Opensource discussion on O:MF and what comes after.

[Cain]

Haven't got time for a long ass reply.

Here are some ideas from other people you may want to incorporate into the discussion however.

Skilluminati:

We live on a planet with 6 billion humans, and most of them are uninformed and ignorant. Here in the United States, despite high standards of living and abundant material wealth, the situation is no different.

[...]

Don't mistake this for crowing about how dumb people are. This is a serious and intractable problem. The vast majority of voters in the United States are dangerously ignorant and easily manipulated.

Here's the moral quandary: is it ethical to use deception in order to control these people? If you don't do it, guess who will? Karl Rove. Rick "not about the issues" Davis. The same paid operatives who have been running the real power structure of the United States since John Rockefeller and Edward Bernays were alive.

Here's the logistical problem: how can you and I compete against multi-million dollar budgets? The business of spectacles, like any other, is a business that runs on money. Those who have money shape the spectacle, and the rest of us are consigned to...well, meaningless critiques on obscure websites.

[...]

As I said at the outset of this project, "my interest in 5GW (5th Generation Warfare) is rooted in it's potential for positive social and cultural change." I am investigating warfare for the same reasons I investigated psychology and marketing -- beacuse the tools of social control will be less damaging when they're widely distributed. Executives who have power over millions of other humans are inherently dangerous -- millions of humans with executive control over themselves is where we're headed this century.

The dinosaurs of governments and corporations and media conglomerates and think tanks and universities -- the old legitimate White Control System -- will not let go quietly and politely. So I think every future mutunt has a common-sense obligation to learn how to disable and disarm them as effectively as possible.


Matt Mason, The Pirate's Dilemma:

Disruptive new D.I.Y. tech­nologies are causing unprecedented creative destruction. The history of punk offers us valuable insights into how this new world works. Punk was an angry outburst, a reaction to mass culture, but it offered new ideas about how mass culture could be replaced with a more person­alized, less centralized worldview.

Punk has survived in many incarnations musically—it became new wave, influenced hip-hop, and conceived grunge and the notion of indie bands. But more important, its independent spirit also spurred a do-it-yourself revolution. D.I.Y. encourages us to reject authority and hierarchy, advocating that we can and should produce as much as we consume.

[...]

Punk had high ideals—it looked aggressive and scary, but through its angry critique of society and subversion of it, it sought to change the world for the better. Punk capitalists are using the same techniques, subverting a world full of empty cor­porate gestures, manufacturing businesses and products with meanings that attempt to inject substance back into style. Punk injected altruism into entrepreneurship, a motivator of people long overlooked by neoclassical economics. Not only that, punk made the idea of putting purpose before profit seem cool to an entire generation. It manufactured new meaning in an area where it was really needed.

[...]

Hip-hop has forged such a strong connection with so many, it can create change like no music scene before it. "I don't think there is any place it doesn't exist," says Daymond John of the move­ment he grew up with. "Hip-hop artists are addressing the U.N. It could actually overthrow governments. This is the communication of the poor. Music is one of the most powerful ways people communicate with each other. There is no limit to this." Hip-hop has proved to be a great way to generate money, but it's now in a position to generate some serious social change, too.

Chang also cites studies such as the UCLA freshman survey that points out that "the hip-hop generation's rate of participation in voluntarism, in political protest and in activism on a wide range of issues is much higher than that of the baby boomer generation during their youth.. . . The myth of an apa­thetic generation—one even upheld by some of our youngest public intellectuals—is one of the most baseless and insidious lies of our era."

[...]

Today's flash mobs are the digital Situationists, increasing the peace, subverting the norm, and making us laugh. Each one is different and unique; the only thing they have in common is their transience. But flash mobs are just one new phenomenon; many things are becoming just as temporary. Nanocultures rise and fall in months. Goods are ever more disposable. Owning something is becoming less important than the right to access it. Gibson was right: things that used to be meaning­ful no longer carry the same weight. Youth cultures and fads have become marketing tools, but deeper underground, something else is happening.

Instead of the subversive words of youth cultures such as punk and hip-hop, the actions of a new breed of nanomovements and subversive systems are sweating the smaller stuff, tearing old models to shreds, and finding new ways to construct meaning and movements. The nanos still add up to something. It seems depth is a thing of the past, but again, this is just how it looks on the surface.
Welcome to youth culture's great disappearing act.


