Is it time for a jailbreak?

[Cain]

I try out different belief systems.

Read some philosophy, it can be religious or political.  Don't criticize, just absorb.  Then try living while thinking in that way for a few days.  Christianity, Islam, NeoCon, Anarchist, vanilla Discordian, Subgenius etc etc

Its very eye-opening.  And gives you an edge in dealing with such people in the future.

[LMNO]

[Cramulus]

I try out different belief systems.

Read some philosophy, it can be religious or political.  Don't criticize, just absorb.  Then try living while thinking in that way for a few days.  Christianity, Islam, NeoCon, Anarchist, vanilla Discordian, Subgenius etc etc

Its very eye-opening.  And gives you an edge in dealing with such people in the future.

Well said.

There's a passage in RAW's Schr??dinger's Cat trilogy where a character does this through printed media. The every word in, say, an issue of Reader's Digest, is like a signal from another universe. He tries to 'become' the target audience by seeing what attitudes and mindsets are implicit in their language.

[Cain]

I had a module in political ideology last semester.  10 weeks, one ideology a week.  Set texts provided.

It was almost too easy. 

[Darth Cupcake]

That's a pretty cool module, though. You seem to have lots of political/philosophical knowledge stuffed in your brain, Cain, but I bet it was a real eye-opened for a lot of people. I endorse that notion.

I went through something like this when I took a philosophy class a while back. I'd be sitting around spazzing out about different philosophies, trying to compare them all, trying to imagine assigning each one to my life... I'd experiment with the idea of subscribing to each philosophy, then I'd freak out about how it clashed with some other philosophy I liked, etc... I'm sure everything I was coming up with was pretty elementary (it was an intro level course, and my thoughts were accordingly intro level), but it was nonetheless a fun, horizon-expanding experience for me. Probably would've made anyone I tried to tell it to gouge their eyes out with rusted grapefruit spoons, but that's why some monologues are best kept internal.

-DC
Really likes philosophy. Really likes listening to other people about philosophy. Really likes keeping her damn ig'nant mouth shut about philosophy!

[Cain]

It was pretty fun.

My problem was I took philosophy with a very cynical and quite brilliant man from when I was 16-18, so I got a pretty good crash course in this stuff, much earlier than most people.  Its also given me a very twisted outlook and dismissive attitude to many of the arguments, which is partly why I gave it up as my degree for politics.

As for philosophies, the only thing that ever struck me with metaphysics was Nietzsche.  The rest seemed intent on totalizing their systems of thought, and there are too many implicit assumptions in doing that for my liking.  Apart from that, I just cherry pick.  Politics and science I go for the enlightenment, metaphysics the German romanticists, ontology from the Existentialists and so on.  The fact they probably conflict actually helps, as tension in a system means it is still dynamic.

[Wrecked Fred]

So what about you guys? How do you know it's time to escape?

Escape from myself?  Escape from the monkey wiring in my brain?  How do you do that?    What if I just want to have a good time and try to forget that I am on a railroad car that is going off a bridge, like in Bridge Over the River Kwai?  What if I just want to drive fast and get laid and laugh a little?  Does that make me a trustee or something?

[LMNO]

Looks like Fred gets it.

[Wrecked Fred]

Looks like Fred gets it.

If I got it I would have a better avatar.

[LMNO]

Aw, crap.  That's Alanis, isn't it?

[Wrecked Fred]

Aw, crap.  That's Alanis, isn't it?

Yes.  It was the first one on the list of musicians, so I took it and now I feel dirty.

[LMNO]

You can always as Prof. Cramulous to put a moustache on it.

[Wrecked Fred]

You can always as Prof. Cramulous to put a moustache on it.

Okay.

[Cramulus]

It's kind of small to moustache and have it look like anything


Incidentally the Wrath Of MSPaint cabal, offers high quality moustache rides for twenty five cents American. Post a pic of yourself and the first one's free.

[Wrecked Fred]

It's kind of small to moustache and have it look like anything


Incidentally the Wrath Of MSPaint cabal, offers high quality moustache rides for twenty five cents American. Post a pic of yourself and the first one's free.

I don't have a digital camera.    Maybe you could put muttonchops on Alanis?