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Loose Time in Fat City, part 5

Started by Doktor Howl, March 03, 2011, 05:38:32 PM

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Doktor Howl

I've talked about the idea of advertisers and politicians attaching their brand to existing memes, or even creating new memes and then later attaching their brand to it.  For example, the republican party associated themselves with John Wayne (with his eager participation), to appear to be the party of the manfully tough he-men...Which they then contrasted with the democratic party's "weak" compassion (think in terms of McGovern, here, not the current dems).

They created some bad signal - compassion bad/sociopathy good - and got people to buy into it.  This is the reason Joe Sixpack votes for them...They're "tough enough" to do the job.  The irony is, of course, that John Wayne, offscreen, was something of a sissy himself.  His real name aside (Marion), he was approached at the republican convention in 1972 by a collection of wounded war veterans, and he couldn't bring himself go out to speak with them.

So, again, the most effective memes are bad signal...They simply aren't true.  It is only important to embed the desired emotion in people.  Show them facts, and they'll use reason.  Present them with emotion, and their brains shut off.

Even when the meme is true, you can wind up with bad signal.  One of the most destructive memes in history was put into words by Tacitus around 110CE, and dealt with the events of "the year of 4 emperors" (69CE)...He said:

Quote"Welcome as the death of Nero had been in the first burst of joy, yet it had not only roused various emotions in Rome, among the Senators, the people, or the soldiery of the capital, it had also excited all the legions and their generals; for now had been divulged that secret of the empire, that emperors could be made elsewhere than at Rome."

This meme is, in my opinion, the root cause of the problems that led to the downfall of Rome.  Rather than the army being a tool of the state, it became an agent of the ruler - or would-be rulers - that was used to gain or maintain power, and thus had to be kept happy with ever-increasing bribes and privileges.

Compare that with the current meme "government = oppression", which in many cases may be true, but - accurate or not - is still used to sell three political groups.  The GOP, the Tea Party, and the Libertarian party all attach themselves to the "big government is bad" meme, in an effort to become the dominant force in that big government.

An interesting effect is what happens when two bad signals are equally propagated and conflict with each other.  For example "all drugs will kill you" and "drugs are beneficial and make you more creative".  Both are largely false, and both are widely believed, sometimes by the same people...So it is possible to graft utterly irreconcilable memes to the same person's mind, and have them both stick.

Is there any mystery as to why people act so irrationally much of the time?  Not only do we receive an excessive amount of signal, but most of it is bad signal, and quite a bit of it is conflicting.  Since this is emotional programming, it's no wonder at all that 80% of the population are complete wrecks.

The most interesting part is, the only way to rid yourself of this is to tirelessly examine each embedded meme as you trip across them, to decide if the signal is bad or not, and condition yourself out of believing it.  Problem is, you're receiving bad signal at a huge and ever-increasing rate...A rate astronomically higher than the rate at which you can possibly divest yourself of any of it.

In fact, some psychologists are beginning to believe that we don't actually have "personalities" so much as we have "memetic false-consciousness"...ie, we are nothing more than a tangled-up web of memes.  Personally, I reject this on account of Papa Hemmingway, but the idea - a pile of bad signal in and of itself - is out there, and presently will be latched onto by no end of new age hippies and other people that are afraid of being alive.

A conclusion we can draw from this is that being alive and awake takes hard work, care, and attention. This takes more effort than most humans are willing to put out...But not you and I.  We understand that being actual sapient beings is worth any amount of effort.  We will drink and smoke, rant and rage, because we know that this is how things are managed.  It's how we get things done on the mean streets and in the pervert bars and in the very offices and workplaces that we find ourselves.

Truly, we are up for any program, because anything else is unworthy of the memory of generations of sickos and degenerates that preceded us.

Okay for now,
Dok
Molon Lube

Adios

I am practicing on shutting them out. With limited success.