The Art of Memetics:

In contemporary society examining survival pressures means looking at the socioeconomic system within which people are embedded. Memes that make their host unemployable have smaller potential populations, and contravening the social mores and norms endangers the host's survivability and reduces the meme's communicational effectiveness. It is detrimental to memetic survival to promote behavior that destroys the host's ability to maneuver in a social space.

However, there is no reason to assume memetics requires language to operate. All identity construction, in addition to being a kind of bricolage, is also existent only within a social context. You do not have an identity without some kind of community formation against which to project that identity. This community space is also a theater in which performance and stress builds connections....The propaganda of the deed is most commonly pictured as terrorism, but can mean any dramatic or awe-inspiring action designed as communication. In the past the actions only affected those who were physically present. If those not present were effected it was via a retelling or textualizing. Today's media environment in which events and actions are filmed, associated with various emotional markers through juxtaposition and shown directly to many people repeatedly has widened the impact of these types of communication. It is against this backdrop of our current communication structure that terrorism has gained its modern power and prevalence, as it is one thing to be told that hundreds of people have died in an event, but it is quite another thing entirely to be shown the event in all its drama, movement, and color.

You don't convince someone by pushing what you believe against what they believe. It is when their belief system is questioning itself that you can lean in and offer what you want them to do or believe as the answer to the instability. Point out contradictions inherent in their belief system and they themselves may throw it out of balance. Get them to question one end of their beliefs using another end and then offer your meme as the solution to the feelings of doubt.


Adorno and Horkheimer, The Culture Industry

Those who are so absorbed by the world of the movie—by its images, gestures, and words—that they are unable to supply what really makes it a world, do not have to dwell on particular points of its mechanics during a screening. All the other films and products of the entertainment industry which they have seen have taught them what to expect; they react automatically. The might of industrial society is lodged in men's minds. The entertainment manufacturers know that their products will be consumed with alertness even when the customer is distraught, for each of them is a model of the huge economic machinery which has always sustained the masses, whether at work or at leisure—which is akin to work. From every sound film and every broadcast program the social effect can be inferred which is exclusive to none but is shared by all alike. The culture industry as a whole has molded men as a type unfailingly reproduced in every product. All the agents of this process, from the producer to the women's clubs, take good care that the simple reproduction of this
mental state is not nuanced or extended in any way.



Jay Abraham, Techniques of Stealth Marketing

Education is a powerful marketing technique.  Educate your prospective buyers about everything (including a few of the bad or less positive aspects of your product or service) and you'll sell to almost twice as much people as you do now.



The Psychology of Entertainment, Wyer and Adaval

The images created by the entertainment media, whether encountered in a darkened movie theatre or in sitcoms, soaps, news reports, and advertising, do appear to blur the lines between reality and what we perceive it to be. These images can have a persisting influence on people's attitudes, beliefs, and behavior in ways that we have only recently begun to uncover. O'Guinn and Shrum (1997) paint
a compelling picture of the consequences of excessive television viewing. They find that heavy viewers of television are more likely than infrequent viewers to overestimate the frequency with which individuals drive luxury cars, have swimming pools in their backyards, or manifest other characteristics of an affluent lifestyle (see Shrum, Burroughs, & Rindfleish, this volume).

These effects occur in part because people are typically unmotivated or unable to identify the sources of information they have acquired (Hasher, Goldstein, & Toppin, 1977; Jacoby, Kelley, Brown, & Jasechko, 1989; Johnson, Hashtroudi, & Lindsay, 1993). Thus, they fail to distinguish between their memories for actual events they have read about or personally experienced and their memories of fictional events they have seen on television. Consequently, they often retrieve and use these latter events to estimate the likelihood that the events occur in daily life. In many instances, people are unaware of the biasing influence of the media on their estimates. But even when they are conscious of bias, they do not know how much they should adjust to compensate for it (Petty &Wegener, 1993). Consequently, they can often fail to adjust enough or, at other times, can adjust too much.


Bob Altermeyer, The Authoritarians

I have discovered in my investigations that, by and large, high Right Wing Authoritarian students had simply missed many of the experiences that might have lowered their authoritarianism. Take that first item on page 59 about fathers being the head of the family. Authoritarian followers often said they didn't know any other kind of families.  And they hadn't known any unpatriotic people, nor had they broken many rules. They simply had not met many different kinds of people or done their share of wild and crazy things. Instead they had grown up in an enclosed, rather homogeneous environment--with their friends, their schools, their readings, their amusements all
controlled to keep them out of harm's way and Satan's evil clutches. They had contentedly traveled around on short leashes in relatively small, tight, safe circles all their lives.

