News:

PD.Com: Pretention in a can.

Main Menu

The Discordian Norm vs. The PD.COM Norm

Started by AFK, June 04, 2010, 01:32:06 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

AFK

Okay, so it was suggested in another thread here that there is a PD.COM norm.

Now, for me, it seems antithetical for Discordians to have a norm.  But maybe it's because I'm apparently outside of the PD.COM norm that I don't understand the norm.

Anyhoo, let's do some defining and discussing in this thread. 

If there is a pd.com norm, what is it?  Why is it?
If there is a discordian norm, what is it?  Why is it?
And do they intersect?  Are they parallel?  perpendicular?  rhombus?

Whaddya think? 
Cynicism is a blank check for failure.

Cramulus

I don't think you can have a norm without a group.


"Discordians" is so vague it's hard to generalize about. According to my pope card, everybody in the world is a discordian already, it's just that most don't know it yet. We're at the deep end of the pool, but better Discordians aren't so serious about it.

If there are other groups of discordians out there, we can compare our norms to their norms.

for example, the portland oregon discordians have a bit more occulture - they tend to be more friendly towards magick arts.

I'm told that there are a number of anarchist discordians living together in Montreal.

Kai

I'm not part of any norm except my own.

which makes me abnormal, I guess.
If there is magic on this planet, it is contained in water. --Loren Eisley, The Immense Journey

Her Royal Majesty's Chief of Insect Genitalia Dissection
Grand Visser of the Six Legged Class
Chanticleer of the Holometabola Clade Church, Diptera Parish

Adios


LMNO

Cross post:

You have to admit, there are certain behaviors that would not get on well here.

A libertarian pagan social conservative would be extremely uncomfortable.

But the core principle remains true.  Anyone is able to post anything they want (with exceptions).  Anyone here is able to reply to that post in the manner they feel is appropriate (with exceptions).

Whatever "norm" that might exist is, for the most part, whatever the majority of responses happen to be.

This is not a perfect system, and has led to massive flame wars and multiple flounces, on all sides.

Bebek Sincap Ratatosk

Quote from: Rev. What's-His-Name? on June 04, 2010, 01:32:06 PM
Okay, so it was suggested in another thread here that there is a PD.COM norm.

Now, for me, it seems antithetical for Discordians to have a norm.  But maybe it's because I'm apparently outside of the PD.COM norm that I don't understand the norm.

Anyhoo, let's do some defining and discussing in this thread. 

If there is a pd.com norm, what is it?  Why is it?
If there is a discordian norm, what is it?  Why is it?
And do they intersect?  Are they parallel?  perpendicular?  rhombus?

Whaddya think? 

I think PD.com is a tribe. It has tribal elders that guide a tribal mindset. Within that tribe are the ones who buck the norm, just like with any tribe.

Discordianism, though... doesn't have a norm. AKK is a Discordian, PED is a Discordian, I am and so is Dok Howl, Cramulus, RWHN and everyone else that says they are.

The Principia Discordia was written (for the most part) by the Joshua Norton Cabal. It was an expression of Discordianism as experienced by them. Some people take that brand of Discordianism verbatim, some take some of it and make up their own... and for some, they are Discordian by being the "Anti-Joshua Norton Cabal"....

But its all still Discordianism.

If you can look at the world and see order and disorder alike, if you can look at your own perceptions and see that sometimes they're right and many times they're probably wrong... if you can, at least sometimes, TYFS! then I think "Discordian" fits.

The Pinealist is as much a Discordian as the Prankster, but one of them won't likely be welcomed in this particular online community for better or worse.

- I don't see race. I just see cars going around in a circle.

"Back in my day, crazy meant something. Now everyone is crazy" - Charlie Manson

hooplala

Quote from: LMNO on June 04, 2010, 07:49:45 PM
Cross post:

You have to admit, there are certain behaviors that would not get on well here.

A libertarian pagan social conservative would be extremely uncomfortable.

But the core principle remains true.  Anyone is able to post anything they want (with exceptions).  Anyone here is able to reply to that post in the manner they feel is appropriate (with exceptions).

