Why is Discordia more relevant than ever in the year 2008?

[LMNO]

I love the way you ended it, with TGRR's brilliant summation.

[Cramulus]

Yeah he got in the final and best word. 

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

 

[Cramulus]

append to my OP:


These are the Strange Times, and Eris' advice is to go into this world like you're attending a costume party. It's a CRAZY party, too - with boobs and drugs and sex and violence and hope and ugliness and beauty and misery. There's straight talk and stray talk silly talk shop talk gossip talk. If you're not having fun, wander around, see what else is out there.

There's so much out there, that's the best part, so don't blink. There's more than anyone can handle, and more every moment. Every single day is the most complex, interesting, exciting day in history to date. You don't think so? "Listen; there's a hell of a universe next door: let's go!"

Eris would love to be your date to this crazy party. She knows that the Strange Times leave a lot of people miserably confused. She's not going to resolve your confusion, but she can help you become happily confused instead.

So if you ask me, the Principia is 49 or 50 years old, and it's more relevant than ever.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

I love the way you ended it, with TGRR's brilliant summation.

I gotta be me.   

[Requia ☣]

Ok, let's set aside "all" for a second... it was more internal monologue I think.

I think I grok what you're saying now.

The ratio of Value-Neutral Information to Manipulated-by-Some-Other-Human Information is shrinking.

Both forms of information aren't value-neutral once they've been processed by self... but that's beside the point of your main argument. See I was off on a tangent!

I've seen reports that also show an increasing tendancy for people to only look at infomation that has been pre manipulated to fit their views as well.  Bill O'reilly, Kieth Obermann, political blogs which seem inevitably hard skewed to one side or another (to the point that I've seen bloggers claim CNN is a rebublican sock puppet).

And as bias becomes more popular, capitalism will drive value nuetral information farther and farther into the corner, until it's only available to those who want it.  And after all, who would want that biased stuff when Fox News and Sadly No are so fair and balanced?

[Cain]

Is there a word for making a good point and using shitty examples?

Everyone outside of the 28% who think Bush is doing a great job knows Fox takes its talking points from White House memos, Sadly, No! is a cheaply run political comedy blog operation whose writers political affiliations are widely known and CNN has shows for two extreme wingnuts, Glenn Beck and Lou Dobbs, who could only be balanced out by exhuming the corpses of Karl Marx and Mikhail Bakunin and giving them their own slots.

I'd be more worried by the narrow range of debate, and how it is being further narrowed.  Of course, Fox are bad with their Birchers circa 1962 act, but MSNBC, CNN and the rest take two closely related ideologies (neoliberalism and neoconservativism) and treat them as the entire range of possible political opinion, exluding many other valid opinions.  Playing games with the Overton window is more important than which particular brand within the window is being pushed today.

[LMNO]

Is there a word for making a good point and using shitty examples?

"Discordianism."

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

Is there a word for making a good point and using shitty examples?

"Discordianism."

lol

Meta!!

[Cainad (dec.)]

Is there a word for making a good point and using shitty examples?

"Discordianism."

[The Dark Monk]

People are stuck in the idea that their narrow vision in itself is absolutely right and everything outside the flashlight beam burning their retinas is dark evil and utterly wrong, which is exactly why there are leftists and rightists. The extremists on both sides get the most views because people like watching the chaos (and humiliation imo) these people spread on the internet, tv, and various forms of communication. So why do these loud and obnoxious and mostly poorly educated soles(CHUCK TAYLORS WOOT) get the most attention? Why is there an emotional pulling to watch these things? Why should we even care? Maybe it's just me, but most people I know like to watch strife, I bet that's why people who have seen MXC love it so much.


 You see a murder on the news, do you watch it or do you turn it off? Why? If you watch it, do you like it because you are glad that it isn't yourself? Do you not like it because you are squeamish and can't stand the sight of blood? Maybe there is some reason deeper than those, why people choose to watch or not. Maybe someone truly cares about the person murdered without knowing them because of an event that shaped their morals, feelings, or perception of truth and good and evil. Maybe someone watches it and laughs for the exact same reason. It has become a deepened curiosity that I wonder about human emotions, some which can be hardly clazzified as human at all, something more beastial and primal.

Maybe Discordianism is relevant because it does not need to be. Maybe it's not relevant because it needs to be. It just might be present in everything everybody touches, feels, sees, tastes. Not all potato chips in the same bag taste the same. It might just even be Discordian to choose not to be Discordian. Giving the title Discordian to a group of people gives that group an identity, which can or should not be defined. Can Discordianism give an identity to people, items, or ideas that should not be defined in such a way? Identifying chaos itself is disillusioning what chaos truly is, the random, inconsistent, everchanging. Since Discordianism is based off of something that shouldn't be defined but is, creates more chaos by defining something that shouldn't be, but creates a pattern of what should and shouldn't be in a neverending definition of chaos(which by defining it creates structure) and law(which is chaos given a name and sometimes a purpose). I hope I haven't wandered too far off the subject.

