this post was submitted on 19 Sep 2025
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I guess that's why I don't understand the Basilisk. I was raised evangelical, so the idea that there might or might not be an entity that will later punish me for an arbitrary action that is not currently disclosed elicits a "...and?" from me.
Most people didn't grow up not being able to sleep at night because you were afraid your pubescent wet dreams were going to send you to hell. The Basilisk ain't got nothing on Jesus.
Tech bros reinvent everything they refused to learn in the liberal arts, like Pascal's Wager.
Roko's Basilisk is much like Christian hell in that it's not an introductory belief. (Ok hell can be but that's hell for your enemies). Christianity reaches out with offers of healing (of the psychospiritual variety), moral guidance, proto anarchocommunism (outdated and rare in modern day), connection to heritage, and acceptance and support within empire. Fear of hell is meant to keep those in in and obedient, draw them deeper, and to fire them up to action or redirect their anger.
Roko's Basilisk serves similar roles and can even serve as an insight to the social development of hell from thought experiment within a religious group to a memetic source of obedience, escalation, and terror even though internal leadership and authorities tried to shut it down. But for those deep in the ideology who are prone to infernal anxiety it makes perfect sense that they'd lose their shit over it