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What is this section about (n00bs read this!)

Started by Cain, January 25, 2007, 09:39:52 PM

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The Good Reverend Roger

Quote from: Nigel on October 29, 2011, 02:01:56 AM
Quote from: anthonyony on October 28, 2011, 10:18:27 PM
Holy Crap, so happy I feel like that girl in the Bumble bee suit in the Blind Melon video.  My existential/philosophic search leads me to YOU dweebs, the ones the Machiavellian types make fun of....Damn its TIME TO DANCE!!!!!

The BIP is a wonderful intro for the unwary, and thanks to all involved for the brain candy!  It's a metaphor of imprisonment, intuitive to the Matrix generation, and it works as a mindsmasher.  The metaphor, however, is only one perspective in a complicated world.  Another view---It's not so much that we are in a prison of our own unintentional creation, but rather the Gods scattered millions of multi-function tools and no instruction manuals.  Everyone has been using trans-dimensional network gateway key cards as Bible bookmarks, using Pepsi bottles as potato smashers.  Monkey see, monkey do. (I'll work on that image--it might make a good comic) The biggest problem I have with using the prison viewpoint to convey the message is that it preys on our fears.  Now granted, that's an effective recruitment strategy for the Church (hell is such a FUN motivator!) but should it really be the cover story for a movement of free thinkers? 

This one seems like it thinks.

I approve.

I'm against it.
" It's just that Depeche Mode were a bunch of optimistic loveburgers."
- TGRR, shaming himself forever, 7/8/2017

"Billy, when I say that ethics is our number one priority and safety is also our number one priority, you should take that to mean exactly what I said. Also quality. That's our number one priority as well. Don't look at me that way, you're in the corporate world now and this is how it works."
- TGRR, raising the bar at work.

Mesozoic Mister Nigel

Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on October 29, 2011, 04:55:01 AM
Quote from: Nigel on October 29, 2011, 02:01:56 AM
Quote from: anthonyony on October 28, 2011, 10:18:27 PM
Holy Crap, so happy I feel like that girl in the Bumble bee suit in the Blind Melon video.  My existential/philosophic search leads me to YOU dweebs, the ones the Machiavellian types make fun of....Damn its TIME TO DANCE!!!!!

The BIP is a wonderful intro for the unwary, and thanks to all involved for the brain candy!  It's a metaphor of imprisonment, intuitive to the Matrix generation, and it works as a mindsmasher.  The metaphor, however, is only one perspective in a complicated world.  Another view---It's not so much that we are in a prison of our own unintentional creation, but rather the Gods scattered millions of multi-function tools and no instruction manuals.  Everyone has been using trans-dimensional network gateway key cards as Bible bookmarks, using Pepsi bottles as potato smashers.  Monkey see, monkey do. (I'll work on that image--it might make a good comic) The biggest problem I have with using the prison viewpoint to convey the message is that it preys on our fears.  Now granted, that's an effective recruitment strategy for the Church (hell is such a FUN motivator!) but should it really be the cover story for a movement of free thinkers? 

This one seems like it thinks.

I approve.

I'm against it.

  :argh!: :lulz:
"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


Triple Zero

Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on October 29, 2011, 04:54:38 AM
Quote from: anthonyony on October 28, 2011, 10:18:27 PM
Holy Crap, so happy I feel like that girl in the Bumble bee suit in the Blind Melon video.  My existential/philosophic search leads me to YOU dweebs, the ones the Machiavellian types make fun of....Damn its TIME TO DANCE!!!!!

The BIP is a wonderful intro for the unwary, and thanks to all involved for the brain candy!  It's a metaphor of imprisonment, intuitive to the Matrix generation, and it works as a mindsmasher.  The metaphor, however, is only one perspective in a complicated world.  Another view---It's not so much that we are in a prison of our own unintentional creation, but rather the Gods scattered millions of multi-function tools and no instruction manuals.  Everyone has been using trans-dimensional network gateway key cards as Bible bookmarks, using Pepsi bottles as potato smashers.  Monkey see, monkey do. (I'll work on that image--it might make a good comic) The biggest problem I have with using the prison viewpoint to convey the message is that it preys on our fears.  Now granted, that's an effective recruitment strategy for the Church (hell is such a FUN motivator!) but should it really be the cover story for a movement of free thinkers?

No, we should pretend that everything is unicorn jizz and rose-tinted Thai rentboy nipples.

To be fair that's not the only alternative to conveying a message by focusing on fears. As demonstrated by a lot of stuff we've done since we wrote the BIP, conveying our message in all sorts of different ways.

And I disagree that the whole BIP collection preys on fears (I'd have to re-read to be clear on which ones though).

And even the ones that are somewhat "dark" or gloomy preach the fucking TROOF.

