Listen to the episode
Andy Ngo: Cults, Human Experiments & Unsolved Murders Surrounding America’s Biggest Tech Oligarchs
Full original episode. Highlights below summarise the discussion; claims and opinions are attributed to the speakers.An investigation beginning at the Canadian border
Ngo says he began investigating the group after a January 2025 shooting near the Vermont–Canada border left a US Border Patrol agent and an alleged shooter dead. After examining the names involved, he says he found links to suspects and cases elsewhere, including an earlier attack on an elderly California property owner. Those connections led him to treat the shooting as part of a wider story rather than an isolated incident.
From rationalism to an insular belief system
According to Ngo, alleged leader Jack Amadeus LaSota, also known as Ziz, was a talented computer-science student who became immersed in rationalism, effective altruism and debates about artificial-intelligence risk. Ngo argues that LaSota subsequently developed a distinct ideology incorporating anarchist politics, transhumanism and claims that the brain’s hemispheres could contain separate identities. He also stresses that these ideas were not broadly endorsed by the wider rationalist or effective-altruist communities.
Alleged experiments and communal living
Ngo alleges that recruits underwent sleep deprivation intended to “separate” or “jailbreak” their brain hemispheres. Based on correspondence he says he collected, the process could leave participants highly vulnerable and potentially psychotic. He describes members living first on boats and later in vehicles on a California property, pursuing an autonomous communal lifestyle while conducting experiments and administering medications or hormones themselves. These descriptions are Ngo’s account, not independently established findings in the transcript.
Violence, deaths and cases still awaiting resolution
The episode recounts several deaths and attacks Ngo associates with the group, including two former members’ suicides, a 2022 sword attack on property owner Curtis Lint, the later killing of Lint, a Pennsylvania double homicide and the Vermont shooting. Ngo repeatedly distinguishes allegations from convictions: he says that, as of the interview, no one had been convicted in the cases he groups together, while some defendants faced murder, firearms or fugitive-related charges. The transcript also says LaSota was in federal custody.
Questions about institutions—and limits to the evidence
Ngo uses the story to criticise law enforcement, courts and media coverage, arguing that aliases, delayed proceedings and incomplete reporting obscured connections among suspects. Carlson and Ngo also discuss whether cross-sex hormones could affect aggression, but Ngo acknowledges that too little research exists to establish an answer. The exchange therefore offers speculation and interpretation rather than a demonstrated medical conclusion.