Interestingly enough, authoritarian followers show a remarkable capacity for change IF they have some of the important experiences. For example, they are far less likely to have known a homosexual (or realized an acquaintance was homosexual) than most people. But if you look at the high RWAs who do know someone gay or lesbian, they are much less hostile toward homosexuals in general than most
authoritarians are. Getting to know a homosexual usually makes one more accepting of homosexuals as a group. Personal experiences can make a lot of difference, which is a truly hopeful discovery. The problem is, most right-wing authoritarians won't willingly exit their small world and try to meet a gay. They're too afraid. And "coming out" to a high RWA acquaintance might have long-term beneficial effects
on him, but it would likely carry some risks for the outgoing person.



A New Spin on Groups: The Science of Chaos

Butz explains that, during stable periods in their lives, individuals are able to achieve a fixed, yet transitory, sense of self. However, these periods remain stable only until the psyche encounters novel material, which it is unable to integrate within its current mental configuration. When the mental apparatus is disrupted, chaos ensues, followed by a period where the organism reorganizes at a higher level of complexity. This process seems compatible with that inferred in Freeman's brain research mentioned earlier. As the organism develops higher and higher levels of complexity and adaptation, it alternates between periods of stability and chaos. However, as Butz notes, the chaotic periods are far less frequent than are the stable ones.

[...]

According to Butz, psychic chaos and subsequent self-organization signal a creative gestation period wherein the psyche reorganizes itself to accommodate or integrate novel material. Both Butz and Jung discuss the link between chaos and creativity, recognizing what so many others have—that psychic turbulence is a necessary condition prior to new insight or creation of a new psychic structure. As an artist might struggle with containing chaos to create, so too must an individual in the throes of psychic upheaval manage chaos while undergoing a transformation.

During chaotic periods, the unconscious issues forth symbolic images or mandalas. These mandalas, containing symbols of the self, are expressed in a mathematical structure. They appear to be compensatory. Mandalas both express and create order in opposition to ongoing psyche chaos. Butz concludes that "these symbolic representations of the transitory self may also act as a container to focus chaotic experience toward an organized state. As a consequence, the mandala (Fig. 4.2) or the symbol seems to function as an attractor that brings about order.  "What is fascinating about these mandalas are the incredible similarities they have to the fractal images so prevalent in the geometry of chaos.


Culture Jamming

Meanwhile, the question remains: How to box with shadows? In other words, what shape does an engaged politics assume in an empire of signs?

The answer lies, perhaps, in the "semiological guerrilla warfare" imagined by Umberto Eco. "[T]he receiver of the message seems to have a residual freedom: the freedom to read it in a different way...I am proposing an action to urge the audience to control the message and its multiple possibilities of interpretation," he writes. "One medium can be employed to communicate a series of opinions on another medium...The universe of Technological Communication would then be patrolled by groups of communications guerrillas, who would restore a critical dimension to passive reception."


The Power of Persuasion, Robert Levine

Psychological disarmament is what often sets the stage for persuasion.  One of life's crueler ironies is that we're most vulnerable at those
very moments when we feel in least danger. Unfortunately, the illusion of invulnerability pretty well defines our resting state. Even when there is no manipulative outsider pulling our strings, most of us have a tendency to view our futures with unrealistic optimism. Studies have
shown that people generally approach the threats of life with the philosophy that bad things are more likely to happen to other people than
to themselves. With uncanny faulty logic, most people will tell you they're less prone to become victims than everyone around them.

[...]

Research shows that if you subject people to weak versions of a persuasive message, they're less vulnerable to stronger versions later on,
in much the same way that being exposed to small doses of a virus immunizes you against full-blown attacks. In a classic study by William McGuire, people were asked to state their opinion on an issue. They were then mildly attacked for their position and given an opportunity to refute the attack. When later confronted by a powerful argument against their initial opinion, these subjects were more resistant than were a control group. In effect, they developed defenses that rendered them immune.

[Payne]

sweet jesus, there's a lot of good shit there.

I'm immediately thinking that Rogers call to jack the media is not having enough effort put into it.

I'm thinking that we may need to reconsider doing some things for one result only. (such as the lulz, as noble a cause as that is).

I need to consider this a bit more, maybe I'll have something in a week or two.

I want people to remind me to revisit this, if they can, please?

[ñͤͣ̄ͦ̌̑͗͊͛͂͗ ̸̨̨̣̺̼̣̜͙͈͕̮̊̈́̈͂͛̽͊ͭ̓͆ͅé ̰̓̓́ͯ́́͞]

Some questions to consider when this gets revisited.

