Title: Weird Tales
Subtitle: Zizians, Crypto, and Demiurges on the Cloud
Description: During the height of the European Dark Ages, a millenarian fever took hold. Against the backdrop of economic and social upheaval, a proliferation of strange cults and creeds appeared. Many were preoccupied with the End Times.

How vindicated they must have felt when the Black Death struck.

Is the West now spiraling towards a similar catastrophe? A hint of feudalism is everywhere, from the apps that increasingly resemble vassalage to the alchemical transformation cryptocurrencies are working on finance.

To say nothing of the cults and creeds. The curious saga of the Zizians, vegan Siths to some, a death cult to others, is just the tip of the spear. From Rationalists to effective altruists, NRx, the O9A, and onto Extropians and Accelerationists, the twenty-first century has witnessed no shortage of millenarianism in these United States.

But where is this headed? Do powerful tech lords envision a return to the Medieval world? Will AI be the new Black Death? Or is there something more terrible at play --a civilization based on behavior and body modification that ends in a posthuman future?

Strange days indeed.
Subjects: Zizians, United States history, true crime, AI, crypto, conspiracy, millenarianism, technocracy, rationalists, parapolitics
Places: San Francisco Bay Area (Calif.), Vermont (USA)
People: Zizians, Technocrats, rationalists
Time periods: 2000-2025