(http://www.veltd.net/valmin/imgvalmin_11/images/9905.jpg)
Hear ye! Hear ye!
I come bearing curios and elixers of all sorts. Tonics, Oils, Salves, Butt Powders, you name it, I've got it.
Today, however, I come bearing a rather rare and strange tincture. This tincture can only be made under very special conditions. Let me tell you how I came into possession of this rare alchemical potion.
But first, let explain something about the alchemy of personality. Personality is a very particular brew. To create a personality tincture, you take one part Motivation, distill it with alcohol, and suspend it in a social network. Because the ingredients are so specific, you can never create the same personality twice. If you take the same person and immerse him in two different social baths, you will get two different personalities.
So what happens if you take a group of people, suspend them in a social network like this forum, and then suspend the same people in a very different social network, let's say the forums at Wicca.com? You'll end up with people connected to two different personalities.
If you let the tincture stand for long enough, certain psychic elements will divide themselves between the two personalities. Perhaps the nice parts will go to one end, the nasty to the other. Perhaps the person uses one personality to express drives which cannot be expressed by the other. At this point, the two personalities are very different. Practically separate people, with their own methods, posting styles, and social relationships.
And here's where the alchemy comes in..
Remember how the personality is intimately connected with the social network? If you mix up the two social networks, what do you think happens to the personalities?
My tincture is created by taking somebody from principiadiscordia.com, having them project certain parts of themselves into a social network on wicca.com, and forming certain relationships. Then, when the citizens of wicca.com come to PD.com, the person in question becomes very confused. He cannot figure out how to relate to the newcomers, as he has already established relationships with them through a very different personality.
As I said, this is a very rare and special tincture I'm peddling. It is liquid cognitive dissonance. One sip and it will shift your entire mental checkerboard. But before you sample it, you may want to put on some adult diapers, which I also happen to have for sale.
Brave enough to try it? Step right up...
(http://online-social-networking.com/images/snakeoil.jpg)
:mittens:
I for one welcome our Wiccan bretheren for making the big step of coming over to explore another side of thinking, and will drink whatever you have for sale, mr snake oil salesman.
Quote from: DiscoUkulele on August 01, 2010, 04:50:15 PM
:mittens:
I second this.
Great post! And it's 100% true. :)
I'm confused.
My attempt to change is going to be more difficult than I anticipated. However I am trying.
Quote from: Doktor Charley Brown on August 01, 2010, 05:57:33 PM
My attempt to change is going to be more difficult than I anticipated. However I am trying.
I find that taking off my shoes first helps tremendously.
Quote from: The Great Bovinity on August 01, 2010, 06:14:18 PM
Quote from: Doktor Charley Brown on August 01, 2010, 05:57:33 PM
My attempt to change is going to be more difficult than I anticipated. However I am trying.
I find that taking off my shoes first helps tremendously.
They are implants.
Since my wicca.com persona started out so differently from my own, and has a fabricated history, I don't think that I get to play this game. Since the dissonance is so distinct, I just snap into either one dependent on location, rather than individuals. That's kind of fun in itself, but different.
I think you know what you're talking about though, for me it reminds me of being a teenager and being around my parents and friends at the same time.
Quote from: Doktor Charley Brown on August 01, 2010, 06:22:18 PM
Bionic.
Do you get the cool slo-mo and sound effects when you run?
Yes, but I had to pay extra.
Back to the op type thing now that I think I understand, I'm still not firing on all cylinders yet.
I do believe that aside from on a few places where I deliberately work towards portraying myself in a certain manner, I just let teh chips fall where they may. Why bother worrying about maintaining a facade or staying "in character"
Quote from: Doktor Charley Brown on August 01, 2010, 06:48:07 PM
Yes, but I had to pay extra.
So that is why the six million dollar man didn't have laser beam eyes.
Great read. It's a good analogy, the human ego and alchemy.
:mittens:
Quote from: Sigmatic on August 01, 2010, 10:53:39 PM
It's a good analogy, the human ego and alchemy.
