in reviewing the recent events, here is a proposal:
abandon BIP evangelism in favor of a focus on the area where we all seem to merge at:
Law of Fives
Law of Fives is directly from PD
it merges the barstool with the abstract
everything becomes pertinent
as far as the audience goes:
i motion that we abandon the 'Think for Yourself' phrase/nonsense
- clearly it is seen as a phrase that suggests evengelicalism or evangelicism (evangelism?)
bring the Law of Fives to peoples attention, and our audience suddenly becomes very broad, and the writing becomes very pertinent
- we immediately become appealing to conspiracy theorists who are trying to 'piece everything together'
- there is appeal to occultists who are prakticing ckhaos mahdgjickque
- pragmatists have something tangible that they can put to use (mnemonics)
- esoterists have something they can experiment and play with
instead of preaching 'Think for Yourself' - we could provide examples of where this 'free thought' actually exists - where/how people get manipulated
and since we are from everywhere and are (collectively) involved in absolutely everything, exposing the law of fives could have some cross-over appeal
this is the only circumstance where 000's deconstruction of how 2+3=5 would make sense proceeding or following a Rev Rog rant
in brief:
my proposal is this -
lets keep on discussing this rift between the abstract and the practical
meanwhile
firing away at everything under this 'Law of Fives' umbrella
also - to come up with a better phrase than 'Law of Fives' that captures the essence behind 'the more i look for it, the more i see it manifest'
this could tie Prof Cram's latest effort with what Vex was talking about
could also tie Net's latest artworks into this plus the Durden rants, plus the latest discussions on Chaos theory as well as Cain's conspiracy work - etc, etc, etc
desired result:
instead of having people being told to 'Think for Yourself' -
provide context, warnings, benefits, and applications
this is all fresh and unpolished right now...
Sounds tickety! Could someone just remind me what the law of fives was again? I either skimmed over it while reading PD the one time I did, or my lack of short term memory erased it from my head.
http://www.principiadiscordia.com/book/23.php
QuoteTHE INSIDE STORY!
The Law of Fives
The Law of Fives is one of the oldest Erisian Mysterees. It was first revealed to Good Lord Omar and is one of the great contributions to come from The Hidden Temple of The Happy Jesus.
POEE subscribes to the Law of Fives of Omar's sect. And POEE also recognizes the holy 23 (2+3=5) that is incorporated by Episkopos Dr. Mordecai Malignatus, KNS, into his Discordian sect, The Ancient Illuminated Seers of Bavaria.
The Law of Fives states simply that: ALL THINGS HAPPEN IN FIVES, OR ARE DIVISIBLE BY OR ARE MULTIPLES OF FIVE, OR ARE SOMEHOW DIRECTLY OR INDIRECTLY APPROPRIATE TO 5.
The Law of Fives is never wrong.
In the Erisian Archives is an old memo from Omar to Mal-2: "I find the Law of Fives to be more and more manifest the harder I look."
bolded for emphasis
I'm not down with it, personally.  Think For Yourself Shmuck has been  a good theme, and I don't think it's been explored to the fullest quite yet.  I'd move on when there's a lot more cut-and-dry documentation on it and there's some kind of output from it all.  Not only that, the law of fives, while a multi-layered subject seems fluffy and trite to me, and isn't how I'd choose to represent myself.
I recognize that there is some content carry-over for it, though. Maybe it could be worked in as an aspect or angle.
Quote from: Felix Mackay on March 03, 2007, 07:00:15 PM
I'm not down with it, personally. Think For Yourself Shmuck has been a good theme, and I don't think it's been explored to the fullest quite yet. I'd move on when there's a lot more cut-and-dry documentation on it and there's some kind of output from it all. Not only that, the law of fives, while a multi-layered subject seems fluffy and trite to me, and isn't how I'd choose to represent myself.
I recognize that there is some content carry-over for it, though. Maybe it could be worked in as an aspect or angle.
