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> For legal reasons, I’m not saying the people who write this stuff are literally Lucifer in human skin. It’s just that, if I wanted to maximize human misery, I

> For legal reasons, I’m not saying the people who write this stuff are literally Lucifer in human skin. It’s just that, if I wanted to maximize human misery, I would 100% try to convince people to spend more time doing things they hate When Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett wrote Good Omens thirty years ago they already hit upon this idea when Crowley, a demon and one of the main characters, tries to explain to his fellow demons that nowadays it's all about optimizing micro-evils for the biggest net amount of evil. Sure, things like corrupting a church leader sounds more impressive, but if you cause the phone network to be down for an entire morning in London that ruins so many more people's day ever so slightly, leading to more sinful thoughts in total and pushing them to take it out on others, who then take that out on others, and so on. (my money is on that joke being written by Pratchett, it fits his kind of satire so perfectly)

db48x 4y ago
I bet he had read The Screwtape Letters though.
- hprotagonist 4y ago
  and, considering to whom the book was dedicated, some other famous english apologists as well.
- bsenftner 4y ago
  Any claimed author who's not read The Screwtape Letters has no business writing modern literature.
  - noSyncCloud 4y ago
    This doesn't work even as a joke.
    - bsenftner 4y ago
      Not a joke; the Screwtape Letters is a seminal piece of literature, forget the written story, the story is the context of the novel, it's intention, it's composition, and it's ultimate weakness as a intellectual milepost. It practically destroys itself. It's a masterpiece of self deception.
      - lukas099 4y ago
        I am intrigued. How does the book practically destroy itself?
        noSyncCloud 4y ago
        It doesn't destroy anything lol, it's just bog-standard, annoying, heavy-handed, Western Christian cringe thinly describing itself as apologetics. It's annoying as fuck when people pretend it's literature or something.
  - beefield 4y ago
    I need to check, are you sarcastic? I have so far avoided Lewis due to an impression (way too old impression to remember where I got it, may be unfounded or not) of the texts being close to christian/religious zealotry?
    - protonbob 4y ago
      I mean he was a Christian and he did believe strongly in it and tried to share his beliefs with others. I'm not sure if I would call that zealotry though.
    - Loughla 4y ago
      I'm not trying to guess why you would say that (and by that, I mean the fact that you would avoid writing because it's trying to preach to you), and I do want to say that Lewis is, overall, very close to proselytizing in his writings (generally it's pretty explicitly stated that's what he wants to do). But. Avoiding something because it disagrees with your worldview, or because it is 'too close to [insert literally anything here]' is not a great way to expand your understanding of the world. Being exposed to things you disagree with is step 1 in understanding how or why they exist, with few exceptions (CP, explicit hate speech, most calls to violence, those sorts of things). Read the screwtape letters. Yes, they're intended to make you consider your immortal soul and embrace Christianity. But also yes, it's an amazing piece of literature.
      - beefield 4y ago
        Well, I consider myself being relatively open to all kinds of new ideas. But at some point you need to realize that certain genre is not going to give you any new insights and it's better to move on. For example, I have read total of three books published by CATO Institute, and and by standard Bayesian rules, it is going to take a lot of convincing to give them one more chance.
        failrate 4y ago
        Then read 3 CS Lewis books starting with Screwtape and see if this is true for that as well. Quite slim books, top.
  - elihu 4y ago
    There are too many good books in the world for having read them all to be any kind of a reasonably attainable barrier to entry for authors.
- vanderZwan 4y ago
  I was wondering if they were the first to comment on this, or if this is a problem that has been satirized for much longer! :)
staticassertion 4y ago
Reminds me of Supernatural's Crowley optimizing hell to just be one big line where everyone just has to stand and wait. The simpler solution.
- samatman 4y ago
  How would we describe the state of standing and waiting for all eternity? Being in limbo, perhaps?
  - galangalalgol 4y ago
    Inthinkblimbo would be waiting alone. This is waiting with people you can communicate with. Thats right. Hell is other people.
    - samatman 4y ago
      I would suggest double-checking this intuition with Dante.
  - ElfinTrousers 4y ago
    No, being in limbo is when you try to bend backwards under a stick for all eternity. [shows self out]
  - vanderZwan 4y ago
    The British remake of "The Room" by Sartre
- Seattle3503 4y ago
  So, Disneyworld?
hprotagonist 4y ago
And then crowley’s utter and abject horror at the discovery of what we can do to ourselves, no Hell involved at all.
ElfinTrousers 4y ago
I also seem to remember that the story went on to say that Crowley at one point had been praised for his work in the Spanish Inquisition. That was the first he'd actually heard of it--humans had come up with it on their own--so he went and had a look, and then went and got blind drunk, because there are some things even demons would rather not think about. That kind of abrupt tonal slam, from comedy to horror, leaving the reader feeling something like they just had a bucket of cold water unexpectedly poured over them, is classic Sir Pterry too. I read the Discworld series start-to-finish earlier this year as a minor bucket-list project, and I wish he was still around. He had a commendable simmering rage against the powerful and callous that boiled over often, and that's something we could use more of today. I also did not expect to write a comment today using the word "bucket" in two unrelated idioms, but here we are.
- creativeembassy 4y ago
  To be fair, no one expects the Spanish Inquisition... ...I'll show myself out.
- aeneasmackenzie 4y ago
  > I also seem to remember that the story went on to say that Crowley at one point had been praised for his work in the Spanish Inquisition. That was the first he'd actually heard of it--humans had come up with it on their own--so he went and had a look, and then went and got blind drunk, because there are some things even demons would rather not think about. Well, it makes sense that demons wouldn't want to think about strict judicial procedure and rules of evidence.
  - groby_b 4y ago
    If you think the main thing of the Spanish Inquisition was strict judicial procedure and rules of evidence, you might want to seek treatment.
    - vanderZwan 4y ago
      I think it's a joke, the punchline being the suggestion that that's what offended the demon in the story
latexr 4y ago
> my money is on that joke being written by Pratchett, it fits his kind of satire so perfectly Pretty sure it was written by Gaiman. I’m not finding the interview where he said this, but (if memory serves) Gaiman wrote that part of the story and had shelved it when Pratchett contacted him: — Do you have plans for that thing you sent me? — Not really, why? — Because I know what happens next. So either sell me the rights to it or write it with me. And then continued the interview with something like “and because I’m not an idiot, I didn’t pass up the opportunity to write something with him”.
- pnf 4y ago
  This joke was originally written by CS Lewis in The Screwtape Letters.
- vanderZwan 4y ago
  Unless I misunderstand you I think you're talking about the story (or perhaps that chapter) as a whole, and I'm talking about one particular passage in that story
  - latexr 4y ago
    > I'm talking about one particular passage in that story Gaiman’s initial draft may have included more by the time they had the conversation, but the moment I remember from the interview was specifically about that conversation amongst the demons. It stuck with me because I found the idea funny and it’s what made me want to take a look at Good Omens.
    - vanderZwan 4y ago
      Oh wow, really? Heh, guess I underestimated Gaiman then! That could explain why it appealed to Pratchett though :D
- ElfinTrousers 4y ago
  Now that you mention it, I do remember one author--pretty sure it was Gaiman re Good Omens--say that the parts you'd think were him were mostly the other author, and vice versa.
mijoharas 4y ago
I also seem to remember that Crowley had a hand in the shape of the M25 to help maximise misery.
- WoahNoun 4y ago
  Found this on the wiki page for the M25. >The M25 plays a role in the comedy-fantasy novel Good Omens, as "evidence for the hidden hand of Satan in the affairs of Man".[14] The demon character, Crowley, had manipulated the design of the M25 to resemble a Satanic sigil, and tried to ensure it would anger as many people as possible to drive them off the path of good.[122][123] The lengthy series of public inquiries for motorways throughout the 1970s, particularly the M25, influenced the opening of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, where the Earth is destroyed to make way for a hyperspace bypass.[124]

