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to be honest, science papers just use a different approach to the same goal that e-prime uses. specifically, where e-prime has the writer use somewhat vague language when referring to personal opinion in order to emphasize that the opinion isn't necessarily fact, science publications (usually) completely removes all opinion in order to emphasize the actual facts.

so maybe science is better at e-prime than e-prime is.

TGRR: MOAR LOVE THAN JESUS CHRIST ON X

I sort of agree that the references to the website should be taken out or turned into something else (same with references to 'goddess,' although the PD had more of that than this does).  But I like the content.  I don't think it sounds like a sales pitch.  Maybe we could clear that up by modifying the format a little somehow, like taking the most "at you" passages and turning them into a dialogue or something.

But like one piece says, which I agree with, at this point I don't see much point in dressing up what we're saying or trying to angle our way into people's minds somehow.  I don't have much desire to play it cool or try to subvert minds without their knowing it.  IMHO, this edition, like the original, is about speaking to people who already have some of these ideas.  Maybe helping some of them align their own thoughts and misgivings, and directing them here, so that we can begin upgrading the level of discourse.

Unlike the PD, which was a work of random propaganda pushed into the masses and directed at people the authors never had any intention of meeting or talking to, this edition of the BIP is very much looking for discourse and exchange of ideas.  The Internet has already fundamentally changed the nature of Discordianism in that everyone can "stick apart" but still connect.  In my view, forcing the old paradigm of "Everyone 100% for themselves" is just as foolish as limiting your discourse to 23s and Fnords.

I'll see what else I have in the dark corners of my various hard drives that I can throw around.

FTR, you can edit that part about Starbucks to say whatever you want.  "Independent neighborhood coffee shop" or "Denny's" (or anything else) work just as well.

There's the guy who dreads spending time with his kid, because he's afraid it means no time left to himself.

There's the guy who spends time with his kid grudgingly out of a sense of frustrated duty.

There's the guy who, after spending a minute with his kid, has forgotten all about his complaining, and just plays like he's a 2-year-old himself, content to build big boxes out of those oversized legos and watch the kid tear them apart.

There's the guy who puts his kid to bed and thinks "FINALLY, some free time," and plunges into some activity, only to find that it isn't as interesting as he thought it would be, and wishes that the kid wasn't sleeping.

That's just a sample, of course, describing one tiny piece of experience that happens to a much larger mind.  But these four mindsets all carry with them their own attitudes, beliefs, and desires.  It's just one person doing what a person does, but from moment to moment in the control room, it seems like The Management has a turnover rate higher than a Burger King in downtown Baghdad.

The "kernel" of consciousness that watches all of this is sometimes powerless to do anything but see it go by.  As ready as it is at any given moment to exert its authority to commandeer its meatmobile, it is equally effected by things around it.

In any given mood, a person is working from a set of instructions that tell him how to react to stimuli, and what opinions to hold about various things at different times, sometimes strong opinions, often conflicting opinions.

I have had some success in overcoming this schizoid effect by imagining that what I thought was a "kernel of consciousness" is not myself any more than my middle finger is myself; but that it is more like a news-media broadcast that's terribly influenced by the Party Line.

In this way, I believe that Ultimate Consciousness is usually very similar to a couch potato, and if there is a Cosmic Truth, it's too busy watching Fox News to bother with being important.

i only approve of this because 2 of my pieces were included.

Official Spokesman for E-Prime:

THAT DEPENDS!
\

CLOUDS are not BORING.

they can look like unicorns, and that's magical.

E-PRIME cannot look like a unicorn.



i'm tired of this ridiculous argument. i should have thought out my actual opinion before deciding i knew what it was in the OP.

wtf is it with e-prime?

is it really supposed to enhance the accuracy and precision of your speech/writing? no, that is a lie. it is not supposed to enhance anything. it's just politically-correct "make sure you don't offend anybody" bullshit.

fuck that. if your opinion sucks, i'll say so. if you don't like it, then tell me my opinion sucks.

you'll be wrong but you'll feel better.

why should i waste half of my effort in saying something just to make sure you understand that i'm only expressing an opinion?  if you can't tell it's only an opinion, then you either fail at communication or need to do more homework.

people these days make a career out of being offended by anything. e-prime just adds another layer of bullshit to every argument. now you can avoid the subject completely by saying "yeah but you didn't say IMHO."  it's a whole world of the kind of shit lawyers and theologians (the two biggest reasons for societal decay) love to debate, i.e. useless crap about what you REALLY mean when what you say is plain as day.