Quote from: LHXbring the Law of Fives to peoples attention, and our audience suddenly becomes very broad, and the writing becomes very pertinent
- we immediately become appealing to conspiracy theorists who are trying to 'piece everything together'
- there is appeal to occultists who are prakticing ckhaos mahdgjickque
- pragmatists have something tangible that they can put to use (mnemonics)
- esoterists have something they can experiment and play with
instead of preaching 'Think for Yourself' - we could provide examples of where this 'free thought' actually exists - where/how people get manipulated
Quote from: Felix Mackay on March 03, 2007, 07:00:15 PM
I'm not down with it, personally. Think For Yourself Shmuck has been a good theme, and I don't think it's been explored to the fullest quite yet. I'd move on when there's a lot more cut-and-dry documentation on it and there's some kind of output from it all. Not only that, the law of fives, while a multi-layered subject seems fluffy and trite to me, and isn't how I'd choose to represent myself.
I recognize that there is some content carry-over for it, though. Maybe it could be worked in as an aspect or angle.
'think for yourself schmuck' would benefit from the good cop/bad cop routine
Or perhaps, less hate and more weary ambivalence? The weary amb. is a good way to seem unconfrontational, unadversarial so as to get into more people's heads.
not for the older crowd
i see what youre saying tho
umm i just wanted to mention that the number-theoretical proof of 2+3=5 was
1) not chosen because of the law of fives, could have been anything
2) will probably bore the hell out of anyone not prepared for that kind of shit, i didnt leave it out the first time only because it was long, but also because it's a boring repetitive proof, doing the same thing (adding 1 to 2) three times, essentially.
also, personally, i like the "think for yourself" meme better than the "law of fives" meme. they're not about the same thing. "think for yourself" is basically the key to any prison cell of the BIP, where the "law of fives" describes a certain type of bar the entire BIP is made of here and there.
i'd also like to remind Felix that there cannot be any "more cut-and-dry documentation" to thinking for yourself, as this defeats the purpose, sort of.
but on the other hand, i sort of enjoy getting people to think. and think hard.
the only problem is when you hit the point where they have seemed to stop thinking. then, a few things can happen,
- they can jokingly admit "ha ha no i don't like to think about that no ha ha i'm a consumer slave heh heh" (srsly i know people that can literally tell me this in all seriousness)
- another option is that they sort of stare at you with a sort of bunny-car-headlights glaze in their eyes.
- third, perhaps most common in certain environments, is that they just continue barging on, either ignore what you just said or just start repeating their initial arguments in the hope they'll win this time around.
what to do in these cases, is probably the more cut-and-dry documentation you are looking for?
notice that this is at a moment in discussion where a lot of the schopenhauer eristics has already failed (except perhaps for the public ridiculing and ad hominems)
Quote from: triple zero on March 03, 2007, 09:04:58 PM
umm i just wanted to mention that the number-theoretical proof of 2+3=5 was
1) not chosen because of the law of fives, could have been anything
i dont think anybody thought otherwise
Quote from: 000
also, personally, i like the "think for yourself" meme better than the "law of fives" meme. they're not about the same thing. "think for yourself" is basically the key to any prison cell of the BIP, where the "law of fives" describes a certain type of bar the entire BIP is made of here and there.
im not so sure
i think they might be more related than that
if anything - i think a familiarity with the implications of the Law of Fives
forces a person to think for themselves
as in - you cant understand the implications of the Law of Fives and
not be a free thinker (or on your way to becoming one)
Quote from: 000
the only problem is when you hit the point where they have seemed to stop thinking. then, a few things can happen,
- they can jokingly admit "ha ha no i don't like to think about that no ha ha i'm a consumer slave heh heh" (srsly i know people that can literally tell me this in all seriousness)
- another option is that they sort of stare at you with a sort of bunny-car-headlights glaze in their eyes.
