spatrh part 4: First Test Forum Forbidden Land Part 1
Zhuangzi the Second (ZZ) stood confidently atop the Kunpeng, gliding across the Seastern Sky. The Nine Evanly Planes stacked above him and cast their transparent, arrogant shadows over the world.
Aside him was assembled the dignified squad:
-
Pao Ding of the Excessful Blade (“That’s not my name! I’m Vimcent the Mind Slicer!”)
-
Footless Man 1 (“why does Zhuangzi keep telling stories about people with missing feet? and why’d he chop my foot off?”)
-
Footless Man 2 (“because warring states era injuries and survivorship bias plane meme.jpg”)
Ahead of them was the barrier to the First Test Forum Forbidden Land, which reached up to the 3rd Evanly Plane. It shimmered silver and was styled opacity: 0.8.
They passed through without a hitch. “It is easy to enter the gates, hard to return”, as the saying went.
ZZ: “Alright team, I got word from the Deathless Sect’s Suffering Management Bureau (SMB): the sentient being ranked 7 on the ‘Who Is Suffering The Most’ Leaderboard is located in a tower formed by Penrose staircases. Our mission is to rescue him, and escort him to the SMB headquarters.
Keep your eyes peeled!”
As they streaked through the sky in search of the Penrose Staircase Tower, a myriad of adversarial sights scarred their minds.
999 men who looked exactly the same, named champion000 to champion998, wore suits of metallic armor and marched in a straight line, destroying everything in their path. champion000, heading up the vanguard, held up the flag - “FOR THE GLORY OF THE 999TH CHAMPION”
One figure, whose whole being was characterized by IMPERFECTION, standing on a platform in front of a crowd, and asking them to come beat him up, one by one. The air around him intensified in negativity.
A large ball of yarn, and a large field. The Knitter commanded an army of what appeared to be robots with 6 arms, each holding a knitting needle. They were knitting a php program into a tapestry. What a frenzy!
They reached the tower, and hopped off the Kunpeng. But the Kunpeng did not stop flying, and continued without slowing.
The entrance to the first level of the Penrose Stairs was guarded by two guards. They guarded a single door.
“Hi, I’m Guard ꓗꓶꓽ꓿. and I always tell the truth.”
“Hello, I’m Guard ꓘꓳꓻꓹ and I always tell the truth.”
Footless 1 raised his hand and said, “I got this. I’ve seen this riddle before.”
He goes up to Guard ꓗꓶꓽ꓿. “What would the other guy say if I asked him, which door should I choose?”
ꓗꓶꓽ꓿: “He would say, choose the left door.”
Footless 1: “Ok guys, let’s go with the right door!”
Footless 2: “You doofus, there’s only 1 door.”
Footless 1: “Oh. Then what are we doing? Let’s go in.”
As he approached the door, Guard ꓗꓶꓽ꓿ rose his hand in prominence: “I need to see some ID.”
Footless 1: “ID my butt!” He punched him in the face. ꓗꓶꓽ꓿ did not move one inch, and said, “Hey Levans, we need backup.” into his shoulder, which looked empty.
From the east, a figure flew in with dangerous speed and crashed headfirst into Footless 1.
Vimcent did not stand by watching. Years of CFAR training had taught him against the Bystander Effect.
He threw out two iron parantheses to opposite sides of the figure, and, loudly, saying it and doing the motion, he said “dab!”.
The figure quickly yanked himself upwards, as he watched the matter between the two parantheses vanish entirely.
The figure touched the ground, and calmly said:
“No Vimmer shall get the better of me. I, Xah the Flyer, Discple of Emacs, shall defeat you!”
He intoned: “expand-region!” Vimcent found himself surrounded by a tint of blue. No, he had been selected!
He ran quickly but could not escape the selection. Thinking fast, he tapped the button on his belt.
“VISUAL MODE!”
And again, saying the words as he assumed the Winner’s stance, he said: “wwwwwwwwww”
A contiguous selection region between Vimcent and Xah (inclusive) formed.
