Shrapnel: My thoughts.

[Verbal Mike]

Good work, LMNO, and good thoughts there, Mang.
I might try to hammer something out at work, if the nighshift is as quiet as it should be (and if I can keep my eyes open long enough.) I'm thinking a pretty short piece can explain the whole shebang in a non-offensive way, whether the reader has read PD or not. And this piece might get inserted into BIP v3.2.

[AFK]

What, you said you'd like a shiny visual to go along with that? 

[Verbal Mike]

Here's my lame attempt at this:

Here's my lame attempt at this:

You may find yourself wondering what this is all about. Well, in the late 1950's, a couple of Americans, notably Kerry Thornley and Gergory Hill (under the names Omar Khayyam Ravenhurst and Malaclypse the Younger, respectively), put together a little book called Principia Discordia. The two were obviously very stoned when they wrote it, but they somehow managed to get a few brilliant ideas into it, along with quite a few quaint jokes.

Fifty years later, some of us still find these jokes funny, but most of us consider the underlying ideas in the Principia as relevant as ever.

When I say "we" or "us", I mean the ladies and gentlemen that frequent PrincipiaDiscordia.com. "We" are more a loose association of "I"s than a "we" as such (and there is very little we can agree on), but for the sake of clarity let's just make believe for a bit.

So at some point in 2006 - before yours truly came along, as a matter of fact - some of "us" started talking about where the PD stands in the present Robot Future. The Principia said a lot of things - even contradictory things - and definitely elicited a chuckle, back in the day. The Principia says Nonsense is Salvation, and that we should not take ourselves so seriously.

But here in the Future, it looks like people all over the world are determined to take themselves way too seriously.  Actually, it seems many, many people these days are dead serious - and dead isn't necessarily a good thing. So obviously, Thornley and Hill's message still has a place, here in the Future.

However, my esteemed colleagues wondered, is the Principia Discordia really still the ideal way to deliver this message?

This question lead to a flurry, nay, a long succession of new ideas on PD.com. "We" started pumping out new pieces of writing, afflicted as we are with an irresistable urge to put words together, forming sentences, delivering thoughts to the Series of Tubes that is the Interwebs. In these new texts, we tried to take what we undertood to be the old Joshua Norton Cabal's greatest ideas, and make these our own. Rather than go on about the Law of Fives and our pineal glands*, we began to take what seemed important and relevant to us, and put for new concepts around it.

Several new concepts developed and emerged from these discussions. There was even a plan to produce a series of pamphlets, each portraying the issue from a different angle. One such pamphlet, Black Iron Prison, was not only completed but has seen one revision since. Plans are underway for a third edition. Other concepts were a mystical/theological look at the issue, and a modern horror-mirth based pamphlet called Lollercaust (LOL-ercaust, get it?).

So yeah, "we" don't necessarily ramble about the AMAZING NUMBER 23 or even talk all that much about Goddess. But if you think PD.com has no HA-HA left in it, look again.


*Which, science has now learned, produces Melatonin, a hormone that may modulate wake/sleep patterns.

I don't think the ending was any good, nor the beggining or the middle, but I was trying to keep the thing general enough so it's not only good for BiP v3.2. If you guys think it's any good (I do not trust my own judgement) I think it can be tweaked and taylored for use in different ways. Also, it could theoretically use a little more humor, both towards Hill/Thornley and towards itself.
I'm tired. And I have six more hours of work to go. :'(

(edited for stupid mistakes. work is so distracting.)

[P3nT4gR4m]

Here's my thoughts on a sequel to PD

The title itself "Principia Discordia" strikes me as drawn from Issac Newton's 1687 publication Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica or how I found physics and what I did to them

(okay I may have added the subtitle but stick with me here - this is going somewhere)

So we want to update the Principia Discordia, it strikes me that a sequel might benefit from taking a corruption of another groundbreaking science book as it's title.

We could bring it forward to 1859 and use Darwins - origin of the species, "origin of the monkees" perhaps? Subtitle: new discordia dancing on the bones of the hippies

Or maybe bring it right up to date and use Hawkins - Brief history of time, "Historical time in briefs": Heisenberg's less well known, Incredulity Principle

ideas on a sheet of blotter acid...

[LMNO]

I like that, Silly.

