it's me

[chirpchirplol]

how could I forget the snake secondary goat, turtle wexler

(spoilers for the westing game, kind of, but not the really big one unless you follow the link)

the westing game is one of my favorite books, not even just children's books. the thing is full of wish fulfillment, especially for badgers:

ford has worked diligently for her reputation (for complicated personal reasons) and so has a lot of newspaper and legal connections to draw upon, and then later on she is the connection that people draw upon. she also extensively researches everyone and eventually knows more about the overarching story than anyone else -- including turtle, since she's too young to pick up on certain social dynamics and also doesn't really care about the parts that don't affect her. awesome character, people don't talk about her enough

angela is close enough to and liked enough by everyone to either know how to find their clues or to just have people tell them her clues or give them to her. angela is also a badger primary and her whole arc is a big mood for double badgers really

also bird secondary wish fulfillment (sydelle and the polish shorthand will). and also snake secondary anti-wish-fulfillment (grace lol).

but turtle is kind of THE designated wish-fulfillment character, by nature of this being a children's book and her being the child. when they made a movie of the book (which sucked), she was the protagonist. and I have always loved this kid, wanted to go back in time to be this kid. kind of a problematic fave of a kid if you think about what she'd be like irl as an adult but still

her being a snake secondary is kind of weird because she mostly doesn't act like she cares about what anyone thinks about her or if people don't want to get kicked by her. but her big moment at the end is some awesome shit. (NOTE: THIS PDF IS WHERE THE REALLY BIG SPOILERS ARE)

so this whole scene is, like most big murder explanation scenes, total unrealistic wish fulfillment fantasy but also rules. up to this point everyone has been piecing together clues while turtle instead spent the entire game doing stonks. turtle is one of the loyalist primaries - probably snake - and she only starts caring once one of her close friends suddenly drops dead in front of her, and then when someone else gets wrongly accused of killing them. hence, the mock trial.

the cool thing about this scene is that turtle is questioning a bunch of people while having to totally rework those questions on the fly, while trying to speed-solve the murder in the background, while also speed-assembling an entirely separate version of the murder to tell people because there's something she doesn't want them to know. "Whatever it was she didn't have, she'd have to find it soon. Without letting the others know what she was looking for."

but also basically the whole thing has "secretly googling stuff and switching tabs during a zoom interview" energy. and that actually is kind of relatable.

[chirpchirplol]

judas from jesus christ superstar as a bird/snake?

another villain that I really am moved by is judas from jesus christ superstar. as I get older he is rocketing up the list of characters I would want to play on stage if I miraculously got the chance. I don't love the fact that a character I relate to is the fictional version of a guy who is like generationally evil, but so it goes. although unlike some of the other musical theater villains I sympathize with (carlotta, most people in chicago), in jesus christ superstar you're supposed to find judas sympathetic to some extent. but his character arc just HITS for me, and also hits for me in a way slightly different from other tragic characters' arcs, and this is me trying to figure out why

feel pretty comfortable saying judas (from here on when I say judas I mean the musical character and not the actual guy) is a snake secondary, he does have pissy outbursts about his actual opinions at people constantly, but his go-to strategy when making the most important decision of his life is to try to butter up the officials and priests and engage in a little "we're not so different you and I, we're a team." the first verse of "jesus christ superstar" is all about "see, THIS is how you present yourself to get people to listen to you." and also, I mean, he's judas, what else would he be.

primary is more interesting. so judas is all but locked into being one of the idealists because the historical judas very much did betray jesus, that was a pretty significant thing that happened. and then the musical extends that into betraying his friend for a cause, not just because he's a giant dick (though in the musical he is still kind of a giant dick). like he goes around saying stuff like "you've begun to matter more than the things you say," "our ideals die around us, and all because of you," he is really annoying about it and is always being told to stfu lol

as for bird/lion, well, his first words are "my mind is clearer now," close to his last words are "my mind is in darkness." not his heart, his conscience, whatever, his ability to make an argument for himself. basically every single song he has is him desperately trying to explain his actions to himself, to other people, at other people, to other people who are not present as if they will psychically hear and understand. it really MATTERS to him that they see, which he will tell you: "now if I help you, it matters that you see [cue entire song's worth of what it matters that you see]"

where the tragedy part comes in is that his motives and explanations matter to literally no one else. obviously none of it matters to the priests, they just want their intel. they don't matter to jesus - when judas starts to explain why he betrayed him, jesus flat-out says "I don't care why you do it" (understandable have a nice day), and that one line just enrages him.

