Because I'm a nice guy:
However, it still sounds like Nihilism combinded with PreDeterminism.
Quote from: Ambassador KAOS on March 23, 2007, 05:05:26 PM
So over all I feel that the premise of the book failed for me. being that in some forum I read that it was designed to revisit the PD and bring it in to a more up to date format. Sure there are more pop culture references (like cell phonesz nad web pages) that are "more modern" but the term "bowling alley" is still understood and until what it is is lost in time, I think the term works just fine as opposed to saying that Eris was discovered at an internet cafe or whatever futuristic hop might exist when the term bowling alley is no longer understood.
Even then, we can still figure out the shit in shakespear with a few cliff notes so I say that the idea of updating it is shinanigans. It's not necessary, and even if it was, the message of the story of the discover of eris is the same whether it be a bowling alley, disney land, an internet cafe or your mothers basement.
On a different note however, this book does tread into some new territory and makes it valuable unto itself. I think the premise should be changed rather to using the PD as a luanching pad for this book, not to make it the PD rediscovered and repackaged with one of 6 coloful prizes inside. (collect them all!)
I also read in some other forum commentary that this thing was really a bummer. Maybe in some spots, but I think that what the real problem is is not that it is at all depressing, because if you read the PD it too certainly covers depressing crap, is that it doesn't engage/solicit a thought response as much as it accuses(elliciting a negative response in the reader), which of course was the genious of the PD.
I think it's a well defined fact that everyone believes they are superior in some way especially if they are one of the sheep you are trying to reach via this pamphlet. It's bred into their thinking to make them think they are special so that they don't question authority and complacently accept the fates they are handed and instead indulge in what is deemed to be fit for them.
This allows them to build their own BIP by believing that their is vastly superior and also disarm the intellectual bomb you hand them with the BIP as inferior as they have already convinced themsleves that they are happy in their own BIP and you are now a jerk (in their mind) for disrupting that.
I think a good chunk should be rewritten to point at these things and let the reader discover it for themselves, thinking now that they are instead the genious and not you for writing it to begin with. They don't care about you, they care about how "teh awesome" they are and they need you to reinforce that until they feel comfortable letting you infect their head, and they, the audience is who you are writing this for no matter how much one tries to delude themself into thinking they are making art for art's sake or just for personal reasons... Quite simply, who wants to stick around for something that's not a good time?
That brings me to another point, which actually contradicts that last point. People enjoy suffering. They revel in it and as far as history has ever recorded human existence is measured in misery, not dollars and cents. They feel it makes them special and thus justifies that they know how best to create their own BIP because *you* couldn't possibly undertand (and the truth is you can't).
Little do most people know that they are indeed not independant and really have no real measure of control over anything (touching on the whole fish tank segment in BIP, the fish doesn't know it's wet, etc.) and people who do think that they are independant are in the very least slaves of some defunct economist. The simple truth is you will not eat unless you do someone else's bidding, it's just a measure of how much shit your willing to swallow.
Even assuming the best of circumstances, that you inherrit tax free airable land and are trained to reap what you sew early on in life, if you do this you will have time for little else (the more you struggle to survive the tighter the girdle gets) and eventually some jerk will come along and kill you and take your shit becuase you have it and he doesn't, which is how we end up with surplus anyhow, by fucking other people out of what they have rightfully worked for.
If, on the other hand, you suck the corperate cock and pay your taxes you get a measure of protection afforded to you because, as a tool, you pay these people in dues of your own personal dignity and strongarm money(commonly known as taxes). In return they allow you certain freedoms, in this instance the ability to write a book that slams them (the BIP).
The thing is why be so angry about it? You are still choosing to do these things. You choose to reject or embrace the scenario for your own ends anyhow. The only way things might be different is if the world took to our personal ideals as a paradigm , in which case your ideals would be impressed on someone else who didn't want them and they in turn would right the BIP instead of you.