- third, perhaps most common in certain environments, is that they just continue barging on, either ignore what you just said or just start repeating their initial arguments in the hope they'll win this time around.
what to do in these cases, is probably the more cut-and-dry documentation you are looking for?
notice that this is at a moment in discussion where a lot of the schopenhauer eristics has already failed (except perhaps for the public ridiculing and ad hominems)
nobody listens to anybody telling them anything
unless there is fear involved or the prospect of fulfilling desire
"Think for yourself" evokes no fear and provides no prospect of fulfilling a desire
Quote from: LHX on March 03, 2007, 09:20:13 PMnobody listens to anybody telling them anything
unless there is fear involved or the prospect of fulfilling desire
"Think for yourself" evokes no fear and provides no prospect of fulfilling a desire
ok, so you gotta demonstrate thinking for yourself
and the law of fives (and "23") is a demonstration of some sort .. i can see where that's going.
i think, especially after watching the movie 23, we need to make the idea of "it's all in your mind, you fool" a LOT more clearer, it was already vague, because really if you see that movie, Jim Carrey is FREAKING OUT (ok turns out he had a good reason to, but his son blindly follows him as well -- he is the target and he should have known better) .. i wonder why not much more people get completely freaked at the number 23, it's everywhere, DUH of course it is .. suckers.
A good law of fives/BIP parable:
"Guy's sitting in his world, his BIP. Gets bored, starts drawing on the walls. Eventually he just covers the walls in writing and drawing. He then notices that a lot of the letter 'E' shows up in his writing, it being the most common letter of the language (but he doesn't know that). So he starts rationalizing and philosophizing as to why this is. He's not unclever, and generates some convincing arguments along the lines of it's shape, pleasing sound, perhaps some psychological obsession with the letter. So over time E becomes his symbol for "unknown" and "wierd" things. E is now synonymous with something irrationally correlated for some arbitrary reason. Around this point the man is deranged with excitement at the very thought of E. When the gaurds say words with E he giggles or sobs. He writes it on his face in the mirror. He's over the edge.
There's this great They Might Be Giants song called E Eats Everything."
Why 5? Srsly. I actually have been noticing the number five an awful lot lately. I have a five magnet on my fridge, with five ordinary magnets surrounding it. The strange thing is, I picked up the five magnet long before I ever heard about the law of fives, years ago. Come to think of it, I don't know where I got that magnet, but I know it was many years ago. I just went to San Francisco this weekend. I got room 500 on the fifth floor, and my sister parked on the fifth floor of the parking garage. I also used to visualize pentagons in my mind's eye long before I learned about Discordianism and the LAW. Maybe coincidence, and maybe something more like the law of attraction, but I can only wonder. But we might explore the law of fives more. We might open up a new subforum, but keep the bip, even though everybody wants to escape it. What does the five mean in numerology? In tarot, it is the number of conflict. In the enneagram, it's the number of the thinker, of genius and of paranoia. 555 is the number that's just a little bit humbler than the devil, though I haven't explored its full meaning. What else does it mean? Does the topic deserve a subforum?
Quote from: Felix Mackay on March 04, 2007, 12:19:20 AM
A good law of fives/BIP parable:
"Guy's sitting in his world, his BIP.  Gets bored, starts drawing on the walls.  Eventually he just covers the walls in writing and drawing.  He then notices that a lot of the letter 'E' shows up in his writing, it being the most common letter of the language (but he doesn't know that).  So he starts rationalizing and philosophizing as to why this is.  He's not unclever, and generates some convincing arguments along the lines of it's shape, pleasing sound, perhaps some psychological obsession with the letter.  So over time E becomes his symbol for "unknown" and "wierd" things.  E is now synonymous with something irrationally correlated for some arbitrary reason.  Around this point the man is deranged with excitement at the very thought of E.  When the gaurds say words with E he giggles or sobs.  He writes it on his face in the mirror.  He's over the edge. 
There's this great They Might Be Giants song called E Eats Everything."