More relevant to what now is the world? That is a good question that I will ponder while I eat this delicous cake, and return with more musings. If I decide I want to.

[Verbal Mike]

Nice wall of text you have there, but Discordianism is not another name for Chaos, never was and never will be.

[Cramulus]

Maybe it's just me, but most people I know like to watch strife, I bet that's why people who have seen MXC love it so much.


 You see a murder on the news, do you watch it or do you turn it off? Why? If you watch it, do you like it because you are glad that it isn't yourself? Do you not like it because you are squeamish and can't stand the sight of blood? Maybe there is some reason deeper than those, why people choose to watch or not. Maybe someone truly cares about the person murdered without knowing them because of an event that shaped their morals, feelings, or perception of truth and good and evil. Maybe someone watches it and laughs for the exact same reason. It has become a deepened curiosity that I wonder about human emotions, some which can be hardly clazzified as human at all, something more beastial and primal.

If I recall, Nietzche wrote quite a bit about this in the Geneaology of morals. About how humans really want to see each other suffer, and that maybe we first invented law so we could punish. I'm not sure that I entirely agree, but it stands - "Man craves chaos. In fact, he's gotta have it."*

Maybe Discordianism is relevant because it does not need to be. Maybe it's not relevant because it needs to be. It just might be present in everything everybody touches, feels, sees, tastes. Not all potato chips in the same bag taste the same. It might just even be Discordian to choose not to be Discordian. Giving the title Discordian to a group of people gives that group an identity, which can or should not be defined. Can Discordianism give an identity to people, items, or ideas that should not be defined in such a way? Identifying chaos itself is disillusioning what chaos truly is, the random, inconsistent, everchanging. Since Discordianism is based off of something that shouldn't be defined but is, creates more chaos by defining something that shouldn't be, but creates a pattern of what should and shouldn't be in a neverending definition of chaos(which by defining it creates structure) and law(which is chaos given a name and sometimes a purpose). I hope I haven't wandered too far off the subject.

I don't follow.

More relevant to what now is the world? That is a good question

yes, that's the topic. 

strife and disorder (and disorder =/= chaos, btw) have always been present. What makes this decade, this very year, the time when Discordia is most relevant?






*quote from Waking Life

[The Dark Monk]

I can see a few points where it would be relevant, as I discussed it with a few other cabbages in the garden.
Green and crispy they were. Depending on the inflection of the question, relevance could also mean necessity, which in that case, I'm all for mixing up our political system and mindset from black and white, red and blue. Of course, realistically, that might not happen in my lifetime or until the fall of the US or a giant nuclear bombing. Lewis Black put it "Why don't both parties just take a break?" Fantastically crazy Jew that man is. Then again, whether Democrat, Republican, FSM overseer, AHS-9, whoever, has moral and/or religious beliefs which will impact politics. I wonder what would happen if a Discordian was elected? Probably most of the other Discordians wouldn't like him. Most of our views differ greatly except for the main ideaology, in which case that still differs. The system of our politics does not want a unique leader either, they want a popular, handsome leader with a brilliant smile and hard headed set ideals as extreme as possible without actually needed a straight jacket. Fear the vote of the population, for it will doom us all!

[Orion]

My two cents?

Discordia is.. an ideal.
Not for true chaos and strife, but quite simply, for a dynamic and fluent change.
Discordia is relevant because we're being bogged down, we're being static and even entropic at times.
This has been happening for a while and now, the discordian ideal is coming true -
 There are many people who now symbolises this ideal and this could've only happened when the world suddenly got a lot more smaller
  (You can blame technology for that one)
We're sick of being fed the same thing over and over again, we want to think for ourselves,
 - No thanks, I won't have any emotionally suppressing fries with that life of mine. -

Discordia is more relevant simply because more people are understanding it.
More people are learning to use their mind, think freely, think openly and widely.
 We're still just a small plankton in a sea with the thought police as fishes, but it's growing.

People are finally seeing and talking about the damned elephant in the room, there's only a handful of people who can actually see the Black Iron Prison, but you're getting through to people. People who care will be able to find Discordianism now. GASMs are working and when we shake the masses out of their shell and make them think for a little, we might grow a little more.

Discordianism is a name for a simple ideal of freedom of the mind.
It's represented by Chaos and the lovely Eris simply because of it's antithesis of Stasis and Bureaucracy.
We can think for ourselves, see and understand (even break at the rare occasion) the social and philosophical barriers of the mind.
This is what makes us Discordianist and we're just trying to get others to see it.
If we can make them think, truly think, for themselves and understand the barriers then our job is done.
It seems more relevant just because humanity seems so close to see our point of view.
(that doesn't mean accept or convert. Heck, just getting what we're talking about and why we do things will do for now.)

Although if you just want a quick answer -
Q: Why is Discordia more relevant than ever in the year 2008?
A: Why not? Seriously. Think about it.