Messages

91

Literate Chaotic / Re: A Chaos Marxism Primer

« on: February 18, 2011, 03:25:16 pm »

Cram, those posters are wonderful!  I'll definitely be putting them up.  Btw - are these kopyleft?  I don't like the account requirement for downloading stuff from scribd and so I'm archiving all the (k) stuff I can find at eb&g.

CU, you're thinking too small.  Who says the creativity is even part of a forum?  Create things in your environment, the one in which you live.  Create things IRL.  Create things in your entire life, not just your online life.

Log off, shut down the computer, and go do something that will physically affect your environment.  Hanging out with a bunch of online spags isn't going to change the people around you.  Posting on a forum isn't going to traumatically affect the people who read it (please, no pedantic exceptions).

When Cram says, "Be the trouble you want to see in the world," he doesn't mean hiding behind an alt while trolling MysticWicks.  He means going out the front door and CREATING something that's interesting.  Or at least, that's what I think he means.

I agree absolutely, which is why there's now a real-world/collaborative forum dedicated to doing that at the bar and grill.  As in - making it easier to meet up with other like minds in your area, because having local groups dedicated to making mischief in the real world makes it incredibly easier for the long-tail to contribute.

There are people reading this right now who could meet up for drinks tonight and start something going in meatspace together, they just don't know it.

92

Literate Chaotic / Re: A Chaos Marxism Primer

« on: February 18, 2011, 02:59:15 pm »

Discordia isn't like crabs, caught as easily as sharing underwear.

I believe we could craft something that infectious.  Should we?

Why not?

One reason springs to mind - if we successfully craft that golden apple, then we have responsibility for something we lose control of the second it leaves our hands.

93

Literate Chaotic / Re: A Chaos Marxism Primer

« on: February 18, 2011, 02:52:56 pm »

Then, create something else.  Or create the same thing.  If you keep creating, someone will notice.  It doesn't have to be someone who will put it on YouTube or someone who will give you a $1M marketing budget.  It could be your neighbor.  Could be your boss.  Could be your family.  Someone will notice.  And someone will ask about it.  And if you're putting your heart in it, they'll want to know about what you believe.  And you can tell them.  And after you tell them, you make them create something.

I love this thought.  Go to a chrysler forum and they'll be doing their own versions of womp.  Go to a knitting forum and you'll find a subset of them writing poetry or competing in one or two other arenas.  That's not to mention the subject-matter of expertise that drew them together in the first place.  Whenever groups of people get together it seems that we naturally start creating stuff.  Often we get together just so that we can compete and learn from each other.  It's how we started with rocks and ended up with highly crafted stone axe heads.

My problem with this though, is that the participation model for groups tends to follow a power law distribution.  Here Clay Shirky goes into a fairly detailed explanation.

For every awesome thing you create, you have 1000 people who appreciate it, but figure they can't even compete and so don't even bother starting to invest the time required.  Now not to get too meta, but I think PD avoids this problem somewhat, and displays an incredible amount of creativity because we applaud all forms of creativity with the possibility of some exceptions I can't think of.  If you don't feel you can write, then you can still legitimately hold a claim to the group energy if you're wowing people with your awesome topiary.

But crucially, this is part of the narrative of the site.  It doesn't happen everywhere else at the same scale.

So for this to work, I think you'd also need to transmit that "every form of creativity is cool" narrative, and so we're back at square one? 

Discordia isn't like crabs, caught as easily as sharing underwear.

I believe we could craft something that infectious.  Should we?

94

Apple Zone / Re: I love random recruitment emails.

« on: February 17, 2011, 11:31:28 pm »

YOINK.

95

Literate Chaotic / Re: A Chaos Marxism Primer

« on: February 17, 2011, 10:42:48 pm »

I think either Discordia is either an ongoing process, or it is a static ideology.

No scratch that, I see it as an ideology about being an ongoing process.

96

Or Kill Me / Re: An Open Apology

« on: February 17, 2011, 08:47:06 pm »

I've abandonded hundreds if not thousands of posts because I doublechecked first.

Ah, that's where I've been going wrong.

 

97

Literate Chaotic / Re: A Chaos Marxism Primer

« on: February 17, 2011, 05:00:12 am »

I don't see it that way, but I (perhaps mistakenly) interpreted the Marxism aspect as a reference to Classical Marxism rather than in the pejorative sense.  The basic concepts do seem to be a tight fit:

• alienation - the alienation of people from aspects of their "human nature"
• class consciousness - the awareness, both of itself and of the social world around it, that a social class possesses, and its capacity to act in its own rational interests based on this awareness
• exploitation - the exploitation of an entire segment or class of society by another
• ideology - According to Engels, "ideology is a process accomplished by the so-called thinker consciously, it is true, but with a false consciousness. The real motive forces impelling him remain unknown to him; otherwise it simply would not be an ideological process. Hence he imagines false or seeming motive forces"

Aren't those some of the core issues we're discussing here?

98

Literate Chaotic / Re: 2011 psu WINTER

« on: February 16, 2011, 08:38:36 pm »

Last post before server went offline... coincidence?!