*nods in agreement*
Quote from: Sigmatic on August 01, 2010, 10:53:39 PM
Great read. It's a good analogy, the human ego and alchemy.
I'll add another agree-fap to the circle jerk. It's a well-articulated idea about these inconsistent "selves" formed by different social networks.
I'm going to think more on it though...
And, if the ego is illusory, who is being fooled?
I don't know if it is illusory. Who says the egos we develop aren't real? Everything about us is like a story we tell about ourselves. I am the guy who does x. Your clothes and your job aren't who you are, but they play a part in who you think you are. And what's the difference between who you think you are, and the reality of who you are?
~How am I not like myself?
The way I think of myself plays an active role in how I behave. If the way I think of myself has nothing to do with my real self, then a 'real self' doesn't exist in any meaningful way.
FOOLS
you MORONIC MORONS
pathetic BUTT DUMPLINGS,
IGNORANT of your own IGNORANCE
which is ITSELF IGNORANT of ITSELF
I live on the mountain adjacent to these forums, and I have watched your wormlike fingers tapping feverishly on your keyboards, your eyes glazed over like donuts, spags all. And this nauseates me. My wretched pterodactyls cry out for your sludgy stupid blood. This has not changed in years. But today I hear other voices from my mountain top cabana. Wiccans and their ilk? If I were to roll my eyes further I would risk ocular damage.
Do you think you will learn something by joining one another's forums? Simpletons. Do you think that your forum will be improved by "being nice" to these gaptoothed barefooted mud fondlers? You all nod your idiot heads in groupthink agreement that your precious community would be better off if you weren't so harsh to outsiders. Pathetic. You're like trekkies, muching on the PB&J sandwich your mother made you, hoping that one day somebody will join you at the lonely lunch table so you can talk about the latest Omni Magazine. Do you realize you are allowing mudshit in your home?
Occult does not mix with post occult. Religion does not mix with irreligion. If you Discordians, hopeless spags that you are, have anything going for you, it's that you don't lie with with dogs or neopagans. If you're going to throw that out because you think some spaglord like Cramulus wants you to be nice to newcomers, you might as well all register on mysticwicks and start posting unironically. Or join an anarchist commune. Or vote Ron Paul.
Seriously, go fuck yourselves,
Pterodactyl Handler X
PS: You are dumb and stupid and in addition dumb but especially stupid.
Quote from: Sigmatic on August 02, 2010, 12:06:07 AM
I don't know if it is illusory. Who says the egos we develop aren't real? Everything about us is like a story we tell about ourselves. I am the guy who does x. Your clothes and your job aren't who you are, but they play a part in who you think you are. And what's the difference between who you think you are, and the reality of who you are?
~How am I not like myself?
The way I think of myself plays an active role in how I behave. If the way I think of myself has nothing to do with my real self, then a 'real self' doesn't exist in any meaningful way.
Isn't alchemy the epitome of a mirage? Alchemists never succeeded in creating gold from other metals but still believed it to be possible. In the same way, I think people believe egos to be an objective reflection of their identity, though it's always incomplete and dependent on the ongoing context. How you're defined as a person is extremely brief and sorted for relevance to the social system or situation that you're in.
There also seems to be something implicit in an ego that presupposes a wholeness that isn't there. I define ego as a conscious-self concept, not as a tiny-fraction-of-self-concept. And as a referent to reality, I've yet to hear a convincing warrant for the argument that it is ever an generalizable account of what defines a person. Salience ≠ entirety. 7 ∓ 2 chunks of information can be active in our weeny little conscious awareness. How could 9 chunks of information ever come close to capturing YOU?
This is where most tend to eat their menus.
It's like saying a painting of a leaf of a tree IS the tree. Or an audio recording of wind rustling through a shrub IS the shrub. Or the feeling of an elephant urethra moving around your fist IS the elephant. At the most, an ego has accurate reference to only the most minuscule droplets of experience and rapidly becomes inaccurate or irrelevant to a new situation.
Quote from: Pterodactyl Handler
BIKAW! NEOPAGANS!
I'm not sure it's worth appraising someone's worth on their imaginary friends if that doesn't interfere with their bipedalism.
