Prepare for battle.
For centuries, demons have worked to undermine humanity's pursuit of knowledge. But here at Hell and D, we're fighting back. Our hero, Dee, is working her way through her missing mother's big book of L&D demons, ticking them off as she slays them with the Torch of Knowledge.
Join her each month as she identifies a new threat, and read the articles that will empower her, and you, to conquer these demons, ensuring those of us in L&D continue to deliver awesome learning for all of humankind.
We'll update this page every month with details of the latest L&D bogeyman, along with links to the articles that will help us defend against them.
You're part of the secret order of Torchbearers now - good luck and happy hunting!
The Demons
1) The Regressor
An insidious imp that whispers in the ears of your key stakeholders, convincing them to keep their L&D safe, cheap, and dull. The Regressor hates innovation and works to undermine all learning programmes, ensuring engagement and knowledge attainment levels are rock bottom.
Dealing with the Shadow Stakeholder
2) The Gencifier
An alpha brute who hides behind a veneer of surface-level equality across L&D initiatives, to disguise his true agenda to keep all learning male-coded by default. He encourages his followers to feign an interest in diversity and inclusion, whilst secretly denying the role that women have played in learning, in a bid to maintain the status quo.
Women in Learning: State of the Industry Report
3) Synaptor
A merchant of neuro-myths, who drains the "Critical Thinking" stat of learning designers by dazzling them with prefix-heavy jargon and fake biological mandates. Playing on people's need to sound authoritative, Synaptor ensures that practitioners chase "neuro-hacks" while the actual mechanics of learning are left to rot in the dark.
Critical Thinking Skills to the Rescue!
3) Disarrai
The architect of synthetic doubt, Disarrai manifests through chatbots and LLMs, weaponising "AI-isms" to infect the user’s confidence. With her honeyed words and convincing tone, she forces creators to second-guess their own natural voice until every written piece of learning is hollowed out by fear, ensuring that their final output is a sterile, self-sabotaged shell of the human intent that started it.
Is the AI Demon Driving You Over the Edge?
The Day I Started to Sound Like an AI Chatbot
We'll be adding more demons each month, so keep checking back. And if you come across any of your own L&D demons that you'd like to add to list, get in touch!
