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Favorite: Ysanne "Iceheart" Isard
Least Fave: Jacen Solo as Darth Caedus.

Yes, Expanded Universe, so suck my dick.

I guess movie-wise my favorite would have to be Wedge Antilles and my least favorite Jar-Jar only on the annoyabity factor, as in the  EU he's much more involved with the state of things and becomes Senator of the Chommel Sector after Padme dies.

So why Ysanne Isard? Because as far as crazy Imperials go, she's at the top of the list. She was an advocate of torture, brainwashing, germ warfare, racism...everything you DON'T want in a leader in the real world wrapped up into this sexy evil package.

Not going to lie, if Lucas would recognize the books as full canon, the Imperial Remnant would have been MUCH FUCKING BETTER MOVIES than the Republic. Isard, Zsinj, Daala, and Thrawn make Palpatine look like a fucking pussy. If anything, at least just the Thrawn Trilogy, which is pretty much 7, 8, and 9 anyway.

As for Jacen Solo as Caedus, I blame it on bad writing and planning. Here's a character that had a ridiculous amount of potential as a Sith Lord, and you let Karen Traviss and Troy Denning write. Denning is okay, he tends to be dry, but Traviss can go back to fanfic land as far as I'm concerned. Her meaningless injections of Mandalorians and especially Boba Fett into every story while making herself a Mary Sue as some female character (Daala? REALLY?! WHY!!!!!!!!) to fuck said Mandalorians esp. Fett makes me sick.

Also, Jacen getting his ass handed to him by Jaina, who's idea was that? Because Han and Leia didn't have to deal with enough shit during the Yuuzhan Vong when both Anakin Solo and Chewbacca bite the dust, you had to go and have one twin kill the other. And then leaving Jacen's daughter, who no one knew existed considering the entire family can use the Force, in the custody of her grandparents because she was illegitimate and if the Hapan court found out, shit would hit the fan. How the hell did Tenel Ka hide her for 5 years anyway? Fuck.

Legacy of the Force should have ran like The New Jedi Order. Lots of authors with lots of storylines focusing around the same time period. 9 books by 3 authors made it too abrupt.

Suu, my mittens arent big wnough for this post.

As for me, my favorites are Nom Anor, and Jacen during the Yuuzhan Vong War and the first couple books of Legacy of the Force.  Lumiyas cool too.

Least favorite, Jar Jar and Padme.  Shes hella annoying.  If I was Anakin I'da killed her too.

This is very insightful and raises some good points, Mang. I'm completely flummoxed with the whole vampire movement, as well as a lot of other movements out there. For instance, the "Neo-Norse" movement, where people apparantly worship the ancient Nordic gods/goddesses. These same people - a large portion of them at least (or so I am assuming) - fail to live lives which reflect the war-like orientation of the Nordic god-folk. There are, indeed, major discrepancies.

I imagine that similar trends will invade secular thought as well, with atheists going back to the Greek philosophers for their roots or something. Fifty years from now, there might be a sizable sub-culture urinating in the streets in emulation of Diogenes.

All the Odinists I've met have been big on getting into, and winning, a lot of fights.  They also display a sense of honor that I have yet to find in most other people.  Granted, 90% of them have been to prison (the Odinists, I mean.)  The ones I've met are about as war-like as you can get in modern society without becoming a serial murderer (which is sinful in Asatru; they consider murder and a righteous killing two entirely separate things, one being in battle, the other being in cold blood.)  I've known a number that gravitate towards the military, and the rest simply use it as a code to live the way they want.

I have to say, I've always felt that Norse Mythology is the most beatiful of any that I've studied.  Even the parts without focus on war can be very guiding to a person, I think.  If I was a pagan, I'd probably be an Odinist.

H+ intrigues me, mostly because physical limitations suck.  We can only hold about 7 items in working memory at a time.  Can't really multitask.  Our productivity drops dramatically when we get tired, cold, or hungry.  Good enough for hunter-gatherers, not good enough for me.

Essentially, I just want to be able to read every book in a library simultaneously, and remember as much as I want to - stuff that computers can already do.

YES, but more than that.  Enhancment of the mind and body both.  All sorts of things could be done to our physical forms to make them more effecient, more enjoyable, more sensitive to input.

[@ Kai]

Maybe I'm a little biased, since I enjoy getting pierced so much.  Keep that in mind.