"Origin of the Feces".


Also, I realize this should have been originally posted in the TFY,S forum.  So it goes.

[Payne]

I was going to post my Paths thing in TFY,S but thought it best to keep these together. Also, they'll get more attention in here.

[Payne]

Maybe we need to introduce people to the idea of how the STFUPID's take on is a new extension/interpretation.

In order to establish the individuality & identity of PD.com, we've taken great pains (Paynes?) to disassociate ourselves from the Kerry/Thornley vibe. However, it might not be a bad idea to make the connections and fairly, say: "Ok, this is what we distilled from them and are grateful for - but this is where we're going with it." Perhaps, acknowledge the roots in a fair minded way, but without getting trapped into deifying the past and putting a load of 60's LSD casualties on a pedestal.

This is something I just typed up very quickly this morning, but it just kinda sounds like cock&repost (to me)

"We came here, not only to help John [Sinclair] and to spotlight what's going on, but also to show and to say to all of you that apathy isn't it. We can do something. Okay, so Flower Power didn't work, so what? We start again."

~John Lennon (at a benefit concert for John Sinclair)

There are many Discordians out there who still slavishly follow the original Principia Discordia, a ragged tome written by a couple of stoned hippies, filled with 60's humour but with a serious message running through it like barbed wire hidden in a heap of cotton wool. This humour was already dated by the early 70's, but even today we have aspiring Discordians who will parrot the jokes ad infintum. They don't even believe that there IS barbed wire in there.

Which is fair enough, a person is allowed to believe what they will. They also have to take the consequences when they shread their hands unexpectedly on the "true" message of the PD.

Flower Power did not work. It became less a philosophy and more a fashion statement, less a movement and more a profitable exercise. With this in mind, is the packaging of the original message of PD really appropriate? Can we expect an audience of today to find any truth hidden in hippy rhetoric? While the answer is obviously "yes" (many of us were able to see some form of "The Truth" in it), shouldn't we also consider the number of people who have completely missed it, and set it aside as an interesting yet ultimately dated and dead piece of literature?

I personally think that the meat of the PD is a stark reminder that we are all monkeys, we are all subject to simian behaviour, regardless of our "civilisation", "humanity" and other such concepts. It tells us to 'Think for yourself, Schmuck!', and that we are all susceptible to trying to impose our own ideas of what should be onto situations where no such concept can exist, and then call it "reality"!

This is a timeless idea, as applicable today as it was in the 60's, and probably all over human history.

When we seem dark, stark and bitter, we are only relating what we believe is the true tone of the PD. When we are hateful, impatient and arrogant, we are reacting to the context of the time that the message now finds itself in, stripping the cotton wool of the 60's off of it and clothing it in the flak jacket and utilitarian fatigues of our time.

Nonsense as Salvation, whats more non sensical than taking the scribblings of a couple hippies and turning it into a personalised philosophy where these things can happen, without contradiction?

So spare us the "ZOMG23PINEALFNORD" crap, the hippies are dead. The new age requires new action, the activist today needs a suit and a tie, not a tie-dyed shirt.

Thoughts please?

[LMNO]

Pretty good.  I've got one bubbling up, myself.

This could be very useful in stirring up shit amongst some of the pinealists who have been critiquing the BIP.

[Adios]

Both of these rewrite intro's have some meat in them. The evolution of the PD is going to be a long and difficult process and the more ideas like this the better. I will try to come up with something as well.

[Verbal Mike]

I like, Payne.
And I find it pretty awesome that four of us are working on a piece about the same thing at the same time.
Also, it's 17:05 (that's 5:05pm) and I just woke up. Nothing makes sense anymore.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

Here's my thoughts on a sequel to PD

The title itself "Principia Discordia" strikes me as drawn from Issac Newton's 1687 publication Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica or how I found physics and what I did to them

(okay I may have added the subtitle but stick with me here - this is going somewhere)

So we want to update the Principia Discordia, it strikes me that a sequel might benefit from taking a corruption of another groundbreaking science book as it's title.

We could bring it forward to 1859 and use Darwins - origin of the species, "origin of the monkees" perhaps? Subtitle: new discordia dancing on the bones of the hippies

Or maybe bring it right up to date and use Hawkins - Brief history of time, "Historical time in briefs": Heisenberg's less well known, Incredulity Principle

ideas on a sheet of blotter acid...