db48x 4y ago

I bet he had read The Screwtape Letters though.

hprotagonist 4y ago
and, considering to whom the book was dedicated, some other famous english apologists as well.
bsenftner 4y ago
Any claimed author who's not read The Screwtape Letters has no business writing modern literature.
- noSyncCloud 4y ago
  This doesn't work even as a joke.
  - bsenftner 4y ago
    Not a joke; the Screwtape Letters is a seminal piece of literature, forget the written story, the story is the context of the novel, it's intention, it's composition, and it's ultimate weakness as a intellectual milepost. It practically destroys itself. It's a masterpiece of self deception.
    - lukas099 4y ago
      I am intrigued. How does the book practically destroy itself?
      - noSyncCloud 4y ago
        It doesn't destroy anything lol, it's just bog-standard, annoying, heavy-handed, Western Christian cringe thinly describing itself as apologetics. It's annoying as fuck when people pretend it's literature or something.
- beefield 4y ago
  I need to check, are you sarcastic? I have so far avoided Lewis due to an impression (way too old impression to remember where I got it, may be unfounded or not) of the texts being close to christian/religious zealotry?
  - protonbob 4y ago
    I mean he was a Christian and he did believe strongly in it and tried to share his beliefs with others. I'm not sure if I would call that zealotry though.
  - Loughla 4y ago
    I'm not trying to guess why you would say that (and by that, I mean the fact that you would avoid writing because it's trying to preach to you), and I do want to say that Lewis is, overall, very close to proselytizing in his writings (generally it's pretty explicitly stated that's what he wants to do). But. Avoiding something because it disagrees with your worldview, or because it is 'too close to [insert literally anything here]' is not a great way to expand your understanding of the world. Being exposed to things you disagree with is step 1 in understanding how or why they exist, with few exceptions (CP, explicit hate speech, most calls to violence, those sorts of things). Read the screwtape letters. Yes, they're intended to make you consider your immortal soul and embrace Christianity. But also yes, it's an amazing piece of literature.
    - beefield 4y ago
      Well, I consider myself being relatively open to all kinds of new ideas. But at some point you need to realize that certain genre is not going to give you any new insights and it's better to move on. For example, I have read total of three books published by CATO Institute, and and by standard Bayesian rules, it is going to take a lot of convincing to give them one more chance.
      - failrate 4y ago
        Then read 3 CS Lewis books starting with Screwtape and see if this is true for that as well. Quite slim books, top.
- elihu 4y ago
  There are too many good books in the world for having read them all to be any kind of a reasonably attainable barrier to entry for authors.
vanderZwan 4y ago
I was wondering if they were the first to comment on this, or if this is a problem that has been satirized for much longer! :)