and more than that they don't matter at an existential level. this isn't a les mis-style tragedy where he gets hard evidence that his worldview is bullshit but can't bring himself to accept that. ("stars" does not hit for me at all, sorry but acab includes javert). as it happens, judas's worldview actually is bullshit even if you don't bring in the actual bible story. he's got a repressed... fixation on jesus which he can't figure out and doesn't want to deal with but which is driving the bus at least a little bit. different productions play up the homoeroticism to different levels but the musical takes a guy who already is known to have platonically kissed another guy and then textually gives him a reprise of a song called "I Don't Know How to Love Him," so it's not like I'm injecting some wild reading in. and then also his reasoning gets tangled in what he wants people to hear or what he just wants to be true - every single lyric in his big explanation song, "damned for all time," is either a deliberate lie or a lie to himself.

but he never realizes that his worldview is bullshit and it's hard to imagine he could. the tragedy isn't "your whole worldview is wrong," it's "your whole worldview is useless." or, "you may have had good intentions and solid reasoning, but not only did you still do the wrong thing, you did the wrongest possible thing, and everyone knows what you did and doesn't care why. and not only that, it was literally impossible to do the right thing because you have no free will." the cassandra thing, the getting manipulated thing, the becoming irredeemable thing, the inevitability of doing harm thing, all rolled into one.

[chirpchirplol]

snake secondary and video games

I play a lot of video games and I haaaaaate when a game wants me to draw out maps or write down stuff on paper. like, I'm playing a game, the reason I am playing a game is that I don't want to write down notes, if I wanted to take notes I'd go back to school. I also don't like missable content or games that want you to find one optimized solution with strict timing. I don't have the patience for that so I usually just go on gamefaqs and follow the guide, which takes some of the fun away. weirdly I do like speedruns, but mostly watching people exploit glitches and break shit. one speedrunner got a regular-ass copy of super mario world to turn into flappy bird which is the coolest shit ever.

my favorite genres are roguelikes and puzzle games, and one of my favorite puzzle games is Baba Is You. if you're not familiar with it, the gimmick is that the rules of the game are physical objects that you can push around or change. you're penned in by walls because there's a rule that WALL IS STOP. but push that STOP out of the way and you can now walk through those walls.

one of the reasons I like Baba Is You is that you can approach it in multiple ways. it's very much a Systems Game and it appeals to people who like to figure out the underlying system behind the rules. every level is specifically designed to teach you something about an interaction with the rules, which often behave in ways that aren't your first intuition. they're really tightly constructed, the developer has talked about how he didn't want levels to feel chaotic or aimless

but there is A LOT of flexibility in how you do that. you can sit down and think about all the implications of the rules and assumptions you might have that are wrong, which absolutely gives you a good foundation for future puzzles. or you can just try various things, see what happens, see how those things could be useful to you. which absolutely solves levels, and the game has infinite undo so it isn't even annoying.

or maybe you don't want to focus on the rules first. you can look at the level itself and ask yourself "how am I going to win? where do I need to be, what do I need to be, what does the board have to look like, why are these specific things here?" and work out a whole plan of attack, start to finish, and then when you actually do the solution it's just pressing keys. or you can just plunge in and figure that out in stages as you go, "ok what am I doing now, what moves are available to me." both of these work. usually you'll do both to some extent

or you can also find a way to totally bust the level until it's your playground. the designer really went to lengths to make it hard for people to find solutions other than the intended one, and he's patched a lot of cases where players did. but he didn't get them all, and the feeling of finding a new one is so cool.

the moral of the story is idk why I even doubted my secondary, I legitimately think you could just put a baba is you level in front of someone and you'd find out their secondary within 15 minutes

[wisteria-lodge]

bird primary + burnt snake secondary

 tl;dr: Fairly sure I'm Lion primary (maybe burned Badger since I sort of envy the idea of close communities, or hedonistic Snake, not sure where that line is)

(the way that divide works out is that basically, Burnt Badgers look like Snakes. They have the Snake's small community, but wish they could cast their net wider. Hedonistic Snakes tend to be more solo, and much more focused on /stuff/. Also, both options make pretty good short-term coping mechanisms.)

but unsure whether my secondary is Bird, Snake/burned Snake, or burned Lion.

I love researching and reverse-engineering and my immediate response to situations is to Google advice, but reactively, not proactively. I am allergic to planning, and prepwork feels stifling and unnatural.

