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Doing everything exactly opposite from "The Mainstream" is the same thing as doing everything exactly like "The Mainstream."  You're still using What Everyone Else is Doing as your primary point of reference.

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Messages - Verbal Mike

#1066
I think you bring up a good point. Even as new as I am here and to the BIP metaphor, now that you mention it I think I've had this nagging feeling as well, that more change and movement is necessary.
I wasn't here to witness it, but I take it the BIP pamphlet was first written following a rapid kind of Renaissance, a short period of time in which many new thoughts surfaced on these boards. I take it a similar thing happened around the time when Cram produced the second version of the pamphlet.
And I get the feeling we may be heading into another short Reneissance. Then again, I may just be filtering things through my personal feeling of rapid change, which is directly affected by my "discovery" of BIP and the PD.com boards.

This is one of those places that the Five Seasons metaphor is incredibly useful. I think what you're expressing, Payne, is the frustration of Bureaucracy. And I think I share that frustration, even if I have no right to (cause what have I even done so far for Change?)
That last post highlights a symptom of Bureaucracy. Taking the BIP metaphor and and turning it into a house boat sounds a bit like you're stretching a metaphor you love a bit too far.

I have no new thoughts to give right now, and I have a busy day ahead of me, but I'll meditate on this.
#1067
GASM Command / Re: Upopular Idea #5: OBAMAGASM
March 14, 2008, 11:23:56 AM
Have you contacted them? And are there any PAnians on PD.com?

I loved the letter, made me LOL rather loudly several times. It might be useful to insert references related to this letter wherever we can on the internet. Some reporters may use the internet to try and find out what's going on.
I'll see what I can do, later today or some other day.
#1068
GASM Command / Re: Upopular Idea #5: OBAMAGASM
March 13, 2008, 09:38:12 PM
There's a lot good thoughts here already. But five weeks is a very short time, so the brainstorming has to be intense and the results must be put into action very soon.

One thought that strikes me as nearly obvious these days is to use YouTube as a medium. It seems the best way to get something famous quickly in the last year or two is to post it to YouTube. Almost any meme can be packaged in a video, with some planning.

As for the actual goals of this whole thing, I think we might have two parallel goals getting intertwined here. One is to boost Obama in Penn. The other is to capitalize on the memetic chaos of the next weeks in order to insert our own smart meme into the mix. Getting Obama a victory would be cool, but I think it might be too constrictive to try and hit both birds with one stone, and the latter goal is definitely required for the former.
In other words, how about focussing on just getting any smart meme into Pennsylvania over the next weeks, not necessarily one intended to interact with the campaigns?

(I'm also on the other side of the pond, but like 000 said, I'll do what I can.)
#1069
Or Kill Me / Re: The last refuge of a scoundrel
March 12, 2008, 02:19:27 PM
:mittens:
#1070
Or Kill Me / Re: TRANSMISSIONS FROM ARIZONA
March 12, 2008, 10:28:18 AM
:lulz: :lulz: :lulz:
#1071
Principia Discussion / Re: What Season is this?
March 11, 2008, 12:43:52 AM
Whoa, thanks 000, I was wondering about that. I like the symbolism.
#1072
Principia Discussion / Re: What Season is this?
March 10, 2008, 10:32:33 PM
(continuing the post above:)
That is to say, is this model really any good for understand things? Superficially it explains a great deal of things, but once you start to apply it to actual events you end up with so many fractal manifestations of the metaphor that you end up left with the abstraction you started with.
Or maybe, that's precisely what makes this metaphor useful as a model.

@Felix:
How is the Internet in Aftermath?
And AOL etc are at most just islands of Bureaucracy, themselves still changing to adapt to the flow of rapid change around them.
#1073
Principia Discussion / Re: What Season is this?
March 10, 2008, 10:29:00 PM
And that assertion is itself an abstraction that is true in some sense, false in some sense, and meaningless in some sense (etc). But my point is, could the seasons metaphor be so fractal that its /only/ real use is symbolic -- like when calling out that "times of Aftermath be upon us"?
#1074
Principia Discussion / Re: What Season is this?
March 10, 2008, 09:59:24 PM
Could it be this metaphor is so fractal as to be nearly useless? It's like you could point at any random thing and, if you try, place it in any of the five seasons somehow.
#1075
* st.verbatim is pleasantly confused
#1076
Principia Discussion / Re: What Season is this?
March 10, 2008, 09:28:31 PM
I think I agree. The Internet already smells of Bureaucracy, but we haven't hit that point of stagnation yet.
#1077
Principia Discussion / Re: What Season is this?
March 10, 2008, 05:37:45 PM
I also feel that the whole seasons thing is just a more complex way to say that every action has an opposite and equal reaction. But the "seasons" metaphor is a pleasant one.
#1078
Principia Discussion / Re: What Season is this?
March 10, 2008, 05:35:37 PM
Quote from: LMNO on March 10, 2008, 04:39:43 PM
I feel that there can be multiple ages happening simultaneously, depending on how far you pull back.
You put this far better than I would have.
I tend to believe we're currently in late Bureaucracy, slowly seeing the first signs of coming Aftermath. The hippies, Discordianism, yippies, and punk were all first blossoms of Aftermath, in a way. But if you "zoom in" on the current stage of the cycle, the rise of these seeds of Aftermath was Discord, triggering Confusion (consider the general response of "normal people" to the 60's and 70's), and in turn Bureaucracy-within-Bureaucracy.
In a different way, the post-Disco era into the early eighties might have been a short Aftermath, with the 80's and 90's seeing a new cycle through advances in technology which have changed the face of Western Civilization. This somehow fits in with the sentiment that Bureaucracy started on September 11, 2001AD (which sounds right).

In the end, though, this is just the law of fives all over. If you look for this pattern on any scale, it will become evident.
#1079
Think for Yourself, Schmuck! / Re: Lollercaust?
March 06, 2008, 08:02:04 PM
Quote from: Ratatosk on March 06, 2008, 07:21:12 PM
Hrmmm... we may also have to include something like:

"... and now back to the shoah" coming from a televison set or something ;-)
This line of thinking is quickly destroying the chances of me ever translating this pamphlet for distribution in Israel. :(
#1080
Think for Yourself, Schmuck! / Re: Lollercaust?
March 06, 2008, 03:56:39 PM
I dunno, trying to make a pamphlet that can still be relevant in a few years (not to mention funny) is a bit of an impossibility... I shouldn't say this kind of thing but...maybe there should be one short-term edition with anything we find funny right now, and another long-term edition with things we suspect will last longer?