THE ULTIMATE DISCORDIAN TROLL THREAD

[President Television]

The monkey brain is hard wired for authority, leadership, and dom/sub relationships, so it's an uphill battle. I think there may one day be pockets of people who are socialized to get over some parts of their monkey programming. But these will be oasises. Like the hippie communes of the 60s, they can only exist in isolation, and are only a utopia for those that buy in. That being said, it sounds like a nice place to live.

I don't think that model of living will ever gain primacy because there's too much chaos built into humans. I consider myself an upstanding dude, but I can only imagine how I'd act if there were no cops around to regulate my behavior.

Primacy, yeah; see: Huxley's Island
But remember that this wasn't really "wired" into monkey programming until about 10,000 years ago.  Historically speaking, homo sapiens were non-hierarchical by nature for a dramatically larger part of our existence; i.e, hunter-gather societies.

Perhaps, but that doesn't matter now because the people who are alive now are hard-wired that way. Just because our ancestors from way back were non-heirarchal doesn't mean modern man is. Point is irrelevant.

[Captain Utopia]

The monkey brain is hard wired for authority, leadership, and dom/sub relationships, so it's an uphill battle. I think there may one day be pockets of people who are socialized to get over some parts of their monkey programming. But these will be oasises. Like the hippie communes of the 60s, they can only exist in isolation, and are only a utopia for those that buy in. That being said, it sounds like a nice place to live.

I don't think that model of living will ever gain primacy because there's too much chaos built into humans. I consider myself an upstanding dude, but I can only imagine how I'd act if there were no cops around to regulate my behavior.

Primacy, yeah; see: Huxley's Island
But remember that this wasn't really "wired" into monkey programming until about 10,000 years ago.  Historically speaking, homo sapiens were non-hierarchical by nature for a dramatically larger part of our existence; i.e, hunter-gather societies.

Perhaps, but that doesn't matter now because the people who are alive now are hard-wired that way. Just because our ancestors from way back were non-heirarchal doesn't mean modern man is. Point is irrelevant.

I take "hard-wired" to mean that on a biological level our brains have been selected over this 10,000 year period such that they more readily allow for the adoption of the behavioural roles -- is there any evidence that this is the case?

I assumed it was more of a "nurture" thing - aren't social structures solid enough to provide such conditioning?

The major difference being that we seem to be able to switch behaviour patterns quite abruptly when immersed into different environments -- so given the correct foresight, the transition need not be such an uphill struggle.

[President Television]

I don't know man, I was just arguing that the point I replied to is logically irrelevant, because we have evolved since then. Saying that we used to be a certain way is not a counterpoint to a statement about how we are now. Not when it comes to biology, anyway. Of course, I'm probably wrong, but that's how I see it.

[Captain Utopia]

I don't think it is an irrelevant point that recent changes may be easier to overcome than ones which are more deeply ingrained into our genetics.

[President Television]

I'm wrong.

[Vaudeville Vigilante]

I take "hard-wired" to mean that on a biological level our brains have been selected over this 10,000 year period such that they more readily allow for the adoption of the behavioural roles -- is there any evidence that this is the case?

Thank you, that is precisely one of the questions that I have.  For instance, the ethnically all-encompassing Yeti-born Subgenii population do not seem to possess this presupposed genetic trait.

I assumed it was more of a "nurture" thing - aren't social structures solid enough to provide such conditioning?

This is something I also wish to discover.

The major difference being that we seem to be able to switch behaviour patterns quite abruptly when immersed into different environments -- so given the correct foresight, the transition need not be such an uphill struggle.

And if so, it seems like it would certainly be worth working out.  Shit, if all else fails, it might make some good fiction.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Ok, then, I'm a noob. What of it? How may I improve myself?

Um, you could re-read the PD (not encouraged), lurk in Think for Yourself, Schmuck (down by the bottom of the forums, where all the gross shit silts up), or you could, you know, think for yourself (dangerous, but sometimes worthwhile).

I'd recommend the second, followed by the third, and throw away the PD.  It was written by filthy hippies who had the wrong values.

I like the PD, and the more I think about and read about this Discordianism shit, the more I can pick out the formerly obscure bits of wisdom in it. I recommend reading it, then waiting a few years and reading it again. It seems like stupid crap the first time, but later, with more context, it actually has meaning hidden in that hippie crap.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Discordian troll thread?

okay okay okay okay okay lemme tell you how to troll this forum proper:

Come in and be a little big smug. Use a few philosophical terms. show a little bit of ontological territorialism, then get defensive when people call you on it.