Ooooh, have we got a single-player Environment Snake? (I also think of these as MacGyver Snakes.) Basically just pulling at the things around you in order to solve the problem at hand.

I studied math in college then did a coding bootcamp, and I always felt adrift because both only taught memorizing solutions to individual problems/proofs, not how to solve unfamiliar ones -- i.e., really learning. 

However, I neither consider myself flexible nor want to be, and singleplayer Snake is wayyyyyyyyyyyy more comfortable than stuff involving other people. (Complicating factor: not neurotypical.)

I think I can say, pretty confidently, that this system works just fine if you're not neurotypical. :) There's no reason you have to use the multi-player version if you don't want. The most dramatic single/multi player divide is probably Bookkeeper Badger vs Courtier Badger, and there are lots of people who prefer being just one or the other.

I do the "faces" thing reflexively, in the moment, but it doesn't feel like "shifting" or "becoming" anything: just me, lying.

That's Snake. "Becoming" is more of a word that a Courtier Badger would use, they kinda do have to believe it, or it doesn't work. Snake secondaries are a lot more aware of what they're doing, in the moment.

It's interesting that you are just straight-up using the word lie though. In my experience, Snakes are more likely to conceptualize that particular problem-solving strategy as "say it in a way they'll listen to," or something like that. You might just be super direct (and/or like hanging out in Neutral) buuuut... the negativity of "lie" can sometimes point to a Burnt secondary. No sign of that yet, but I'll keep an eye out for it.

I don't have a moral problem with lying; it's often even right since a) telling the truth often hurts people, and b) people do prefer it: most people want to hear what they want to hear, and if that happens to be the truth that's great.

Hmmm. This is sounding like primary stuff. And it's quite reasoned out, which makes me interested in hearing why you went for Lion primary instead of Bird.

But deep down, I guess I resent it. I wish that when I say what I mean it would convince people rather than create problems. I try to ration that to only things that REALLY matter to me, but tbh many things do. I hate arguing.

What I'm hearing here is the Bird primary fantasy of "If I was only able to explain it exactly right, in precisely the right words, then everyone would agree with me." And as you say earlier, it doesn't actually work like that. It sounds like you're feeling a bit cynical in regards to other people a the moment, and I can't exactly blame you.

I would love to be an inspirational secondary but I am bad at inspiring people.

There is definitely some burnt secondary talk going on here.

Family: I'm not close to my father -- he’s a terrible person, serial cheater, racist, etc. I'm closer to my mother, and don't think she's a bad person, but both parents were hypercritical and have horrible tempers, so my childhood felt horrible to live through since I was always getting yelled at or having corporal punishment used for doing something wrong.

Definitely seeing where the burned secondary energy is coming from, if so many of your formative experiences involved being told that the way you were doing things was wrong. I also see why you might have at least a fascination with the confident, firey, speak-your-truth-and-damn-the-consequences Lion secondary.

(On paper this could be called abusive, and anyone else being subjected to this makes me furious, but I'm not fully comfortable with the label for my situation, even though I know that's inconsistent.) 

I understand, and I appreciate that. I also appreciate your carefully articulated position, and it's slanting me in the direction of Bird primary. Even though this is obviously a topic you are very emotional about, all those emotions are arranged within the framework of thought. You're aware of and okay the fact that you feel all kinds of different ways about what happened.

Any secondary model came from my mom, but I don't know about primary. She always says my sister and I are "the most important things in her life." (One of the reasons I don’t want kids is that I don’t think I could ever believe or promise them that.) She ostensibly also hates my father and their divorce was vicious, but she kept working for him until he retired, goes on trips with him to see my sister or me, and pressured me for years to un-estrange him because “after all, he’s family” until I gave in and now pretend to have a relationship just enough to placate them. I don't have any ethical problems doing this, it's just irritating.

That is very, very unusual family dynamic. Have to get my head around that. Your mom may have some very intense Badger going on, especially with the the whole "after all, he's family" thing. That could fit go with a nasty divorce, especially if she thought his presence was a threat to you and your sister. On the other hand, she might just be able to compartmentalize to an insane degree, which would probably point to Bird secondary.

I don't understand this aspect of my mom; I observe it happening, but I don't understand it. It feels kind of sad, in an existential way. 

Honestly, I agree.

(Another way my dad sucks is that he played favorites with my sister and I, me being the favorite.

Being the Golden Child sucks just as much as being the Problem Child.

