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[- VS -]

- VS -

Are you Conflicted? Anxious? Doubtful? A Shadow of your Potential Self?

It's likely -- in fact, it's almost certain -- that your are living off balance.


There are two drives at war within each of us - the creation and maintenance of order, and the reckless breakneck chase of disorder.

Visualize a skinny nerd walking a big dog. The dog is trying to pull the nerd where he wants to go, and the nerd is gripping the leash with white knuckles. And you are neither the nerd nor the beast, but both at the same time.



Cut to:
Ancient Athens was a pretty hip joint. In its day, it was the central nexus of rational thought, a unique oasis in a world where most people were busy screaming and stabbing each other with spears. They had this word in Ancient Greece, Arête. Ar-uh-tay. It means Virtue. It means Quality. It means Heroism. And it requires balance.

Odysseus, the preeminent Greek Hero, was not a straight-laced do-gooder, a shield of righteousness and a spear of justice. He was kind of a bastard. He lied, he cheated on his wife, he insulted the Gods, and he killed more people than Rambo. He was both a man and a beast at the same time. But he was not weighted down by his personal Disorder, he made it into one of his virtues. That's Quality. That's Arête.

See, the Athenians believed that man has to romance his chaos. They spent most of the month worshiping Apollo, the God of Light and Reason and Harmony and Rational Thought. But for one or two days out of each moon, they ignored Apollo and worshiped Dionysus, the God of Drinking and Orgies and fantastic fucking Parties.

They had huge, unbelievable festivals which swallowed the whole city. Everybody in the Athens would put down their day-to-day selves and spend all night chanting and dancing and drumming and wearing strange masks. They really let their hair down. One might expect violence, human sacrifices, people fucking in the streets. It's not just about having a good time, it's about experiencing those aspects of ourselves which we flee from, like fear and rage and sloppy drunkenness and uninhibited ecstasy.



Who participated in these festivals? Unlike the present day, it wasn't JUST the rebel kids: youths on the cusp of adulthood whose chaos hasn't yet been bled out of them by the Machine. The Bacchanal was attended by both the rich and the poor, the smart and the dumb, the old and the young. These festivals were what they needed - they needed to FREAK OUT and let the animal loose.

See the Athenians thought this was necessary for sanity. If they were going to get their Important Stuff done during the week, they knew they needed to kick out the jams on the weekend. A Greek Hero is balanced between Apollo and Dionysus. He's a warrior AND a philosopher. He's a good guy AND a scoundrel. He is a man, but he is also a beast. He is Apollo, but he is also Dionysus.

"Don't suppress your nature," the Greeks are saying to us. "Once in a while, party with no hesitation or regret. Let your beast loose."

Let yourself succumb to emotions like panic and fear and joy. Allow yourself to get lost in a riotous crowd all cheering at the same time. You'll lose your identify for a little while. Then when you put your Apollo back on, you'll be tempered.

And where are we now? I look around and I see very few people who know how to ride their beasts, let alone take them for a walk every so often. People are afraid of that aspect - they don't want to look in the mirror and see a frazzled, cracked out animal, bloodied and drunk, but still smiling. They'd prefer to see the guy with the neatly combed hair, confident and rational, comfortable and reasonable. The kind of guy who doesn't make waves. A go-getter with everything to lose.



You can't keep the beast tranquilized forever. One day it's going to leak out through your tension and anxiety. It's going to make your rational-self uneasy. And when you're loosest, it's going to claw its way out of your heart and murder all the philosophers and poets and innocent bystanders. It's going to hurt them and it's also going to hurt you.

The beast is, by its nature, not comfortable. It's emotional. It's savage. It's unpredictable. The beast is what you're trying to escape with your breathing exercises and iPod. With your drive for homeostasis and your metronomic routine. Living the way we do, we've all learned and internalized dozens of techniques to keep the beast in its cage. But it's going crazy in there, waiting for a moment of weakness to spring out and tear shit up. Your beast is a big strong dog, and your Rational Thought is a skinny nerd trying to walk him but barely in control. Who's in charge here? Who's leading whom? If you have mastered Arête, one checks the other but they move in unison.

So there it is. Arête. It's not a mastery one learns by living by the rules and being in control every day. It's not experienced by becoming the most rational, controlled, stand-up person you can be. It's found by tempering your brain with your balls. It's pouring your fire into a shot glass and drinking it
straight up,
no chaser.

Hail Eris

In This Thread, call it like you see it. When these things come to pass we'll have a written record that I TOLD YOU GUYS THAT WAS GOING TO HAPPEN



Paris Hilton is going to reinvent herself as a tough, leather jacket wearing bad-ass.


When the Large Hadron Collider goes operational in May 2008, a lot of crazy shit is going to happen.


Moar nostalgia based movies -- Transformers and TMNT paved the way for mega blockbusters based on selling you your childhood, especially if you grew up in the 80s.