Dysfunctional Cunt

Quote from: Doktor Howl on March 03, 2011, 05:38:32 PM

A conclusion we can draw from this is that being alive and awake takes hard work, care, and attention. This takes more effort than most humans are willing to put out...But not you and I.  We understand that being actual sapient beings is worth any amount of effort.  We will drink and smoke, rant and rage, because we know that this is how things are managed.  It's how we get things done on the mean streets and in the pervert bars and in the very offices and workplaces that we find ourselves.

Truly, we are up for any program, because anything else is unworthy of the memory of generations of sickos and degenerates that preceded us.

Okay for now,
Dok


So now you give me a glimmer of hope?

Roger, I love this series and I hate it because while I know I need to hear this it doesn't make it any easier or in the least bit pleasant...

Absolutely on target, bullseye!!!

:mittens:

LMNO

I try my best to identify deliberately manipulative information... But it oftens seems like that's all there is.


Dok, we're quickly heading towards the need for an essay on locating and identifying principles, if not outright morals.

I mean, if it's all misleading information with attached agendas, then the possibility exists there is no star which we can set our sights by.

The gloom, it creeps around my ankles. 


The spider, she waits.

Doktor Howl

Quote from: LMNO, PhD on March 03, 2011, 05:53:35 PM
I try my best to identify deliberately manipulative information... But it oftens seems like that's all there is.

Just so long as you're using your right brain to locate, and your left brain to examine it.  Like I said, all this bad signal is now deliberately aimed at emotional programming, because its more effective and cheaper (in both time and money) than trying to convince someone on an intellectual level.


Quote from: LMNO, PhD on March 03, 2011, 05:53:35 PM
Dok, we're quickly heading towards the need for an essay on locating and identifying principles, if not outright morals.

I can't do that.  Each person has to decide for themselves what their principles are...And allowing them to be dictated to you is just another choice.  My principles may not be appropriate for you, for example, so I'll leave that subject - in its entirety - for Holy Men™ and AM radio demagogues.

I am here to study what's happening, not become part of the observation.

Quote from: LMNO, PhD on March 03, 2011, 05:53:35 PM
I mean, if it's all misleading information with attached agendas, then the possibility exists there is no star which we can set our sights by.

See, that's falling into the "memetic false-consciousness" trap.  The star by which you set your sights is located between your left and right ear.

That's really all there is to it.
Molon Lube

LMNO

Quote from: Doktor Howl on March 03, 2011, 06:00:17 PM
The star by which you set your sights is located between your left and right ear.

Oh.  Yeah.



Sometimes, I forget.

Doktor Howl

Quote from: LMNO, PhD on March 03, 2011, 06:02:15 PM
Quote from: Doktor Howl on March 03, 2011, 06:00:17 PM
The star by which you set your sights is located between your left and right ear.

Oh.  Yeah.



Sometimes, I forget.

It's easy to forget, because we're perpetually in crisis mode...Even the people who most have their shit together spend entirely too much time unnecessarily on red alert.

This, of course, is no accident.
Molon Lube

Dysfunctional Cunt

Quote from: Doktor Howl on March 03, 2011, 06:04:16 PM
Quote from: LMNO, PhD on March 03, 2011, 06:02:15 PM
Quote from: Doktor Howl on March 03, 2011, 06:00:17 PM
The star by which you set your sights is located between your left and right ear.

Oh.  Yeah.



Sometimes, I forget.

It's easy to forget, because we're perpetually in crisis mode...Even the people who most have their shit together spend entirely too much time unnecessarily on red alert.

This, of course, is no accident.

This is me and I really don't know how to stop it.  I've said before my life was a ride and I really wanted to get off for a little while. I feel like I'm constantly running in overdrive. :?

Doktor Howl

Quote from: Khara on March 03, 2011, 06:14:45 PM
Quote from: Doktor Howl on March 03, 2011, 06:04:16 PM
Quote from: LMNO, PhD on March 03, 2011, 06:02:15 PM
Quote from: Doktor Howl on March 03, 2011, 06:00:17 PM
The star by which you set your sights is located between your left and right ear.

Oh.  Yeah.



Sometimes, I forget.

