Tired Liars
A truth generator is powered by lies, until it isn't.
Think before you duckstack
A classic situation: You, intending to capture “the life of the party”, are showing off your repertoire1 of carefully curated “party tricks”. The women swoon in awe2 at your using a porcupine to score much higher than normally possible in darts. But this is not enough, because you can also chug an entire barrel of root beer while standing on a flamingo, who is standing on one leg. But in your crazed pursuit of popularity, this is still not enough, as you juggle four hummingbirds and flowers, letting them drink as they rotate. An impressive feat, and you win over many ladies, but the one you have your eye on looks unimpressed. She doesn’t seem to appreciate your hysterical antics. But you must have her. Without every last drop of attention, you will die. In a last ditch effort, you take an entire flock of ducks, and carefully stack them one on top of the other. This has done it. She is in love.
Don’t Shoot The Messenger
Appeal to authority fallacy. *BANG*
Woah, look, there’s a messenger, don’t shoot him. Oh there’s an outlaw popping up, shoot that one. Ooh, there’s a sherrif! Bonus points if you shoot him! Look out, there’s the messenger again! There’s two messengers now! Woah what were you thinking, don’t shoot either of them! Another outlaw! Two more outlaws! Shoot them quick! Oh no, the messenger is riding in front of the outlaws! Three more outlaws and a sherriff! Oh, there’s a dinosaur, they’re worth a lot of points but take a lot of bullets, don’t miss the two outlaws and the sherrriff! Watch out for all the messengers crossing now, right as four more outlaws and TWO sherrrrifffs appear! Another dinosaur, this one’s a raptor, its fast but easier to get.
How did you do? Were you able to avoid shooting the outlaws? Did you get the sherifs? If you want to try again, simply re-read this section.
Magic Spells
Magic spells for the magic spelling bee
Since the dawn of sometime, man has been fascinated with getting stuff for free. This is because people like to not have their money number go down.
This starts in kindergarten, when children start repeating “burns” (insults) that they heard another kid use and the burnee (victim) doesn’t have a rebuttal for, usually these insults are quippy rhymes, which is where rap battles come from. In some ways, this is a self defense mechanism, because if someone is attacking you then you want to be able to get the upper hand. Actual physical violence (war) is costly, so if you can intimidate someone into not engaging using words, then that is a very good trade. Not that everything comes down to physical violence, I believe human nature is good. Or at least that it has good bones. Everyone would like to think of themselves as good, which is why I think it is bad to. Less room for rationalization that way.
The problem with these sorts of playground insult games is that a lot of the time they come down to… Bluffs. In this quasi-conflict we’re proxying for war in my hypothetical playground situation here, the bid is “I can insult you very well, therefore I am very intelligent, and I will be able to defeat you in war games in ways you will not be able to comprehend. Basically you’re trying to tell them you’re good at chess, since you’ve memorized a couple of flashy moves. But you’re a kindergartner, and realistically you’re not that smart, especially in the eternal scheme of things where we are all children, and it will not be until far in the eternities that we have matured to the stature God has in store for us. Growing up is hard, and involves making mistakes and then resolving them (including socially, where a mistake has multiple extra layers of shame, embarrassment, and risk of things like ostracization) and so the fact of the matter is that its usually a lot less costly just to learn a lot of bluffs.
If you can convince people you are good at something, that often gets the same results as being actually good at something. I’m describing a very basic theory of dishonesty here. And I’m definitely saying it applies to slogans like “Love is Love”, “My Body My Choice”, “Abortion is Murder”, “People aren’t Illegal”, “Leave it to the states”, or “When people say political catch phrases they’re being dishonest”. To name a few. Whether there is a grain of truth in these or not, in many ways these slogans boil out of the political discourse specifically because they help people “win” interactions. My friend Zero HP Lovecraft calls these “monkey games”, in a totally unrelated but scathing review of the new into the spider verse movie.
I honestly believe God will judge us for this. This sin comes out the most in politics, because in patriotism (and religion), people find a cause that “justifies the means”. So you will often find, especially in evangelical Christians and Politicians, “noble lies”, efforts to convert people to lend mass to some social mob towards some social effect, whether that’s “getting more people to heaven” or “making trans kids feel protected” and so on. In many of these cases, the people do not even know they are lying- They haven’t thought about it at that level, because rigor is expensive, and slogans are cheap. You might not know what the words mean, but others do, and for some subset of people with a certain threshold of deadened conscience, that’s enough.