The Monkey Delusion
The One Eyed Watchmaker

Here's my lame attempt at this:

You may find yourself wondering what this is all about. Well, in the late 1950's, a couple of Americans, notably Kerry Thornley and Gergory Hill (under the names Omar Khayyam Ravenhurst and Malaclypse the Younger, respectively), put together a little book called Principia Discordia. The two were obviously very stoned when they wrote it, but they somehow managed to get a few brilliant ideas into it, along with quite a few quaint jokes.

Fifty years later, some of us still find these jokes funny, but most of us consider the underlying ideas in the Principia as relevant as ever.

When I say "we" or "us", I mean the ladies and gentlemen that frequent PrincipiaDiscordia.com. "We" are more a loose association of "I"s than a "we" as such (and there is very little we can agree on), but for the sake of clarity let's just make believe for a bit.

So at some point in 2006 - before yours truly came along, as a matter of fact - some of "us" started talking about where the PD stands in the present Robot Future. The Principia said a lot of things - even contradictory things - and definitely elicited a chuckle, back in the day. The Principia says Nonsense is Salvation, and that we should not take ourselves so seriously.

But here in the Future, it looks like people all over the world are determined to take themselves way too seriously.  Actually, it seems many, many people these days are dead serious - and dead isn't necessarily a good thing. So obviously, Thornley and Hill's message still has a place, here in the Future.

However, my esteemed colleagues wondered, is the Principia Discordia really still the ideal way to deliver this message?

This question lead to a flurry, nay, a long succession of new ideas on PD.com. "We" started pumping out new pieces of writing, afflicted as we are with an irresistable urge to put words together, forming sentences, delivering thoughts to the Series of Tubes that is the Interwebs. In these new texts, we tried to take what we undertood to be the old Joshua Norton Cabal's greatest ideas, and make these our own. Rather than go on about the Law of Fives and our pineal glands*, we began to take what seemed important and relevant to us, and put for new concepts around it.

Several new concepts developed and emerged from these discussions. There was even a plan to produce a series of pamphlets, each portraying the issue from a different angle. One such pamphlet, Black Iron Prison, was not only completed but has seen one revision since. Plans are underway for a third edition. Other concepts were a mystical/theological look at the issue, and a modern horror-mirth based pamphlet called Lollercaust (LOL-ercaust, get it?).

So yeah, "we" don't necessarily ramble about the AMAZING NUMBER 23 or even talk all that much about Goddess. But if you think PD.com has no HA-HA left in it, look again.


*Which, science has now learned, produces Melatonin, a hormone that may modulate wake/sleep patterns.

[Mangrove]

Verb' & Payne - I think you're both onto something. If other PD.commmies have versions, then post away. I'm really interested in where this is going. Hell, I may just end up writing one myself.

Silly - Damnit. You're going to have to stop having good ideas. Every time you do that, it makes it harder for SSOOKN to maintain hostilities. So take your excellent idea and go fuck yourself!

Also, I think LMNO (in another thread) inadvertently came up with the best subtitle for whatever the new PD gets called:  "A manual for the recovering idealist." I love that phrase.

And yes, this probably should've gone into Think For Yourself...but whatever. At least we're talking.

[P3nT4gR4m]

Silly - Damnit. You're going to have to stop having good ideas. Every time you do that, it makes it harder for SSOOKN to maintain hostilities. So take your excellent idea and go fuck yourself!

Heh, irony is - they're you're ideas. I hacked your HGA syndication feed. Lemme guess you actually thought your one true will was to lick toilet bowls clean?

Pariahs - we're hijackin j00r astral planes and flyin them into Jachin & Boaz
      \\

[Cain]

The Origins of the Poop-flinging Primate.

[Mangrove]

Silly - Damnit. You're going to have to stop having good ideas. Every time you do that, it makes it harder for SSOOKN to maintain hostilities. So take your excellent idea and go fuck yourself!

Heh, irony is - they're you're ideas. I hacked your HGA syndication feed. Lemme guess you actually thought your one true will was to lick toilet bowls clean?

Pariahs - we're hijackin j00r astral planes and flyin them into Jachin & Boaz       \\

Wrong in so many ways.