The PDCOM Research Department has spent the past year or so researching the definitions and characteristics of The Machine(TM), delving into the psychological nature of the Black Iron Prison in which people trap themselves, and making up a lot of silly terms for almost every tendency people accidentally give themselves. Some have said that this is all a lot of intellectual masturbation, that we were going nowhere, or that there is no practical application of all this stuff beyond the off-chance that some of the propaganda we produced might snap somebody out of Robot Mode.
It seems, however, that all these naysayers were in fact wrong about everything, and we were right to call them Ass Bandits. Although even our researchers themselves were largely unconcerned with where our research was heading, it turns out that there may be a practical application of this knowledge after all. To address what this application is, it might help to give a brief recap of some of the highlights of the PDRD's work.
First, we examined The Machine. The Machine is a difficult thing to define and is heavily nuanced, and it outside the scope of this paper to go all that detail. Suffice to say that The Machine is what happens when a society's internal power structures begin to lose absolute control over it. The Machine is the collective habits and unconscious reactions of a society's members, perceived as being almost an organism unto itself, with much the same behaviors, instincts, and requirements of a "natural" creature. A society at this point is characterized by political systems that, in spite of being enormous and powerful, are capable of directing the movement of the society, but incapable of outright declaration of the society's directions.
Secondly, we examined the Black Iron Prison. This is an individual-oriented concept describing the psychological, spiritual, experiential, and emotional "bars" we build and use to define our self-identities, determine our actions, and influence how we see the world around us and other people in that world. These "bars" often go completely unnoticed by a person until he is faced with a situation that forces him to re-examine his worldview in depth. They are constructed out of assumptions, religious beliefs, or anything else that is convenient to use when defining something we are initially unsure of or ignorant about. Because there is almost an infinite degree of information that can be learned about any particular subject, we almost always place a "bar" when dealing with things as a means to pin down what it is so we can move on to some other (usually more interesting) thing, and then tend to forget that the final definition we put on the thing was really only a convenient place for us to stop investigating it.
It is likely that both of these topics will be the subject of further exploration forever (and here I have hardly scratched the surface of what we already know), but we have gleaned enough usable information to move on to other things as well. Adding these to other topics of research such as Meme Dynamics and Military theory, we are at a point now where we can begin work on PDRD's next product. This product is exciting, because it steps beyond research and propaganda into the actual development of a testable model. This model has no official name yet but since I am egotistical and it fits with one of my posts, I'm going to call it the Game.
The central theory behind the Game is that it should be possible, knowing what we do about the nature of The Machine and the Black Iron Prison, to purposely construct an organization that uses human automation to produce pre-defined results in a larger society in which it is set in motion. The idea here is that a set of instructions would be introduced into a population, taking the form of a network among individual members, driven to recruit new members, and designed to produce a generally-defined effect.
This is not an organization in either the traditional hierarchical or flat-network sense. This system is designed to be self-sustaining and resilient to attack and dissolution like a network, yet share the benefits of deliberation and motive that are normally in the jurisdiction of hierarchical systems.
FURTHER INFORMATION PENDING RESEARCH.
DON'T YOU LOVE THE OPEN-SOURCE MODEL OF "RELEASE EARLY, RELEASE OFTEN?"
Also: incorrect but convenient definition of Game:
Any activity with a finite lifespan and simple rules which define behavior and result in a predetermined outcome, while allowing for a wide range of internal events.
I applaud this motion, and think the name you've selected will resonate well with other Discordians.
I am starting to have more faith in this project. It's now expanded to three threads instead of just one. Many of our projects never make it beyond that point. :p
they're all arbitrary tho. and there are 4 threads if you count Ratatosk's Cainad's recruitment thread.
Quote from: Professor Cramulus on January 05, 2008, 07:29:11 PM
I applaud this motion, and think the name you've selected will resonate well with other Discordians.
I am starting to have more faith in this project. It's now expanded to three threads instead of just one. Many of our projects never make it beyond that point. :p
My fread doesn't count. It died to death. :x :cry:
I'm horribly excited about this, to be honest.
okay okay okay okay okay
First, read my recent post in the FSM thread about "Golden Apple Seed" missions (http://www.principiadiscordia.com/forum/index.php?topic=14768.msg469411#msg469411).