Whatever "norm" that might exist is, for the most part, whatever the majority of responses happen to be.

This is not a perfect system, and has led to massive flame wars and multiple flounces, on all sides.

It's a good point.  It has been made clear that there are certain aspects of my personality that I should not post here, unless I feel like spending the next 60 days justifying and tapdancing.  I tend to just keep that shit to myself now.
"Soon all of us will have special names" — Professor Brian O'Blivion

"Now's not the time to get silly, so wear your big boots and jump on the garbage clowns." — Bob Dylan?

"Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)"
— Walt Whitman

Doktor Howl

Quote from: Ratatosk on June 04, 2010, 08:05:34 PM

I think PD.com is a tribe. It has tribal elders that guide a tribal mindset.

Then it should be burned down and tossed in a swamp.
Molon Lube

Adios

Quote from: Doktor Howl on June 04, 2010, 08:06:46 PM
Quote from: Ratatosk on June 04, 2010, 08:05:34 PM

I think PD.com is a tribe. It has tribal elders that guide a tribal mindset.

Then it should be burned down and tossed in a swamp.

I remember when a lot of you came to MW. I watched all of you and interacted with several of you. It seemed there was a purpose disguised with a lot of fun and some serious topics. I came to realize the one underlying thing that repeated itself from all of you was that we each had our own brain. There was a great deal of encouragement for us to think on our own.

If I have fallen into the 'tribe' mentality please shoot me and throw my body in the hog pen.

Jasper

I don't like to think we have a rigid social hierarchy.  There are certain ideas and beliefs that get more lip service, just like any place humans talk, but what I think usually happens here is that ideas are not valued on principle here.  They must have merit.  Along with that, there is also the fact of a norm in the sense of "business as usual", and some things come from such a different angle that they cause a stir.  These stirs can be good or bad.  Take the Surprise Me, Eris! project.  Business as usual, some weird stuff happen, then LMNO shows up with something that blows everyone away.  

Then there's...  Flame wars.  Something unexpected gets said/misinterpreted, and suddenly the core user base is at each other's necks for weeks.

I take the good with the bad.

And I still say there's no baseline norm for the whole board.  Maybe there is a norm on a per-thread basis, but that's because we have shit like Questions Only.

Mesozoic Mister Nigel

This forum does have a specific culture, I agree. There are things I like about it and things I don't; for instance, I don't often bring up any dabblings in the "occult" for fear of derision. At the same time, I usually have the feeling that most of the people here would have my back against any outside attacker... which is great. The flip side of that coin is that I feel that only a couple of people here would have my back against an inside attacker (even silently, letting me stand on my own but offering moral support), and for the rest... it entirely depends on how "popular" and established that inside attacker was. I have seen how the tide can ebb and flow. I think that is this forum's Achilles heel, the love of dogpiling and the element of status-seeking. There are people who gleefully conspire or try to conspire with others to "take down" a specific target when they think they can pull it off, to make them the bigger man. To deny it exists is to deny gravity; it is only a matter of quantifying it, not qualifying it.

There are people who feel the urge to jump into personal grudge matches, to take sides and make a conflict bigger than it needs to be. That might be all of us; I have certainly been guilty of that. There is an element of social climbing. We are all guilty of being that element.

In other words, as an online community, like all online communities, this is a tribe. It has weaknesses and strengths. It has silverbacks and challengers. It's not really about "Discordia", it's about people who identify as Discordian, or choose to associate with people who do. This community's greatest strength, in my opinion, is its creativity and collaboration. It's greatest weakness, in brief, is status-seeking expressed through attempts at exerting control; power over others.

I am not exempting myself from either the strengths or the weaknesses.
"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


Bebek Sincap Ratatosk

Quote from: Doktor Howl on June 04, 2010, 08:06:46 PM
Quote from: Ratatosk on June 04, 2010, 08:05:34 PM

I think PD.com is a tribe. It has tribal elders that guide a tribal mindset.

Then it should be burned down and tossed in a swamp.

Do you disagree?

