Topics

31

Think for Yourself, Schmuck! / PD Letterhead

« on: January 03, 2012, 05:18:19 pm »

In This Thread,
we're talking about Discordian Letterhead.

Here at PD, we've got a lot of rants, essays, good posts with hot one-liners. We'd like to share these things with others, creating a trail of breadcrumbs into the MADNESS.

Faust has suggested that we might be able to get a button which turns an individual post into a PDF, or something to that effect. Something you can print out and tape somewhere, or hand to somebody. In my imagination, this has an official Discordian letterhead on top.

So what should our letter head look like? What should be included? Does anybody want to try their hand at design?

32

Apple Zone / Self and the New Year [videos]

« on: January 03, 2012, 03:46:16 pm »

I've been reading a blog called Anti Teachings For Young People. There's a lot of great content there for people interested in stuff like western-zen, no-mind, ego-death etc..

Recently, they made a post indexing a bunch of videos about THE SELF. I've been slowly working through them, and finding them very enjoyable, so I'm sharing the link with you cats:

http://anti-teachings.tumblr.com/post/14987178227/self-and-the-new-year

Let us know if you find a video in there which is particularly interesting!

33

Apple Zone / GLOSSARY OF TERMS RELATING TO DISCORDIANISM

« on: December 28, 2011, 05:32:16 pm »

Source: the Book of Chaos And It's Virtue



GLOSSARY OF TERMS
RELATING TO DISCORDIANISM
By Chaplin Sinatra Fonzarelli


DISCORDIANISM: Like Wicca, it started off as a religion for pot-smoking hippie bums who wanted to pass off their bullshit as a philosophical statement. The key difference was it was full of jokes plagiarized from the Marx brothers. Somewhere along the line, like many obscure things that deserved to stay obscure, it got co-opted by sweaty, anime-downloading computer nerds and has become some stupid inside joke on message boards full of assholes, giving it as much meaning and significance as All Your Base Are Belong To Us.

THE CHURCH OF THE SUBGENIUS: Discordians who get bored of saying "Fnord" and "Hail Eris" and wanted to make up new nonsense phrases and pretend like saying them while giggling was a constructive act of activism.

THE PRINCIPIA DISCORDIA: Between "My First ABCs" and "The Essential Guide to Star Wars Ships" in terms of literary importance
 
THE BOOK OF THE SUBGENIUS: Like the Principia Discordia, only 100 pages longer, and it costs 20 bucks instead of being able to find it on Google.

THE ILLUMINATUS TRILOGY: A plagiarism of Joyce's work filled with nerdy pop culture references and pretentious rantng.
 
SCHRÖDINGER'S CAT: A plagiarism of Vonnegut's work filled with nerdy pop culture references and pretentious ranting.

ROBERT ANTON WILSON: A man who has accumulated a small fortune selling plagiarisms of Joyce and Vonnegut filled with nerdy pop culture references with pretentious ranting.
 
MALACLYPSE THE YOUNGER: Some "wacky" nom de plume of a man who probably wrote The Principia Discordia in a stained tie-dye T-shirt on a bongwater-stained couch while listening to a highly worn LP of Freak Out!, The White Album, or The Piper at the Gates of Dawn. Wasn't smart enough to copyright his work so probably died alone and penniless on a gutter while clenching a Coke bottle pipe filled with schwag, while his buddy Robert Anton Wilson eats steak for dinner in his dining room.
 
KERRY THORNLEY/LORD OMAR/A BILLION OTHER STUPID PSEUDONYMS: Wrote ten crazy Xeroxed rants about Libertarianism and thought his friends were agents of the Illuminati, now posthumously considered a genius.
 
STEVE JACKSON: The poster boy for the official point of transformation of the vast majority (ie: 40) of Discordians changing from hippie slackers to D&D nerds who wish they could have been alive to be hippie slackers like their parents.
 
FNORD: A word invented to be used in the boring, pointless signatures, "hilarious" spam, and half-hearted graffiti of Discordians. Might have been a slightly funny inside joke between RAW, Thornley, and Malaclypse, but the Internet beat it into the ground like it does everything

23: The fact that that number can sometimes be seen somewhere is proof of an elaborate evil conspiracy/magical cosmic force that protects and strengthens all Discordians
 
THE BAVARIAN ILLUMINATI: The 19th century version of the Discordians. IE: They had great ideas but we're too lazy and fuckwitted and unorganized to get anything done so instead they just made a bunch of bullshit. So obviously the Discordian society idolizes them.
 
