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Yes, the point, as I have always thought, is not that playing with the devil is playing with a deceitful sharper, but playing against one's own inability to han
by nine_k 2y ago
Yes, the point, as I have always thought, is not that playing with the devil is playing with a deceitful sharper, but playing against one's own inability to handle one's desires, one's own imperfections and basically facing the corruption of the original sin in oneself. The devil just sets things up in such a way that the human who yielded to the temptation arrives to the state of ruin faster, and initially enjoying the ride, all while not being formally lied to at any moment.
The idea is that there logically may be ways to outwit the devil, but he will never offer you a deal where you would be able to outwit him by the power of your (weak and corrupted) mind, so the faith is the only salvation, and rejecting any deals is the only non-losing strategy. Remember, Dr Faustus was not written by an atheist.
- moffkalast 2y agoSo in a nutshell the whole genre can be reduced to "be careful what you wish for, you might get it"?
- nine_k 2y agoNot just that, but also "...and you'll never be able to handle it, and the sleek scoundrel on the other side knows it".
- throwanem 2y agoOr "don't think you're as smart as you think you are." Perhaps there's a line to be drawn from here to the dictum that code should be only half as clever as it could be, because debugging is twice as hard.
- nine_k 2y agoJokes about recursion are always funny, just like this one!
- ozim 2y agoSo you want to wave away whole storytelling experience by sentence that fits in a tweet. Gist of it might be true but reading dry sentence doesn’t do to a brain same thing as reading a story and going for a ride along with the imaginary person. Well done story evokes emotions, makes one think of what ifs and what nots. Also a lot of memes or tweet length life lessons are not possible without long form background we share as a society.
- theendisney4 2y agoI see a "discussions" one time where a professor tried to explain why Twitter is actually bad for the wiring of the brain. The other guy was a self proclaimed twitter expert. Every time the professor tried to say something the twitter expert interupted him just around 500 chars. The professor eventually got angry then the twitter man said, but i already knew what you wanted to say. Enraged the professor stood up then left the room. I thought it was the best instance of my work here is done
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- mock-possum 2y agoAnd then the whole class stood and clapped - and that twitter expert’s name?
- latexr 2y ago> The idea is that there logically may be ways to outwit the devil, but he will never offer you a deal where you would be able to outwit him by the power of your (weak and corrupted) mind If it’s a comedy, The Devil may end up outwitting himself. Doubly funny if the human was suspicious at first. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KnhfjdVYRrk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KnhfjdVYRrk Though in the end, The Devil may still get what he wanted. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwg8EjQXEc4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwg8EjQXEc4
- limaoscarjuliet 2y agoReading the description I immediately knew what will be under the links. Nice reference!
- d0gsg0w00f 2y agoOr in other words "it's hard to get scammed if you're not greedy"
- michaelbuckbee 2y agoIn Pratchett's "Going Postal", there's the following quote: There is a saying, “You can’t fool an honest man,” which is much quoted by people who make a profitable living by fooling honest men. Moist never tried it, knowingly anyway. If you did fool an honest man, he tended to complain to the local Watch, and these days they were harder to buy off. Fooling dishonest men was a lot safer and, somehow, more sporting. And, of course, there were so many more of them. You hardly had to aim.
- dr_dshiv 2y ago[flagged]
- simlevesque 2y agoPlease don't use ChatGPT to comment here.
- damsalor 2y agoMaybe he lied and it was written by human indeed
- dr_dshiv 2y agoTruth!
- dr_dshiv 2y agoSorry, but summarizing key points from a ~12,000 line poem written in a foreign language is the ideal use case for chatGPT in a comment. 1. Quotes are not feasible. 2. There is no readily available human summary in a short enough form for a comment 3. Goethe's version was referred to in the OP as "incoherent," indicating that they didn't read or understand it 4. The summary directly addressed important topics in the discussion, namely refuting the idea that Faust always loses to the devil 5. I clearly edited the summary I know that most uses of chatGPT in comments are bad. This was an experiment in how to elevate the culture of use. I will accept downvotes with grace. My point remains: did you know that steam engines play a key plot role in Faust AND that his soul is not taken by the devil in the end?
- ben_w 2y ago> 5. I clearly edited the summary A point I bring up sometimes, is that Transformer models have superhuman attention. In this case, I not only missed that you'd done so the first time I read it, but also the second time where I saw this quotation and went back to try to find what made it clear that you had edited it. Third time, then I found it. Moonwalking bears and all that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNSgmm9FX2s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNSgmm9FX2s
- ano-ther 2y agoThe Swiss outwitted him at the Gotthard. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sch%C3%B6llenen_Gorge§ion=4 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sch%C3%B6llenen... (look for Devil's Bridge legend)
- jimbokun 2y agoOr you can beat him just by being really good at playing a fiddle.