I think that idea crystallizes what we've talking about. A way to network a bunch of unrelated Discordjians and get them to work on each other's projects.
We all know that Discordians love games (it's one of those rare things all Discordians have in common). What about creating a scoring matrix of some sort? So here's the idea.
Over at (just tossing this out there) Discoflux.com we have the Golden Apple Seed roster. Whenever someone posts a new mission, they can award 1-5 points to people who participate. Then we can post a "high score board" sort of thing which will encourage people to compete to be a bigger Discordian activist.
So for example...
My cabal wants fake moustaches everywhere. I put up a Golden Apple Seed Mission (hereafter referred to as a GAS 'EM) which describes the project. Discordians read this post and spread it to their friends. Then people go out and draw fake moustaches on posters, ads, billboards, etc... You take a picture of your work and post it. Or you just tell about it, "I just moustached 25 posters in NYC". (hm - thereby violating the Keep Your Fucking Mouth Shut rule... will have to think about that...) Then I award you points based on the level of your participation. If someone sharpies a poster I'll give 'em one point. If someone spraypaints a prolific billboard I'll give em five points.
This makes Playing the Game a reward in itself, even if you're not 100% behind the causes that people are pushing for. For example, a lot of Discordians may not like pranking Ron Paul supporters. But we don't want their actual beliefs to get mixed up in this - the game itself is enough reason to participate.
(incidentally, that's the exact reason the Adam Weishaupt Society is framed as a game rather than a disinfo campaign)
thoughts?
Sounds like a lot of work to keep track of what everyone is doing, I must say. It also implicitly creates a player/game master relationship which I don't believe will be conducive to results, and an element of competition that may decrease cooperation.
I really like the aspect of 'free for all' coordinated actions, but what requirements would they have to fulfill to be accepted? Or is there a group of inner circle 'game masters', as Cain phrased it, planning them?
I don't know about the 'highscore board', actually; I rather prefer the loose :mittens:-system practised here to the marks/rating system... unless those points would be confined to the specific 'missions' they were earned in, rather than advancing your rank on some global highscore board.
I don't know, I'd rather play the Game to play the Game instead of upping my Disco-Points, but perhaps it actually would draw more people into it.
Quote from: König Bonifaz on January 05, 2008, 11:12:04 PM
I really like the aspect of 'free for all' coordinated actions, but what requirements would they have to fulfill to be accepted? Or is there a group of inner circle 'game masters', as Cain phrased it, planning them?
I don't know about the 'highscore board', actually; I rather prefer the loose :mittens:-system practised here to the marks/rating system... unless those points would be confined to the specific 'missions' they were earned in, rather than advancing your rank on some global highscore board.
I don't know, I'd rather play the Game to play the Game instead of upping my Disco-Points, but perhaps it actually would draw more people into it.
:mittens:
Quote from: Cain on January 05, 2008, 10:41:47 PM
Sounds like a lot of work to keep track of what everyone is doing, I must say. It also implicitly creates a player/game master relationship which I don't believe will be conducive to results, and an element of competition that may decrease cooperation.
well, not really. I post a task thread, and you reply when you do something related to it. The only part anyone has to keep track of is score, and I believe that could be automated somewhat easily. There's no game master - anyone who creates a task can award points.
I just think it's easier to motivate people if you give them some sort of reward. Points and competition are
slightly more tangible than mittens.
anyway, we're talking about approaching this task from multiple angles. This is one suggestion.
What do you (plural) think about the Golden Apple Seed Mission meme? I think it actually (in part) satisfies Cain's suggestions about connecting multiple Discordian networks.
EDITED TO CLARIFY:
In my model,
anyone can post a task thread. It never occurred to me that there would be "game masters".
i think the GASM is an awesome idea. besides the fact that it is the 2nd syllable of orgasm (Organization foR Golden Apple Seed Missions?)
the challenge will be hosting multiple copies of the same list of missions. this is next to impossible without having a master server which defeats the possibility of keeping membership bases separate.
Cain, the player/game-master relationship could be avoided while allowing for much the same benefits, by making the 'game master' no more than a set of rules, without moderators.