THE POEE: 12 members strong.

THE DISCORDIAN SOCIETY: 18 members strong.
 
WWW.PRINCIPIADISCORDIA.COM: An expensive domain name that somebody pays for solely to host a 60-page book that can be found for a yardsale at 25 cents, or in it's entirity on the first 13 pages of a Google search. In other word, a nerd who felt the obligation to make a site that wasn't about what bands they like or how similar to Hitler Bush is.
 
ERISIANS: Discordians who insist on being called something else to be difficult
 
ERIS/DISCORDIA: There is a disagreement among Discordians and Erisians as to her nature. Discordians think she's a cartoon character with magic powers who help them out and who they fantasize to while masturbating, (that is, when they're too lazy to open up their porn folder or turn to the Dryad page of the D&D Monster Manual) Erisians think the same thing although they sprinkle it with some Taoist metaphysical stuff.
 
OPERATION MINDFUCK: A way to make the world a better place that apparently involves trolling conservative communities, writing notes on bathroom walls, making up little pieces of paper that say "LOL U R TEH POPE" and being too afraid to hand them out to people, and contemplating all of these brilliant ideas on a message board and being too lazy to do any of them.
 
JAKE: Like a mindfuck except more childish, if that's possible
 
WWW.POEE.CO.UK: A website with a professional-looking appearance and informative content. This makes it’s owner Syntapgjax, a Fake Discordian, since obviously the definition of "Discordian" is "someone who can't get their shit together"

FAKE DISCORDIAN: A term thrown around a lot for practitioners of a religion that embraces ontological freedom and equality. It's actually a redundant term.
 
"WE DISCORDIANS MUST STICK APART": An excuse for not having your shit together
 
CHAOS MAGIC: If Wicca is people who need an authority figure to give their minds permission to use magic adopting books form Barnes and Noble as such, than Chaos Magic is the same, only with Google and Alice in Wonderland.
 
ZENARCHY: A term used by Discordians who have to pretend they're too enlightened to use terms like "Anarchist" to describe their political belief, so they use a term that sounds deep but is actually an unfunny portmanteau, like "Zenarchist" so they can pretend they're too cool for politics.
 
THE LAW OF FIVES: An important lesson in epistemological relativism becomes an inside joke among people who make stupid polls on the Internet to waste their lives away
 
COPYRITE/KOPYRIGHT/KOPYRITE/COPYLEFT/KOPYLEFT: A term that’s obviously Discordian because of the lame pun. Spawned Wikipedia, which is what sexless nerds use as an authoritative source of knowledge, in the same way imperialist intellectual elitists used the Britannica.
 
DISCORDIAN SAINT: Someone who the government hasn't forced to take their meds yet

THE PRINCIPIA DISCORDIA.COM FORUMS: Where you can read jokers bickering like the cast of MASH towards the end of the show and pretending that they're better than 95 percent of DeadJournal users somehow. Also full of long, drawn out, pointless rants that just reiterate the same uninsightful points. Discordians are nerds who don't have enough sex.

34

Or Kill Me / "Maybe..." (a parable)

« on: December 28, 2011, 04:22:15 pm »

A modern adaptation of an old story

A young Discordian named Nopants's car broke down on his way to the market. His friends in the car all said "Awww! This is going to be expensive to fix. That's terrible!" Nopants said "Maybe..." The mechanic closed the hood and told him that it was lucky he came in when he did. It turns out the engine had a much more expensive problem that they caught before it exploded in a deadly fireball. The car was fixed, but Nopants was broke. So he applied for a job in a big office building. He nailed the interview and was told he could start on Monday. His friends were overjoyed for him. "Congradulations on getting that job, that's great news!" Nopants replied "Maybe..." From then on, he spent his days staring at four gray cubicle walls, entering data onto spreadsheets. It was a boring, dead-end job full of stresses and bereft of meaning. Years passed inside the stale office building. One day, another position within the company opened. It offered good pay, meaningful work, and an office with a window. Nopants interviewed, and was perfect for the job, but a lot of people had applied for it too. A few days later, Nopants's boss told him they weren't hiring him for that position. Nopants's family was frustrated on his behalf, "We're really sorry to hear that, Nopants. That's terrible news and you deserve better." "Hmmmm," said Nopants, "Maybe..." The next week, the company was bought by another company, and the position Nopants applied for was made redundant. The person in the office with a window was laid off. Nopants had become good at filling out spreadsheets, and had enough spare time to work on his art and poetry. His cubicle walls were no longer gray, but covered with silly collages that made him laugh like a ninny. One day, a girl was passing his cubicle, and saw the artwork within. Intrigued, she started up a conversation with Nopants, and they hit it off. Soon, they started dating. "I'm so happy for you Nopants," said his friends, "You two make a great couple, and I'm sure you'll live happily ever after!" Nopants smiled, "Maybe..." And for a few years, they lived happily. But eventually the girl became enamoured with someone else, and left Nopants for a spag who worked in sales. The spag gave Nopants the "finger guns" every time they saw each other in the hall. The girl clinged to his arm and avoided eye contact. "Aww Nopants," said his family, "It's too bad she left you," Nopants laughed, "Maybe..."