staticassertion 4y ago

Reminds me of Supernatural's Crowley optimizing hell to just be one big line where everyone just has to stand and wait. The simpler solution.

samatman 4y ago
How would we describe the state of standing and waiting for all eternity? Being in limbo, perhaps?
- galangalalgol 4y ago
  Inthinkblimbo would be waiting alone. This is waiting with people you can communicate with. Thats right. Hell is other people.
  - samatman 4y ago
    I would suggest double-checking this intuition with Dante.
- ElfinTrousers 4y ago
  No, being in limbo is when you try to bend backwards under a stick for all eternity. [shows self out]
- vanderZwan 4y ago
  The British remake of "The Room" by Sartre
Seattle3503 4y ago
So, Disneyworld?

hprotagonist 4y ago

And then crowley’s utter and abject horror at the discovery of what we can do to ourselves, no Hell involved at all.

ElfinTrousers 4y ago

I also seem to remember that the story went on to say that Crowley at one point had been praised for his work in the Spanish Inquisition. That was the first he'd actually heard of it--humans had come up with it on their own--so he went and had a look, and then went and got blind drunk, because there are some things even demons would rather not think about. That kind of abrupt tonal slam, from comedy to horror, leaving the reader feeling something like they just had a bucket of cold water unexpectedly poured over them, is classic Sir Pterry too. I read the Discworld series start-to-finish earlier this year as a minor bucket-list project, and I wish he was still around. He had a commendable simmering rage against the powerful and callous that boiled over often, and that's something we could use more of today. I also did not expect to write a comment today using the word "bucket" in two unrelated idioms, but here we are.

creativeembassy 4y ago
To be fair, no one expects the Spanish Inquisition... ...I'll show myself out.
aeneasmackenzie 4y ago
> I also seem to remember that the story went on to say that Crowley at one point had been praised for his work in the Spanish Inquisition. That was the first he'd actually heard of it--humans had come up with it on their own--so he went and had a look, and then went and got blind drunk, because there are some things even demons would rather not think about. Well, it makes sense that demons wouldn't want to think about strict judicial procedure and rules of evidence.
- groby_b 4y ago
  If you think the main thing of the Spanish Inquisition was strict judicial procedure and rules of evidence, you might want to seek treatment.
  - vanderZwan 4y ago
    I think it's a joke, the punchline being the suggestion that that's what offended the demon in the story

latexr 4y ago

> my money is on that joke being written by Pratchett, it fits his kind of satire so perfectly Pretty sure it was written by Gaiman. I’m not finding the interview where he said this, but (if memory serves) Gaiman wrote that part of the story and had shelved it when Pratchett contacted him: — Do you have plans for that thing you sent me? — Not really, why? — Because I know what happens next. So either sell me the rights to it or write it with me. And then continued the interview with something like “and because I’m not an idiot, I didn’t pass up the opportunity to write something with him”.

pnf 4y ago
This joke was originally written by CS Lewis in The Screwtape Letters.
vanderZwan 4y ago
Unless I misunderstand you I think you're talking about the story (or perhaps that chapter) as a whole, and I'm talking about one particular passage in that story
- latexr 4y ago
  > I'm talking about one particular passage in that story Gaiman’s initial draft may have included more by the time they had the conversation, but the moment I remember from the interview was specifically about that conversation amongst the demons. It stuck with me because I found the idea funny and it’s what made me want to take a look at Good Omens.
  - vanderZwan 4y ago
    Oh wow, really? Heh, guess I underestimated Gaiman then! That could explain why it appealed to Pratchett though :D
ElfinTrousers 4y ago
Now that you mention it, I do remember one author--pretty sure it was Gaiman re Good Omens--say that the parts you'd think were him were mostly the other author, and vice versa.

mijoharas 4y ago

I also seem to remember that Crowley had a hand in the shape of the M25 to help maximise misery.

WoahNoun 4y ago
Found this on the wiki page for the M25. >The M25 plays a role in the comedy-fantasy novel Good Omens, as "evidence for the hidden hand of Satan in the affairs of Man".[14] The demon character, Crowley, had manipulated the design of the M25 to resemble a Satanic sigil, and tried to ensure it would anger as many people as possible to drive them off the path of good.[122][123] The lengthy series of public inquiries for motorways throughout the 1970s, particularly the M25, influenced the opening of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, where the Earth is destroyed to make way for a hyperspace bypass.[124]