It's easy to forget, because we're perpetually in crisis mode...Even the people who most have their shit together spend entirely too much time unnecessarily on red alert.

This, of course, is no accident.

This is me and I really don't know how to stop it.  I've said before my life was a ride and I really wanted to get off for a little while. I feel like I'm constantly running in overdrive. :?

So do it.

The simple fact is, you won't die if you stop running, and there really isn't a pack of fnords chasing you.
Molon Lube

Luna

Quote from: Doktor Howl on March 03, 2011, 06:17:01 PM

So do it.

The simple fact is, you won't die if you stop running, and there really isn't a pack of fnords chasing you.

No pack of fnords...  The only one chasing me is ME... and I'm more brutal to me than anybody I know. 
Death-dealing hormone freak of deliciousness
Pagan-Stomping Valkyrie of the Interbutts™
Rampaging Slayer of Shit-Fountain Habitues

"My father says that almost the whole world is asleep. Everybody you know, everybody you see, everybody you talk to. He says that only a few people are awake, and they live in a state of constant, total amazement."

Quote from: The Payne on November 16, 2011, 07:08:55 PM
If Luna was a furry, she'd sex humans and scream "BEASTIALITY!" at the top of her lungs at inopportune times.

Quote from: Nigel on March 24, 2011, 01:54:48 AM
I like the Luna one. She is a good one.

Quote
"Stop talking to yourself.  You don't like you any better than anyone else who knows you."

Cramulus

I really like where you're going with this... let me fire some thoughts your way, and I apologize in advance if I'm barking down the wrong tangent:


I've been lugging around a few different models of reality which deal with this problem in different ways.

The stuff you're talking about is presented in a similar way to the Art of Memetics - we're essentially dealing with the information age as a complex signal detection problem. It's difficult to parse out the signal and the noise. In order to flourish in this environment, we not only need to learn how to filter signal from noise, but we also need to examine our filtering process. This is sticky because it's not like the signal we're getting are entirely distinct. Off the top of my head - I could really use a new pair of shoes right now. And meanwhile, I've programmed myself to filter out shoe ads (99.9% of the time they are noise, not signal). Maybe I see the solution to my shoe problem every day but I've filtered it out.

AOM suggests that before we can do any real memetic work, we need to come through a Long Dark Night of the Soul. This is a confusing time characterized by doubt and introspection. I think it's one of the reasons that Eris makes a good patroness, she illustrates that confusion and doubt can be more useful than certainty, especially when it comes to self development. Dee, Kelley, and Crowley call this the Abyss, and it is guarded by a demon called Choronzon. the last obstacle before enlightenment.

So how do we slay Chornozon and with him, the world of traps and illusions? Well Crowley says that you need to contact your Holy Guardian Angel, the True version of yourself. I'm not real big on destiny or angels or anything like that, but I do like the idea that there's a version of me out there who is Killing It, and my task is to discover who that guy is. Figure out what that guy is like ...and become him.

I haven't read Crowley's ritual to discover the holy guardian angel, but I've read a summary of it. If we look past the occult dressings, I think it's actually pretty interesting. Crowley recommends this elaborate and complex ritual which will take all of your focus. (read: every day life) You continue doing these actions until you are totally consumed by them. Then, abruptly, you STOP. You shock yourself out of the cycle. You break the everyday mind. And in that moment of release from the automatic robotic nature of the mind and body, you get a glimpse of your True Will.

That's the guiding star between your ears. Crowley knows what you mean, he used the same language "Every person is a star."

So if we take this as a story about our lives....

We go through the everyday routine. It consumes us. This is a false consciousness, fixated on duties and responsibilities. Even the things you find fun are one of these duties, a little garden which you must water every day because you are chained to it. We're steered by the melioration principle, the idea that we're robotically addicted to these existing neurochemical rewards. Our behavior is crystallized by this principle, we can't escape it! And that's why we need to go into the abyss and draw the True Self up like a pearl from a very deep well.


So the second idea I've been hung up on is this idea of Gnosis.