Mindfucking as freeing mini-egos from the chains of the monolithic self.

• Can this be operationalized?

        - Is there relevant psychological or sociological research?
        - How does one know a mini-ego has been freed?
        - What skills does a person need in order to free mini-egos?
        - When does a person know it's time to begin/end?

• What costs and gains is the mindfucker/mindfuckee likely to face from free mini-egos?

        - personally
        - in their larger social circle
        - in society at large
        - in their pants

• What role does the mindfuckee's volition play in the larger self freeing smaller selves?

        - Hypnotists are fond of saying that all hypnosis is self hypnosis, is all mindfucking self-mindfucking?
        - How does this inform the role of the mindfucker?
        - Do the mini-egos have discrete volitions?
        - Is a larger volition emergent out of this collection of smaller ones?
        - Who appeals to who during a mindfuck?

Replacing the mindfuck concept rather than evolving it.

• What specifically was the mindfuck concept to be replaced?
• How did it function?
• Why does it need to be replaced?
• How do we know we have replaced it rather than evolved it?

[ñͤͣ̄ͦ̌̑͗͊͛͂͗ ̸̨̨̣̺̼̣̜͙͈͕̮̊̈́̈͂͛̽͊ͭ̓͆ͅé ̰̓̓́ͯ́́͞]

sweet jesus, there's a lot of good shit there.

I'm immediately thinking that Rogers call to jack the media is not having enough effort put into it.

I'm thinking that we may need to reconsider doing some things for one result only. (such as the lulz, as noble a cause as that is).

I need to consider this a bit more, maybe I'll have something in a week or two.

I want people to remind me to revisit this, if they can, please?

Link to that discussion pls?

[Payne]

http://www.principiadiscordia.com/forum/index.php?topic=17624.0

I started thinking about it, but I'm thinking either too small, too indirect, or both.

[Payne]

Some questions to consider when this gets revisited.

Mindfucking as freeing mini-egos from the chains of the monolithic self.

• Can this be operationalized?

        - Is there relevant psychological or sociological research?
        - How does one know a mini-ego has been freed?
        - What skills does a person need in order to free mini-egos?
        - When does a person know it's time to begin/end?

• What costs and gains is the mindfucker/mindfuckee likely to face from free mini-egos?

        - personally
        - in their larger social circle
        - in society at large
        - in their pants

• What role does the mindfuckee's volition play in the larger self freeing smaller selves?

        - Hypnotists are fond of saying that all hypnosis is self hypnosis, is all mindfucking self-mindfucking?
        - How does this inform the role of the mindfucker?
        - Do the mini-egos have discrete volitions?
        - Is a larger volition emergent out of this collection of smaller ones?
        - Who appeals to who during a mindfuck?

Replacing the mindfuck concept rather than evolving it.

• What specifically was the mindfuck concept to be replaced?
• How did it function?
• Why does it need to be replaced?
• How do we know we have replaced it rather than evolved it?

I don't know, I think my original ideas and thoughts in this thread are flawed to begin with.

I need to think on it and perhaps rework it from the ground up.

Some of these questions may still be relevant afterwards, many will not.

[ñͤͣ̄ͦ̌̑͗͊͛͂͗ ̸̨̨̣̺̼̣̜͙͈͕̮̊̈́̈͂͛̽͊ͭ̓͆ͅé ̰̓̓́ͯ́́͞]

I don't know, I think my original ideas and thoughts in this thread are flawed to begin with.

I need to think on it and perhaps rework it from the ground up.

Some of these questions may still be relevant afterwards, many will not.

Well, it's not brainstorming if you're not dealing with a large amount of flawed and irrelevant ideas.

You almost always have to sort through them to get to the really good ones, IMO.

[Payne]

I don't know, I think my original ideas and thoughts in this thread are flawed to begin with.

I need to think on it and perhaps rework it from the ground up.

Some of these questions may still be relevant afterwards, many will not.

Well, it's not brainstorming if you're not dealing with a large amount of flawed and irrelevant ideas.

You almost always have to sort through them to get to the really good ones, IMO.

Indeed.

I'm writing a bigger piece now, which hopefully will be torn to shreds.

If I'm going to start with flawed ideas, I might as well start with grandiose ones, they're more likely to still have some meat on them when we're done.