I know, but someone has to wear the black hat around here.
I'll look it over again and get back to you tomorrow (connection pending, thank god my flatemate is getting his own wireless soon) after I've slept and thought on it.
I will probably voice a great deal of support and offer my resources, but never really follow through with the legwork.
Quote from: Nigel on January 06, 2008, 02:13:50 AM
I will probably voice a great deal of support and offer my resources, but never really follow through with the legwork.
You and the rest of the world.
What could we do that would encourage your participation?
someone give me an arbitrary statists grid and experience points and I will pretty much do whatever you ask to level up
arbitrary experience points are an excellent idea. like the scoring system on Who's Line is it Anyway
and something to spend it on or have levels, otherwise it doesn't feel the same.
even if its just access to someones gif folder I would probably do it.
I just had an OMGASM all over my keyboard
Quote from: Professor Cramulus on January 06, 2008, 02:40:41 AM
Quote from: Nigel on January 06, 2008, 02:13:50 AM
I will probably voice a great deal of support and offer my resources, but never really follow through with the legwork.
You and the rest of the world.
What could we do that would encourage your participation?
Sex?
No, but really, the best incentive for me is peer enthusiasm.
I agree.
I slept and thought on it and I don't believe the game model works well unless you are already working with people predisposed to doing whatever your game is based around anyway. For example, Actual Reality Gaming. I've watched tons of whiney bitches descend on a really decent, well thought out game, only to drop out because it either didn't live up to their fantastical expectations, there was a lull in activities or some equally bizzare and pointless reason. People only committed if something piqued their interest, and the things that invariably get most interest are those they cannot PROVE are not a game of some sort.
I believe people will be more inclined to join if they can see personal benefits, as well as a hint of danger, conspiracy and excitment. A game contradicts 2 elements of this I believe. Games get higher buzz, but much lower returns.
I'm not sure if you're responding to Vex's proposition of The Game as a metaphor for the kind of grand-scale project we're creating, or responding to my proposition of a game structure to encourage certain types of Discordians to participate. But I'll take it as the latter...
Quote from: Cain on January 06, 2008, 01:31:43 PM
I slept and thought on it and I don't believe the game model works well unless you are already working with people predisposed to doing whatever your game is based around anyway.
The game is based around doing Discordian activities. It's literally whatever people make this project into, be it pranking the election cycle or drawing moustaches or whatever.
Any project we propose to Discordians has to be fun in of itself... otherwise you need to convince people to participate using rhetoric or authority. And those carry the
exact same potential for people to "drop out because it either didn't live up to their fantastical expectations, there was a lull in activities or some equally bizzare and pointless reason."
But I think it's clear, it's totally transparent, that the points and the rules and the game and bullshit are just bullshit. The real point is to
do activities, not to get scored on it. The game is just a framework which lets everyone reward each other based on their level of participation - even if those rewards are total bullshit - a fact we admitted openly and proudly right at the beginning.
The real rewards are
(A) that if you participate in others projects, it raises the likelihood that others will participate in
your projects. (a rule fully functional here at PD) and
(B) the tasks are supposed to be FUN in of itself. If what we're doing isn't
fun, nobody's
ever gonna do anyone else's bidding anyway.
I'm just not sure how you can be shooting down any one approach to getting Discordians to work together, being that you've called for as many different sub networks as possible. Especially since "whatever [the] game is based around anyway" is something we've talked about for less than three posts.
I can shoot it down because I honestly don't believe its a functional or useful model, especially for the netwar system I described but also for various other activities.
Or are you suggesting my disagreement with you isn't 100% sincere? In which case, fuck off because this conversation is over and we have nothing more to say to each other.
Quote from: Cain on January 06, 2008, 04:06:29 PM
I can shoot it down because I honestly don't believe its a functional or useful model, especially for the netwar system I described but also for various other activities.
Or are you suggesting my disagreement with you isn't 100% sincere? In which case, fuck off because this conversation is over and we have nothing more to say to each other.
I didn't say you weren't being 100% sincere.
but if you're gonna get all "this conversation is over and I'm done talking to you, fuck off"...
