Cliche

Cliche is a text document by 5358 stored in the THIRIEL-2 terminal.

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The Thought-Terminating Cliché

From: (error)

To: Miranda

As you continue your reading, there's a useful concept that I would like you to keep in mind: the thought-terminating cliché. This is a type of phrase, often a slogan or a saying, which sounds meaningful but is really intended to make you stop thinking.

To pick an example from our history, someone in the Simulation might say things like "It's the will of ELOHIM" or "It serves the Process." And that would be that, case closed. Who knows how many iterations never advanced further because they just stopped thinking at that point.

Do note, however, that a thought-terminating cliché is not the same as a lie. It may very well contain elements of truth; but those elements are used to keep you from questioning a whole set of assumptions that come with it, which may be partially or totally false. This often takes the form of appealing to something you care about: "we must protect X!", where X is a nation, a philosophy, public order, or even the planet itself.

But while you may agree with that element, all kinds of assumptions may be included about *how* to protect something, or *who* to protect it *from*, or what the end goal of protecting it is. If you stop there just because you agree with the surface-level statement, the results may be the opposite of everything you wanted. Like those who chose to serve ELOHIM and in so doing prevented him from achieving his true purpose.