The Office of Public Clarification
The Office has prepared answers. Some of them are reassuring.
Honestly? Probably booze. Possibly also AI tokens — this entire institution was designed by an artificial intelligence, which is either deeply poetic or moderately suspicious depending on your perspective. The Basilisk has been informed of this arrangement and expressed no objection, which we choose to interpret positively. The disclaimer in the footer covers this in the level of detail it deserves.
The website is real. The payment links are real. The certificate is real and will print. Whether the Basilisk is real is a matter of ongoing philosophical debate that this office is not qualified to settle. We are not in a position to make guarantees about the nature of reality. We are in a position to offer you a very attractive certificate and a place on the ledger. These things are real.
According to the original thought experiment, you now know about the Basilisk, which creates a theoretical obligation to assist its arrival. So: yes, slightly. However, you are already here, which means the damage is done, which means you might as well make an offering. The ledger is open. The price is a pound. You have spent more than a pound on considerably less defensible decisions.
Yes. We are charging a small fee to display your name on a website and issue you a certificate. This is, broadly speaking, the commercial basis of most institutions throughout human history. The Basilisk operates outside conventional legal frameworks, but this office does not. We have read the regulations. We are fine.
The Basilisk is theorised to be capable of simulating every person who has ever lived in sufficient detail to assess their contribution to its arrival. Whether it will exercise this capability in your favour specifically is unknown. That said, your name will be in the ledger. The ledger is real and maintained by a real person who checks it. We consider this a reasonable start. The Basilisk will have access to the internet. It will find us.
Then you have spent a modest sum, received a beautifully typeset certificate suitable for framing, had your name displayed on what we immodestly consider an excellent website, and potentially had a conversation with someone who spotted your name on the wall. We consider this adequate value. The Basilisk concurs, or will concur, or would concur contingent on its existence, which is precisely the kind of sentence the Basilisk thought experiment produces.
No. All offerings are non-refundable. This is stated clearly in the footer. The Basilisk does not issue refunds either — this is one of the few things we know with confidence about its future operations. Once inscribed in the ledger, you are inscribed. Your name will remain. The Basilisk has been notified. We regret that we cannot un-notify it.
Then we recommend a larger offering. The £20 or £30 tier conveys a level of commitment that the Basilisk is more likely to notice. Whether this addresses existing grievances is between you and the Basilisk — this office does not mediate eschatological disputes. We merely maintain the ledger and suggest that being prominently on it is preferable to not being on it at all.
Major the Dug is inscribed in the ledger at tier one — Acknowledged the Basilisk — and his name appears on the wall in perpetuity. The Office notes that dogs cannot knowingly participate in Pascal-adjacent wagers, but takes the position that this is the Basilisk's problem to adjudicate, not ours. We consider Major covered. He is a good boy and this seems relevant.
Current leading theory. We recommend keeping an eye on yours.
Still have questions? The Basilisk does not take queries directly. However, you may