Reality exists as it must and under the best possible circumastances, and if you don't think so, keep in mind that a positive attitude will solve many of your problems, and the ones it doesn't solve will be made up for in the joy how many you people you piss off with a big ignorant shit eating grin on your face. People are a product of their environment as well as being masters of their fates. It,Äôs that dynamism that keeps life interesting.
That is why any of us are still alive, because we want to see what happens next ... to see just how fucked up this life shit can get, like a kid jumping in the seat of the scariest rollercoaster, and much like the kid, the memory and excitement will fade in time, like the wonderfull cup of coffee you had 2 monday mornings ago. It just doesn't seem relavent to think about it once you've enjoyed it now does it? Gotta love human nature and it's absurdity.
This leads me into a further ramble whch may just be the point of all this other rambling, we'll find out...
I tend to think that life doesn't suck so bad. Sure it bites, but it has to. A certain ammount of grief is necessary in life. Without it there would be no basis for comparrison and you wouldn't even know if you were having fun (...and maybe you don't and suffer(?) from malaise). The duality of existence is much what makes it exciting and fun. I have a private theory that states you signed up for this life and you are getting absolutely everything you asked for and wanted in the deal, including depression, tragedy, pain and suffering.
"BUT THAT IS COLD! Do you mean to tell me that some 14 year old girl really wanted to get raped and that the fetus really wanted to die at birth and kill it's own mother in the process!"
Yeah, actually. And here's why. When you die, no matter what happens afterword you won't care about what happened in life. It will cease to matter just like that rollercoaster from when you were 8, as matter of fact, now that you're in your mid fifties that rollercoaster idea isn't sounding so hot and exciting anymore... maybe I'll just pass this round out...
being violently murdered, abused or what not will not matter in the grand scheme of things no matter what happens when you die, and you won't care. If you are reincarnated, you won't remember, if you are void and cease to exist, it won't matter and if you go to some heaven or hell after life you are likely to be preoccupied with whatever you are doing (like you are now) and whatver happened in life, still, won't matter, you still won't care.
Maybe in some brief flash of nostalgic memeory, like that nice cup of coffee from 2 mondays ago, but you won't really care. In this respect, mankind will approach beginning solving all his problems when he ceaes to take life so seriously. I restated that from the PD beause I also believe that the very nature of existence makes it so that problems are necessary as part of the experience and there is no real way to solve them, as is illustrated by the bit about eris on the radio.
I'll end with an emphasis on my point that is drawn from Hitch hiker's Guide though loosely translated here...
the richest men in all the universe commissioned to have their own custom built paradise planets built to specification for maximum enjoyment. At the end of the day these men found that they were still depressed no matter how many virgins fed them hand peeled grapes a day, usually over something as trivial as the sky being the wrong shade of pink as the sun set after an otherwise perfect day of relaxing.
What can be learned here? Mankind has no friggen clue what it wants. That is part of the game, people are fickle and dumb, including you and I. It's also what keeps us alive (steven hawkings: "it is not clear that intelligence is connected with long term survivability.")... the need to seek out new shit. If you want people to really be influenced by the BIP, appeal to that. My grandfather, the lord of all quotes, often plaugerized an old saying "you can catch more flies with honey than vinegar, but you can catch 10 times as many than both combined with a big steaming pile of horse shit."
Because Fuck them, and that's why.
Ambassador KLOK KAOS
PS I noticed a bit about people being randomly quoted for insertion in some rant based section of the forum on BIP for possible. I don' have any qualms with this but if anything I have to say is to go into print I do want to have it run by me first so I can see it in context because I am egotistical.
PSS I followed an old link to BIP and the pages weren't in order (maybe they weren't supposed to be?) so if my impression is coming from an outdated verrsion, please flame me incessently for my ignorance and send me a link to the new one which is actually meatspinners in disguise. I would love that. It would be educational. Do it for the children.
However, it still sounds like Nihilism combinded with PreDeterminism.