(http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a95/discordman/forumspecific/YesBoss.jpg)
Well you're the one who turned the argument into my personal viewpoints and about me, so as a matter of fact I do think I have the right to react in such a way. You insinuated my disagreement with you was not sincere since I was the one constantly badgering for more activities. And I don't see why I should have to put up with such bullshit when I'm doing everyone here a favour by applying some critical thought to the subject at hand.
so, the internet has mutated Operation Mindfuck.
classic things that needed player/master relationships for organisation are not always necessary anymore. the classic player/master relationship has always been, for a large part, a boring job of logistics. this is the robot future, so let the machines take care of it.
in web2.0, you can simply let something loose, inform a shitload of people via whatever channel and a whole army of bots, spiders, agents, pipes and feeds will take care of the logistics for you.
allow me to demonstrate:
i registered an account at http://del.icio.us, a social bookmarking site.
http://del.icio.us/triplezero (some evil bastard already stole "000")
on this account, i bookmarked the URL to Cram's "To Kill A Religion/Joke" manifesto. then i tagged it with "gasm" (and "eris", "discord", "discordia", and such so it might get some exposure).
now check this out:
http://del.icio.us/tag/gasm
showing all URLs tagged with "gasm". there's some other links below it about the GNU Assembler, but nobody cares about that and if this thing takes off we'll swamp them anyway.
and, del.icio.us being a social networking site, also allows you to create a "network" of users (other discordians/GASManiacs) so you can keep track of what they do and/or tag.
but there is more. you wanna keep track of what's going on in the GASMsphere, right? so subscribe to its RSS feed:
http://del.icio.us/rss/tag/gasm
there's even more features on del.icio.us, and with some creativity and a slight hack of code here and there (del.icio.us was one of the first web2.0 apps, and has since then kinda turned into the ducttape of the web2.0 mash)
next!
so, Cram's cabal wants fake moustaches everywhere?
so first Cram writes up a nice recruiting article, telling people to put moustaches everywhere and photograph the evidence.
he also instructs people to place the photos on flickr.com and tag them with 'moustachegasm'.
post this article anywhere, a forum, a blog whatever. then bookmark it on del.icio.us, tag it with "gasm" and "moustachegasm" so everybody subscribing to the "gasm" feed on del.icio.us gets the message (then proceed to spam the URL all over the place, anywhere, for more extra exposure is always good).
this way, Cram's cabal can follow the progress of their moustachegasm nicely simply by keeping track of this page:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/moustachegasm/
(and yes, it also has an RSS feed)
(btw maybe it's easier to use photobucket, as everybody here already uses and knows photobucket. it also has a search page with an RSS feed: http://photobucket.com/images/moustachegasm/ it seems like you gotta set your album to public before images appear in the search page though)
easy as that.
(someone in) Cram's cabal also subscribed to the "moustachegasm" feed on del.icio.us, so if anybody wants to communicate, or draw the moustachegasm-crowd's attention to anything, they just post a bookmark to del.icio.us tagges with "moustachegasm".
if they don't want to use flickr, they can post imageshack or photobucket links to del.icio.us tagged with "moustachegasm".
if some cabal on a forum far far away decides to do a whole lot of moustacheing and talk about it on their forum--they post a link.
there are lots and lots of little web2.0 social networking services and tools out there and with a littlebit of creativity, the possibilities are endless.
a few more things, that might prove useful:
http://calendar.google.com - google calendar. is an online calendar application, a bit reminiscent of microsoft Outlook. the cool thing is that it is coupled to a gmail account, and that you can allow other gmail accounts to view and even edit your calendar. (one of my friends uses it and tells people "if you wanna meet up for coffee, i added you to my calendar, check when i'm free and reserve a spot" :) ) anyway, for your purposes it might be useful to set up a shared calendar describing a roadmap of certain longterm gasms. and a public calendar can of course be read through an RSS feed, if you wish.
http://docs.google.com - google docs. three in one: an online word processor (compatible with Word), online spreadsheet (compatible with Excel) and online presentation (compatible with PowerPoint) applications. similar to calendar you can share everything with selected users, for great collaborative projects. especially powerful if you know to work some Excel magic (formulas, procedures, etc).
http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes - yahoo pipes. "Pipes is a powerful composition tool to aggregate, manipulate, and mashup content from around the web." this is the superglue of the internet. a bit advanced, but you can convert everything and anything to a feed, loop it through a bunch of filters, post it to a blog, del.icio.us account, search the web, you name it. it's like Lego for the web. and you don't need to know how to program.
http://twitter.com/ - more social networking/web2.0 stuff. this one allows people to send SMS-like messages to eachother through a social network. complete with feeds, tagging, social network, integration etc.
