Recent discourse reminds me of that cult indoctrination trick that’s often used to weed out more difficult marks early on, where they tell you all that you aren’t allowed to eat rice on Tuesdays and then if you protest they go “wow SOMEBODY likes rice a little much huh” as if you’re the fucking weirdo who cares too much about how much rice is consumed between Monday and Wednesday instead of them.
And this forces you to decide whether your autonomy matters to you more than the approval of the group - while they’ll still act like you’re on thin ice either way, if you give in at this point they know you’re theirs forever, because now they’ve established a foothold, you’ve shown a moral weakness, which they will brand you with so it can be used against you in the future (“hey RICE-addict here doesn’t want help break into the city records office”) to force you to double-down and isolate you further.
And if instead you do decide to push back further, after your abrupt departure from the group (“You’re seriously leaving us over RICE?!? Seriously?”) and subsequent ostracism, you can then be used as a demonstration to the others who were more pliable, of how the outgroup is full of people like you who are obsessed with violating the No-Tuesday-Rice rule to the point where they’ll abandon all their friends, who cared so much for them, so it clearly isn’t an arbitrary restriction, you’re the kind of monster these rules are intended to protect them from, thus all the other wise and esoteric precepts of the charismatic leader are implied to be equally justified.
This isn’t just for cults either! Shitty partners, bosses, friends - they all do variants of this where if you kick back the first time they make an unreasonable request, it proves you weren’t ever committed since you’d let such a small thing ruin everything. And of course, if it’s the third or the tenth unreasonable thing they ask of you, it’s SUCH A SMALL THING to be a deal-breaker at this late point in your relationship!
saying “bon appetit” subtly shifts the responsibility for enjoying food onto the eater and away from the chef, who is the only person empowered to actually make the food delicious
Just sitting here looking at a video game recommendation in my inbox like “yeah, this freeware indie roguelike is super cool, if you can overlook all the piss kink stuff”, and I can’t even judge because heaven knows I’ve given game recs with more concerning caveats.
i promise to shoot the man i accosted in the alleyway unless he gives me his wallet. he says “this is just like rokos basilisk”. i say “what?”, and the man says “ah so you don’t already know. i know information which is dangerous to you, and may cause unknown and large amounts of disutility to you if you know it. give me the gun or i will tell you this information”. obviously i wouldn’t believe him, except omega previously told me that my next victim would be right about everything he said. so im inventivzed to shoot him before he can speak, but a weighted average of all human beliefs implies murder will be punished severely in the afterlife (so the tiny probability any god is real doesn’t cancel itself out across different gods). instead i lunge forward and hold a cloroform rag over his mouth, knocking him out. now i need only fear earthly reprisal, and my accomplice (who is my alibi, due to our distinct resemblance) is a perfect copy of me. since ive precommitted to kill myself if i get ratted out (as has he, since we’re perfect copies) i know im secure. in a way he precommitted before he even existed, though since that idiot thinks he’s the original he doesn’t realize it. hey what if i could credibly predict that he would commit to other things before he existed. he could- oh goddamn it what a waste of cloroform. before i leave to begin bringing about the existence of a vindictive superintellegent ai i pull the wallet from the mans pocket- $0 dollars. just another night for me, just another night
that fucking nyan nyan nyan nyan, nii haoo nyan~ goujasu derishasu dekaruchaaaa!~ song is ruining my life. i oiterally can’t stop singing it. fhis is like 12 years old.