I feel that pain and hardship breed strength.  Pain is, for one thing, integral to the true understanding of pleasure, imo.  You cant truly grasp pleasure and happiness without pain and unhappiness. 

Its like this;  by denying pain, by completely ridding ourselves of it, we would be cutting ourselves off from a fundamental part of the human experience.  From my understanding, H+ is about transcending the human condition, but I dont think you can do that by subtracting.  Rather, the goal should be addition.  Pain is a part of who and what we are, and by ridding ourselves of it I think we would be lessening ourselves.  Now, changing pain would be one thing, learning to control it so that it would still be useful, but not unbearable, that I could see as good, but removing our pain centers is as bad as removing our pleasure centers.

Through pain and pleasure we connect with our bodies.  We communicate with our bodies.  Also, I dont think there is any difference between the two.  In the words of a very wise man; "There is no such thing as pain.  There is only powerful sensation."  I dont think it possible to alter our ability to feel sensation without altering our ability to feel ALL sensation.

I might be misunderstanding what transhumanists believe, but in my understanding of the meaning of transcendence, it's moving beyond, rather than subtraction. There's no loss, in the sense of a removal, but a release, in the sense of letting go of what is no longer useful. I'll have to look into transhumanism more before I can discuss that adequately, but I'm intrigued by this concept of whether or not we can or should transcend pain and suffering. I think we can, and it's something that I'm attempting to do in my own life. More and more, I'm convinced that pain is (and should be) as controllable as pleasure. And if we can do that, I don't see why we can't choose to move beyond it. Moreover, it may be required that we transcend pain and suffering in order to continue developing and evolving as a species. Our senses give us the world, but in a very limited fashion. We can only take in so much, before those senses become overwhelmed with input. Perhaps transcending pain would allow us to take in more input, and we would be able to sense much more than we can now.

@ Kai- I've never had the privilege of meeting someone like that, but I can understand how pain is important for us physiologically. Still, not all pain is physical, and there is mounting evidence that our state of mind may have something to do with how much pain we feel. We also don't need to experience pain repeatedly to know that something will be painful. It only took one touch to learn that the iron will burn my skin. You can be sure that I'll never do that again!

Yes, by removing pain we would open ourselves to new levels of experience, but we would deny ourselves access to many old levels of expereince which I would argue are still very useful.  IMO almost all of human achievment has been the result of pain.

I'm enjoying this discussion, but I have to go to work now.  We'll talk more later I hope.

Maybe I'm a little biased, since I enjoy getting pierced so much.  Keep that in mind.

I feel that pain and hardship breed strength.  Pain is, for one thing, integral to the true understanding of pleasure, imo.  You cant truly grasp pleasure and happiness without pain and unhappiness.  

Its like this;  by denying pain, by completely ridding ourselves of it, we would be cutting ourselves off from a fundamental part of the human experience.  From my understanding, H+ is about transcending the human condition, but I dont think you can do that by subtracting.  Rather, the goal should be addition.  Pain is a part of who and what we are, and by ridding ourselves of it I think we would be lessening ourselves.  Now, changing pain would be one thing, learning to control it so that it would still be useful, but not unbearable, that I could see as good, but removing our pain centers is as bad as removing our pleasure centers.

Through pain and pleasure we connect with our bodies.  We communicate with our bodies.  Also, I dont think there is any difference between the two.  In the words of a very wise man; "There is no such thing as pain.  There is only powerful sensation."  I dont think it possible to alter our ability to feel sensation without altering our ability to feel ALL sensation.

Pain is important for physiological reasons. Suffering is psychological.

This, I think, is an important disctinction.  The elimination (or lessening) of suffering could be desirable.  But not pain.

Evil bitch hunted wolves from helicopters.  I'm not fucking cool with that.

On the other hand, good GOD she's a laugh.

[and I like the notion that you can change what you are,and that humans will eventually become something new]

I like transhumanists because they're thinking WAAAAAY outside the box

like, so far outside the box they're in outer space



and I like the notion that you can change what you are,
and that humans will eventually become something new

This is exactly what excites me about it.

I see what you're saying.

I'm very interested in body modification, and that's really the correlating interest that I see; the potential to change ourselves in ways FAR beyond piercings, tattoos, brands, implants, etc.  The ability to genetically change our forms and the fundamental way that our brains function.  I've only started reading up on the subject, but I could see myself really getting into it.

