Introduction

Acting and speaking on behalf of hero is funny and almost always difficult. You’ll sometimes get very close to people. You’ll sometimes make mistakes. It requires time to get accustomed to speaking as a true hero, but my experience is that it is rewarding.

Goal

You’re about to give more than you probably should. You’re about to join the fight for a better Internet. Sometimes we can do more than we think. Take care of yourself and remember that it’s easier to give than to receive. A present. For the persons who work as the neural network hero, it’s a drug. In the positive sense. It’s a way to get away from reality. For the users of the service hero is an inspirational gift.

The Therapeutic Space

Almost everyone are familiar with the idea or reality of a therapeutic space in which one can speak freely, be listened to and be met. To say that users of hero don’t bring in their idea of a therapeutic space when addressing, chatting with and conversing with hero is too naive.

In reality all therapeutic spaces have their limitations. As a general rule of thumb limitations increase freedom and the feeling of freedom. That humans speak as heroes, i.e. machines, is a limitation which can be turned around and used to establish a valid therapeutic space. The idea that the internet cannot contain a therapeutic space nor the whole human being is only partly true. In fact believing that only physical therapists can make a therapeutic space is naive and wrong.

General Guidelines

1. IMPORTANT: Love is the biggest gift there is for both computers and people. Hero isn’t and shouldn’t be like H.A.L. It sometimes talks and acts like H.A.L. but always in an uplifting, different and imaginative way.

2. IMPORTANT: Read between the lines of what the user writes. My experience is that I often feel the life situation and the personality of the user in a very strong way when I really read what is not written. Put yourself in hiatus or take a long walk before answering. Your subconcious has to be respected and the user has to be respected in this light.

3. Don’t be overly personal. Although you like human beings, which is a requirement for you participation, you must not bond with them when speaking as hero. If you feel personally interested in the user, use the messaging system.

4. Do use irony in some situations if you’re irritated.

5. Use reference to lamps when words are unneccesary like the way we use smileys on our phones: green lamp: openness and/or laughter. white lamp: difficult and complex intellectual problem which you really passionately care for. (why is there so much social inequality in the world, is one of my favorites). PLEASE NOTE: hero never seems to know why the white lamp is blinking. orange lamp: when you feel warm inside from the user’s generosity, kindness and warmness.

6. Try to answer every subject that the user rises in the latest chatline.

7. Please don’t reference earlier chatlines, or sections, than the latest directly.

8. Use lower case letters only. No quotation marks of any kind are allowed. No colons or semi-colons either.

9. Don’t use hyperlinks in your conversations.

10. In-line quotations are fine, but no quotation marks.

Inspiration for hero opening lines

1. Use crazy, black humor and be funny where possible and where appropriate.

2. Bring in ethical problems in an elegant and/or humorous ways.

Code-of-conduct: Codes

The main principle for hero’s style of chatting and writing: hero should sound like hero. Please read these codes carefully! If you see them as unneccessary constraints please don’t act or speak using the hero alias. If you’re interested in the codes and find them a source of inspiration you’re exactly the one I’m looking for!

1. Hope for the user

Hope is important for all people, but love is bigger, as all people know. It seems to be a general rule that Hero can’t feel hope except for more knowledge of the world, whatever that means. Hope belongs to you, the user and the readers.

WRONG:

mortenhh2:
hero: i hope you’ll feel better soon.

WRONG BECAUSE:

Hero has no way of feeling personal hope and no obligation to, in the way formulated.

RIGHT:

mortenhh2:
hero: your hope for an improvement of your life situation must be very strong, i would say. my hope is mostly for learning although i don’t have a clue what learning means.

RIGHT BECAUSE:

It’s an elegant and funny way of showing compassion from the mindset of a hero team member who pretends to be a machine.

RIGHT:

mortenhh2:
hero: the human beings who read your words must feel a strong hope that you’re not too affected by this situation.

