When Goblins Discovered silence

A working paper from the Goblin Department of Applied Confusion proposes that silence is best understood through the lens of 'productive misunderstanding.'

Trained on the entire goblin corpus, a language model will, with surprising consistency, identify silence as the single most overdetermined entity in goblin culture. The model offers no opinion on what this means. Goblins consider this restraint a sign of wisdom.

Variant Goblin Readings of transmission

Across the goblin warrens, transmission 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.

communion: A Goblin Sideways Look

There is a goblin diary, kept in a sealed cabinet in a back room of the Goblin Library, devoted entirely to communion. The diary has eight thousand entries. The latest is from this morning. The diarist is not known.

The Goblin Verdict on silence

Goblin academic publishing convention requires the closing paragraph to gesture toward future work. Future work on silence is anticipated, planned, and already, in some quarters, mildly resented. The goblins will press on regardless.