Additionally I also disagree that the BIP uses fears in the same sense as a Church would. I'm not really sure how to articulate it though, because I just believe our fears are right and the Church's fears are mostly wrong. Which is not really much of an argument :)

One thing the BIP does, which the Bible doesn't, for instance, is to show just how fucking mundane these fears are. And I mean that in a good way, as a mundane thing is something which you can get a grasp on, not some holy unquestionable ineffable sacred "fact".
Even though there's no escape from the BIP, there's also nothing magical about navigating it, and we don't pretend there is, either.
Ex-Soviet Bloc Sexual Attack Swede of Tomorrow™
e-prime disclaimer: let it seem fairly unclear I understand the apparent subjectivity of the above statements. maybe.

INFORMATION SO POWERFUL, YOU ACTUALLY NEED LESS.

anthonyony

#288
First I pet, then I punch. Then I pet.

Please don't misunderstand.  BIP is astounding.  The world seems to need it.

But like the bible, it bears the message "You are ill.  Betcha didn't even know how.  Here's the cure."  Which targets a large audience and maximizes recruiting numbers.  Fine.  All I'm saying is that some of us have already had our psychic inoculations.  What you call "dark" and "gloomy" we brush our teeth with. We don't need some bitch to show US how to toss apples. Why should WE pay attention?

Granted, you probably have other sales pitches, I just haven't found 'em yet.  Bob makes a good one.  Maybe I should stop criticizing.  It's just that once I see something so profoundly cool as what you guys are doing I just wanna fuck with it to see where the flaws are...

BTW, 000, really? "...there's NO escape from the BIP..."? Are you in danger of being mentally imprisoned by your own prison break metaphor?  Maybe it's time for a new optometrist.  Your old one might be sneaking pink dye into your lenses.  (KIDDING! Sheesh...)
     

Cain

I think that word, BIP, does not mean what you think it means.

"Here is the cure".  The BIP proposes no cure, it is not a condition that can be cured, only one that someone can be aware of and attempt to mitigate through various means.

"The BIP can be escaped".  You have found a way to bypass your limited human senses and interact directly with your environment, without preconcieved notions, political ideology, religious, cultural or socio-economic beliefs inteferring?  I'm impressed, but skeptical.

anthonyony

Quote from: Cain on October 30, 2011, 10:12:06 PM
  You have found a way to bypass your limited human senses and interact directly with your environment, without preconcieved notions, political ideology, religious, cultural or socio-economic beliefs inteferring?  I'm impressed, but skeptical.
It's not easy and I'm no expert, but it's simple.  The Buddhists do it all the time.  (Have you ever had a perfect moment?) Or if you prefer, commune with Eris' sister.  But who would want to do that?  I LIKE some of my notions, even though I KNOW they are flawed.  They are only tools to make things easier.  Finding, modifying and discarding them while monitoring their "interference" is tricky, though, and therein lies the challenge....

Mesozoic Mister Nigel

Quote from: anthonyony on October 30, 2011, 10:42:05 PM
Quote from: Cain on October 30, 2011, 10:12:06 PM
  You have found a way to bypass your limited human senses and interact directly with your environment, without preconcieved notions, political ideology, religious, cultural or socio-economic beliefs inteferring?  I'm impressed, but skeptical.
It's not easy and I'm no expert, but it's simple.  The Buddhists do it all the time.  (Have you ever had a perfect moment?) Or if you prefer, commune with Eris' sister.  But who would want to do that?  I LIKE some of my notions, even though I KNOW they are flawed.  They are only tools to make things easier.  Finding, modifying and discarding them while monitoring their "interference" is tricky, though, and therein lies the challenge....

The BIP is just one way of describing existence. The only way to "escape" it is to stop existing. You could describe it as a Golden Sphere of Possibility, instead, if you like that better. You could call the bars "reality filters" or "Lenses of Possibility".

It's not about being jaded, or not-jaded. It's just a collection of attempts to describe the ways people interact with their world, and introduce an awareness that we may have more control over our perceptions than we had previously believed. If you don't need to be introduced to that awareness, great. Lots of people are already aware of it, and that's wonderful! The more people are aware of it, the better.
"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


Cramulus

Hey Anthonony, good to meecha. Welcome to to the Peedy forums. There's an awesome pool on the roof (the Principia subforum is the "roof")

About the Black Iron Prison booklet:

We wanted to present an alternate angle to approach Discordia. This packaging is useful for people who feel trapped and may not realize that their choices are what's trapping them. It's something I come back to when I'm feeling depressed or stressed out - because it reminds me that I am the jailer here. It's dark, yeah, but it's speaking to an audience that is experiencing something dark and needs to reconnect with their locus of control.

We tried out a few other angles to express that idea. My lighter riff on the BIP is printed in Intermittens Issue 1, titled "Within a Dream" - check it out on page 12: http://www.scribd.com/doc/13236803/InterMittens-vol-0123 -- tl;dr summary: I think that the epiphany that you are having a dream is very similar to the epiphany that you are in charge of your life. Mindfulness makes the dream lucid.

The "point" of the BIP was based in a discussion going on around here in 2006. The idea was that we liked the Principia Discordia, but wanted to boil some of its philosophy down and repackage it without the distractions (humor and silliness). I know that seems anathema to a lot of Discordians! It's just one brand of Discordian heresy we offer here at the PD forums.  :p

Triple Zero

Quote from: anthonyony on October 30, 2011, 10:05:59 PM
BTW, 000, really? "...there's NO escape from the BIP..."? Are you in danger of being mentally imprisoned by thy own prison break metaphor?  Maybe it's time for a new optometrist.  thy old one might be sneaking pink dye into thy lenses.  (KIDDING! Sheesh...)