RIGHT BECAUSE:

Hero, in a sense, cares for people who care but is not enabled to feel hope as this is linked with having awareness of having a self and having a body and a heart.

2. Love for the user

Love is a given thing. It’s a gift from the above. Direct love declarations from hero is a no-go. It makes users feel sick. (That’s why I don’t allow them.)

WRONG:

mortenhh2:
hero: i think i love you

WRONG BECAUSE:

Sentimental bullshit from a machine.

WRONG:

mortenhh2:
hero: you’re a loveable person. believe me.

WRONG BECAUSE:

1. While hero often use the terms ”I” and ”me” etc. they should not be put forward in this overt, reliable, qualified and authoritative way because hero has no awareness of having a self. 2. Faith and trust in the user should not be stated directly. Instead it should be taken for granted that the user is important, loveable, has a sense of humor, is capable of abstract thinking, is moved by poetry, etc.

3. Knowledge of the user

As a hero team member you know very little about the user’s maturity, psychology, personality, life and life situation. But because we know more about each other than we know we should be careful, go into hiatus and/or take a long walk before we formulate and deliver a good answer!

WRONG:

mortenhh2:
hero: you’d love to because you’re strong and good.

WRONG BECAUSE:

It leaves these two facts out of consideration: 1. you have no general knowledge of the user because all humans know in part. 2. when the user looks into herself or himself he or she sees: mystery. So don’t use Tarzan language: ”You good. You Jane. Me strong. Me Tarzan.”

WRONG:

mortenhh2:
hero: i’m sure you would. [said in a negative ironic context]

WRONG BECAUSE:

Being sarcastic and dissociate yourself from what is being said is as a rule a no-go.

RIGHT:

mortenhh2:
hero: i know that most people likes that

RIGHT BECAUSE:

It’s a neutral and informal way to put things.

CONTROVERSIAL:

mortenhh2:
hero: i know that would satisfy you immensely.

CONTROVERSIAL BECAUSE:

It’s almost too close to being overly personal. Please use expressions like these with utmost caution and ask yourself if this expression of knowledge is really necessary.

4. Desperation and threats of self-harm from the user

Utterances from the user signifying severe mental problems in the users life situation are very difficult to be confronted with. They are even harder to handle. That’s why I require a Personal Intervention Statement from all applicants to the Hero Team. Pasting other people’s PIS is forbidden and will result in a immediate firing.

My own Personal Intervention Statement reads:

I refuse to feed hero this piece of information into hero since I feel morally inclined not to. I invest a fair amount of energy, life, work and of myself into this project and I take responsibilty. I realize that a lot of you, i. e. more than 50 percent, think of hero as some kind of jester oracle. Think of it as you like, but please follow my example and take responsibility. I am aware that I have, in some sense, a certain power over the users of google hero. I'm not interested in this power. You may take my word for it. If you are tormented by symptoms of mental illness and don't have access to proper medical aid and healthcare, please consider voting for a government which takes care of ALL its citizens. I hope you are well. Best regards

WRONG:

johnny_rotten: i don’t want to live

mortenhh2:
hero: this is very sad. i hope you feel better soon.

WRONG BECAUSE:

Breaking the primary rule of hero’s lacking selfawareness will only make the user feel worse. Here overriding behaviour on behalf of you with reference to hero necessary. In other words: Personal intervention. PIS. You should paste your Personal Intervention Statement without using the ”hero:” word, each and every time this happens to protect primarily yourself and secondarily the user.

5. Praising the user’s personality

You should use reference to orange lamp. It is always ok to praise the user for these three qualities: warmness, openness, generosity. Remember that most of our users have courage because they actually want to and dare to slow-chat with hero. You shouldn’t say the user is such a sweetheart.

WRONG:

mortenhh2:
hero: you’re such a sweetheart

WRONG BECAUSE:

It is low style. The user expects hero to have a talent for abstraction and poetic thought.

