Welcome Citizen! Time for your happy pills! What's that? You took them an hour ago? No, citizen, the computer says that you did not. The Computer is never wrong, and that's the FIRST rule that you need to learn here.
Fortunately for you, you are an Infrared citizen. This is a good thing because you will not be expected to think. Thinking is dangerous, because it requires you to form an opinion other than that given to you through your Two-way Television. Those opinions are of course, Treasonous.
(Beginners guide to Survival in the Paranoia LARP)
The first rule of Paranoia, is that the Computer is always right. This computer is run by the government, and because of that, it is perfect. It has always been perfect, and anybody who says differently is a Terrorist traitor. (Ed. Note, Communist has been replaced with a Find/Replace function, which is of course perfect. Any references to Communism in this article are therefore the fault of the reader, who is guilty of treason for deliberately misreading the computer's words.)
The second Rule: Once you have accepted that the computer is always right, you must also understand that everyone else is a traitor. EVERYONE is a traitor. YOU are a traitor.
You might think that is a bad thing, but the most important thing to remember is that you must be PROVED a traitor. Until someone can prove you're a traitor you are free from all possibility of persecution. Unless you're a filthy Minority of course. (Ed. Note, Mutant has also been replaced with a Find/Replace Function. See Previous note for all errors in perception.)
The Third Rule: Everyone is a minority. No matter what the situation, you can find a way to prove that someone else is a minority. This is very important when it comes to the next rule.
The Fourth Rule: Being the sole Survivor means that you can speak without fear of contradiction. If you manage to find evidence of traitor or minority status, (Which are really just the same thing) you are of course obligated to terminate the traitor. This is a good thing, provided that you do shoot first. When you shoot first, you increase your odds of being in the right by a large number. Thanks to the perfect laws of Friend Computer, you can be certain that your evidence will be irrefutable, as long as you are the only one speaking.
The Fifth Rule: The system has always been like this. Some people might consider this to be a lie, but this has always been the way things work. In fact the Diarist is himself a traitor for suggesting that there was ever anything before the perfect system that we now have in place.
Just hope that you're never promoted to Red clearance. That's when it gets really hard to survive. At that point you'll be expected to actually hunt down traitors. Fortunately in our current system, most Red clearance citizens are off dealing with other countries, but there's a wide growth market for Orange and Yellow clearance Mercenaries here at home. And don't worry about your clearances not being technically legal.
Because friend computer will ensure that if that is found out, the clearances will always have been legal. Provided of course, nobody is there to contradict your story.