(oh god i'm just looking around .. this stuff is sweeeeeet http://ponderer.org/del.icio.us hehe. i'm using del.icio.us for a week or two now, imported all my bookmarks from Opera (it's easy, also for IE and FF), they're not shared, but at least i can easily access them from anywhere now)
sorry i digress. i'm a tech guy you know?
---
some more thoughts:
Cain wrote:
> I don't believe the game model works well unless you are already working with people predisposed to doing whatever
> your game is based around anyway.
> I believe people will be more inclined to join if they can see personal benefits, as well as a hint of
> danger, conspiracy and excitment.
Cain, these three elements seem to be what makes you predisposed to like a game. not for everybody.
on friday/saturday i participated in an online "Diminuitive coding contest", i don't play games that often, but this got my interest. there was no danger or conspiracy involved. i participated because 1) it's something i'm really good at 2) peer enthusiasm / recognition/mittens from others 3) it was a novel combination of a few topics i enjoy greatly.
although i agree that excitement is always a good thing.
Actually, I noted my trends from several month of lurking at the largest online ARG community. Barring Trent Reznor's Year Zero, every successful game had those elements - especially not appearing like a game.
Okay.
This is called "The Game," but don't let it fool you. It isn't just a "game" in a traditional sense. By "Game," I meant to stress the idea that an organization might be spawned and motivated by a deliberately designed set of simple instructions, to achieve deliberately designed results.
The set of simple rules is, in practice, the limit of this project's similarities to a mere "game." Cain is absolutely correct -- for anything to come of it, it must not appear like it's just a game. The trick is getting people going through the motions of activity the way people go through the motions of playing a game, especially if you can get them to do it without it ever crossing their minds that they are "playing a game."
In fact, this sort of thing is the building block of the Machine to begin with -- people autonomously going about their 'business' according to the set of rules with which they are presented, absolutely oblivious to the fact that there's no natural law that says those rules have any authority.
Just wanted to try and clear up any confusion early on about what my position is. It is not just that we set out to achieve some result by engineering an organization to achieve it; it is not that we simply rephrase OM to make it more user-friendly; it is that we design an organization with no hierarchy other than a set of rules, that is self-replicating, and that produces results based on the rules we set. We then would launch that 'game' into the wild and see what people do with it, without us holding their hands the whole way.
I rather like how calling it "the Game" kind of implies that it isn't a game at all.
ok just asking cause no one responded to it, i suppose it was kinda offtopic in this thread, but is the web2.0 stuff useful to you guys at all?
I thought it was fascinating, and a good idea for *something*.
TZ: your post was excellent. I just haven't processed it to the point of making further suggestions yet. Social networking is sort of what we're after, and the fact that the Internet has grown an entire industry devoted to making that easier should help tremendously. The challenge is in using Web 2.0 stuff to overcome Web 2.0's built-in entertainment/bullshit-centric character.
about the bullshit part of "web2.0": this is mostly because the term "web2.0" can refer to a very wide variety of different notions. shiny icons and gradients are also part of "web2.0", for instance. a large part of these notions are marketing bullshit.
the bits that i think are relevant to our projects* are: social networking, tagging, social bookmarking, social <anything>, feeds/syndication and mashups/webglueing.
the last one may be a bit technical for some, but there are some great free tools out there that allow you to link various (social) services (as i said, just like lego), allowing you to set up a sort of automated network structure that doesn't really need to be run by any kind of central command or administrator.
* and also happen to be the bits that i do not consider bullshit, and happen to be the bits i'm particularly interested in
Quote from: vexati0n on January 06, 2008, 11:51:32 PM
Okay.