When people sense that you'll flip out if provoked, they won't be able to stop themselves from disagreeing with you. Eventually you'll have four replies to each of your posts.

Eventually they'll start telling you to fuck off and leave. Which, of course, you won't do because they're doing exactly what you wanted them to do - wasting their time replying to you. They will, of course, continue telling you to GTFO and kill yourself. You won't. People will eagerly anticipate your next posts, pressing Refresh until you finally reply.

You may want to step back for a second and consider what's really going on here. Are you ruining the board by sucking up all the "energy"? Or are you feeding the sharks the blood they crave? The key is persistence. At first, they will enjoy telling you to die. Over time, they will start to mean it.

This is really a test of patience for both parties. Because the responses you'll be getting will be kind of boring. You will feel like you have no reason to go on. But you must perservere! And we, on this board, must continue to drain lulz from you by provoking you into emotional whirlwinds. If you don't do that every so often, we will lose interest. So don't play too guarded, you actually can't troll us effectively without taking a few wounds. It takes blood in the water to make sharks frenzy.

Some classic, time tested opening gambits.
-talk about anarchy
-try to explain Discordia as if someone misunderstands it
-accuse people of being dogmatic
-reply to roger when he's good and pissed

there are tons of others, I'm sure somebody can fill in the blanks

Endgame: at some point, somebody will say "PLEDGE", which means they are suggesting everybody takes a pledge to not reply to you anymore. This is actually the most effective tool we have against trolls. We seldom sucessfully use it because it's too fun to provoke someone, and it only takes one person ignoring the pledge to screw it up for everybody else. The best way to avoid the pledge is to show a little "promise" - meaning, admit that you're wrong once ever three arguments or so. Occasionally show that you can be a cooperative poster. If you're both helpful and destructive, people won't be able to make up their minds about you.


It would be easy for PD not to fall for these traps. But they won't. We have a weird sort of love affair with destructive disorder. This is, after all, the Worst Forum on the Internet.

THIS POST

should be emailed to every user who signs up.

[Captain Utopia]

I can't help thinking that giving away the cheat-sheet would, in time, lead to more advanced forms of trolling. Though this would probably be better than the boring/predictable trolls which currently knock half-heartedly at the door.

Bonus - being able to say, oh, that's just another troll of type B(3)(iv), and providing a link, could be fun.

[Cramulus]

I can't help thinking that giving away the cheat-sheet would, in time, lead to more advanced forms of trolling.

I call it meta-trolling

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I'd love to see some more advanced trolling around here. DK was fun and exciting for a while because he was actually GOOD at it, unlike almost all other trolls that come here, and I could respect that, and learn from it. Being successfully trolled

Another amazing troll from days of yore, back on Usenet, was Ms. Pnoopie Pnats, who could send newsgroups into weeks-long paroxysms of rage with prolific typos and misused swear words. It was truly a thing of beauty. I loved that woman. 

Anyway, I was really posting to say that I think that there are human behaviors which are hard-wired but which flip on and off like breakers under different environmental circumstances. Humans do intrinsically have a hierarchical nature, which is part of our nature as social animals that live in a family unit, but the willingness to follow an extremely detached and abstract hierarchy is not unlikely to be related to population density. We seem to become somewhat infantilized at high population densities; less independent, and more eager to follow abstract parental figures in the form of government.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Um, the agricultural revolution IS technology.

Well, yes... this is the generally accepted paradigm... I guess I'm trying to jump out of it for a sec, and picture a technological society which did not rely on sedentary agriculture from the onset.  

Not possible.  No surplus food = no surplus population = no room or time for innovators beyond those which offer immediate benefits for gaining food.

This the obvious answer and probably the correct one... I'm just trying to ask the old anthropological questions from different angles.  I'm aware of the no time argument, but I'm not sure it has proven correct under cultural analysis of modern day hunter-gatherer societies.  They have arguably more free time than we "civilized" prats.  Could you clarify the "no room" part tho?  Thx.

Yeah.  A tribe has no room for someone who isn't directly contributing to the immediate survival of the tribe.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

-reply to roger when he's good and pissed

I'm not pissed.  Just hateful and bitter.

[Shibboleet The Annihilator]

post like so:

Any Law & Order fans around these parts?

I prefer watching Caruso on the YouTubes:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_sarYH0z948&feature=player_embedded

YEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

[Faust]

I can't help thinking that giving away the cheat-sheet would, in time, lead to more advanced forms of trolling.

I call it meta-trolling

Thats what has actually happened.
we still get the odd white noise level 1 or 2 trolls but every so often a thetan level 7 class troll comes by and BOOM!