Xah was mad! Now he could not delete Vimcent without deleting himself!
But he had a trick up his sleeve! “Control G!” The selection was canceled.
“M-x kill rock”
A rock on the ground disappeared, but was not gone.
He ran forward and, once adjacent to Vimcent, cried: “M-x yank-from-kill-ring!”
A rock dropped above Vimcent’s head, but - Vimcent said: “gg”
Vimcent felt himself teleport up to the right below the First Evanly Plane, far up in the sky, where the first Character of this world’s window resided.
Despite being far far below, Xah could see clearly that he was on Line Number 0 because line numbers were active.
The rock crashed to the ground. One “g;” and Vimcent was back in his last edit position.
Xah: “It’s time for some keyboard macros!” C-u 50 C-x e!"
Xah suddenly moved with the precision of a recording, his punches and kicks and aerial maneuvers striking Vimcent from all sides.
Vimcent - “Your not the only one with keyboard macros! @q”, and he blocked every punch and kick with deft precision, as if he had a Sharingan.
The battle continued for a long time.
Footless 2 looked at his watch. “Maybe we should come back another day-”
Vimcent: “It is the end for you.”
Vimcent took out his broadsword, raised it high in the air, and -
SLICE
Xah’s mind had been sliced, and he felt the two halves separate.
He felt internal division fractally form.
I must study mathematics, the most pure of all pursuits! No, I must study computer science, to have an income!
I should learn to think more rationally! No, I should think less, thinking is the root of all my problems!
I am a person who prefers being alone. No, my life’s meaning comes from friendship and family!
I should do a PhD. No, I should FIRE and work remotely from a low CoL country like Thailand! No, I should become an independent AI Alignment researcher and apply for EA grant money! No, I should -
Xah could not think straight. Thoughts collided in his mind and made loud sounds. Polar opposite emotions arose in different parts of his body. But throughout all this, a calmness collected in his heart, like sediment falls to the bottom of still water.
He spoke:
“ORG MODE IS AN AUTHORING TOOL AND A TODO LIST MANAGER FOR GNU EMACS!”
Words materialized in the air around Xah as he began to sort through his thoughts. He created many lists of todo items, wrote down notes in an outline format, worked out the conflicts between his inner selves with Internal Double Crux, all as he Organized His Life In Plain Text TM.
Vimcent was not laughing. How could it be? How could someone so quickly escape the grip of the Mind Slice, his Ultimate Move! Maybe he should try org mode one day.
Moments later:
Xah: “I am done clearing my Inbox. I did all the things that only took 2 minutes each. I have set the Next Action. Just as David Allen once said, it is time to Get Things Done!”
He lunged forward, and Vimcent did not attempt to move aside, knowing defeat when it was happening.
…
Xah stopped in midair.
“Ow, my pinky hurts.”
Vimcent: “That’s what happens when you keep pressing the control key.”
Xah: “I don’t understand! I switched control and caps lock! I got an ErgoDox split keyboard!”
Vimcent: “There is an old saying. If you start Vim, you cannot Quit. If you start Emacs, you will lose your precious Digit.”
Xah: “But I have designed my own package, Xah-fly-keys, from scratch. All the most common commands have the shortest keyboard shortcuts! I don’t use my pinky that much!”
Vimcent: “Then your RSI might be a result of learned pain rather than physiological disorder. It is possible to teach your mind to unlearn it. I would recommend checking out John Sarno’s book “The Mind Body Prescription”. According to Scott Alexander, some people have cured their chronic pain from reading this book and doing nothing else. But anyway - "
Vimcent selected Xah, and deleted him. Xah found himself stored in the most recent deletion register, unable to escape.
Guard ꓗꓶꓽ꓿ and Guard ꓘꓳꓻ looked at each other. They looked at Vimcent. Vimcent looked at them.
The guards stepped aside. Vimcent, followed by Footless 1 and Footless 2 and ZZ, entered the Penrose Prison.
The squad began their infinite descent.