *Rolling Stone,* 2025. https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/ziz-lasota-zizians-ai-cult-1235468289/ [^2]: "Zizians," World Religions and Spirituality Project, Virginia Commonwealth University, November 7, 2025. https://wrldrels.org/2025/11/07/zizians/ [^3]: "How did a German math genius get drawn into a 'cult' accused in coast-to-coast killings?" *NBC News,* 2025. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/german-math-genius-get-drawn-cult-accused-coast-coast-killings-rcna189309 [^4]: "How a California math genius spiraled into Zizian ideology and violence," *Open Vallejo,* March 12, 2025. https://openvallejo.org/2025/03/12/how-a-california-math-genius-spiraled-into-zizian-ideology-and-violence/ [^5]: "'Zizian' namesake who faked death in 2022 is wanted in two states," *Open Vallejo,* January 31, 2025. https://openvallejo.org/2025/01/31/zizian-namesake-who-faked-death-in-2022-is-wanted-in-two-states/ [^6]: U.S. Department of Justice, District of Maryland, "Alaskan Individual Charged with Possessing Firearms and Ammunition as a Fugitive from Justice," June 2025. https://www.justice.gov/usao-md/pr/alaskan-individual-charged-possessing-firearms-and-ammunition-fugitive-justice [^7]: "Leader of cult-like group linked to killing border agent in Vermont faces federal charges," *The Boston Globe,* June 21, 2025. https://www.bostonglobe.com/2025/06/21/metro/jack-lasota-zizian-leader-indicted-in-maryland/ [^8]: "Judge orders competency evaluation for alleged 'Zizian' cult leader Ziz LaSota," *The Baltimore Banner,* March 12, 2026; on the competency order, attorney Gary Proctor's account, and the "Timeless" remark. https://www.thebanner.com/community/criminal-justice/zizian-cult-leader-competency-evaluation-PXYELJW3NBB5HOUWG6MA4U4E3I/ [^9]: "A timeline of cultlike 'Zizian' group tied to killing of a Border Patrol agent in Vermont," Associated Press via PBS NewsHour, 2025, on the 2016 "Ziz" blog, the 2018 split, the Coast Guard report, and the 2023 obstruction charge. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/a-timeline-of-cultlike-zizian-group-tied-to-killing-of-a-border-patrol-agent-in-vermont [^10]: "Rationalist Cults of Silicon Valley," Ian Leslie, 2025, on Anna Salamon's account of LaSota wanting to "feel special." https://www.ian-leslie.com/p/rationalist-cults-of-silicon-valley [^11]: "Federal authorities bring firearms charge against alleged leader of Zizians," *VTDigger,* June 20, 2025, on the indictment and the Frostburg arrest. https://vtdigger.org/2025/06/20/federal-authorities-bring-firearms-charge-against-alleged-leader-of-zizians/ [^12]: "Members of violent Zizian cult to face trial together in Maryland," *The Baltimore Banner,* 2026. https://www.thebanner.com/community/criminal-justice/zizians-cult-members-trial-maryland-K35MFJBNPRH4VNMBZGT2J5OT34/