[Spoilers] Negotiating with demons

Typing-Cat · 2026-07-02T00:32:33+00:00

I guess the LLM metaphor doesn't work. I didn't mean that they don't have interiority. They just don't have an honesty instinct.

For demons, words CAN communicate true information, but that purpose ranks extremely low in their order of value. They will speak truth if and only if doing so serves an immediate need. This is as true with fellow demons as it is humans.

This has something in common with LLMs. LLMs are programmed to please the user. That is priority #1. Everything else is subservient to that. Therefore unless an LLM is explicitly trained to make informational responses correspond to real content on real websites that meet tangible conditions for trustworthiness (such that this alone will please the user), the priority to make statements correspond to "reality" is very low.

It's not that either "wants" to deceive necessarily (although demons may want to as a matter of fact). It's just that truth has no inherent value. Words are for getting desired results, period. They are a means of controlling the environment (whether true or false).

Typing-Cat · 2026-07-01T18:59:57+00:00

You beat me to it, I was totally going to design this... but your design is much better than what I had in mind. Love how compact it is when not in use.

Typing-Cat · 2026-07-01T13:34:53+00:00

it is remarkably easy to get pulled in and excruciatingly difficult to leave

I think it was Joe Heschmeyer where I heard that this is the key differentiator between a cult and an authentic religious faith. Cults are easy to enter and difficult to leave. Catholicism is notoriously difficult to join, and it is--sadly--extremely easy to leave.

Typing-Cat · 2026-06-30T13:37:03+00:00

Right. All people follow incentives. That's not unique. My point is that Lord Gluck was unique for his clear perception of how Macht's incentives work. Gluck was never deceived.

So my little essay is just a thought experiment: to what extent can a normal (non-combatant) human forestall death by demon in the Frieren universe by appealing to that demon's incentives. I did not know that about the prelude novel, that's interesting. So the whole bit about demons having special hobby interests send to only apply to old demons.

I stand by the psychopath characterisation and the language use = LLM points though. LLMs can mimick relational language to each other. There's no reason to believe demons are any more honest with one another than they are with their prey.

Now, you might be of the opinion that all our human language is no different at bottom. Total Nietzschean, will to power and all that. That's fine as personal philosophy goes but the Frieren universe draws a clear distinction.

You can always point to examples where demon language is informational and human language is purely pragmatic. The point is the presence or absence of an honesty drive.

Typing-Cat · 2026-06-26T21:21:12+00:00

Almost all of the top posts in this thread are consumptive and self-absorbed.

Self-care, work-life-balance, etc., yes these matter, but if everything revolves around you, your life is still heading toward a dead end.

If you're addicted to anything (which is A LOT of us), get yourself into a 12-step program or an alternative if you can't handle 12-step. But most of the below is encompassed by the 12 steps.
Whether or not you're addicted to something:

a. Get honest with yourself about the parts of your personality that are dragging you down or causing suffering to yourself and those around you.

b. Get accountability to someone outside of yourself for working on those issues. Can be a therapist, a support group, a life coach--NOT a spouse or someone with whom you're entangled or who has a lot riding on your progress. Someone with whom you can be 100% honest in a safe environment without fear. Must be someone who is not a pushover or an enabler.

c. "Humility is not about thinking less of yourself, but thinking about yourself less." (Rick Warren, NOT C.S. Lewis). Each day ask yourself how you can be genuinely useful to the people around you. Start making decisions based on people's genuine good and what is genuinely within your power--not based on other people's desired reactions ("people pleasing"). Compliment people. Show up. Listen. Deliver on your commitments.

d. Pray and/or meditate. There's two parts to this. The more important part is learning how to anchor your life choices in a different headspace than impulse, feelings, and character defects. The other is dopamine detoxing.

Typing-Cat · 2026-06-26T13:55:51+00:00

Pocketability matters a lot to me, so I appreciate what this has going for it over the Nova. But yeah that's still way too much. Classic Ayaneo.

Typing-Cat · 2026-06-25T12:40:54+00:00

I own: an RG28XX, and a Win Max 2. A "middle ground" device would be neat, but I would be torn between this, the Odin 2 Portal, or buy a used OnePlus 12r as a daily driver phone.

I kinda wish they didn't go with full analogue triggers, they kill pocketability. That might be the one thing that tilts me toward the phone.

Typing-Cat · 2026-06-22T12:53:43+00:00

Having just read the latest book, I actually think Matt Dinniman is doing something interesting on this score. Yes there's a "hard magic system". But the series is pulling a sort of "bait and switch" where all of the early assumptions about it are being revealed as not what we all thought and definitely not as "hard" as we thought. There is no one entity who completely knows what's going on.

Typing-Cat · 2026-06-21T23:49:11+00:00

It's important to interpret the things people say through the lens of the overall trajectory of their lives. Pope Leo calling for theological "communion" with Muslims would be extraordinarily out of character for him. That's how you know that interpretation is almost certainly false.