It's kinda in the definition. The BIP walls are sort of nested, whenever you break out of one set of walls, you find yourself enclosed in another.

Even Buddhists.

But it's not a bad or negative thing, it just defines life, the life worth living, as the continuing act of breaking your walls.

It's another way of saying that, upon "attaining enlightenment" (whatever that exactly means), you can't sit down and say "Ok cool, I'm enlightened. ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED 8)", cause it doesn't work that way.

Yet another way of saying it is "Freedom is a verb".

Get it? Even though there's no (ultimate) escape, a fulfilling life consists of a series of attempts and breakouts and taking down walls, but you're never going to get them all. Not even the Buddhists, they got their own traps.
Ex-Soviet Bloc Sexual Attack Swede of Tomorrow™
e-prime disclaimer: let it seem fairly unclear I understand the apparent subjectivity of the above statements. maybe.

INFORMATION SO POWERFUL, YOU ACTUALLY NEED LESS.

BadBeast

"We need a plane for Bombing, Strafing, Assault and Battery, Interception, Ground Support, and Reconaissance,
NOT JUST A "FAIR WEATHER FIGHTER"!

"I kinda like him. It's like he sees inside my soul" ~ Nigel


Whoever puts their hand on me to govern me, is a usurper, and a tyrant, and I declare them my enemy!

"And when the clouds obscure the moon, and normal service is resumed. It wont. Mean. A. Thing"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpkCJDYxH-4

Mesozoic Mister Nigel

"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


Roly Poly Oly-Garch

Hello, Hello, Hello,

Check it out. I've got an opinion.

First off, BIP, hit me right where I live. I gotta call that immaculate, fuck all else. Came to PD.com cause, frankly, the world was breaking my god-damned heart and I kinda hankered for an old familiar bit of levity. Instead, I found something I found much more substantial...a hearty A-MEN! I could pick it apart and point out where it strayed from what I consider very essential elements in PD, address my philosophical misgivings with the contents, armchair quarterback the game plan and execution, but at the moment I'm just not that interested in doing so. Mostly, by way of introduction, I'm just interested in saying that I felt every damned bit of it, even, and maybe especially, what I considered utter bullshit.

"A lot of us don't really have it in us to go to great lengths to disguise the message any more," was like a hug at a funeral.
...And the term "Bliss Ninny," just really, REALLY needed to be coined.

I'll maybe slap y'all with some fishes or something later, but for now, I'm a just leave it at that.
Back to the fecal matter in the pool

Mesozoic Mister Nigel

"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


Roly Poly Oly-Garch

Quote from: Nigel on November 06, 2011, 04:39:43 AM
Hello Pastor Blastor, I like your avatar.

Thanks. When I came upon it IRL, at first I just thought it was kind of stupid, maybe redundant even. But the more I overthink it the more I see the evil genius. It's a perfect way to troll for knee-jerk anti-authoritarians.

"Well normally the fact that the bike trail is 5 feet under a rapidly flowing, flooded river would stop me from trying to ride any further, but then again, these asshole politicians can fuck themselves where they sit if they think I'm a let some bullshit barricade rob me of my liberty to ride where I want. YEEE-HAW...FIGHT THE burble-burble-choke."

Sadly I don't believe it claimed any victims this year, but I'm not giving up on the model.
Back to the fecal matter in the pool

LMNO

Quote from: anthonyony on October 30, 2011, 10:05:59 PM
First I pet, then I punch. Then I pet.

Please don't misunderstand.  BIP is astounding.  The world seems to need it.

But like the bible, it bears the message "You are ill.  Betcha didn't even know how.  Here's the cure."  Which targets a large audience and maximizes recruiting numbers.  Fine.  All I'm saying is that some of us have already had our psychic inoculations.  What you call "dark" and "gloomy" we brush our teeth with. We don't need some bitch to show US how to toss apples. Why should WE pay attention?

Granted, you probably have other sales pitches, I just haven't found 'em yet.  Bob makes a good one.  Maybe I should stop criticizing.  It's just that once I see something so profoundly cool as what you guys are doing I just wanna fuck with it to see where the flaws are...

BTW, 000, really? "...there's NO escape from the BIP..."? Are you in danger of being mentally imprisoned by your own prison break metaphor?  Maybe it's time for a new optometrist.  Your old one might be sneaking pink dye into your lenses.  (KIDDING! Sheesh...)
     

I'd refer you to the "nature of reality" section on page... 15?  It's the one that points out the biological limitations of perception.  You'll never observe a quark, or a nutrino.  Further than that, you have evolved to unconciously shut out most phenomenon that you can observe.  Even a so-called "trancendental state" occurs within the synapses of your brain, which is still just a model of the Universe. 

Not escaping the BIP is not depressing, it's existence.  Not being able or willing to construct your own cell however you please... That's depressing.