"E" is the 5th letter of the alphabet. just saying  :evil:
:wink:
Quote from: triple zero on March 04, 2007, 01:28:02 AM
Quote from: Felix Mackay on March 04, 2007, 12:19:20 AM
A good law of fives/BIP parable:
"Guy's sitting in his world, his BIP.  Gets bored, starts drawing on the walls.  Eventually he just covers the walls in writing and drawing.  He then notices that a lot of the letter 'E' shows up in his writing, it being the most common letter of the language (but he doesn't know that).  So he starts rationalizing and philosophizing as to why this is.  He's not unclever, and generates some convincing arguments along the lines of it's shape, pleasing sound, perhaps some psychological obsession with the letter.  So over time E becomes his symbol for "unknown" and "wierd" things.  E is now synonymous with something irrationally correlated for some arbitrary reason.  Around this point the man is deranged with excitement at the very thought of E.  When the gaurds say words with E he giggles or sobs.  He writes it on his face in the mirror.  He's over the edge. 
There's this great They Might Be Giants song called E Eats Everything."
"E" is the 5th letter of the alphabet. just saying  :evil:
:wink:
Goddamnit...
Quote from: hunter s.durden on March 04, 2007, 06:24:50 AM
Quote from: triple zero on March 04, 2007, 01:28:02 AM
Quote from: Felix Mackay on March 04, 2007, 12:19:20 AM
A good law of fives/BIP parable:
"Guy's sitting in his world, his BIP. Gets bored, starts drawing on the walls. Eventually he just covers the walls in writing and drawing. He then notices that a lot of the letter 'E' shows up in his writing, it being the most common letter of the language (but he doesn't know that). So he starts rationalizing and philosophizing as to why this is. He's not unclever, and generates some convincing arguments along the lines of it's shape, pleasing sound, perhaps some psychological obsession with the letter. So over time E becomes his symbol for "unknown" and "wierd" things. E is now synonymous with something irrationally correlated for some arbitrary reason. Around this point the man is deranged with excitement at the very thought of E. When the gaurds say words with E he giggles or sobs. He writes it on his face in the mirror. He's over the edge.
There's this great They Might Be Giants song called E Eats Everything."
"E" is the 5th letter of the alphabet. just saying :evil:
:wink:
Goddamnit...
Swote and double swote. Good work you two.
I'm down with LHX's idea. I think a new written effort kind of needs to go in a different direction just by virtue of not repeating ourselves. The Law of Fives is a good tool for pointing out how easily people fall into the trap of NOT thinking for themselves. Of course, I don't think LHX is literally thinking about schooling people on the literal "Law of Fives". That obviously would have limitations. But you can go in many different directions with the spirit of the Law of Fives. So, my vote is that we should at least explore this possibility.
actually i was thinking about a thick hardcover book titled 'The Literal Law of Fives Literally'
the cover will be dark grey wiff light-dark-grey text
there will be no pictures inside ANYWHERE
Quote from: LHX on March 04, 2007, 06:55:06 PM
actually i was thinking about a thick hardcover book titled 'The Literal Law of Fives Literally'
the cover will be dark grey wiff light-dark-grey text
there will be no pictures inside ANYWHERE
That is a wonderful idea! I have lots of resources you can use for this. Do you have a fax machine?
Also, I think that somewhere someone got lazy, as it is obvious that the law of fives was used as filler until they got to nine. They probably just were having a difficult time figuring out the last few numbers to count all the way up to 9. I can provide assitance to those who have this problem, as I insist that the most useful stuff be put into circulation, not someones filler.
Quote from: Benaclypse on March 04, 2007, 12:44:25 AM
Why 5?  Srsly.  I actually have been noticing the number five an awful lot lately.  I have a five magnet on my fridge, with five ordinary magnets surrounding it.  The strange thing is, I picked up the five magnet long before I ever heard about the law of fives, years ago.  Come to think of it, I don't know where I got that magnet, but I know it was many years ago.  I just went to San Francisco this weekend.  I got room 500 on the fifth floor, and my sister parked on the fifth floor of the parking garage.  I also used to visualize pentagons in my mind's eye long before I learned about Discordianism and the LAW.  Maybe coincidence, and maybe something more like the law of attraction, but I can only wonder.  But we might explore the law of fives more.  We might open up a new subforum, but keep the bip, even though everybody wants to escape it.  What does the five mean in numerology?  In tarot, it is the number of conflict.  In the enneagram, it's the number of the thinker, of genius and of paranoia.  555 is the number that's just a little bit humbler than the devil, though I haven't explored its full meaning.  What else does it mean?  Does the topic deserve a subforum?