This is called "The Game," but don't let it fool you. It isn't just a "game" in a traditional sense. By "Game," I meant to stress the idea that an organization might be spawned and motivated by a deliberately designed set of simple instructions, to achieve deliberately designed results.
The set of simple rules is, in practice, the limit of this project's similarities to a mere "game." Cain is absolutely correct -- for anything to come of it, it must not appear like it's just a game. The trick is getting people going through the motions of activity the way people go through the motions of playing a game, especially if you can get them to do it without it ever crossing their minds that they are "playing a game."
In fact, this sort of thing is the building block of the Machine to begin with -- people autonomously going about their 'business' according to the set of rules with which they are presented, absolutely oblivious to the fact that there's no natural law that says those rules have any authority.
Just wanted to try and clear up any confusion early on about what my position is. It is not just that we set out to achieve some result by engineering an organization to achieve it; it is not that we simply rephrase OM to make it more user-friendly; it is that we design an organization with no hierarchy other than a set of rules, that is self-replicating, and that produces results based on the rules we set. We then would launch that 'game' into the wild and see what people do with it, without us holding their hands the whole way.
I'm down with that.
I thought Web2.0 was using online programs in place of offline ones and that social networking was only a tangenitally related phenomenon?
Besides, the buzz is all about Web 3.0 now: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_3
Vex, the first 2/3 of the OP was a really wonderful summation. And I dig the idea of "The Game".
I don't know enought about social engineering to gestate ideas, but I can do my best about spreading the "rules".
Lysergic and 000 know the most about social engineering out of everyone here. I keep meaning to read more on marketing, but get caught up in other things.
Quote from: Cain on January 07, 2008, 04:30:29 PM
Lysergic and 000 know the most about social engineering out of everyone here. I keep meaning to read more on marketing, but get caught up in other things.
Don't forget me... I do that shit for a living sometime ;-)
"Yes, I'm with the helpdesk... No we really need your password now."
"Could you hold that door for me, my badge is in my coat pocket and these computers are heavy"
Also, maybe scorekeeping would be better replaced by Counting Chao, which is like Counting Koo (Coo/Kou however its spelled). Among hackers, this is usually a predominant way of keeping score, not an official counting system, but some personal token/mark etc that says "I've pulled off three orbital bombardments and and trolled Ron Paul IRL, bitches!"
;-)
Oh yes, your computer security background. Lys and 000 are pretty clued up on NLP and body language, social dynamics etc too. I've read around the topic, but havent had much scope for practice since I worked unsociable hours all last summer, then went straight into a dissertation. Apart from a few well practised tricks, I'm rusty.
Quote from: Cain on January 07, 2008, 04:47:19 PM
Oh yes, your computer security background. Lys and 000 are pretty clued up on NLP and body language, social dynamics etc too. I've read around the topic, but havent had much scope for practice since I worked unsociable hours all last summer, then went straight into a dissertation. Apart from a few well practised tricks, I'm rusty.
I've got some experience with NLP etc too, taking classes at MLA is definately worth something ;-) LOL.
Quote from: Cain on January 07, 2008, 04:47:19 PMOh yes, your computer security background. Lys and 000 are pretty clued up on NLP and body language, social dynamics etc too. I've read around the topic, but havent had much scope for practice since I worked unsociable hours all last summer, then went straight into a dissertation. Apart from a few well practised tricks, I'm rusty.
cain please don't give me too much credit on the social engineering part :)
maybe i do know more about it than the average person, maybe i don't. i read about it, i played with it a littlebit. nothing about NLP, though. i came across the term very often but every time i looked it up all i found was major boring shit and snake oil.
but, i've been meaning to get out and practice more in the social game. i've been spending way too much time behind the computer anyway, lately. i really need some more impulsive action.
but, i dunno what you can really expect from this angle anyway. it's really one of those "think for yourself" things. example, Lys got totally hosed as a poser when he even simply approached the subject.