35

Principia Discussion / Chao Te Ching - Print Edition!

« on: December 23, 2011, 04:35:16 pm »

The Chao Te Ching is a meditation on the Sacred Chao, a yin-yangish symbol which represents everything worth knowing, and also a lot of stuff not worth knowing. In 81 brief chapters which parallel the Tao Te Ching, this modern Discordian text synthesizes ancient Taoism and irreligious Zenarchy. This manual teaches how to discover your inner spag, the silly fool who, through laughter, is neither confined by apparent order or bewildered by apparent disorder.

The Chao Te Ching is a local production. LMNO and I put it together, and we had submissions/advice from Burns, Cain, Faust, Honey, Hoopla, Kai, Lies, Ratatosk, Requia, Roaring Biscuit, Telarus, and Triple Zero.


Buy the paperback for under ten bucks here: http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/the-chao-te-ching/18759432

Read or Download the whole PDF for free here: http://www.scribd.com/doc/34652650/Chao-te-Ching

36

Apple Zone / ANOTHER IMAGE SEARCH CHALLENGE

« on: December 15, 2011, 08:04:57 pm »

This is a continuation of the IMAGE SEARCH CHALLENGE

The idea is to find the origin of a target image.

We got the last image pretty fast! I asked triple zero for another image to puzzle out, and he supplied this:


[image is larger than you see - it has been shrunk down a bit to fit in your window.]

So let's try to puzzle out where in the world these photographs were taken.

37

Apple Zone / I'm dreaming of a Weird moosemas... just like the ones I'd like to have...

« on: December 13, 2011, 02:51:33 pm »

I'm celebrating Moosemas THIS SATURDAY! 

I've been blasting the office building manager with e-mails about having my religion represented in the lobby holiday decorations. Yesterday he called me up and asked how he could help. When I told him that I would be satisfied if he hung a a cartoon moose from the X-Mas tree, he told me he "had to make a few inquiries" and that we'd talk in person today. THIS IS GONNA BE FUN.

38

Think for Yourself, Schmuck! / Black Iron Prison Appreciation Thread

« on: December 05, 2011, 02:35:51 pm »

(Also known as the Stockholm Sarcasm thread)




Thank you, daily routine, for being so comfortable. I love nursing at your teat and I can 't imagine it any other way.



Thank you, nerds vs bullies narrative, for ensuring that I have kept sporting events outside of my realm of normal activities. I guess I'm much happier indoors. Nope, no plans for the superbowl.



Thank you, stubbornness, for making insularity seem like the most pleasant way to live. Now I'm the king of the insula!




Thank you, parents divorce, for making me averse to having kids or getting married. All relationships end in divorce or death, so why bother, right?



Thank you, pride, for keeping me from apologizing about that thing. I'm still carrying it around.



Thank you, sitcoms and cartoons. For a lot of my tastes and values.



Thank you, bank account, for reminding me to put a price tag on everything I do.



Thank you, first world problems, for making me feel like I've got something to whine about.

39

Apple Zone / What happens when the video game industry runs out of creativity?

« on: December 01, 2011, 03:37:53 pm »

I was thinking about the widespread lack of creativity in contemporary mainstream cinema.

Apparently, it's a lot easier to market an idea that people already have an emotional attachment to
     than to come up with a new idea.

So Hollywood keeps remixing moments from our childhood. And we keep eating it up like the sugary-candy cereal your mom didn't want you to eat while watching Saturday morning cartoons.