I do like the fancy man's word but are we ready to break age old tradition that we burn the witch?
My decision to back off was my own.
Dactyl Handler,
You have spent too long amongst the Wiccans. You have learned to relate to them in one specific way, and in doing so, you have acquired part of their stink. I know we've been trolling them for years, literally years, but occasionally one must put aside the wretched pterodactyl clones and extend an olive branch. Here's what I recommend:
When I'm feeling confused because I can't sort out the way my multiple egos relate to other people, I have a trick which works every time. I lay on my back and hang my head over the edge of the couch or bed. Then, like you're trying to cure hiccups, drink warm salt water from the far edge of a glass. The altered blood flow and and subsequent shift in consciousness will help you focus on what you need to.
Stay in that position for five to ten minutes while sipping the water. Give it time to work its magic.
With the beating of a thousand horses, my heart takes flight,
Professor Cramulus
PS: This board is often "weird", but it's rarely actually this surreal for me.
:lulz:
I'm lost. But I'm comfortable with that.
I don't care one way or the other, they didn't like me over at TCC either. I think I'm banned.
If you come here, we give you a chance. You either make it or leave. Problem is, few have what it takes to survive. It takes a special kind of person to become a PD regular. :wink:
Somebody, I can't really tell who, is talking about how they're experiencing cognitive dissonance (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance). I get the sense that it's somebody who has used multiple alts on multiple forums, and now the forum populations are coming together, and he's confused about which alt now holds his "real" opinions.
(http://plif.courageunfettered.com/archive/wc286.gif)
I do know this, that fucking Pterodactyl Handler has to die before he destroys us all.
Do we have to have an alt to post in this thread?
confounded confusion
where is what
who is why
Quote from: Dr. Alan Grant on August 02, 2010, 03:42:36 PM
Somebody, I can't really tell who, is talking about how they're experiencing cognitive dissonance (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance). I get the sense that it's somebody who has used multiple alts on multiple forums, and now the forum populations are coming together, and he's confused about which alt now holds his "real" opinions.
Sir, I am absolutely outraged that you persist in your inflammatory usage of the term "alt" to discriminate against otherwise equal parts of the same personality unit. Divide and Conquer, I see through your party tricks, Sir, I see you!
Quote from: Dr. Alan Grant on August 02, 2010, 03:42:36 PM
I do know this, that fucking Pterodactyl Handler has to die before he destroys us all.
Well yes quite, and I am glad that we have come to some level of agreement on this issue at last. The only remaining issue, as I see it, is determining the most efficient method of dispatch.
Quote from: Doktor Charley Brown on August 02, 2010, 03:49:48 PM
Do we have to have an alt to post in this thread?
Can you give it a fucking rest, seriously?
Do I really need to spell it out?
We know you don't like alts, even joke ones where everyone knows who is running the account. We get it. We don't need a reminder every time one pops up in a thread.
Quote from: Cain on August 02, 2010, 04:39:20 PM
Do I really need to spell it out?
We know you don't like alts, even joke ones where everyone knows who is running the account. We get it. We don't need a reminder every time one pops up in a thread.
1) I wasn't fucking talking to you.
2) Cram and I were sharing a joke about it at exactly that time in IRC.
3) Can you give it a fucking rest, seriously?
Quote from: Captain Utopia on August 02, 2010, 04:00:24 PM
Quote from: Dr. Alan Grant on August 02, 2010, 03:42:36 PM
I do know this, that fucking Pterodactyl Handler has to die before he destroys us all.
Well yes quite, and I am glad that we have come to some level of agreement on this issue at last. The only remaining issue, as I see it, is determining the most efficient method of dispatch.
here's what I've figured out:
The Pterodactyl Handler is actually a robot. I think he was originally built to create clones. Then he went haywire. Hence all the pterodactyls.
Despite being a robot, he is not immune to
poison. Kind of counterintuitive, I know.
If you can get him to attack an image using his horrid pterodactyls, and that image contains poison, it will make him incredibly sick.