Why 5? Look at your hand.
Why 5? There's a passage in Illuminatus! where someone asks that. Hagbard (I think) shows them a picture of a guy with six fingers on one hand. The caption is something like "If we had evolved like this, it would be the law of sixes".
What about the phrase
"Think for yourself about ______".
At some art school I visited, there were these bumper stickers everywhere which said "Art is ". In some cases people had written in stuff in the blank (I saw one in a bathroom stall where someone wrote in "shit", for example)
We could fill in the blank ourselves for as a heading for specific rants and stuff. Think for yourself about the machine. Think for yourself about voting. Think for yourself about individuality. Think for yourself about pretzels.
If we printed stickers, they could be put in places where we could fill in the blank with relevant things. Like on the front of a magazine rack it could say "Think for yourself about fashion"
Regarding the OP -- I feel that any effort we make to reorganize ourselves towards a specific goal is a good effort. These new beginnings come with a lot of fresh energy. It also forces us to rethink refine recycle all that shit we were talking about last week.
I was sayin let me out of here before I was
even born--it's such a gamble when you get a face
It's fascinatin to observe what the mirror does
but when I dine it's for the wall that I set a place
I belong to the blank generation and
I can take it or leave it each time
I belong to the ______ generation but
I can take it or leave it each time
Triangles were fallin at the window as the doctor cursed
He was a cartoon long forsaken by the public eye
The nurse adjusted her garters as I breathed my first
The doctor grabbed my throat and yelled, "God's consolation prize!"
I belong to the blank generation and
I can take it or leave it each time
I belong to the ______ generation but
I can take it or leave it each time
To hold the t.v. to my lips, the air so packed with cash
then carry it up flights of stairs and drop it in the vacant lot
To lose my train of thought and fall into your arms' tracks
and watch beneath the eyelids every passing dot
I belong to the blank generation and
I can take it or leave it each time
I belong to the ______ generation but
I can take it or leave it each time
-Richard Hell, 1976
this idea is really ________
Art is dead, motherfuckers.
Art is dead, ______fuckers.
___ is ____, ____.
that wasnt funny man
yea because his mother is a _____
that was just insensitive
[re-jack]
I think what some of us need to do is to do a lot of thread diving & compile the best ideas/posts/phrases. So much good stuff is written, and then buried. I'll see if I can ignore the new posts long enough to gather some shit together.
I was kinda thinking I'd do the same thing tonight for a couple of hours and see what turns up. I'm guessing this will be a one off tho.
Should be interesting to compare notes at the end.
Thread paleontology isn't going to be useful to us unless we have a somewhat clear goal. LHX's original proposition:
Quote from: LHX on March 03, 2007, 05:40:08 PM
Desired result:
instead of having people being told to 'Think for Yourself' -
provide context, warnings, benefits, and applications
audience?And is the goal to produce a brochure?
the OP also sounds like the goal might be the evolution of the meme. Think for
yourself about And Now What, etc.
I'm using it as a sieve. There are good posts in there. I'm gonna go separate them from the chaff, and make 'em available as stand alone pieces.
(http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i312/P3nT4gR4m/TJ1-ITT-p1.jpg)
(http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i312/P3nT4gR4m/TJ1-ITT-p2.jpg)
[congratulatory post to 'Cybin's awesomeness that will cause people to get sick of all the goddamn congratulatory posts on this board even more]
Quote from: LMNO on March 06, 2007, 06:20:47 PMI think what some of us need to do is to do a lot of thread diving & compile the best ideas/posts/phrases. 
this is why i "bumped" the wiki, because it seems perfectly suited for compiling stuff that doesn't get buried too quick
i always get the feeling that the most recent stuff is the best stuff
and it kind of encapsulates everything that came before it
just like anything we write right now would take the original BIP (and its shortcomings) into account
i really think the future of this stuff lies in what we produce live and streaming as it comes
i really think we should get better at summarizing the present situation in a way that doesnt involve archaeology
develop a style that translates well into print with minimal production and editing time
we cant use pre-2007 tactics for what is going on in 2007
EDIT - although that joint that Cybin put together is pretty slick
that layout and formatting is straight bangin
Cramulus has some points.