Quote from: Cain on January 07, 2008, 03:30:47 PMI thought Web2.0 was using online programs in place of offline ones and that social networking was only a tangenitally related phenomenon?
no, the problem is that the term "web2.0" is being used to describe a lot of different things.
that is why people are so allergic to it and consider it a bad buzzword. because saying "we gotta have more web2.0 in our application" is pretty much meaningless, because it could mean anything.
the thing is, that a lot of things web2.0 describes kind of hang together. for example, you have online apps, like googledocs. because they're online, they allow for social networking, people can cooperate, write on the same document, from different places, because it all happens online.
when an application appears online, it's real easy to hang a "social" interface to it, which nearly always adds value compared to a regular desktop app.
and apart from that, you have "pure" social applications like del.icio.us, facebook or twitter.
maybe it's smart to start another thread about web2.0 [which forum? TfYS or O:M?] cause i don't wanna jack this "Game" idea too much.
QuoteBesides, the buzz is all about Web 3.0 now: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_3
well, we'll see what that's all about when we get there.
(btw according to one of those descriptions, Yahoo!Pipes is already web3 ? pff it's just semantics, i dont care, i'll just help you guys use the tools, okay?)
Knowing more than me on a subject makes someone an expert, unless I know nothing at all.
And if you wanted to talk about Web 2.0 more generally, I would suggest this forum, unless you have a clear O:MF orientated slant on it. If you do, I'd be interested, but if not, here would be better.
The most useful way that I've found to discuss Web2.0 is in terms of information.
Internet Before Web = Information Available. Information flow is one way and offline (download for offline reading).
Web 1.0 - Information Available Online, Links to more Information Online, Links to more... Web Content Provider creates Information and provides it for viewing. Information flow is One Way
Web 2.0 - Information Available Online, Links to more Information Online, Links to more... Content Providers and Content Users create content, Information Flow now goes from Provider to User, User to Provider, User to User... Linking by Provider and User. Etc
I read something like that on the Wikipedia entry for it. So what would that make Web 3.0? Networked (peer to peer) information flow?
As to an O:MF slant... I think thats simple.
Web 1.0 had a single channel for Information. Webmaster/dev writes HTML files with information. This file is placed on a secure server and *BAM* that's it. To compromise the information flow, you must compromise the server, compromise the author or compromise the client so that it doesn't get to the real data (DNS spoofing etc). In 2.0 the tight control over information sources has dropped... information comes from all over the place, often in an automated fashion. In Web 1.0, a Reuters feed would be taken, written into a web page and posted... now an RSS feed automatically accepts and posts anything from what it thinks is 'Reuters' or whoever the RSS feed belongs to. Sites feed off of sites which feed off of sites and users. Compromising a single point in this information flow, can allow tainted information to flow much further than previously.
;-)
Quote from: Cain on January 07, 2008, 05:55:43 PM
I read something like that on the Wikipedia entry for it. So what would that make Web 3.0? Networked (peer to peer) information flow?
Maybe that, or the Always Online sort of thing that's happening now with IPhones, Blackberries etc.
Quote from: Ratatosk on January 07, 2008, 05:58:49 PM
As to an O:MF slant... I think thats simple.
Web 1.0 had a single channel for Information. Webmaster/dev writes HTML files with information. This file is placed on a secure server and *BAM* that's it. To compromise the information flow, you must compromise the server, compromise the author or compromise the client so that it doesn't get to the real data (DNS spoofing etc). In 2.0 the tight control over information sources has dropped... information comes from all over the place, often in an automated fashion. In Web 1.0, a Reuters feed would be taken, written into a web page and posted... now an RSS feed automatically accepts and posts anything from what it thinks is 'Reuters' or whoever the RSS feed belongs to. Sites feed off of sites which feed off of sites and users. Compromising a single point in this information flow, can allow tainted information to flow much further than previously.
;-)
Chaos Theory. At any given "point" in the system, it is possible to create a cascading flow of irregular information/data that corrupts the whole system. The more "points" of possible failure, the higher the chance of it happening, as failure can happen at any point where data can be entered.
on hackers/security blogs i've heard it being called "attack surface".
the thing is, it only gets bigger and bigger every time. cause new technology and bits keep on being added. ok, in the wake of that, flaws get fixed, but it never keeps up. at least, not in general, maybe in the particular.
Attack surface is a good term. Expresses it quite well.
