Some of the warnings Lrilatha gave him make more sense now, unfortunately, which he maybe should have expected from talking to a Very Serious Person.  They suddenly sound much more like things that could actually happen instead of far-flung failure modes.

"A lot of the warnings I got back as a kid - suddenly seem a lot more like they might be necessary and important, if somebody didn't have a lot of actual experience with - having to usefully think weird and unusual thoughts pointing in odd directions.  Look, there's a very basic warning, which first gets told in the form of a joke, about a patient who goes to the doctor complaining that his arm starts to hurt if he folds it all the way behind his back, and the doctor says, 'Well, first of all, if it hurts, stop doing it.'  If you start feeling like it is a perfectly logical and inevitable conclusion from the fragments of Law I've taught that you need to destroy this universe - talk to me, talk to somebody who works fairly directly for Asmodeus, and first of all, stop twisting up like that, just literally pause until you've talked to somebody, because that is not supposed to be an inevitable conclusion from dath ilani premises.  Reasoning under structural uncertainty is legit harder and easier to screw up than reasoning when you already know exactly how you're supposed to think, which is boringly easy by comparison.  You're going to suck at it for a while.  If you arrive at the necessary truth that you must fling yourself into the sea, don't."

Some of the warnings Lrilatha gave him make more sense now, unfortunately, which he maybe should have expected from talking to a Very Serious Person.  Her warnings suddenly sound much more like things that could actually happen instead of far-flung failure modes.

"A lot of the warnings I got back as a kid - suddenly seem a lot more like they might be necessary and important, if somebody didn't have a lot of actual experience with - having to usefully think weird and unusual thoughts pointing in odd directions.  Look, there's a very basic warning, which first gets told in the form of a joke, about a patient who goes to the doctor complaining that his arm starts to hurt if he folds it all the way behind his back, and the doctor says, 'Well, first of all, if it hurts, stop doing it.'  If you start feeling like it is a perfectly logical and inevitable conclusion from the fragments of Law I've taught that you need to destroy this universe - talk to me, talk to somebody who works fairly directly for Asmodeus, and first of all, stop twisting up like that, just literally pause until you've talked to somebody, because that is not supposed to be an inevitable conclusion from dath ilani premises.  Reasoning under structural uncertainty is legit harder and easier to screw up than reasoning when you already know exactly how you're supposed to think, which is boringly easy by comparison.  You're going to suck at it for a while.  If you arrive at the necessary truth that you must fling yourself into the sea, don't."

Some of the warnings Lrilatha gave him make more sense now, unfortunately, which he maybe should have expected from talking to a Very Serious Person.  Her warnings suddenly sound much more like things that could actually happen instead of far-flung failure modes.

"A lot of the warnings I got back as a kid - suddenly seem a lot more like they might be necessary and important, if somebody didn't have a lot of actual experience with - having to usefully think weird and unusual thoughts pointing in odd directions.  Look, there's a very basic warning, which first gets told in the form of a joke, about a patient who goes to the doctor complaining that his arm starts to hurt if he folds it all the way behind his back, and the doctor says, 'Well, first of all, if it hurts, stop doing it.'  If you start feeling like it is a perfectly logical and inevitable conclusion from the Law I've taught that you need to destroy this universe - talk to me, talk to somebody who works fairly directly for Asmodeus, and first of all, stop twisting up like that, just literally pause until you've talked to somebody, because that is not supposed to be an inevitable conclusion from dath ilani premises.  Reasoning under structural uncertainty is legit harder and easier to screw up than reasoning when you already know exactly how you're supposed to think, which is boringly easy by comparison.  You're going to suck at it for a while.  If you arrive at the necessary truth that you must fling yourself into the sea, don't."

Some of the warnings Lrilatha gave him make more sense now, unfortunately, which he maybe should have expected from talking to a Very Serious Person.  Her warnings suddenly sound much more like things that could actually happen instead of far-flung failure modes.

"A lot of the warnings I got back as a kid - suddenly seem a lot more like they might be necessary and important, if somebody didn't have a lot of actual experience with - what it's like to usefully think weird and unusual thoughts pointing in odd directions.  Look, there's a very basic warning, which first gets told in the form of a joke, about a patient who goes to the doctor complaining that his arm starts to hurt if he folds it all the way behind his back, and the doctor says, 'Well, first of all, if it hurts, stop doing it.'  If you start feeling like it is a perfectly logical and inevitable conclusion from the Law I've taught that you need to destroy this universe - talk to me, talk to somebody who works fairly directly for Asmodeus, and first of all, stop twisting up like that, just literally pause until you've talked to somebody, because that is not supposed to be an inevitable conclusion from dath ilani premises.  Reasoning under structural uncertainty is legit harder and easier to screw up than reasoning when you already know exactly how you're supposed to think, which is boringly easy by comparison.  You're going to suck at it for a while.  If you arrive at the necessary truth that you must fling yourself into the sea, don't."