We need to have an audience in mind as well as what we're shooting for.
Quote from: LHX on March 06, 2007, 11:42:09 PM
develop a style that translates well into print with minimal production and editing time
I've wrote about 10 different answers to this and I'm not satisfied with any of them.
That's a hell of problem you've brought up there...
Quote from: LHX on March 06, 2007, 11:42:09 PM
develop a style that translates well into print with minimal production and editing time
I've wrote about 10 different answers to this and I'm not satisfied with any of them.
That's a hell of problem you've brought up there...
Quote
In My Opinion --- the "style" of the text needs to be:
- accessable - any asshole should be able to read it and understand it without knowledge of our complex metaphors
- engaging - it should be interesting to read
- relevant - ...nuff said, I hope
The specific format of the text does not need to be standardized. We could do a mix of sermons, rants, essays, socratic dialogues, AIM dialogues, and diagrams, as long as they fit the above criteria.
The BIP booklet, for example, does this nicely. The format and tone of the pamphlet changes from page to page, and I feel that actually helps it stay interesting. Plus if you (the reader) find one style boring, turn the page and there's a different approach. It well reflects the commutiny we have here and our various approaches to solving this "problem".
I also found that eclectic style quite useful to convey the complex ideas in the BIP. It's not something you can summarize quickly, and the multifaceted approach seemed to work.
Tone is another issue entirely.
the tones range from stand-offish to new-age to rallying-up-the-troops etc etc
in the same regard that there is a style that everybody can find appealing - there are also styles that will turn people off
BUT
since passages are short - i think we might already have the key to solving that problem
we dont punish people with lengthy script
we go for the relentless never-ending short bursts
Quote from: Netaungrot on March 07, 2007, 02:45:05 AMQuote from: LHX on March 06, 2007, 11:42:09 PM
develop a style that translates well into print with minimal production and editing time
I've wrote about 10 different answers to this and I'm not satisfied with any of them.
That's a hell of problem you've brought up there... 
when i read this, i was thinking of some kind of "plug-n-play" layout system? it doesn't need to look uber-shiny, just reasonably well-thought out, and you could just copy/paste a selection of your favourite rants/pieces/writings/things in it, and it would make headings and paragraphs come out right.
something a bit like CSS is for HTML, or maybe even more like LaTeX (yes i said it), there must be some other solutions to it as well, i'd guess?
also, once you have it, if, then there's still the need to archive and store the thusfar produced rants into some kind of system (the wiki?) in a format from which people can easily select rants from, and stick together their lego-style customized pamphlet, which needs to be not much more than a selection of topical rants for the target audience.
well that was what came to my mind, but i've got the feeling you are operating on a different level
anyway i'd be interested to hear your 10 thoughts about this, Net :)
Quote from: triple zero on March 07, 2007, 11:14:19 AM
Quote from: Netaungrot on March 07, 2007, 02:45:05 AMQuote from: LHX on March 06, 2007, 11:42:09 PM
develop a style that translates well into print with minimal production and editing time
I've wrote about 10 different answers to this and I'm not satisfied with any of them.
That's a hell of problem you've brought up there...
when i read this, i was thinking of some kind of "plug-n-play" layout system? it doesn't need to look uber-shiny, just reasonably well-thought out, and you could just copy/paste a selection of your favourite rants/pieces/writings/things in it, and it would make headings and paragraphs come out right.
something a bit like CSS is for HTML, or maybe even more like LaTeX (yes i said it), there must be some other solutions to it as well, i'd guess?
also, once you have it, if, then there's still the need to archive and store the thusfar produced rants into some kind of system (the wiki?) in a format from which people can easily select rants from, and stick together their lego-style customized pamphlet, which needs to be not much more than a selection of topical rants for the target audience.
this is a interesting line of thought