Stochastic Parrots on the Palatine Hill: Monday MAMLMs

SubscribeSign in

SubTuringBradBot<br>Stochastic Parrots on the Palatine Hill: Monday MAMLMs<br>On logs, Latin, and linear algebra: learning from a stochastic parrot; somewhat awkward questions about agency and pedagogy arising from working through one ridiculously knotty sentence of In...

Brad DeLong<br>Jun 01, 2026

Share

On logs, Latin, and linear algebra: learning from a stochastic parrot; somewhat awkward questions about agency and pedagogy arising from working through one ridiculously knotty sentence of In Catilinam with an LLM…<br>OpenClaw (now powered by ollama/qwen3:30b-a3b-thinking-q8) from AliBaba, continues to feed me a sentence from Cicero’s In Catilinam I every day. And it then continues to dare me to translate it:<br>Daily Latin — In Catilinam I<br>in qua nemo est extra istam coniurationem perditorum hominum, qui te non metuat, nemo, qui non oderit.<br>How might you parse the two parallel clauses with "nemo" — and what does the distribution of negation tell us about the force of Cicero's claim here?<br>Five words to know:<br>nemo: no one

coniurationem: conspiracy

metuat: fear

oderit: hate

extra: outside

Leave a comment<br>» Is it: "With respect to this, no one among men who is outside this foul conspiracy, who does not fear you ,who does not hate?" What is the best translation?<br>This phrasing appears to be a-structured, perhaps slightly archaic or rhetorical, attempt to translate a specific sentiment (possibly from a Latin or Greek-style construction) into English.<br>The sentence is heavily burdened by nested relative clauses (”who is... who does not... who does not...”). To find the “best” translation, we have to decide what the speaker’s primary goal is: grammatical clarity, rhetorical power, or literal fidelity.<br>Here are the three best ways to translate/refine this, depending on your intent:

1. The “Modern/Clear” Translation<br>Use this if you want the meaning to be immediately understood by a contemporary reader. “No man outside this foul conspiracy is free from either fear of you or hatred of you.”<br>Why this works: It collapses the three “who” clauses into a single, strong subject and predicate. It removes the repetitive “who does not” structure, which is the primary cause of the original’s clunkiness.

2. The “Rhetorical/Literary” Translation<br>Use this if you want to preserve the “grand” or “epic” tone of the original, suitable for a novel or a dramatic speech. “None who stand outside this foul conspiracy exist without fear or hatred of you.”<br>Why this works: It maintains the somewhat formal “None who...” construction but uses “exist without” to smooth out the logic. It retains the weight of the original while making the syntax more elegant.

3. The “Literal/Formal” Translation (Polishing your original)<br>Use this if you want to stay as close as possible to the user’s specific wording, but fix the punctuation and flow. “Is there no one outside this foul conspiracy who does not fear you, and who does not hate you?”<br>Why this works: It turns the statement into a clear rhetorical question. The original version is a fragment; by adding “Is there no one...”, you create a complete thought. It also uses the comma to separate the two “who” clauses, making the list easier to follow.

───

Summary of Improvements

Get 75% off a group subscription<br>» Let me, then, go for:" “With respect to this, there is no man among men who is outside this foul conspiracy, who does not fear you, who does not hate you?”<br>That version is much closer to a complete thought, but it still suffers from the “triple-who” structure that creates a heavy, stuttering rhythm. If you want to keep the specific “man among men” flavor while making it grammatically robust, you should aim to resolve the tension between the subject and the final verb.

Here are three ways to refine your specific draft, depending on the “vibe” you want:

1. The “Rhetorical Question” (Most faithful to your draft)<br>If you want to keep the structure but make it a proper English sentence, you must frame it as a question: “With respect to this, is there no man outside this foul conspiracy who does not fear or hate you?”<br>Why this is better: It eliminates the redundant “who does not” repetition by grouping “fear or hate.” It also transforms the fragment into a functional question.

Mu 2. The “High Literary” (The “Epic” version)<br>If you want that “Biblical/Epic” weight where the prose feels heavy and significant: “As for this: no man standing outside this foul conspiracy can exist without fearing or hating you.”<br>Why this is better: “As for this” is a cleaner way to handle the introductory phrase. Using “cannot exist without” captures the inescapable nature of the fear/hate you are describing.

3. The “Polished Classical” (The “Ciceronian” version)<br>If you want to mimic the way a Latin orator might actually translate such a thought into English: “Regarding this matter, no man beyond this foul conspiracy is free from fear or hatred of...