Most of the news coverage I've seen of this story is omitting what some might consider a relevant detail: almost all the members of this group are trans.
This is a divisive topic, but failing to mention this makes me worry a story is pushing a particular agenda rather than trying to tell the facts. Here's what the story looks like if the trans activism is considered central to the story:
While Ngo's version is definitely biased, and while I don't know enough about the story to endorse or refute his view, I think it's important to realize that this part of the story is being suppressed in most of the coverage elsewhere.
I don't think it's so much pushing an agenda, as it is avoiding a thermonuclear hot potato of modern life. If you start talking about gender identity, everyone has STRONG opinions they feel they must share. Worse, a subset of those opinions will be fairly extreme, and you're potentially exposing yourself to harassment or worse. If you sound like you're attacking trans people, that's going to end badly. If you sound like you're supporting them, especially as this new US administration takes off... that's going to end badly.
So if you can tell the story without the possibly superfluous detail of the genders of the people involved, that's a pretty obvious angle to omit. Andy Ngo is obviously not doing this, but that's really only because he has a very clear agenda and in fact his entire interest in this story probably stems from that.
Yes, that's a reasonable possibility as well. It's not proof of an agenda, and might be prudent, but I do think it's a form of bias. There's a thin line between skipping "possibly superfluous" details and skipping core parts of a story that might provide evidence for viewpoints one disagrees with. The result is still that readers need to realize that they are being presented with a consciously edited narrative and not an unbiased set of facts.
A 2023 post on Rationalism forum LessWrong.com warned of coming violence in the Zizian community. “Over the past few years, Ziz has repeatedly called for the deaths of many different classes of people,” the anonymous post read. Jessica Taylor, a friend of Baukholt’s, told Open Vallejo she warned Baukholt about the Zizians, describing the group on X as a “death cult.”
Most of the news coverage I've seen of this story is omitting what some might consider a relevant detail: almost all the members of this group are trans.
This is a divisive topic, but failing to mention this makes me worry a story is pushing a particular agenda rather than trying to tell the facts. Here's what the story looks like if the trans activism is considered central to the story:
https://thepostmillennial.com/andy-ngo-reports-trans-terror-...
While Ngo's version is definitely biased, and while I don't know enough about the story to endorse or refute his view, I think it's important to realize that this part of the story is being suppressed in most of the coverage elsewhere.
I don't think it's so much pushing an agenda, as it is avoiding a thermonuclear hot potato of modern life. If you start talking about gender identity, everyone has STRONG opinions they feel they must share. Worse, a subset of those opinions will be fairly extreme, and you're potentially exposing yourself to harassment or worse. If you sound like you're attacking trans people, that's going to end badly. If you sound like you're supporting them, especially as this new US administration takes off... that's going to end badly.
So if you can tell the story without the possibly superfluous detail of the genders of the people involved, that's a pretty obvious angle to omit. Andy Ngo is obviously not doing this, but that's really only because he has a very clear agenda and in fact his entire interest in this story probably stems from that.
Yes, that's a reasonable possibility as well. It's not proof of an agenda, and might be prudent, but I do think it's a form of bias. There's a thin line between skipping "possibly superfluous" details and skipping core parts of a story that might provide evidence for viewpoints one disagrees with. The result is still that readers need to realize that they are being presented with a consciously edited narrative and not an unbiased set of facts.
From the article:
A 2023 post on Rationalism forum LessWrong.com warned of coming violence in the Zizian community. “Over the past few years, Ziz has repeatedly called for the deaths of many different classes of people,” the anonymous post read. Jessica Taylor, a friend of Baukholt’s, told Open Vallejo she warned Baukholt about the Zizians, describing the group on X as a “death cult.”
The post: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/T5RzkFcNpRdckGauu/link-a-com...
The Children of Kali are awakening.
Uhhh… what? Is this a Aum Shinrikyo type of thing?