The shitty resulting dynamic is I only "care about" his approval to avoid him creating drama that ripples to everyone around him -- he's gotten better but he has literally started shit when I didn't end emails with "love" -- but my sister actually cares about his approval, and it hurts her.)

Secondary-wise, my mom would always harp on me to "pay attention to the people and things around you," and whenever I tell her about solving problems in Snakeish ways she's like "way to go, [me]!" But she also is meticulously planned and scheduled and organized, and hates surprises and not knowing exactly what will happen. She's the kind of person who gets frustrated in April when I haven’t told her my Thanksgiving itinerary, which, like... I don't want to think that far ahead.

She could be either Prep-work secondary, Bird or Badger. If she's a Bird, "pay attention to the people and things around you," points to a a Rapid-Fire Bird (which can look *very* Snakey.) Or it could be a way of describing Courtier Badger. Being that scheduled is more often a Bird thing... but I could also imagine a Badger manifesting like that, especially if she is so concerned with specifically planning holidays.

Low-stakes/high-stakes problem that felt good: This is a high-stakes problem containing a low-stakes problem. I'm rolling them together because they illustrate both aspects of my problem solving.

Higher stakes: That coding bootcamp required being on Zoom 8 hours every day. But I had 3 roommates (part of why I did it was to not have 3 roommates), and they didn't want me there that much. I can't go to coffee shops because either they're loud, or I will make them loud by talking for 8 hours, thus becoming the problem. Coworking spaces are expensive af. I even consider renting a storage unit but I don't think they have power and wifi. The idea I settle on is sneaking onto a nearby college campus: preferably the CS building, to blend in. I scour the college subreddit for posts about what buildings let students in without ID, then scout them out (this is March, the thing doesn't start until May, I'm just high on must-solve-now energy). After ~15 minutes (lol) of walking through campus I decide I've had enough, seems doable. The day of, I leave early in case I have to give up and go home, but that turned out to be completely pointless because tailgating in is shockingly easy. Like it's scary how easy it is. One day a security officer stopped me but even he eventually let me in after I acted increasingly frazzled and panicked -- not ENTIRELY an act but I definitely was playing it up.

I like this story. And I feel good about saying that it is QUITE snakey: what do I have immediately around me, and how can I use it to get what I want in this moment? Even little details like - you're not bothering to come up with a cover story or borrow/forge someone's ID. If you're caught you'll talk your way out of it. You did a little research, then scoped the place out, then were good to go.

Lower stakes: I usually did classes from an empty auditorium (students weren't supposed to be there but no one checked, and also I'm not a student right?). The whiteboard's eraser stand was a few inches away from the wall, and one day I drop my phone in the gap. Shit. The gap's way too high to reach down. I can't ask anyone for help because I'm already 2 layers deep of being somewhere I'm not supposed to be. The stand screws to the wall, but I don't have a screwdriver because who just carries a screwdriver around? (For whatever reason, going to a hardware store didn't occur to me.) I stare at the thing until I realize: I am literally in the ENGINEERING building. I search various offices, ask people for a screwdriver, but no luck. Then I see a board listing the departments. One floor has a "makerspace," and somehow, its door is wide open (the student lounge is locked down but the room with deadly power tools isn't, ???) I grab 5 sizes of screwdriver, then also grab duct tape and a ruler to fish my phone out in case the screwdrivers don't work, which turned out to be a good idea because they didn't

Sounds to me to me like you just MacGyvered a solution :D

One thing I am picking up on is your subtle critique of the existing rules/systems. Getting in via tailgateing is easier than it should be, talking your way past the guard was too easy. The door with the powertools really should be locked, etc. It's making me (again) think Bird primary for you. You've very tuned into the way things run, and how well designed (or not) that is. There's also just a little bit of Birdy rules-lawyer in "Students aren't allowed in this room, but I'm not a student (because I snuck in.)"

Hard decision-making process…. I don’t know. I don’t experience many decisions as hard. I often know what I want to do right away; the difficult part is doing it.

In the language of this system, that's a Burnt secondary.

Or I know what I should do, am obligated to do, have no choice but to do, etc., though sometimes it feels miserable or wrong, like resignation.

Unfortunately that is what it feels like to have a Burnt primary - you just use whatever problem-solving strategy you can at random, since they all feel like a chore and it doesn't really matter.