[Payne]

GIN I was God, sittin' up there abeen,
(IF I were God, sitting up there above,)
Weariet nae doot noo a' my darg was deen,
(Wearied no doubt, now all my work was done,)
Deaved wi' the harps an' hymns oonendin' ringin',
(Deafened by the harps and hymns unending ringing,)
Tired o' the flockin' angels hairse wi' singin',
(Tired of the flocking angels hoarse with singing,)
To some clood-edge I'd daunder furth an', feth,
(To some cloud edge I'd saunter forth and, faith,)
Look ower an' watch hoo things were gyaun aneth.
(Look over and watch how things were going beneath.)
Syne, gin I saw hoo men I'd made mysel'
(Then if I saw how men, I'd made myself)
Had startit in to pooshan, sheet an' fell,
(Had started out to poison, shoot and fell,)
To reive an' rape, an' fairly mak' a hell
(To steal and rape and fairly make a hell)
O' my braw birlin' Earth,--a hale week's wark--
(Of my fine spinning Earth -- a whole week's work --)
I'd cast my coat again, rowe up my sark,
(I'd drop my coat again, roll up my shirt,)
An' or they'd time to lench a second ark,
(And, ere they'd time to launch a second ark,)
Tak' back my word an' sen' anither spate,
(Take back my word and send another flood,)
Droon oot the hale hypothec, dicht the sklate,
(Drown out the whole shebang, wipe the slate,)
Own my mistak', an, aince I cleared the brod,
(Admit my mistake, and once I'd cleared the board,)
Start a'thing ower again, gin I was God.
(Start everything over again, if I were God.)

Operation: MindFuck. What a great idea, seriously. It's a game we play, a weapon, a comedy and a tragedy. It allows us to express our creativity, and also exposes out lack of it.

It exposes a lot of small things, flaws (as we see them) in others and in ourselves. For a Discordian, O:MF is almost a commandment, we are supposed  to go out and fuck with peoples minds, firstly our own. How we are meant to actually do this is never made particularly clear, but we have (almost) all developed our own particular ways of working.

If our methods are ambiguous, our goals, our "reasons" are more so. Such is the nature of discord, I suppose.

We bring almost as many personal viewpoints and prejudices to the table here. The tension this can create has been noted many times and exploited a few times (nothing like a bit of tension to get the creative juices flowing, right?). But ignoring the tension for a moment, multiple viewpoints mean we have a broader field of fire. We can attack one person, idea or concept from many different angles at the same time. In almost any circumstance, we "have you surrounded, come out with your hands up!"

Why aren't we taking more advantage of this? As I look around here, I see quite a number of projects going on. Good ones, and almost all of them are Crams or are being kept going by him.

It's good that we have someone like Cramulus who can manage a project, push it through,get people motivated to take part. Cram is a good guy, and has all the qualities of a good leader, but we need more people to take up the reigns, to push through these projects, to create more of their own.

We need more varied ideas and people who are willing to step up to the plate and have their ideas heard and implemented.

Roger recently called for us to start fucking with the media. I agreed then, and I still do, but I'm begining to think that what we have discussed so far for this "plan" is too small time, is not pushing our limits. We DO need to jack the media, but I think we need to do it directly, or at least more directly than I have been thinking about.

We need people on the inside. OK, so we're not going to get a news anchor, or even the guy that does his teleprompter, but we need to start speaking with people who ARE involved with the mass media, with students who shortly will be. We need to raise our sights a little and focus our attention on places and people who, if we can affect change there, will have a larger and broader effect. We almost had this with the Adam Weishaupt Society (another of Crams projects), we need to revisit that idea and REALLY put some effort into it.

For the media, we can read all sorts of other things. Popular Culture, large institutions, maybe (a real long shot here) the underbelly of Government.

This is what we should be doing if we are focusing on effecting change with O:MF outside our own minds.

Within our own minds, O:MF as a self-mindfuck, we should perhaps be considering adjusting our roles more often. Within this community many of us seem to have a well defined niche, a certain service, viewpoint, shtick that we are noted for having or providing.

This is all well and good, it's nice to know that there is a certain constancy, a familiarity in our interactions on this board. It lends a small amount of stabiliy to an otherwise fractious group of individuals, but it tends to stifle a great deal of creativity, (of which there is still plenty, but we can always do with more).

When we step up to the plate and announce our ideas, I believe we need to be more willing to adopt a different role in seeing them implemented (we could possibly find ourselves auto-mindfucked into taking a leadership role, so that Cram can get on with the projects he enjoys taking forward more). We need to see more people willing and able to take on any role, be it leader, artist, writer, ranter, thinker, debator and a myriad of others.

In the badlands, we are all capable of being anything we want. It is by actually pushing our limits that we'll see what we can actually do and what we as a group are capable of achieving, both for ourselves and for advancing our own and each others causes.