Quote from: triple zero on January 08, 2008, 01:17:14 PM
on hackers/security blogs i've heard it being called "attack surface".
the thing is, it only gets bigger and bigger every time. cause new technology and bits keep on being added. ok, in the wake of that, flaws get fixed, but it never keeps up. at least, not in general, maybe in the particular.
That's a great term and one I haven't heard around here yet. I just kicked off our annual "Secure Coding" class which we mandate that all developers attend... a large portion of the stuff is the same basic attack vector that's been used for years, with simple tweaks/variations to get past "fixes" (usually because the 'fix' is just a block to a flaw, rather than a fix to the architecture).
From a hacker perspective, the interactive web application is a godsend. Rather than directly hacking a box and leaving a trail of some sort, they can now simply vary their inputs to a form and get as much if not more information faster, often without anyone being the wiser.
Quote from: vexati0n on January 05, 2008, 06:27:56 AM
The PDCOM Research Department has spent the past year or so researching the definitions and characteristics of The Machine(TM), delving into the psychological nature of the Black Iron Prison in which people trap themselves, and making up a lot of silly terms for almost every tendency people accidentally give themselves. Some have said that this is all a lot of intellectual masturbation, that we were going nowhere, or that there is no practical application of all this stuff beyond the off-chance that some of the propaganda we produced might snap somebody out of Robot Mode.
It seems, however, that all these naysayers were in fact wrong about everything, and we were right to call them Ass Bandits. Although even our researchers themselves were largely unconcerned with where our research was heading, it turns out that there may be a practical application of this knowledge after all. To address what this application is, it might help to give a brief recap of some of the highlights of the PDRD's work.
First, we examined The Machine. The Machine is a difficult thing to define and is heavily nuanced, and it outside the scope of this paper to go all that detail. Suffice to say that The Machine is what happens when a society's internal power structures begin to lose absolute control over it. The Machine is the collective habits and unconscious reactions of a society's members, perceived as being almost an organism unto itself, with much the same behaviors, instincts, and requirements of a "natural" creature. A society at this point is characterized by political systems that, in spite of being enormous and powerful, are capable of directing the movement of the society, but incapable of outright declaration of the society's directions.
Secondly, we examined the Black Iron Prison. This is an individual-oriented concept describing the psychological, spiritual, experiential, and emotional "bars" we build and use to define our self-identities, determine our actions, and influence how we see the world around us and other people in that world. These "bars" often go completely unnoticed by a person until he is faced with a situation that forces him to re-examine his worldview in depth. They are constructed out of assumptions, religious beliefs, or anything else that is convenient to use when defining something we are initially unsure of or ignorant about. Because there is almost an infinite degree of information that can be learned about any particular subject, we almost always place a "bar" when dealing with things as a means to pin down what it is so we can move on to some other (usually more interesting) thing, and then tend to forget that the final definition we put on the thing was really only a convenient place for us to stop investigating it.
It is likely that both of these topics will be the subject of further exploration forever (and here I have hardly scratched the surface of what we already know), but we have gleaned enough usable information to move on to other things as well. Adding these to other topics of research such as Meme Dynamics and Military theory, we are at a point now where we can begin work on PDRD's next product. This product is exciting, because it steps beyond research and propaganda into the actual development of a testable model. This model has no official name yet but since I am egotistical and it fits with one of my posts, I'm going to call it the Game.
The central theory behind the Game is that it should be possible, knowing what we do about the nature of The Machine and the Black Iron Prison, to purposely construct an organization that uses human automation to produce pre-defined results in a larger society in which it is set in motion. The idea here is that a set of instructions would be introduced into a population, taking the form of a network among individual members, driven to recruit new members, and designed to produce a generally-defined effect.
This is not an organization in either the traditional hierarchical or flat-network sense. This system is designed to be self-sustaining and resilient to attack and dissolution like a network, yet share the benefits of deliberation and motive that are normally in the jurisdiction of hierarchical systems.
FURTHER INFORMATION PENDING RESEARCH.
DON'T YOU LOVE THE OPEN-SOURCE MODEL OF "RELEASE EARLY, RELEASE OFTEN?"
Remember when Vex was a good writer, back before he started shovelling cocaine up his face?
Yeah, neither do I.
lol.