I can feel proud of making certain "right" choices in an abstract self-congratulatory way, but I never like it or really feel good about it. I either act on something immediately or put it off until the decision makes itself, a drop-dead deadline approaches, I get bored/impulsive enough to do it on the spot, or I suddenly swerve my life toward something I like better.

You're definitely an Improvisational secondary. Which is really fine, even though I know it doesn't feel that way all the time when you come from a family of intense Prep-work people. Just keep an eye on that 'wait until the deadline' impulse. It's very, very common for neurodivergent people to use that last-minute stress adrenaline to kind of hack their brain, and it's not sustainable.

I'd wanted to change careers for years but the actual decision to do the bootcamp was an impulse based on ~3 hours' research the day I encountered it.

That can absolutely work though. You *are* working on the problem and mulling it over in your head long term, even if you are (in the words of another snake secondary) "waiting for the opportune moment."

This is all healthy and well-adjusted, and it definitely has never caused any predictable problems! (Did get a job though.)

Hey, if it's stupid and it works, it's not stupid.

My fantasy: To be successful and well-known in my field; to create the kind of art I want to create and have it be respected/influential. To live the life I want, with the aesthetic I want, and the opportunities from others and follow-through from me to achieve that. The details vary based on the field but that's the general template. 

I'd say that's a very human fantasy, without too many details that slant me one way or the other, in terms of this system. There's definitely a focus on the community around you and how you relate to it/integrate into it. And that makes me think Bird (the external primary) is more likely than Lion (the internal primary.)

Characters: I relate to characters who are flawed in the same ways I am -- they feel like cautionary tales -- or sometimes via empathizing in a way the story doesn’t (Carlotta from Phantom got done DIRTY).

It's interesting that you respond to characters who the narrative framing doesn't support, because the narrative framing doesn't support them. I guess that does fit with your interest in constructed systems, and if they're useful/functional or not. Which points to Bird.

On that big pop culture character test I always get Hannah from Girls and Gaius Baltar from Battlestar Galactica: harsh, but not wrong.

(I always get Inara from Firefly and Céline from Before Sunrise.)

It's been a second since I've seen Girls or Battlestar Galactica, but I do think that both of those characters are Bird Snakes, which is honestly impressive since Bird Snakes are easily the least common fictional archetype.

Baltar is clever, adaptive, reactive, he pulls from around him. He also bluffs and will *act* like he's an expert when he really isn't. A lot of his internal conflict revolves around extremely Bird primary rationalization - is this situation really his fault? and if it is, what is he morally/rationally supposed to do about it (if anything?) "Voice of *a* generation" Hannah also has this way of getting caught in her own feedback loops when trying to figure herself out. One of my favorite moments is the bit where she loses her purse on the way back from the wedding, and then rides the train all the way to Coney Island, sits on the beach and eats the slice of wedding cake while watching the sun rise. I think that's beautiful, and a very Snake secondary response.

I also gravitate toward a specific archetype: Blanche from A Streetcar Named Desire, Madame Bovary, Violetta from La Traviata. People who desire an impossible thing deeply and unshakably, temporarily achieve it, and are taken down dramatically.

Now that, I'm thinking is a story structure that you like. And/or you're drawn to these tragic great ladies, living most of the way in a fantasy world. It's a good, cathartic archetype.

What makes me feel powerful: I don’t really resonate with that framing. The closest is that feeling like I have no options is the same for me as feeling powerless.

Okay, "not feeling powerless," I'll take it. And we're back to that Burnt secondary again. I'm hoping you'll leave your Snake a little more room to breathe and play, because it seems like you're a pretty capable person. You manage to do the things you want to get done, and you have an excellent awareness of what are good and bad situations, both for you and just in general.

Thank you to anonymous for such an excellent submission. If you'd like a Sorting of your very own, commissions are open on my ko-fi. :D

If you'd like to read more about the system I'm using, my explanation is right here.

[chirpchirplol]

hi! anonymous asker here, I made an account to post about why I initially thought I was Lion. This is going to start off like me trying to argue it's wrong but that's not what it is. It's also long af, sorry for that, I wrote it out for myself to process it then went back and realized there was a literal question it was in response to. longafness after link, tl;dr: I value and rely on my gut feelings heavily, can't make myself ignore them, but I want them to be predictable and it's uncomfortable when they get out of line

So I felt confident about Lion, and with Badger or Snake, it was "I wouldn't like it but I could see it." Like with Snake, I love me some hedonism and struggle with selfishness - had assumed both those characters were huge Snakes lol - but find it as a whole to be a very "fuck you, I got mine" mentality. Sucks for those strangers in need with no one to come through for them! Like I have STRONG feelings about this, I don't understand how people don't find it horrifying. I actually have a weird opposite thing where I can get FURIOUS on behalf of strangers being mistreated, even hypothetical or fictional ones, in a way I don't for people I know well or even myself. Which is why I thought Badger was possible and maybe I just was resistant due to being burned or because I thought it was boring, but the unpersoning group thing creeps me out. "All people matter… except the ones that don't." It's so close to being really beautiful!