It is in this way that I feel the mini-egos and One Self idea I began with in this thread can be resolved. It is by truly pushing ourselves and over reaching that we will discover more about hidden aspects of our personality, about what we can use to achieve more with less effort, and what we can then turn our attention to "fixing" or "improving".

More ideas as and when they come, I just had to shit this out.

[Valerie - Gone]

Addressing Payne first. Then others.

I like that song thing-jig at the beginning of your post. Interesting. Where'd it come from?
I agree with all that you said about Cram. A lot of times, it seems like he's the only one seriously mindfucking. I certainly see him at the center of the concept. And that's good in that he's a great leader and horrendously creative, but there definitely should be more people there with him in the center. It makes me think again about his rant awhile back about us being trolled. It seems like he has such visions for what we could do, as a group, and we let him down a lot. So, I definitely agree that more people should help him. He shouldn't be our Atlas.
Overall, I really liked your post. I'm not sure if you meant it this way, but I saw it as a galvanizing call to action.

You don't convince someone by pushing what you believe against what they believe. It is when their belief system is questioning itself that you can lean in and offer what you want them to do or believe as the answer to the instability. Point out contradictions inherent in their belief system and they themselves may throw it out of balance. Get them to question one end of their beliefs using another end and then offer your meme as the solution to the feelings of doubt.

This. This seems like what we should be doing, at least in terms of affecting other individuals. Make acquantices with lots of people and wait until they have a questioning period before introducing our memes. It would take much longer to do, but maybe it would be more effective? 'course, if y'all are already doing that, just ignore me...

- Hypnotists are fond of saying that all hypnosis is self hypnosis, is all mindfucking self-mindfucking?

This relates to the above quote, I think. We can mindfuck all we want (by posterGASMing, etc), but if an individual is not receptive to the memes at that point in time, it will have little affect on them.

Research shows that if you subject people to weak versions of a persuasive message, they're less vulnerable to stronger versions later on...

I'm seeing this as posterGASMing is ineffective and actually detrimental to our work if our aim is to "wake people up." I'm probably wrong, and if you posterGASM just for lulz than it doens't really matter anyway, but that's the first thing I got from this.

[Payne]

Addressing Payne first. Then others.

I like that song thing-jig at the beginning of your post. Interesting. Where'd it come from?
I agree with all that you said about Cram. A lot of times, it seems like he's the only one seriously mindfucking. I certainly see him at the center of the concept. And that's good in that he's a great leader and horrendously creative, but there definitely should be more people there with him in the center. It makes me think again about his rant awhile back about us being trolled. It seems like he has such visions for what we could do, as a group, and we let him down a lot. So, I definitely agree that more people should help him. He shouldn't be our Atlas.
Overall, I really liked your post. I'm not sure if you meant it this way, but I saw it as a galvanizing call to action.

First, the poem was one my http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Murray_(poet) a poet from very near where I live.

I'm not saying that Cram is the only guy fighting the good fight, I'm saying more that he's leading from the front in a way that all of us are (probably) capable of, but aren't doing.

It is, in many way a call for action, but more for thought. I want people to shred down the ideas in it and debate them. And the same for other things I'm planning to write.

You don't convince someone by pushing what you believe against what they believe. It is when their belief system is questioning itself that you can lean in and offer what you want them to do or believe as the answer to the instability. Point out contradictions inherent in their belief system and they themselves may throw it out of balance. Get them to question one end of their beliefs using another end and then offer your meme as the solution to the feelings of doubt.

This. This seems like what we should be doing, at least in terms of affecting other individuals. Make acquantices with lots of people and wait until they have a questioning period before introducing our memes. It would take much longer to do, but maybe it would be more effective? 'course, if y'all are already doing that, just ignore me...

See, this is what I mean.

It takes a lot of effort to go for a lot of people for a long time.

Maybe, ultimately, what we need to do is refine the Mindfuck so that it doesn't take either too much time or need to be individually targeted. Then we can focus on doing a lot of different things, for the same amount of energy and concentration.

- Hypnotists are fond of saying that all hypnosis is self hypnosis, is all mindfucking self-mindfucking?

This relates to the above quote, I think. We can mindfuck all we want (by posterGASMing, etc), but if an individual is not receptive to the memes at that point in time, it will have little affect on them.

Research shows that if you subject people to weak versions of a persuasive message, they're less vulnerable to stronger versions later on...