Quoteinfighting
THIS IS JUST WHAT THE PTERODACTYL HANDLER WANTS US TO DO
On an entirely unrelated matter, you should check your PMs.
Quote from: Pterodactyl Handler on August 02, 2010, 01:21:20 AM
FOOLS
you MORONIC MORONS
pathetic BUTT DUMPLINGS,
IGNORANT of your own IGNORANCE
which is ITSELF IGNORANT of ITSELF
I live on the mountain adjacent to these forums, and I have watched your wormlike fingers tapping feverishly on your keyboards, your eyes glazed over like donuts, spags all. And this nauseates me. My wretched pterodactyls cry out for your sludgy stupid blood. This has not changed in years. But today I hear other voices from my mountain top cabana. Wiccans and their ilk? If I were to roll my eyes further I would risk ocular damage.
Do you think you will learn something by joining one another's forums? Simpletons. Do you think that your forum will be improved by "being nice" to these gaptoothed barefooted mud fondlers? You all nod your idiot heads in groupthink agreement that your precious community would be better off if you weren't so harsh to outsiders. Pathetic. You're like trekkies, muching on the PB&J sandwich your mother made you, hoping that one day somebody will join you at the lonely lunch table so you can talk about the latest Omni Magazine. Do you realize you are allowing mudshit in your home?
Occult does not mix with post occult. Religion does not mix with irreligion. If you Discordians, hopeless spags that you are, have anything going for you, it's that you don't lie with with dogs or neopagans. If you're going to throw that out because you think some spaglord like Cramulus wants you to be nice to newcomers, you might as well all register on mysticwicks and start posting unironically. Or join an anarchist commune. Or vote Ron Paul.
Seriously, go fuck yourselves,
Pterodactyl Handler X
PS: You are dumb and stupid and in addition dumb but especially stupid.
:lulz:
I'm pretty sure this was meant to be sarcastic but I still agree with it 100%.
The coining of "Spaglord" grants the handler a flawless thread victory.
Quote from: Doktor Charley Brown on August 02, 2010, 03:49:48 PM
Do we have to have an alt to post in this thread?
Well, to
enter this thread and
insert a post, it is key to
control the
alts and keep
tabs on it, or those
shifty types will
end us all with no chance to
escape and
return home.
Quote from: Triple Zero on August 02, 2010, 07:40:14 PM
Quote from: Doktor Charley Brown on August 02, 2010, 03:49:48 PM
Do we have to have an alt to post in this thread?
Well, to enter this thread and insert a post, it is key to control the alts and keep tabs on it, or those shifty types will end us all with no chance to escape and return home.
:lulz:
Quote from: Triple Zero on August 02, 2010, 07:40:14 PM
Quote from: Doktor Charley Brown on August 02, 2010, 03:49:48 PM
Do we have to have an alt to post in this thread?
Well, to enter this thread and insert a post, it is key to control the alts and keep tabs on it, or those shifty types will end us all with no chance to escape and return home.
Perhaps carets should be offered to the shifty types, tildy offending behavior clears from this space, bar-ring the occassional witty retort. A better f8, no?
Quote from: Captain Dystopia on August 02, 2010, 05:29:08 PM
On an entirely unrelated matter, you should check your PMs.
all of us?
It didn't work anyway, PH flew right over my attack :cry:
This was an extremely surreal thread for me.
Now that it's a few years out, I feel like I can talk straight about it.
I had developed this Pterodactyl Handler character as a way to poke the "gaptoothed barefooted mud fondlers" at wicca.com. It started off as this, like, comedy routine. And over the course of several years, he grew more and more fleshed out & real to me. (maybe more 'real' isn't the right word -- more coherent) Eventually I could feel the Pterodactyl Handler in the back of my head, going BIKAAAW, impatiently scraping the earth with this claw-feet.
And there came a recognition that Cramulus was a similar construct - a certain mix of ideas and attitudes I'd been brewing here for a long time. And these two personalities, Cram and the Pterodactyl Handler, had developed in reaction to one another, had become polarized.
