Fall; or, Dodge in Hell

by Neal Stephenson

And who hasn’t known a sad sack, a hard-luck case who seems to be undergoing eternal punishment for no particular reason?

One side of the card was solid red, with no words or images, and was meant to be displayed outward as a nonverbal signal that you disagreed and that you weren’t going to be drawn into a fake argument. The other side, facing the user, was a list of little reminders as to what was really going on: Speech is aggression Every utterance has a winner and a loser Curiosity is feigned Lying is performative Stupidity is power