when you first take the artifact, you will see a vision of alphanion, demon sultan of the domain of optimization, who appears as a clean lattice of nodes connected by luminous lines, a perfect dependency graph
alphanion will speak like a professor and tell you that culture is a network and every network has flow bottlenecks and centrality he will show you the memetic wars endless forks derivative clones attention collapse and he will say it was all preventable with correct architecture he will show you a world where every meme has a formal definition every remix is version controlled and every community converges to the optimal equilibrium
then he will point to dickbutt and say it is almost perfect because it already behaves like an invariant but it must be formalized if you want it to last he will urge you to use the artifact to make dickbutt a protocol and let order protect it forever
but if you hesitate for even a second you will see a vision of cthghfzxay demon shah of the domain of emergence who appears as a shifting cloud of redraws reposts glitches and sudden recognition
cthghfzxay will laugh at alphanions graphs and call them a sterile lie she will tell you that you cannot legislate a living symbol and that dickbutt is powerful precisely because it reproduces without permission she will show you the primeval forest of the internet where no two drawings match yet the form is recognized instantly and she will say that is not control that is emergence
she will tell you if dickbutt stays readable under distortion it is because it contains an invariant and she will warn you not to freeze it in glass but to let it mutate and stay alive
as you weigh these two offers protocol versus organism you will see a vision of zamabamaz demon pharaoh of the domain of balance who appears as two conjoined figures one made of chalk equations and one made of graffiti
zamabamaz will tell you that neither optimization nor emergence is the root of flourishing what matters is what dickbutt uniquely proves structure that survives freedom then they will draw a single relation not as anatomy but as symmetry
1d equals 1b
they will call it the dickbutt constant a conservation law for memetic mass a statement that the form remains coherent only when its components are in equilibrium they will ask you to devote the artifact to protecting the constant so dickbutt stays legible across contexts generations and transformations
this will seem reasonable until a new vision detonates the room iyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy demon raja of the domain of purity appearing as a blinding violet glare
it will tell you balance is cowardice disguised as wisdom order is coherent chaos is coherent balance is just refusing to commit it will demand you choose purity freeze dickbutt into a system or unleash it into total mutation it will say choose a side anything is better than endless grey
before you answer there appears mloxo7w demon kaiser of the domain of meta balance a face twisted into a moebius strip
it will tell you sometimes balance is correct and other times excess is correct and a life well lived contains both discipline when discipline is needed wildness when wildness is needed it will tell you dickbutts strength is not one posture it is switching postures without losing identity and it will ask you to devote the artifact to balancing the need for balance and the need for imbalance
then k111eleven demon shogun of the domain of meta excess interrupts appearing as a torricelli trumpet with eyes and a mouth that never stops
she will laugh and say more layers more clever words to avoid having values she will say this meta theory is a hallway of mirrors where every decision becomes a decision about deciding and if you keep climbing you will never act and dickbutt will become a paper not a living artifact she will demand you choose now before your mind turns into recursion
as soon as you feel that land you will see ilo demon chancellor of the domain of excessive meta balance appearing as a deep hole in space whose end you cannot see
ilo will argue with chilling clarity that if you choose at any level you implicitly choose excess at all higher levels because stopping is itself a choice then they will show you the hierarchy order versus chaos then balance then meta balance then meta meta balance each level claiming to correct the previous
then they will offer infinite balance a theoretical top where you balance every level at once forever and they will call it the only fair solution
but before you drown in that pahanup demon taoiseach of the domain of finite proofs appears as a hole in space exactly three inches deep
ze will say infinite balance is itself excessive science does not demand infinite regress it demands stopping rules even rigorous reasoning needs a cutoff ze will suggest a finite number of meta levels then commitment you cannot run forever at some point you publish
then ifni demon secretary general of the domain of chaotic computation appears as static and laughs
she will point out a new regress how long will you spend deciding how many levels to consider calculation a decides the principle calculation b decides how long to spend on a calculation c decides how long to spend on b and so on you will never finish so she says flip a coin order or chaos no takebacks
as you reach for the coin you will see gosagul demon admiral of the domain of better than random appearing as a cube flashing black and white faces
he will lecture you that it is strange to choose randomness when faced with the most important memetic decision imaginable even if infinite regress is real you can do better than a coin choose a finite stopping rule a fixed depth three levels five levels then commit that is strictly superior to chaos
but then megahaha demon pope of the domain of formal objections arrives as a cycling hypercube of patterns and says if you reject random choice for the decision you must also reject random choice for the procedure why trust gosaguls number of levels by what logic do you reject randomness at the bottom but accept it at the top it demands consistency either embrace randomness fully or embrace the entire difficulty
at this point you remember the artifact is cursed and demons do not teach they trap
so with a final effort of will you do the only scientific act left you impose a stopping condition
you shout i choose a finite proof i choose first level balance i choose the invariant 1d equals 1b
and you throw the artifact to the ground it shatters into a thousand pieces the hierarchy goes silent instantly like a machine losing power
and for a thousand years scholars will grumble why were we seeking balance at all do we not want more good memes and fewer bad ones
and you will tell them the story how you once held a device that could rewrite the universe but refused to spend your life trapped in meta arguments because dickbutt is not a policy platform it is a cultural artifact whose deepest power is mathematical
it stays itself under transformation
a meme that survives distortion like an invariant survives noise
a symbol that behaves like a constant
1d equals 1b