Video games are out of control. These days, successful video games combine the best things about movies and the best things about novels. We're looking at a new form of fiction, and we're in a period of extreme creativity. (tangential thought: I wonder who will be the James Joyce of video games?)

But the creativity will run out one day. And they'll look backwards on previous successful video games and say "That worked. People loved that franchise. Let's just do that again".

I mean, we're seeing it to some degree already. They're re-releasing the original Halo for its 10th anniversary, but DIGITALLY REMASTERED. They seem to re-release Super Mario Brothers every few years. (Before the Wii, anybody remember Super Mario: Lost Levels?) But what will happen when the stuff which is considered original now gets a fresh coat of paint, a fresh perspective?

Will our grandkids play remakes of Skyrim? Will they reboot Solid Snake into a new mid-east narrative? Will Altair and Ezio Auditore and Desmond assassinate JFK? Or will video games have moved beyond controllers and consoles at that point, and that'll be like remaking some outdated IP like Pac Man? (another franchise that refuses to die)

I just wonder what happens when the creativity runs out.  What will the remake of Mass Effect look like? Will RPGs have evolved into something else by then? (it does seem like all the genres are bleeding into each other. FPS's now have experience points and a leveling system, RPGs have become a type of action game. Gone are the days where if you forget to drink water, you die)

Where is this death contraption going, anyway?

40

Techmology and Scientism / Biopiracy - India vs Monsanto

« on: November 18, 2011, 07:01:27 pm »

The word of the day is BIOPIRACY


bi·o·pi·ra·cy     n.    The commercial development of naturally occurring biological materials, such as plant substances or genetic cell lines, by a technologically advanced country or organization without fair compensation to the peoples or nations in whose territory the materials were originally discovered.


from http://wakeup-world.com/2011/10/11/indian-government-files-biopiracy-lawsuit-against-monsanto/?mid=52

Representing one of the most agriculturally bio-diverse nations in the world, India has become a primary target for biotechnology companies like Monsanto and Cargill to spread their genetically-modified (GM) crops into new markets. However, a recent France 24 report explains that the Indian government has decided to take an offensive approach against this attempted agricultural takeover by suing Monsanto for “biopiracy,” accusing the company of stealing India’s indigenous plants in order to re-engineer them into patented varieties.

Brinjal, also known in Western nations as eggplant, is a native Indian crop for which there are roughly 2,500 different unique varieties. Millions of Indian farmers grow brinjal, which is used in a variety of Indian food dishes, and the country grows more than a quarter of the world’s overall supply of the vegetable.

And in an attempt to capitalize on this popular crop, Monsanto has repeatedly tried to commercially market its own GM variety of brinjal called Bt brinjal. But massive public outcry against planned commercial approval of Monsanto’s “frankencrop” variety in 2010 led to the government banning it for an indefinite period of time.

 But Monsanto is still stealing native crops, including brinjal, and quietly working on GM varieties of them in test fields, which is a clear violation of India’s Biological Diversity Act (BDA). So at the prompting of various farmers and activists in India, the Indian government, representing the first time in history a nation that has taken such action, has decided to sue Monsanto.

“This can send a different message to the big companies for violating the laws of the nation,” said K.S. Sugara, Member Secretary of the Karnataka Biodiversity Board, to France 24 concerning the lawsuit. “It is not acceptable … that the farmers in our communities are robbed of the advantage they should get from the indigenous varieties.”



Fuck yeah! Monsanto is pretty high on the list of evil megacorporations that cyberpunk fiction warned us about. They've done immeasurable harm to American agriculture, and I'm sure agriculture of other countries as well, so it's nice to see SOMEBODY out there is pushing back against them.

It's an interesting use of the word "piracy".. until now, I never would have considered that sequencing the genetic code of an eggplant might be a form of piracy, if only because until Monsanto, nobody owned genetic code.

This seems like a logical extension of gene patenting... I mean, if something like Golden Rice is a protected piece of IP, the IP had to come from somewhere, right? In America, farmers get sued all the time because their crops DNA has been contaminated by Monsanto DNA. Courts have forced American farmers to destroy their own seed banks, some of which were cultivated over the course of centuries, because they may contain patented seeds. So if this holds up, then where did Monsanto get that IP? They're not building crops from the ground up (no pun intended), they are derivatives of something. And until Monsanto established that you could patent genetic code, nobody owned any genetic code.

It's really such a shame that the American agricultural lobby didn't protect our farmers through all of this. Best of luck to you, India.