I'm seeing this as posterGASMing is ineffective and actually detrimental to our work if our aim is to "wake people up." I'm probably wrong, and if you posterGASM just for lulz than it doens't really matter anyway, but that's the first thing I got from this.

For this, I would refer to Crams "Why I put up Posters". It doesn't really matter if they are effective on others, it's more of a personal thing.

[ñͤͣ̄ͦ̌̑͗͊͛͂͗ ̸̨̨̣̺̼̣̜͙͈͕̮̊̈́̈͂͛̽͊ͭ̓͆ͅé ̰̓̓́ͯ́́͞]

Most of my questions still apply, especially surrounding this theory of mini-egos (which is compelling though I think it's inaccurate).

If our methods are ambiguous, our goals, our "reasons" are more so. Such is the nature of discord, I suppose.

Mine aren't. Mostly.

We bring almost as many personal viewpoints and prejudices to the table here. The tension this can create has been noted many times and exploited a few times (nothing like a bit of tension to get the creative juices flowing, right?). But ignoring the tension for a moment, multiple viewpoints mean we have a broader field of fire. We can attack one person, idea or concept from many different angles at the same time. In almost any circumstance, we "have you surrounded, come out with your hands up!"

Why aren't we taking more advantage of this? As I look around here, I see quite a number of projects going on. Good ones, and almost all of them are Crams or are being kept going by him.

I'll tell you what holds me back. There's little to no criteria for failure or success for most projects. The ones with better defined criteria have gone much farther—look at Colbertgasm and Postergasm. Colbertgasm succeeded because there was a testability to it and specific real world action to take, however providing plenty of room for creativity. The same is true with Postergasm. You succeed if you put up posters and take a few pictures of it. You succeed if you make posters that someone else puts up. You succeed big time if you hear about a poster making an impact on someone. But it's also possible and very likely IMO, that most of your successes will never be known, that you really made someone's day or royally pissed someone off but they had no way to contact you.

Valerie suggests that the arguments made in Postergasm materials are weak, but I disagree. I doubt she's very familiar with the project... Which ones are weak?

It's good that we have someone like Cramulus who can manage a project, push it through,get people motivated to take part. Cram is a good guy, and has all the qualities of a good leader, but we need more people to take up the reigns, to push through these projects, to create more of their own.

What do you attribute to his success?

We need more varied ideas and people who are willing to step up to the plate and have their ideas heard and implemented.

How can YOU help make this happen? And how badly do you really want it to happen?

Roger recently called for us to start fucking with the media. I agreed then, and I still do, but I'm begining to think that what we have discussed so far for this "plan" is too small time, is not pushing our limits. We DO need to jack the media, but I think we need to do it directly, or at least more directly than I have been thinking about.

We need people on the inside. OK, so we're not going to get a news anchor, or even the guy that does his teleprompter, but we need to start speaking with people who ARE involved with the mass media, with students who shortly will be. We need to raise our sights a little and focus our attention on places and people who, if we can affect change there, will have a larger and broader effect. We almost had this with the Adam Weishaupt Society (another of Crams projects), we need to revisit that idea and REALLY put some effort into it.

I'm interested in how I can help to collectively fuck with the media. I know there are a lot of other people who have a similar inclination, however the devil is in the details... I've come to expect that when I press discordians for the details of their plans that they probably won't have them and may even actively avoid fleshing things out with some half-baked rationalization about disorder. It's a flying by the seat of your pants gamble that usually doesn't even occur because people lose interest as soon as they realize how much effort is required to make it happen.

You're talking in glittering generalities. What kind of larger effects? What people and places? What will speaking with insiders and students do for you? I'm a student of the mass media, albeit a subsection, but that is the environment where I'm being taught to succeed at. It's quite possible that I'll be much further inside the belly of the beast in the next few years, but then what? I hope you don't think that I'd risk my entire design career for a prank. Well, maybe I would, but it would need a much better mission statement than, "Let's fuck with the media, LOL."

What got me about Roger's call to action was the potential for the "social fiction" meme. That's hella juicy.

For the media, we can read all sorts of other things. Popular Culture, large institutions, maybe (a real long shot here) the underbelly of Government.

This is what we should be doing if we are focusing on effecting change with O:MF outside our own minds.

This is why nothing gets done. It sounds good on the surface, but really you're not saying anything in real world terms. Once you embellish these ideas with concrete, testable elements they'll grow legs.

Within our own minds, O:MF as a self-mindfuck, we should perhaps be considering adjusting our roles more often. Within this community many of us seem to have a well defined niche, a certain service, viewpoint, shtick that we are noted for having or providing.