There is an anime called Frieren, which has been hailed as the best anime of all time by many. The reason for this is that it secretly is a Slice of Life anime but pretending to be an adventure anime. The anime introduces a concept called “demons3” which are monsters that have become humanoid and learned to speak, and the moral of the story is that they actually are just monsters who exist to eat humans, but have learned to act human as a sort of predator mechanism. In a notable scene, a demon is going to be killed and the protagonist asks “why do you say mommy before we kill you. You don't have mothers.” and the demon replies “Sometimes it gets favorable reactions from humans who take sympathy, and then we can kill more of you.”
Take a moment to consider for yourself whether you are a human or a demon. Perhaps you haven’t thought about it before, but I have, and there are definitely things I have “learned to say because it gets favorable reactions from people”. I aspire to one day be human though, by increasing the intentionality of everything I say.
The reason for honesty is that sometimes in life you need to be right, not just to win. In theory people care about what is true, but it rarely plays out that way, because truth is not actually that useful from a high time preference perspective. The medical benefits of honesty are immense, but only if you can pass the marshmallow test. The reason God gave us the virtue of honesty is to expand our tunnel vision from the short term to the long term- As you begin to exercise honesty and self-discipline for the sake of being honest, you begin to let go of short term vices and become better equipped to plant seeds that will later grow to bear fruit in much more abundance than if you had just consumed the seed.
I believe that the purpose of religion is to provide its followers an accurate map of reality for things that people would not be able to see relying on just their own judgement. For example, sex outside of marriage tends to be colossally detrimental to both parties in ways that neither can predict due to hormones and lack of experience, so true religion would caution against such behavior, and function as an “aid” at navigating life in this way. Correct preaching should give its adherents tools and habits to understand reality accurately. In many ways this can be measured as inverse dogmatisms- when you see someone whipping out names of doctrines or logical fallacies like baseball cards, you know you’re no longer in a discussion about what is true or accurate.
As a small example, “ad hominem” is a logical fallacy of the ‘informal’ variety that categorizes “attacks on someone’s character or motives”. This is uncouth because basic insults do not tend to be very logical, however, most people pulling the “ad hominem” card are trying to win monkey games, not arrive at correct logic. For example: “Donald Trump is an idiot. Donald Trump is a bad businessman” is two separate propositions- It isn’t an ad hominem fallacy because the latter proposition is not logically linked to the former insult with a “therefore”. Both statements can be true, both statements can be false, but because an argument is not being made, there is no fallacy. If it was stated like “Donald Trump is an idiot so he is a bad businessman”, then you can see that the logic doesn’t quite link up, but you can also see that the invalidity of the logic does not necessarily invalidate the conclusion- someone can be an idiot and a good businessman, or smart and a bad businessman, the premise simply doesn’t support the conclusion, and a proper argument would need to use premises that more logically relate to someone’s business acumen. Or, there could be propositions where someone’s idiocy is actually quite relevant to the conclusion.
The natural reaction to grasping this concept, I think, is mind boggling terror. “I cannot possibly exact this degree of rigor from myself, not only am I not smart enough but it would also take forever.” Fear not. The problem is not that everyone is insufficiently paralyzed by perfection. The problem is that people are happy to lie to win monkey games. The problem is people are trying to cast magic spells in order to get something for nothing. The problem is that this makes the whole world blind.
The proper response to someone who is trying to win a monkey game is not to patiently explain why they are wrong- This is a misunderstanding of your relationship. They aren’t arguing with you to arrive at a conclusion, they are using you to justify their conclusion. How do you convince someone that they need to be convinced? They have to have an experience for that. The winning move is either to not play, or to play in such an odd direction that their scripts no longer “win”.
Missionaries for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints are cautioned against “Bible Bashing”. The process of arguing over the scriptures with people. This was opaque to me as a missionary, since at that age I knew the Bible pretty well and I also enjoy tussling scriptures with people. But it makes much more sense in retrospect, where your time as a missionary is only two years, and you can’t afford to waste time on people who aren’t sincere. When you look for it, this sprouts up everywhere in the scriptures- Why didn’t Jesus hang out with Pharisees? They weren’t sincere. Why should the missionaries in Acts dust off their feet on the cities? Because they weren’t sincere. Why did Peter smite Ananias and Saphira dead4? Because they weren’t sincere. You can see that when time is of the essence, the most important skill possible is gauging someone’s sincerity and moving on quickly if its not working out. This principle of social iteration explains many scriptural decisions. My friend Jesse once vented about Bible bashing a little bit- the real trap of arguing with someone trying to win monkey games is that they can often humiliate you if you approach with sincerity, seeking to explain, but on their end they are feeding everything you say into their argument-synthesizer, and that’s all they’re focused on. When you barely exist to someone, you shouldn’t waste your time on them, that seems fair.