You're quite right, why should human speech be clear at all?

Dumbass.

adults can have conversations without stopping every two minutes to remind each other they're just having a conversation.

another off-topic tangent from vex:

it would seem that whatever we produce, we need to narrow down (and even define, gods forbid) a Target Audience.

because writing stuff that applies to everybody means you have to water it down a lot.

the Internet gives a lot of options as far as who you want to talk to. but actually society hasn't been that much changed by the internet.  you can talk to whoever you want, but just like in the 60s, only subcultures on speaking terms with yours are going to listen.

seems to me that a lot of recent discordian stuff, mine included, is aimed at Everybody Out There, or tries to attack the mainstream, which is noble and everything, but it's also pretty futile.  if we're going to attack and assimilate, we should spread like a weed, starting with smaller and more similar groups.

subversion works best not by direct assault but by infiltration.  we should be producing a few different tracts and pamphlets all aimed at more specific audiences.  for example bring up the "similarities" between discordianism and the pagans, then use those similarities to twist their opinions about things.

as for conversion, it's easy to convert people to discordianism.  you just confuse them, but give them a good reason to stay confused.  we don't have to sell a worldview, we just have to take theirs away.

It's also not our job to "enlighten" anybody, especially if we see more of this cohesion and start seeing larger projects develop.  This group is unique in that it can exist as a set of people who have been around for a while, with its own goals and its own culture, while also accepting new members.  I don't think we should spend much energy (if any at all) on getting noobs graduated through a series of levels and memes and what-not.  Part of the fun of Discordianism is that if you didn't get there (mostly) by yourself, then you never got there.

Besides, if most of the people on this board "Get It," it just means that most of us don't have a clue what Discordianism is going to be about (from a cultural-meme-public relations standpoint) two days from now.  Preparing someone for the future of Discordianism has nothing to do with which memes to spew and which ones to avoid.

Spending too much time on the 23fnord stuff, either for it or against it, is missing the point.  As in parenting: the object is not to teach them which decision to make, but to teach them how to make the decision.  And by the time a person can navigate themselves to a forum on the interwebs, that should be something they already know or are at least capable of teaching themselves.

I DISAGREE BECAUSE MY PENILE GLAND TOLD ME NOT TO FOLLOW YUO

Serious Discordianism sounds like trouble.  We can't go having discussions without pausing to inject misplaced humor, otherwise it might turn out less than pointless.

also, somebody's going to have to explain to me the difference between LOL, LAIL, LULZ, LAWL, etc.

do not disrupt my continuum of absolute fact or my holy crusade against gray areas.

discordian forum: if grayfaces are bad, imagine what havoc could be wreaked by entire gray areas.

Cain - some obstacles:

Discordians tend to be people who have been burned or have seen others burned by the status-quo.

In one way or another, most of us are "aligned" in this thing only inasmuch as we are all disillusioned by the way larger things seem to be going.  The PD says that a Discordian is as likely to be carrying a flag of the establishment as one of the anti-establishment, but I haven't seen a whole lot of truth to that.

Discordians seem to be so anti-establishment, in fact, that we strongly oppose any kind of establishment.  At its root, our disdain for the FNORD23 stuff stems from the fear that what we are a part of will become established as a self-perpetuating mythos, and once established will become corruptible, since it is no longer a moving target.

And so, being that this is a movement borne of distrust for movements, our ideological differences are in some ways even harder to overcome than they would be if we were in a less enlightened group.  It's hard to trust any consensus when groups based on consensus are hardly ever trustworthy.