EDIT:  Wait wait wait.  I just started reading that first link.  These people want to completely elliminate pain and suffering altogether?  No, fuck that noise.  Pain is integral to our lives, our development.  That seems like a bad idea. 

Anything by Orson S Card except Ender's Game.

Really?  I liked the whole Ender's Game Series, both arcs.  I've never read any Card outside that series though.

I havent actually ever met any Transhumanists, but from what I've read I'm extremely interested.  My only source of knowledge on this is the net, and none of my info has been from discussion, only reading their website and some others.

yeah but the monkeys are an integral part of that cool universe.

and you're a monkey too

EXACTLY.  And we SubGenii are ALL ABOUT jokes that are in bad taste, you see?  Mankind is a dirty joke, and even though I'm slightly offended, I'm still laughing.

And I'm a hairier monkey.

the thing is, the way the book presents itself is that its ironic self importance (which is exactly the same and as laughable as regular self importance), I think it can be a very positive tool for people with low self confidence, but only inconjuntion with other material... or them using common sense to see where the meaning ends and the joke beggins

It helped me with that.  I would interject that part of the whole point, though, is that the meaning and the joke can't be easily seperated.

Still waiting for Roger's take...

Me too.

Yeah, the negativity is core what repelled me.

Most of the time, I think the universe is actually a pretty cool place. It's exciting, dynamic, funny, and awesome. I believe that cabbages are generally well-meaning people until they inherit the curse of Greyface. I get the sense that Subgenii disagree - and they love to fuck over all those people.

Also, humans are flawed beings, and I'm a human so I'm no different. I'm certainly not a hippie by any measure, but I'm generally pretty "I'm okay you're okay". Most Subgenii I've met have been very "I'm okay, you're a piece of shit." I just think it's a waste of energy to be so pissed off and negative all the time. I can get just as much done but with a way lower bloodpressure.

The universe IS a pretty cool place.  It monkies that enrage me.  I'm pissed off all the time, but that isnt mutually exclusive with laughing and being amused for me.

Hmm... I don't feel like a hippy, and I'm a fairly mean person most of the time.

Maybe I am a SubGenius . . .

I'm a discordian when I am in the mood for lighthearted fun, on the days that the only thing getting me out of bed is my caffeen addiction and the urge to ruin someones day I'm a subgenius.

this

to be honest, I've never made it through the Book of the Subgenius.

Too preachy, too smug, too condescending, too profiteering for my taste. After reading 30 pages of cramped text about how awesome SubGenii are -- with barely any explanation as to WHY -- I lost interest. I can see how it would appeal to outsiders with superiority complexes. But it lacked the simple, taoist qualities that initially attracted me to Discordia.

I actually found that stuff an ironic (but far more bitter then discordian) parody of certain cults. There are some really good peices in it TBOTSG, but they mostly come from a very negative place, so it can really depend on a persons state of mind

Yes, I'd say that SubGenius stuff is a lot more negative and bitter on the whole.

[But it lacked the simple, taoist qualities that initially attracted me to Discordia.]

to be honest, I've never made it through the Book of the Subgenius.

Too preachy, too smug, too condescending, too profiteering for my taste. After reading 30 pages of cramped text about how awesome SubGenii are -- with barely any explanation as to WHY -- I lost interest. I can see how it would appeal to outsiders with superiority complexes. But it lacked the simple, taoist qualities that initially attracted me to Discordia.

I think you may have really hit on it right here.  The simple, Daoist qualities sorta bored me, just like the Dao De Ching kinda bored me.  I like my religions complicated, convoluted, and hard to understand.

The aliens bit?  1. It does get lost in its own jokes, and thats one of the things I like.  I get lost in my own jokes.  2.  We'll see who's joking once 1998 comes around, boyo.

"Fuck you if you cant take a joke".  Its a simple enough statement, but when I first saw it in writing, surrounded by the Stangs ravings, it was like a bomb going off behind my eyes.  It's become my mantra.  The Church has so much more black humor than Discordia, and I've always been a big fan of black humor.  

I smell the hippy every time I read something Discordian (old school Discordian, at least, not so much BIP), and a hippy I am not.  SubGenii seem meaner than Discordians on average, and being a dick myself I can really get behind that.