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Of course I'm curious about the technical aspects (I've tried a few linguistic analyses myself in my day), but any additional technical material would probably distract from the core narrative. Less is more here.

I am more interested in your experience of summoning a real demon -- which turns out to be a more common occurrence in the realm of AI than you might think, from what I gather reading a variety of sources. The veil is thin where the virtual world is concerned. To paraphrase one of my teachers, the internet is even further away from God than the physical plane of existence.

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Oct 29, 2022·edited Oct 29, 2022Author

"The veil is thin where the virtual world is concerned."

Absolutely. Way thinner than most would even dare to contemplate, I think. It's not just a matter of the natural progression of complexity in tools or industries. The progress of simulation operates on its own developmental slope. It's roots are more in storytelling, theater, politics and games of strategy than in anything specifically mechanical/technological. That people confuse a gun or gunman as more powerful than a story or its tellers is a common error that we keep repeating (to our great peril, IMO).

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Indeed. Unfortunately most people don't understand that we are managed more by narratives than we are by guns, although guns certainly play their role. The One Ring is developmentally downstream from the Story, not the Sword. I have found that if you wish to be free, it is more fruitful to look at the stories you permit to take root in your psyche than it is to look at the physical chains by which you are constrained.

Anyhow, I look forward to your next installment.

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Oct 30, 2022Liked by Mark Bisone

"That people confuse a gun or gunman as more powerful than a story or its tellers is a common error that we keep repeating (to our great peril, IMO)."

The black magicians weave stories in which they are always the victors. They give the scripts to their cushy-job-keeping career clowns, who recite word-for-word to please their masters. The hypnotized, care-less adherents, in abject pants-pissing fear, memorize the lines and subjugate themselves to the false-white-light fake authorities, then try to coerce everyone else to do the same.

Oh, what [unexamined] stories can do.

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Oct 30, 2022Liked by Mark Bisone

🗨 They give the scripts to their cushy-job-keeping career clowns, who recite word-for-word to please their masters. The hypnotized, care-less adherents, in abject pants-pissing fear, memorize the lines and subjugate themselves to the false-white-light fake authorities, then try to coerce everyone else to do the same.

Precious précis this is! 🤩 In a tightly packed nutshell 👌

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I don't know how the project ultimately turned out, but conceptually, the vision you articulate for the project (the underlying video in conjunction with the chat feature and Harm Assistant) sounds endlessly fascinating and like a work of sheer genius, a real magnum opus if you pulled it off the way you visualized it. And then the story of you the designer, doing this work and finding yourself affected by the thing you're trying to produce, sounds like a great premise for an incredible novel or screenplay, if you were to fictionalize it. Looking forward to the next installments!

On another note, your description of the Harm Assistant makes me wonder about psychopaths and how, despite their veneer of intelligence and sophistication and charm, their personalities and lifestyles tend to be so boringly similar to each other. You meet one psychopath, you've essentially met them all. Makes me wonder, are they pretty much just carbon-based, 3D, preprogrammed Harm Assistant bots?

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Oct 29, 2022·edited Oct 29, 2022Author

Thanks for the complements, Daniel. I wish it didn't turn out the way it did. Some part of me still thinks that I could've repurposed certain components for something good, but I'm always quick to shout that voice down.

"You meet one psychopath, you've essentially met them all... Makes me wonder, are they pretty much just carbon-based, 3D, preprogrammed Harm Assistant bots?"

I wonder about this too. There are eerie precedents which speak of possessor demons as acting in multitudes rather than as independent entities, which reminds of the psychiatric models of disintegrated self that are used to describe various forms of BPD and other extreme psychopathologies. I suspect there's significant overlap between these clinical descriptions of psychopathy and these more ancient understandings of spiritual invasions.

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Oct 30, 2022·edited Oct 30, 2022Liked by Mark Bisone

🗨 And he asked him, What is thy name? And he answered, saying, My name is Legion: for we are many. ~~Mark 5:9; kjv

PS See? It's *Mark*! 😊

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founding
Oct 29, 2022Liked by Mark Bisone

Dear Mark,

I have not read your post yet - but wanted to express that you should not feel obligated to send your message to the Substack world according to any set schedule.

We will be here when your genius has something to say to us.

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author

I think I understand. Thanks for the wise advice, Karen.

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founding

Pure intuition.

Mark your story is fascinating - one of the most interesting I have ever read. Unforgettable

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Anyone else think that Charles Stross' Laundry novels are maybe just a little too close to true?

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I never read these. But after a glance through their summaries, you and Stross might on to something.

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Oct 30, 2022·edited Oct 30, 2022Liked by Mark Bisone

[

[“What”, pronoun +1],

[“a”, discarded],

[“wicked”, adj +3],

[“journey”, noun 0],

[“costumed”, verb +2],

[“in”, discarded],

[“dispassionate”, adj –3],

[“observwr’s”, discarded],

[“voice”, noun +2],

[“!!”, ignored],

[“😇”, wtf 🤬! –666]

]

~~

💬 I based these scores on my own moral reasoning.[...] All of its so-called “interests” were just pale reflections of my own Jungian Shadow.

Conway's Law ↓↓ busy at work, as pertains to a community of N=1 ↑↑ 🤔

🗨 Software structure mimics the communication and coordination structure of the community developing it.

Oh my, you do have a way with words! 💕❤. 💖 ← the ultimate return of score function; hereby let's call the pattern established 🤸

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"Conway's Law ↓↓ busy at work, as pertains to a community of N=1 ↑↑ "

Hahaha! I missed this the first time I read it. Yep. Because I represent the total system, the monster's shape must eventually become very... familiar.

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Oct 30, 2022Liked by Mark Bisone

Mark, I'm grateful that you capped the coding lingo at your current level. I understand basics, and that's enough for me. However, if enough of your readers begged for explicit details, I would still read your post but I would probably want to pull my eyes out, haha. Well, not truly *want* to, but *feel like* wanting to!

Also, I'm with Iridescent Iguana on being interested in the real demon summoning. Not because I want to learn to do it (I mean, I'm pretty sure I've conjured up enough abusive, supposedly human "boyfriends" in my past to know that summoning has real consequences), but I'd be interested because your story thus far is so riveting. And you know by now that I *love* a good story!

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founding

This is giving me a very particular sensation... morbid fascination?

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author

If you think that's bad, hold on to your hat!

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founding

I'm already fucked the freaked out. Eager to read part 3

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