99

Or Kill Me / Re: An Open Apology

« on: February 16, 2011, 06:19:45 pm »

 

I need to see that film.

100

Literate Chaotic / Re: A Chaos Marxism Primer

« on: February 16, 2011, 05:57:04 pm »

Good point.  I should really read more of the source material before spagging up this thread :-D

101

Literate Chaotic / Re: A Chaos Marxism Primer

« on: February 16, 2011, 05:46:31 pm »

I mean, to me it seems like the quest for enlightenment makes people less effective at directing tangible change in the world.  It's stripping away aspects of individuality, and for what?  Why is it so repugnant to want to express aspects of your individuality?  Isn't it just branding?  It may not be pure, it may leave an unpleasant taste in your mouth, but we know it's an effective way to enact change.

Our reality has archons, prison guards if you will, who create the world we're living in. These are people whose beliefs and attitudes and goals affect us on a day to day basis. Most of these people work in politics or commerce. Sometimes we get lucky and a guy like Ghandi or Julian Assange or Timothy Leary rises to the top and something new gets injected into the system. What makes those the "good guys" IMO is that they base their actions on the betterment of our world, not just their own bank accounts. Timothy Leary didn't try to wake up the public so that he could get laid. He wanted to wake up the public, teach people how to operate their brains, and he cared about this so much that he was willing to go to jail for it.

My knowledge of Leary is low.. but didn't he effectively invent his persona to enable him to launch/lead the psychedelic revolution?  In the sense that it matters little if he threw his ego a bone here and there, because being the hip prof who gets funky with tripped-out hippies was all part of the narrative.  If "free love" wasn't branding, I don't know what was.

Dolores thinks that individuals are incapable of changing the world - only groups can change the world. And any kind of group work involves a degree of surrendering the self to the group mind.

Absolutely.

As long as you're tied to the toys that we use to play dress up with the self, you are a bad channel for the new world to come through.

To me the trick seems to be to create a narrative which enables your ego to keep itself occupied/content with toys while satisfying a much broader goal.

If you really believe in something, you have to be willing to put your self in the back seat.

I disagree that it's a hard rule - sometimes self-martyrdom is ego-fulfillment.

102

Or Kill Me / Re: An Open Apology

« on: February 16, 2011, 05:14:06 pm »

If someone says something to you that makes you feel less intelligent the chances are they're just a particularly sneaky idiot

This.  The people I admire the most are those who make me feel more intelligent when they talk because they're actually teaching me something and not being condescending.  It's a skill I know I lack... that and a lack of actual knowledge to impart

103

Literate Chaotic / Re: A Chaos Marxism Primer

« on: February 16, 2011, 04:49:50 pm »

Me personally? Sometimes I get elbow deep in a project, and I wonder what the real effect of that project will be. If I realize I'm only doing it to communicate something about myself, I have to take a big step back.

Likewise, my ego has this set of tastes ... if I listen to it, I end up approaching things I like and avoiding things I don't like. Over time this becomes a rut. The only way to snap out of the rut is to approach something I'm not comfortable with. The real trap of the Black Iron Prison is that you think the bars are protecting you.

As a really base example, this year I discovered that I like green peppers. I didn't like them as a kid, and eventually "I don't eat peppers" became part of my ego, something I use to explain myself and justify my actions. I had to slay this part of me, I had to overcome my petty little aversions, in order to grow.

What I'm asking is.. if the urge to grow, the urge towards enlightenment, is not just another trick of the nafs?  Does it set up a bundle of things (e.g. ruts, preferences against green peppers) just to shoot you a dopamine rush when you nuke those?  And for what?

I mean, to me it seems like the quest for enlightenment makes people less effective at directing tangible change in the world.  It's stripping away aspects of individuality, and for what?  Why is it so repugnant to want to express aspects of your individuality?  Isn't it just branding?  It may not be pure, it may leave an unpleasant taste in your mouth, but we know it's an effective way to enact change.

None of this is aimed at you, it's just I feel angry when I think I might have wasted years on self-doubt/purging/enlightenment quests, and for what?

"Nasruddin went galloping through Baghdad one day on his donkey.  He went up every street and into every alley and across every plaza. Every place he goes, an unending race, a hunt and search. Everybody got curious, everybody came out of their houses, and they were all yelling, "Nasruddin, Nasruddin, what are you looking for?" He said, "I lost my donkey, and I'm looking for it."

104

Apple Zone / Re: One man. One knife. 40 train robbers shamed.

« on: February 16, 2011, 04:13:37 pm »

And in a civilized nation he'd be rotting in jail for the rest of his life.

Could not possibly agree less.  Their government responded exactly as it should have.  People willing to stand up against thieving, violent rapists are not criminals.  They are heroes, and we don't deserve any of them because of people with attitudes like yours.

   

i can not haz irony

105

Literate Chaotic / Re: A Chaos Marxism Primer

« on: February 16, 2011, 04:11:57 pm »

I have to work against my ego, constantly. It's a distraction.

Do you mean to weaken it, or redirect it?