Recruiting the unrecruited

[Triple Zero]

Not to sound harsh, 000, but I don't really see you welcoming n00bs with open arms,

but i can try, right?

i can be really nice if i want to.

"hello mr n00b, please tell us in 23 words or less how your pineal gland smells today."

if they ignore, or make a snide remark at THAT they pass the test immediately.

otherwise we move onto another thing.

[Cain]

The point is to make this place easier to n00bs to engage in, in the hope of drawing them into the network project.  To be quite frank, so long as they are not insanely annoying and disruptive to that goal (a la AKK) then I see no real problem.  We get them to hang around for a bit, introduce them to the principles of the network idea, then if they still want to help but don't seem quite suited to the climate of this place, we can suggest other places (23ae, Myspazz, POEE etc), tell them to not be a stranger now and occasionally keep in touch.

That's the way the network spreads, organically.

We then throw in the other method of trying to create a network via previously described methods and we have something approaching a working strategy for organization.

[Triple Zero]

but, this board is more than "the network project", IMO.

they should also learn about vocoders, for instance.

[Cain]

NO VOCODER

[Triple Zero]

a while ago, in my country there was a discussion about the "educational canon" or something.

the bit that all people (kids) have to learn as minimal knowledge when they go to school. mostly which bits of history to teach them and which to leave out (cause you can't possibly teach all of history, as there's slightly too much of it).

maybe it's a good plan to think of a discordian/pd.com canon, which n00bs should be able to "get".

not so much as dogma or anything, but actually genuinely useful things. stuff that they probably don't know yet, but would most probably really enjoy reading and/or thinking about.

so, a list?

- the network project
- the black iron prison
- the barstool experiment
- why 23 pineal fnord stuff was funny in the 60/70s but not anymore
- vocoders
- etc

[Cramulus]

That's a great topic for a sticky thread

"The Story So Far...."

Each post would be an essay or brief description on one of the above topics. In short, an abstract of our "recommended reading" list


Hm....
my first post on PD requested that everyone get me up to speed by summing up the entire forum and its history in one word or less. Someone replied "Toolbox".
Isn't that sufficient?

[Cain]

I was going to touch on this in another thread.

But my idea will involve a fair bit of work, and we've already got plenty on our plate, so I was going to wait a while before I said anything.

[AFK]

To sort of dovetail with the item about 23Pineal.

I think it may be useful to while discourage or talk about how that old stuff isn't funny, we don't want to discourage funny.  Funny and humor is very important, in my estimation.  I'm not sure how we go about that but just want to point out that it's important and stuff.  

[AFK]

and since my ability to really meaningfully contribute to anything is limited, the above is something I want to sort of carry further this upcoming year.  So, I will be contributing something in due time, I need to do some research, soul searching, seltzer bottles, etc.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

Or think of it this way.  AKK, Lamanite, MOC, etc., could all still be here.  Seems to me, even if you do weed out the occassional person who would've contributed (woulda, coulda, shoulda, etc.) it's worth it to be rid of the aforementioned distractions.  Cause seriously, when the AKK shit was flying, this place kinda sucked. 

Well, maybe... but surely there's a difference between thwacking the n00b (or the Pinealist) and getting rid of actual jackasses isn't there?

[LMNO]

I was bored at a meeting the other day, and I scrawled "Absurdity as a tactic" in the margin of my notebook.

That is to say, we've been looking at the PD and trying to pull the ideas out of it that are useful.

Skepticism, model agnosticism, reality filters, (an)eristic illusion, and confirmation bias seem to be the core ideas.

People have been trying to update the "nonsense as salvation" bit for a while, without much success.  Then I thought: The PD is an Object-Lesson, not a guidebook. The use of absurdity is a strategy to shoehorn the core ideas into someone's brain.

So one of the reasons I think some of us have no patience for the old PD jokes, or n00bish meaningless dada bullshit is twofold:

1. The old PD jokes are no longer absurd, as they are familiar
2. The dada bullshit is a carrier with no content. 

So the use of humor and nonsense and non-linearity is by no means verboten.  And comedy without reason or meaning is still funny.  But to say that absurdity is inherently Discordian is only half true. 

Absurdity is the Astroglide the Discordian uses to sodomize your brain.

[AFK]

Or think of it this way.  AKK, Lamanite, MOC, etc., could all still be here.  Seems to me, even if you do weed out the occassional person who would've contributed (woulda, coulda, shoulda, etc.) it's worth it to be rid of the aforementioned distractions.  Cause seriously, when the AKK shit was flying, this place kinda sucked. 

Well, maybe... but surely there's a difference between thwacking the n00b (or the Pinealist) and getting rid of actual jackasses isn't there?

Of course.  And I think in large part, at least in my experience, that happens.  I think even though someone might groan when a n00b comes in with their Fnords and Flax, I think overall there is a different treatment of those types compared to the AKKs and MOCs of the intertubes.  But let's face it, we're not a bunch of hand holders here.  If the n00b has a thin skin, they probably won't stick around for long.  But that's not our issue, in my opinion. 

[Cain]

AKK actually wasn't a Pinealist.  He was as annoying as one on crack, but that means nothing, so is David Cameron.

As for absurdity, it should be remembered even Dada was noticeably against something (though the fact it wasn't for anything is often considered one of its key failures).

Compare http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Dada_Manifesto_%281916%2C_Hugo_Ball%29 with some of what is attempted Dada on here.  The manifesto is much superior to most of it.

[LMNO]

AKK actually wasn't a Pinealist.  He was as annoying as one on crack, but that means nothing, so is David Cameron.

As for absurdity, it should be remembered even Dada was noticeably against something (though the fact it wasn't for anything is often considered one of its key failures).

Compare http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Dada_Manifesto_%281916%2C_Hugo_Ball%29 with some of what is attempted Dada on here.  The manifesto is much superior to most of it.

I agree.  The political origins and intents of Dada have become more interesting to me than the art.

But it's the art that got me interested in the first place.


Similarly, I laughed at the PD the first time I read it.

Only later, I really started thinking about it.

[Cain]

Yes, but Dada art was actually good.  Even divorced from knowledge about its history and aims, its still aesthetically pleasing.  The PD, too, looked like it had someone go through and edit it, it was coherent in its irrationality (in fact, it was very much like later Chaos Theory, internally it was a mess, but if you took it as a whole, it had definite limits and boundaries in terms of content and message).

Most people just aren't trying hard enough.