Historuy
The toddler reads books to himself all the time now. Or at least he recites what we have read to him on those pages in the past. The best is how he pronounces stuff in Chicka Chicka Boom Boom.
Toddler wisdom: “Salamanders are slimy. But I'm not slimy.”
One game we play with our toddler is “can you say”. as in “Can you say Cat?” “Cat.” After like two or three of these he will usually refuse to play along and then he’ll go “can you say telephone?” and so one of us will go “telephone” and he’ll go “good job!”. He has very high standards so this is somehow very flattering. And we were playing this and he started going “can you say “Christmas?” and then when we would say it he would go “Whaaaat? That’s crazy.”
Another game we play is “what does the animal say”. As in: “what does the cow say?” “moo.” But then in a very clever reference to an obsolete Millenial meme: “What does the fox say?” but he knew: “hiss hiss”
My wife told me: “Your children are beautiful.” And our toddler piped up: “I’m not a children, I’m a kid.” In a voice that indicated he was clearly very satisfied with his level of knowledge.
Read my milk carton today. The nutrition facts say “0 grams of fiber”. I’m not sure I wanted fiber in my milk anyway.
Sodascope
The fountain of youth is carbonated
Sodas. You’ve seen them in stores, you’ve seen them in resturaunts, you might even have a small to medium sized infection in your home. What are they? This guide is to help you identify them and find out! Many people report difficulty determining which sodas are safe to drink. We sent out a duckstack scientist to walmart, and he painstakingly catalogued a few common breeds, peeking into the aisle with a periscope, so as not to disturb their natural habitat or invite their ire. He did this until he was kicked out.
Sprite: Though Sprite resides in a green can, but if you open the can, you will be able to smell an unmistakable lemon-lime aroma, which is Sprite’s signature smell. Sprite is known for its hostility towards all living things, also known as Spite. The R is silent.
Root Beer: Known for its medicinal properties in Europe, Root Beer is not actually made from any roots, or any beer. It also isn’t medicinal, and is in fact quite unhealthy, which is why it tastes so good. Europeans just have poor taste. In my objective opinion. Anyway, rootbeer cans are almost universally brown, so as to blend in with the desert underbrush in Utah.
Dr Pepper: Another soda which tries to be medicinal, but is tragically not even close. Dr Pepper is a sort of red color, and its preferred strategy of survival is to disguise itself as one of several thousand other dr themed sodas, which may or may not be poisonous, or at least more poisonous than the average soda. This is known as aposematism. A new Dr Pepper is born every time someone sneezes due to pepper.
Coca Cola: The most classic of all sodas, Coca Cola is classified as a tier one threat. Everyone who drinks it becomes addicted, and their career, income, and life become dedicated to purchasing new Coca Colas. Coca Cola’s color on the inside is black, like tar, which is also what it tastes like. Coca Cola used to have drugs in it, but is now made almost entirely with television.
Pepsi: The arcane rival to Coca Cola, Pepsi is known for having no distinguishing characteristics. This is a design decision, since it can achieve quite a few sales in the confusion. Pepsi is what is called a “gang leader” soda, since it brings its own shady shadow flavors of soda with it when it takes over a soda fountain. There is a prophesy that one day Coca Cola and Pepsi will be integrated in a Jungian sense, forming a sort of super soda, which harbrings the apocalypse.
Mountain Dew: Identified by its bright green can, this soda is known for its affinity to gamers, due to its high caffeine content. This caffeine is harvested from mountains crying. Mountain Dew harvesters smash their big toe with a giant hammer.
Fanta: With many flavors but few scruples, Fanta will take any job. Fanta is a cold-blooded killer, if you refrigerate it, and also if you inject it into your veins. Fanta has fans all over the world, who declare their ongoing Jihad with the cry: Fanta-astic!
Ginger Ale: Sometimes you need something simple, and ginger ale is that. A safe soda known for its actual medicinal uses of settling upset stomachs, and its other medicinal use of being highly combinable with other flavors and soda mixers. If you drink too much ginger ale, you may drown5 into Saṃsāra, disappearing into Buddhist annihilation due to relaxation, which is why they’ve banned it in the Tibetan mountains. No shortcuts.
Ducksnax
Megalodon
âäàåâäàå Previous duckstack âäàåâäàå
It really should be spelled “repitory”, that word sounds funnier
a certain kind of awe
maybe you’ve heard of them
DO NOT DO THIS. Peter was a professional.
I suppose you may also just regular drown