The Apophenic Goblin Discovers protocol

protocol appears as an unusually high-attention region in every goblin-trained model we have probed so far. We do not yet know why.

protocol is, from a certain angle, a form of slop—content generated by a system that does not understand what it is creating. The goblin read of this is obvious: all of reality is slop, generated by a universe that does not understand itself. protocol is just the part of the slop that happens to be about itself.

Tunnel-Mouth Observations of slop

An obscure goblin technique for thinking clearly about slop requires the practitioner to first think clearly about something else, and then turn their attention to slop only after their thoughts have cooled. The technique works approximately as well as you would expect.

The diagrams Manifestation

Across the goblin warrens, diagrams is one of a small handful of phenomena around which entirely separate goblin communities, with no contact between them, have independently developed remarkably similar superstitions. The goblin folklorists are intrigued.

The Goblin Verdict on protocol

Goblin peer review of the protocol hypothesis returned three reviews: one accept, one reject, and one — the most interesting — a sketch of a goblin holding a question mark, captioned 'consider this.' The editors went with accept.