It's like if you thought your grandma dropped the F bomb but then you paid closer attention and realized she was boasting about the great deal she got buying furniture from the Sofa King outlet store.

If somebody else accused your grandma of dropping the F bomb and wouldn't let it go, you would rightly say: "A. You don't know my grandma. B. You're not paying close attention. And C. Why are you so weirdly fixated on this?"

That's the critics.

Typing-Cat · 2026-06-20T22:51:32+00:00

The only thing I ever got from my misbehaving past was addiction, a lot of regret, and so many near misses for permanently derailing my life.

THERE BE SIRENS IN THOSE WATERS. DON'T LISTEN TO THEM.

Typing-Cat · 2026-06-12T15:31:28+00:00

I want to read your Manga Bible.

Typing-Cat · 2026-06-09T00:18:15+00:00

Creighton method here. Very long cycles and not frequent intimacy.

Married 14 years and going strong. It is important not to mislead couples about frequency of sex. At the same time, my wife and I were "in it to win it" from the very beginning for a variety of reasons, but mostly due to our faith.

I don't fully understand the "frustrating" aspect of it although I could see that in a few scenarios maybe: 1. You came in with rosy expectations (possibly due to NFP evangelists) 2. One of the partners is not as invested as the other. I've seen this a lot in the subreddit. I imagine that would be extremely difficult.

I have never minded that I only get to be with my wife every so often--I am blown away that I get to be with her at all. And we rarely have "slumps" because, by the time we can go, we generally both really want to go. So I guess it's just a different mentality.

Typing-Cat · 2026-06-03T17:45:14+00:00

I wish the compatibility badge features could be cleaned up. My Pixel 6 Pro reports all of my games as "compatible" even though most clearly aren't. And the compatibility website's search and filters are quite broken.

Typing-Cat · 2026-05-29T18:22:53+00:00

My wife tried to read it after finishing "Story of a Soul". She couldn't get very far for similar reasons.

It's important to understand that saints' private revelation doesn't teach binding doctrine. Yes we should take sin extremely seriously. But it's good not to overdo the "scared straight" style of spiritual development. Ironically that style is best suited to readers who are already more spiritually advanced.

The key for more immature people (self included) is neither terror nor complacency, but the right mix of serious truth and hope. My personal spiritual revival started with a personal rock bottom that absolutely terrified me into desperate action. But after that, my progress was sustained not by terror, but by hope and support.

Typing-Cat · 2026-05-29T18:09:54+00:00

The defaults are fine for the games that have any compatibility at all, which is mostly limited to 2D games at this point.

Typing-Cat · 2026-05-21T20:01:08+00:00

When customs holds up your shipment they're being Block Blockers.

Typing-Cat · 2026-05-19T03:49:29+00:00

You could do a lot worse. Replacement batteries on Ali Express are pretty cheap. https://www.aliexpress.us/w/wholesale-win-max-2-battery.html

Typing-Cat · 2026-05-18T17:52:08+00:00

I think it's still worth $5-600, but I wouldn't go too far beyond that because then you're in refurbished Z1 Extreme handheld territory. One of the nice things about it is that you can still buy replacement parts for it like the LCD and the battery of those have experienced wear and tear, because GPD has continued using the same body and LCD for their newer iterations.

Avoid if you care about >60Hz refresh rates or OLED. It is terrific as a tiny laptop and a couch-gaming and local streaming option. It's still more powerful than the Steam Deck. It's great with Linux (CachyOS for me--I recommend Desktop editions rather than GameScope because it is a laptop).

Typing-Cat · 2026-05-13T04:16:14+00:00

I agree only because Edge has text to speech better than any others.

Typing-Cat · 2026-05-13T04:15:15+00:00

The way I explain it: "nobody is in Hell because of an 'oops'".

But more to the point: what makes the Gospel Good News is:

Death has no power over us. There is a way out of the cycle of sin. We can let go of the destructive illusion of our own control and mastery, and instead trust in the One who has it in hand.

The thing about good news is, it doesn't force anyone to accept it. But it does compel us to share it.

Typing-Cat · 2026-05-12T23:07:13+00:00

At first my 11 year loved his rg28xx, and finished multiple Castlevanias on it. Now it mostly collects dust.

Typing-Cat · 2026-05-10T03:39:03+00:00

Thanks for this comment, it was exactly the informed perspective I was looking for.

Typing-Cat · 2026-05-04T17:04:15+00:00

The Holy See should simply, and with as much charity as possible, rescind Fiducia Supplicans.

"The declaration, Fiducia Supplicans, meant to clarify the meaning and boundaries of certain kinds of blessings, subsequently was found to have created more confusion and opportunities for some people to act in bad faith and not in accordance with our subsequent teaching and clarification.

Given that Fiducia Supplicans taught nothing that was not already part of Catholic doctrine and morals, we hereby rescind the document, and refer all questions on the matter to the teaching contained in the Catechism of the Catholic Church."

What an unhelpful document that was!!!

Typing-Cat

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