This is all well and good, it's nice to know that there is a certain constancy, a familiarity in our interactions on this board. It lends a small amount of stabiliy to an otherwise fractious group of individuals, but it tends to stifle a great deal of creativity, (of which there is still plenty, but we can always do with more).

Lead by example. A lot of people like you and respect you, myself included. If you started doing something like that you'd be assured to influence people.

Could you really go a week without WOMP though? Do you remember when Roger got all nice? People were terrified.

How would you know that enough people are playing more roles? What can one do to encourage it?  When would it be contraindicated?

When we step up to the plate and announce our ideas, I believe we need to be more willing to adopt a different role in seeing them implemented (we could possibly find ourselves auto-mindfucked into taking a leadership role, so that Cram can get on with the projects he enjoys taking forward more). We need to see more people willing and able to take on any role, be it leader, artist, writer, ranter, thinker, debator and a myriad of others.

And again, how to do this?

I've been considering writing a rant recently but there is little of my writing that doesn't implode from the force of my own analysis.

The leadership idea is good too. I'd like to see that happen as well, but I could see hostile competition between would-be leaders fucking everything up.

Perhaps what we need more of is taking initiative and collaboration not necessarily someone explicitly playing "leader."

It is in this way that I feel the mini-egos and One Self idea I began with in this thread can be resolved. It is by truly pushing ourselves and over reaching that we will discover more about hidden aspects of our personality, about what we can use to achieve more with less effort, and what we can then turn our attention to "fixing" or "improving".

While this all is helpful, I'm not sure I agree with the theory of mini-egos versus the One Self. In lieu of an operationalized idea of "mini-egos..." I'm not sure the model is very useful either.

I think you're absolutely correct about pushing ourselves and overreaching though. RAH!

- Hypnotists are fond of saying that all hypnosis is self hypnosis, is all mindfucking self-mindfucking?

This relates to the above quote, I think. We can mindfuck all we want (by posterGASMing, etc), but if an individual is not receptive to the memes at that point in time, it will have little affect on them.

Well, Postergasm is just one tentacle in my bag of tricks. Also, you're not accounting for the sleeper effect or priming, which arguably Postergasm could function through.

How do you define a mindfuck, Valerie? And would you mind editing your post to reflect where your quotes came from?

[Payne]

Good stuff Net, I'll get some replies to this tomorrow. If I can think of any,

As you say there are a lot of generalities and not much substance, but I'll try 

[ñͤͣ̄ͦ̌̑͗͊͛͂͗ ̸̨̨̣̺̼̣̜͙͈͕̮̊̈́̈͂͛̽͊ͭ̓͆ͅé ̰̓̓́ͯ́́͞]

Good stuff Net, I'll get some replies to this tomorrow. If I can think of any,

As you say there are a lot of generalities and not much substance, but I'll try 

No, you have more substance than generalities IMO, it's just I'm overly sensitized to general language from studying hypnosis. Which is probably how you got that impression (besides being too hard on yourself).

I probably was too critical. Or not supportive enough, it's an inspiring post. Most of my questions are to build on what you have, and are pointed at my own brain as well.

[Payne]

Within our own minds, O:MF as a self-mindfuck, we should perhaps be considering adjusting our roles more often. Within this community many of us seem to have a well defined niche, a certain service, viewpoint, shtick that we are noted for having or providing.

This is all well and good, it's nice to know that there is a certain constancy, a familiarity in our interactions on this board. It lends a small amount of stabiliy to an otherwise fractious group of individuals, but it tends to stifle a great deal of creativity, (of which there is still plenty, but we can always do with more).

Lead by example. A lot of people like you and respect you, myself included. If you started doing something like that you'd be assured to influence people.

Could you really go a week without WOMP though? Do you remember when Roger got all nice? People were terrified.

How would you know that enough people are playing more roles? What can one do to encourage it?  When would it be contraindicated?

I think I'll accept the implicit challenge in this though.

We'll see if it does actually have some merit, changing roles from WOMPer and fluff specialist (I figure this is what I am, mostly, looking from a fairly objective point of view) to a more serious poster.

I won't even open MSPaint for a week, and I'll try to stay out of the fluff threads. I'll try to rise above any drama, and write more intellectual pieces.

In this, I hope to explore a part of myself that wants to do these things, and not be distracted by my usual entertainments. If I come through it with a different mind set, or more capable of performing this chosen role, then we can take it from there, if not then I will need to re-assess (again).

With some actual material and results to work with, we can actually get moving with this.

What do you think?