41

Apple Zone / Christmas Presents by PD'ers

« on: November 17, 2011, 04:57:15 pm »

Do you sell stuff which might make a good gift?

If I'm going to be spending money on X-Mas presents, I'd rather give $$ to you cats than to some awful retail outlet at some awful mall. So in this thread, hook us up with links to your swag!


Here are my crafts!!


NOT UNDER MY ROOF! -
http://cramul.us/2011/06/not-under-my-roof/
an awesome card game! Instead of sitting at a table and playing cards at each other, the cards you play push your opponent into other rooms in the house. It's a "get up and move around" alternative to card games. The object is to throw your opponent out of the house and shout NOT UNDER MY ROOF!!



The Et Cetera Discordia: the Masquerade Party at Limbo Peak
http://cramul.us/2010/12/the-et-cetera-discordia/
An awesome book celebrating the 49th or 50th anniversary of the Discordian Society. It includes essays, art, rants, and other garbage by many of the people on this board, and other members of the ErisWeb.

42

Apple Zone / SKYRIM

« on: November 11, 2011, 03:17:04 pm »

The latest installment in the Elder Scrollz series comes out today. I'm so excited that I'm making a constant high pitched eeeeeee noise.

In Skyrim, you can "be anything you can imagine". A limitless world of endless possibilities and infinite choices. You will become the character of your utmost fantasies, thrilling the world with your acts of heroism and daring-do.

Who will I become on this epic quest of righteous destiny?

I will become the Noid, the twisted and insane Dominos Pizza mascot from the late 1980s.



I'll crusade all over the frosty northlands of Tamriel, cooling down people's pizzas, and giving them clayanimation handjobs. My primary skills will be blunt weapons, stealth, and love.


Are you guys picking this shit up? What are you going to play as?

43

Bring and Brag / White Plains

« on: November 09, 2011, 02:28:48 pm »

I work in a city called White Plains. It's called that because of the way the fog rolls off the Bronx River and cloaks the city in a thick white mist.




My camera phone doesn't do it justice, but it looks beautiful here sometimes. It's like this almost every morning in the Spring. It's mysterious, like a dream city, misty canyons of concrete and glass.



My commute takes me through the fog. The rest of the day will be filled with question and answers, tasks and tribulations -- the drive to work in the morning is free of these things. I am alone in my car, carried forward by the momentum of the 9 to 5. Thoughts coalesce in the fog, things that I couldn't think at any other point during the day. This is still dreamtime.



Through the fog, and the phantoms of last night's dreams, I can barely see the building where I work.



Last night: Dreams of the old house where I grew up, anarchy and sexuality under the floor boards, father returns, there is conflict, but I am resolute.

Suddenly I am in the office dream world. My dreams lead here, to the glassy trance of the day.

44

Apple Zone / You and your clone

« on: November 04, 2011, 07:42:41 pm »

Due to a scientific or magical mishap, you end up with an identical copy of yourself. The clone looks/acts/thinks/feels exactly like you do. It has your memories and experiences too. It is not aware that it is a clone.

What happens when you two meet?

45

Apple Zone / Atheists Owned

« on: November 02, 2011, 08:41:07 pm »

I was wandering through the youtubes and ended up watching a bunch of vids of Richard Dawkins acting like a d-bag. People who would "like" those videos also like other videos in which atheists appear to be wrong.

And this is a treasure trove of lulz. Search for variations on "atheist owned", you'll see. The cats which post these videos are doing a victory dance which is hilarious to watch from the outside.

SO --- This thread is for posting snippets of anti-atheist high-fiving.


Here's "The 1 question all atheists fear" -- here's the question: "Show me evidence that god does not exist." This guy thinks that this makes atheists hypocrites who live in blind faith. I wonder if he can prove unicorns don't exist.

"Why Atheism is Dying and will Die out" - summary: now that we have the INTERNET, it's much easier to find out about the spiritual world. You can see miracles on youtube.

"CNN to atheists: you're gonna die first." - Did you know that if you don't believe in something supernatural, how can you believe you have the supernatural power to survive? that's why faith is not going away!

"Bill O'Reilly Vs Bill Maher Religion Debate" - Not an "atheist owned" clip, but I like this clip just for Bill O'Reilly, author of "Pinheads and Patriots" saying "Here's what I believe: love thy neighbor, and don't call people stupid just because you disagree with them politically." Also, Bill Maher is a douche so it's a kind of pwnage.


Got any more?