It's kind of like - there's a certain (I don't know how to put it) trance you go into when you're playing a character - in acting, RPGs, whatever. You can feel that person inside your head. And in my case, these two people were in conflict. For me, the 'trance states' of PD and Wicca.com were anathema to one another.
And when I made this thread, it was because people from TCC were coming to PD.com. All of the sudden I was relating to them from the Cramulus headspace instead of the Pterodactyl Handler headspace. And it felt weird. Uncomfortable. It was the definition of cognitive dissonance.
And the third character, the OP, was kind of my attempt to step away from both of them. I guess I'm like half the people in this thread. Years later, this still sticks out to me as an extremely weird time.
Quote from: Cramulus on March 29, 2016, 06:20:35 PM
This was an extremely surreal thread for me.
Now that it's a few years out, I feel like I can talk straight about it.
I had developed this Pterodactyl Handler character as a way to poke the "gaptoothed barefooted mud fondlers" at wicca.com. It started off as this, like, comedy routine. And over the course of several years, he grew more and more fleshed out & real to me. (maybe more 'real' isn't the right word -- more coherent) Eventually I could feel the Pterodactyl Handler in the back of my head, going BIKAAAW, impatiently scraping the earth with this claw-feet.
And there came a recognition that Cramulus was a similar construct - a certain mix of ideas and attitudes I'd been brewing here for a long time. And these two personalities, Cram and the Pterodactyl Handler, had developed in reaction to one another, had become polarized.
It's kind of like - there's a certain (I don't know how to put it) trance you go into when you're playing a character - in acting, RPGs, whatever. You can feel that person inside your head. And in my case, these two people were in conflict. For me, the 'trance states' of PD and Wicca.com were anathema to one another.
And when I made this thread, it was because people from TCC were coming to PD.com. All of the sudden I was relating to them from the Cramulus headspace instead of the Pterodactyl Handler headspace. And it felt weird. Uncomfortable. It was the definition of cognitive dissonance.
And the third character, the OP, was kind of my attempt to step away from both of them. I guess I'm like half the people in this thread. Years later, this still sticks out to me as an extremely weird time.
I know just how that feels. Dok Howl and TGRR were for a very long time different parts of my personality, so to speak.
But that faded through overuse.
I have a distinct ability to "run" personas in my head that appear to react in all ways like an independent agent, until I don't want it to. I can also project them into my behavior and, among other things, used to ST for various LARPs as a way to practice rapidly switching personas. I got out of LARPing a couple years before I started posting here and have only done the occasional guest NPC since.
My reasons for doing so had nothing to do with the hobby per se, but I noticed that the practice was not dependent on my participation in the hobby. The hobby merely granted a safe playground for a primordial and dangerous human talent. I kinda think that the modern RPG is in a sense quite like shamanism. It's a means to explore and express the allegedly infinite unconscious, the soul. RPG games teach players how to "dress" it in their minds and engage in an amusing fantasy. LARPs go further and dress up the body to reinforce the illusion on the mind.
It all makes for some very good times, but the essential practice goes way back to our most ancient ancestors and the expression of perhaps our most powerful survival drive, community through shared stories. The RPG Storyteller and the Shaman are not at all the same thing, but I suspect that they are the product of the same elements of human nature.
Where it gets weird is when the dream you're producing "bleeds" into the so called normal world around you through your own deeds and shared perspective. RP games prevent this somewhat by setting up time and other reasonable limits "as a game", but we've all seen the gamer, in my experience LARPers especially, who apparently can't or won't walk away when it's over.
Not really sure where I'm going with this, but it seems relevant to the matter of your cognitive dissonance.
In the theatre of my mind, it's different, the spectator's gaze is more forgiving. Performing in front of others, perhaps not surprisingly, reminds me of taking a more combative stance. It's somehow deeply embarrassing to me, to be fighting for a mask. Because it's tragic when I take myself so seriously. For example, right now, I'm stumbling over the inflated sense of my own importance even as I try to deny it, elevating me at best to a pantomime of myself. I take it drama must be some kind imitative ritual to pass through and exorcise this limitation. That by going through so many changes we wil, at the end, welcome that last encounter with a shy, innocent smile.