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been watching this anime called Chainsaw Man. it's new & pretty popular nowadays. weebs have been awaiting it for a while but I only heard of it recently. basic idea is there are devils and Public Safety is hunting them. also there's a guy who can extrude chainsaws from limbs
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the really interesting stuff is in metaphysics tho: devils are entities embodying some concept which people are afraid of. there's the gun devil, the sword devil, the ghost devil, etc. but there's also more abstract ones, like the future devil, the eternity devil, the war devil
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each devil is, in effect, an egregoric reification, a (usually biomorphic) embodiment of some abstract concept, one which many people are aware of & associate with fear. a devil egregore emerges from a critical mass of holders of the same fear-fueled meme
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RT @pee_zombie
man's drive to explain the world around him, to seek patterns, simplification, & causality, to create & share these ideas w/ each other, generates entities more pow…
https://twitter.com/pee_zombie/status/1447219398385840138
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demonic manifestations in this world can be interpreted as a memetic singularity, a crescendo in the slow buildup of some phobic egregore; an event involving the referrant of some fear, in this world, runs the additional risk of catalyzing a catastrophy
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RT @pee_zombie
@bungoman criticality is a state in which a system has passed a certain threshold of the concentration of some quantity, causing a chain reaction, an event horizon, a…
https://twitter.com/pee_zombie/status/1487687955435200512
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interestingly enough, this adds another layer to the typical state imperative to manage public opinion and head off panic: here, the masses possess a channel through which their impotent terror can strike back at a world they feel powerless in, a way to lash out unconsciously
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this channel also creates the opportunity for feedback effects, as if the devil of some fear causes further harm, that in turn generates power for it, setting up a viscous cycle of pathological incentive. a self-ratcheting phobic loop, with little way out
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the plot of this anime centers around a young Public Safety employee, the organization responsible for defusing these memetic threats through all-too-visceral means; curiously enough, the phsycial manifestation of fear gives society a legible and direct method for addressing it
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egregoric reification drags these demonic entities down out of the intangible noosphere to the corporal realm, rendering them suceptible to, uh, physical intervention, to put it lightly
while chaotic and destructive, perhaps this is preferable to an intangible and abstract fear?