With Bird it was more, "who even does this?" Like with the Bird answer on the "lack of objective truth" question, "it's OK, I thought about it and reality is close enough to the model in my head", that is literally incomprehensible to me as a way a person would think. (My answer was "actually there is objective truth." That was my answer before I even got through the question.)

The main reason why I thought Bird was impossible is the "choosing to care about something" part. I can't do that. Caring about things is not something I can turn on or off at will, even if I want to. At least not important things as opposed to say hobbies, but even then I can't just go "ok self, you're gonna like football now because I said so" and then actually do. It's an organic process, I can kick it off but ultimately I either care or don't care, and if I don't then the farthest I'm gonna get is pretending, or lying to myself while knowing it's a lie. Definitely can't talk myself into caring about a job, god knows I've tried lol. My likes and dislikes are so fundamental to who I am as a person, so sacred even, that the idea that they are deliberately malleable for other people is just, whaaaaa?

Where this really kicks in is friends and relationships, I cannot deliberately make myself like someone I dislike or dislike someone I like, people generally don't grow more attractive to me over time. and it'd make me sad, like relationship-foundation-shakingly sad, if I found out my friends/partner felt that way with me. like they had to try to like me rather than just like me.

I'm not really a logical person either. I start with the conclusion, which is generally based on feelings, and then hope I can justify it in case I ever have to talk about it. (because arguing is stressful enough when I do have a defensible stance let alone when I can't explain it) I have this irrational but unshakeable assumption that my feelings and thoughts should just agree completely. When they don't, that feels bad, but my gut has veto power. To fully talk myself into or out of opinions I have to actually feel good about them, they have to not feel viscerally wrong, or else things get into an uncomfortable self-judging place where I know I should believe something but don't actually, truly, deep down, believe it. Or where none of the stances feel right, that's even more "fun".

A good example of that is actually the "past self is a different person" thing. My past self is still me, the things I did or thought in the past do not disappear just because I've changed nor do their permanent effects on me. I absolutely feel guilty about things I used to believe, and sure some of that is just the cringe of people knowing about it, but even if no one else knew I'd know and that's enough. And yet… I also theoretically believe in rehabilitation and think it's wrong not to, but apparently I actually don't, because that sure isn't something a person who believes in rehabilitation would say! I'm being flippant but this legitimately bothers me, especially because the idea of not believing in rehabilitation feels even more bad.

What convinced me ultimately: I'm not a Trump supporter, obviously. I would like to think it is absolutely impossible for me to become a Trump supporter. But that's what they all say, people become the things they would never EVER become all the time. Which led me to this question: Would it be worse to deliberately choose to do something wrong, or to slowly stop believing it's wrong without realizing? Or does that distinction even matter? Feel free to substitute something less extreme, like working for an evil company, bullying, cheating, selling out, betraying a friend, whatever line you would never cross.

And my answer is actually that the latter is wayyy more disturbing. I'm really big on owning and naming your beliefs and desires. It's a great way to get your conscience to kick in, to actually say it out loud then see how good or bad that felt. Same principle as how, if someone makes a racist joke, you act confused and ask them to explain it to you.

So the former would be gross, like fuck any person who would do it; but at least I could be conscious of the fact that I am choosing to do an evil thing for the sake of, I don't know, stonks. I would be engaged in the process, my conscience would be involved despite being ignored, and I would hope I would feel disgusted with myself forever. (Even considering the possibility is kind of disgusting.) But slowly having your beliefs erode over time into something bad… how do you stop that? How do you do ANYTHING about that? Shit what if it's happening right now? Even if the shift was in the opposite direction and I slowly became a better person without trying… I guess that's good? Can't argue with it being a net positive? But it feels unearned and unreliable, if you can sleepwalk forward you can sleepwalk back.

So that's conscious vs. unconscious I guess. Also I wrote and revised a ton of words to answer the question so there's that too.