This place has been a tribe with tribal elders and and tribal traditions and tribal language etc etc etc ever since I've been here. As you've said many times, we're a bunch of primates... what do you expect?

But that's not antithetical to Discordianism. This is a Cabal, just like the Joshua Norton Cabal or the Great Googlie-Mooglie Cabal with their own elders and traditions and languages.

Me, personally (and obviously given the knock down/drag out fights I've been involved in) I think that there is a broad swath of "OK" in behavior. I can deal with PED cause she posts in one thread, I know what to expect if I go in that thread and if I'm not in the mood to read her posts... I don't go in that thread. It would be like going into the WOMP thrwad and whining about all the crappy MS Paint photos.

As far as I'm concerned, for me personally... unless someone is actively causing problems (see whatstheirname ASSBURGER with the red hair, or the poster that screamed we were all racists for using the term 'Niger' in the BIP graphic).

If we are not a tribe, if we don't have tribal rules, taboos, standards, elders etc etc etc then why are threads about (insert several topics here) always treated the same way? On other Discordian forums they get treated differently... there is a lot of crossover between Discordians and Libertarians, Discordians and Pagans, Discordians and Anarchists, Discordians and Dadaists, etc etc etc etc etc ad pukeium. (like ad naseum, but more to the point) It seems reasonable to conclude that the tribal elders of particular tribe/cabal/collection of monkeys have specific views on those topics and they are treated in that way.

And there's nothing wrong with that... its as normal as breathing... and while I like being abnormal, I also like breathing.

Recently I left for a few weeks to cool down mostly because I felt that half the board cared more about screaming than about expanding their perspectives... but I came to realize (particularly after reading your Five Pillars) that I was in the wrong... I can't expect this tribe to expand in directions that other Discordian tribes do, because this tribe is going its own way. The fault was mine, because I had an unrealistic expectation.

If you ever thought this wasn't a tribe, you've possibly been fooling yourself.
- I don't see race. I just see cars going around in a circle.

"Back in my day, crazy meant something. Now everyone is crazy" - Charlie Manson

AFK

I know a lot has changed for those of us who've been around for awhile.  I know I was in a completely different space 4 and 5 years ago, back when there was this wonderful, non-stop riffing going on in what became the BIP movement.  For me, I had a lot less on my plate.  I had one kid and I was in a job I hated, so I needed to come here for the philosophizing and ranting with LMNO, LHX, Mang, TGRR, Cain, ECH, etc., etc.,

The world has become harder since then.  We're all older.  Many of us have different and new and more responsibilities.  But the problems are still there.  I really want to tap that energy again, that we had a few years ago.  And we clearly still have the minds and personalities to foster that kind of stuff.  And it's not that we need everyone to get in on the same thing.  That was one of the arguments we had back in those times.  Those who were BIPing and those who weren't.  But I think it does help to have that drive somewhere.  Just kind of helps balance things I think.  Or maybe not.  I dunno.  
Cynicism is a blank check for failure.

Doktor Howl

It's monkeys all the way down.

Given that, I am questioning my life-long strategy, and wondering if my time wouldn't be better spent getting on with climbing over the backs of the monkeys ahead of me, instead of wanking to a fantasy of being in a different subgroup than the average "greyface".
Molon Lube

Mesozoic Mister Nigel

Just to point out, there are pinealists here. I am a pinealist as well as a prankster; so is Cramulus, in my opinion. Yatto is certainly one! I am sleeping with a pinealist who, frankly, seems to just be free-associating much of the time and often doesn't make any sense unless you are so tapped into his thought processes that you can join his free-association stream (in which case, it tunes in just like a radio and you can understand what he's saying perfectly). Spouting random gibberish is not an effective form of pinealism, especially online; it's usually poseurism. Communication is really key when all you have to go by is the written word; my pinealist friend/lover is a superbly lucid writer, taking his tapped-in pinealism and translating it into something beautiful and accessible.

It's all about actually making the effort to not be a dick, and to make yourself understandable. That's how online communication/collaboration works best.
"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."