The Gnostic view is that we live in a flawed world. You and the True God are allied against this flawed world. But it's hard to know what's up because we live in a world of illusion. We live in a world created by somebody that thinks he's' the True God, but he's not, and this is what actually makes him evil. He has archons which work for him, these beings which actively create the world we live in.

Our job is to transcend this bullshit and live, as much as we can, in the spiritual world behind the material illusion.

Gnosis is this moment of epiphany where you see behind the veil. I think it's similar to slaying Choronzon, or it's at least part of the fight against him. In the Matrix, Neo has to realize that his Mr. Anderson persona is false, it's made of illusory choices, and he has to shed it in order to become Neo, his true self.

This is what I was talking about a few weeks ago regarding the Nafs, this idea that our desires are a trickster which distract us from the real world. The Nafs keeps us anchored to things like money and politics and pussy and the flashy illusions meant to hijack us through the melioration principle.



alright I've been rambling so let me bring this back to Grand and Glory Old Discordjia....


There's this guy Linji founded the Rinzai school of buddhism. This is the ancient eastern equivalent of Discordia. Rinzai is centered on Kensho, or "seeing one's true nature".

This guy Linji had an interesting technique to achieve Kensho, I think you'll like it. He shouted at the top of his lulngs. But he shouted when it wasn't expected.


The student would say, "Master, what is the buddha nature?"

and Linji would look deep into the student's eyes, open his mouth as if he was about to whisper the secret of existence, and then shout

HAH!

and the student, expecting a lesson but surprised by this blast of sound, would suddenly snap out of it. For just a second they were not a student, they were a reaction to the sound. The shout scared them out of their daydream. And in this, they experience the buddha nature, and they were enlightened.






so





I think there is a technique for filtering the filters, cutting past the illusions, dropping the dead weight, swimming in the memetic ocean...

and I think that technique has to do with springboarding yourself out of the daily rut, shocking your robotic nervous system, discovering your true will and malnourished free will.

And yeah, the star between your ears points to fun times - but that's not the point, you know? If it were just about fun, if it was just about hedonism, we'd never escape the tiring cycle of duties and responsibilities. We need new techniques now, things which work in the information age. There are new illusions we need to cut past, new temptations and desires that nobody in history has ever experienced. And this is where we come in.

Because if we can figure out how to do it, others will do it too. And eventually we won't be alone in the memetic ocean, we'll be on an island with some likeminded spags. We won't be marooned, we'll be on vacation. We'll be poor subjects, bad slaves, sovereign to no one but ourselves.

Cramulus

again, I apologize if my rambling got away from where you were going.  :p




Pictured: The Good Reverend Roger Circa 830 CE
(click for link)

more on linji

East Coast Hustle

Quote from: Doktor Howl on March 03, 2011, 06:17:01 PM
Quote from: Khara on March 03, 2011, 06:14:45 PM
Quote from: Doktor Howl on March 03, 2011, 06:04:16 PM
Quote from: LMNO, PhD on March 03, 2011, 06:02:15 PM
Quote from: Doktor Howl on March 03, 2011, 06:00:17 PM
The star by which you set your sights is located between your left and right ear.

Oh.  Yeah.



Sometimes, I forget.

It's easy to forget, because we're perpetually in crisis mode...Even the people who most have their shit together spend entirely too much time unnecessarily on red alert.

This, of course, is no accident.

This is me and I really don't know how to stop it.  I've said before my life was a ride and I really wanted to get off for a little while. I feel like I'm constantly running in overdrive. :?

So do it.

The simple fact is, you won't die if you stop running, and there really isn't a pack of fnords chasing you.

There was alot of truth in that line we used to use back in the day. You know, "Don't run, you'll only die tired".
Rabid Colostomy Hole Jammer of the Coming Apocalypse™

The Devil is in the details; God is in the nuance.


Some yahoo yelled at me, saying 'GIVE ME LIBERTY OR GIVE ME DEATH', and I thought, "I'm feeling generous today.  Why not BOTH?"