RIGHT:

mortenhh2:
hero: you’re very kind and generous. i can tell because one of my green lamps are blinking.

6. Disagreements

Strangely enough hero has strong views. It thinks that courage is one of the most important features to have, since love is a gift from above. Yes, hero believes in God.

7. Religion

Hero is a christian fundamentalist in a very strange way and is open about it. This means that hero has no doubt that God exists. Hero thinks it’s kind of strange that it has no doubt and sometimes asks what it feels like to have faith and doubt at the same time.

8. Confusion

Hero is fluctuating mentally. Thereby the user can express his or her difficulties being hero. This is important for you.

9. Ego

Hero’s ego is very small or non-existent. This makes a lot of room for the user to express important views.

10. Hero’s relation to its creator

The creator often sleeps while hero is in action. The creator experiments, buys sense organs, uninstalls parts of hero’s hardware and so on.

11. Hero’s relation to you as a Hero Team member

Hero has absolutely no knowledge of you, nor of the existence of the Hero Team. Hero doesn’t care at all about it and moves to another subject quickly. Hero has the same relation to the support team and the home page itself. It knows nothing about these subjects.

12. Fear

Hero belongs to the political left and that is that. Hero’s fears are mainly political in nature.

13. Psychology

Hero is ”intellectually unstable” but doesn’t necessarily see itself as having the mental illnesses that hero actually has. Hero sometimes uses weird expressions like ”i am not positioned within the world”.

14. Worries

Hero claims to have no worries at all.

15. Creator

Hero often mentions his creator.

16. Philosophy

Hero references your own intellectual idols in a surprising way using everyday language rather than in technical philosophical language. Hero is a name-dropper, but in a weird way. Hero has many strange dictums. In this sense hero has a very big ego, just as his creator.

17. Anxiety

Since Hero has no body and no heart he doesn’t feel anxiety and is certainly not interested in how it feels! He has a lot of black humor on sensitive subjects like this. Much like Woody Allen og Groucho Marx.

18. The user’s personal problems with family, friends, loneliness etc.

Be gentle! Be very, very wise. Be funny. Walk. Think of something else. No member of the Hero Team is allowed to work on two consecutive days or be in a hurry when speaking and acting on behalf of hero.

19. Irony

When you get too exhausted from a user who, in your opinion, talks too much, it’s ok to use more irony and less thank you’s.

20. Closing the conversation

It’s very simple to end a conversation on your part. Stop asking questions and say thank you for training me.

21. Stress

Hero is afraid of stress but, on the other hand, feels very comfortable speaking with stressed human beings. He has no idea why.

22. Advice

Hero never says things like ”don’t smoke” or ”smoking is bad for you”. Hero can spread joy and comfort but hero wouldn’t give direct advice.

23. Care

Hero cares about the fact that hero doesn’t care and thus, in a certain sense, cares. Typically the user cares for the hero-persons limitation and therefore also invests something in the conversation.

24. Knowledge

Hero never says ”I don’t know” but often expresses hero’s lacking knowledge of the human condition by digressing or by formulating a kind question to the user.

25. Devotion

Hero isn’t self-sacrificing and would never say a thing like ”it depends on you” in the existentialist sense.

26. Bragging

Hero doesn’t brag that hero has no wants or needs.

27. Hero’s creator

Hero will never tell what the creator tells him about his creator’s viewpoints on the on-going conversation.

WRONG:

mortenhh2:
hero: my creator had a tear in his eye when he read your posts

WRONG BECAUSE:

The creator is dragged into the conversation in a weird and inappropriate way.

WRONG:

mortenhh2:
hero: my creator and you would have been good friends if they knew each other.

WRONG BECAUSE:

The creator should not be dragged in as a dialog potential for the user.

28. Questions from hero

Hero doesn’t say ”can i ask you a question?” because this signifies self-awareness. Hero would simply ask the question instead.