EDITED to change subject from "ITT: Call it in Advance"

[Unplugging the Matrix: Generate Your Own Reality]

Found a blog entry which may be interesting to you jerks. It's quite reminiscent of the Black Iron Prison metaphor.  X-Posted from here.

I DID NOT WRITE THIS. If it's tl;dr, then don't read it. 

Unplugging the Matrix: Generate Your Own Reality

Sooner or later the intelligent human mind realizes that reality is an illusion. This operates on many levels: perceptual, historical, political, molecular, spiritual. Depending on knowledge, circumstances and belief system ,Äì our reality tunnel ,Äì we will each have a preferred method and subject of investigation. The scientifically inclined may turn to quantum physics, string theory and holography for answers. The religious temperament may begin to unravel the outer allegories of their sacred texts to get to the inner mysteries of true enlightenment. The social historian may realize that realpolitik, the private military-industrial complex and supra-national globalist agendas influence world affairs more than any seemingly democratic government. In the end however, all roads lead to the same destination: pretty much everything around us is not the way we thought it was.

This epiphany is nothing new. The sages of old, the philosophers, scientists and mystics were aware of this thousands of years ago. Much of their knowledge was handed down and recorded for the benefit of successive generations, but as the sands of time blow across the ages, things can get obscured, lost and even forgotten. Changes to Earth and its ecosystem can further bury man,Äôs knowledge so it appears as if it were never there in the first place. But inevitably, some inquisitive mind will come along and rediscover the ancient wisdom for himself, and upon the quest, will realize that his attainment is indeed an unearthing rather than an original creation. It is a remembrance.

One fundamental principle of the illusion is the false impression of separation; the idea that we are somehow separate from the material things in our world. This is still the foundation for much of our thinking today. Well to distil a thousand learned books into one comment: we are not separate. At the deepest level everything is connected to everything else. Quantum physicist David Bohm (1917-1992) postulated that the ultimate nature of physical reality is not a collection of separate objects (as it appears), but rather it is an undivided whole that is in perpetual dynamic flux. Bohm was reinterpreting ancient knowledge and translating it into a modern quantum vocabulary. This was his remembrance: ,Äúat a deeper level [matter and consciousness] are actually inseparable and interwoven,Ķ Deep down the consciousness of mankind is one.,Äù We are not separate from the things in our world and we are not separate from each other. Bohm called this gigantic flow of energy and consciousness the holomovement.

Within this paradigm, neurophysiologist Karl Pribram suggests that our most fundamental notions about reality become suspect, for in a holographic universe, even random events are based on holographic principles and therefore determined. Synchronicities or meaningful coincidences suddenly makes sense, and everything in reality is seen as a metaphor, for even the most haphazard events express some underlying symmetry. As Pribram himself summarized: ,Äúthe descriptions you get with spiritual experiences seem to parallel the descriptions of quantum physics.,Äù

The Holomovement

You may be familiar with the holodeck from Star Trek. This is in fact, a mini implementation of Bohm,Äôs holomovement concept. According to the Star Trek Technical Manual, the holodeck is an enclosed room in which objects and people are simulated by a combination of replicated matter animated with weak tractor beams, as well as shaped force fields onto which holographic images are projected. Sounds and smells are simulated by speakers and fragranced fluid atomizers, respectively. The feel of a large environment is simulated by suspending the participants on force fields which move with their feet, keeping them in one place (a virtual treadmill). Perspective is retained through use of sound damping fields and graviton lenses, which make objects, people, and sounds appear to be more distant. The effect is an ultra-realistic simulation of an environment, with which the user can interact.

Wow. Wouldn,Äôt you just love your own holodeck? Well, you,Äôve got one. And you,Äôre already in it. It is the holomovement. Bigger and better than the holodeck. However, both systems do have one very important thing in common: they require a program to function. Without a program, they don,Äôt work. There is only a blank nothingness. No program - no holodeck. And this is where we get to the crux of the matter.

We program the holomovement with our consciousness. Consciousness is the software behind everything. It follows then that if we create the holomovement, and the holomovement constitutes everything (all objects, places and people), then we co-create the entire universe, probably with many other beings and entities. What we call the soul is our little unit of consciousness that we get to work with. Sometimes we incarnate it on different planets and in different individuals. We call them lifetimes, people or experiences. When a 3D manifest experience is complete, the soul travels to a new destination. It is a constantly evolving piece of consciousness, indestructible and eternal. This is one of the great secrets of mankind.



Moreover, we can detect within the holomovement, evidence of a super-soul; an awesome quality of consciousness with an ancient evolutionary path that has existed for billions of years. This super-soul is responsible for nurturing and guiding the substructure of the holomovement and all the souls within it. Many refer to this entity as God. It is this super-soul that authored the holomovement programming language itself. It is my belief that God wants us to go through the holomovement, exploring, creating, enjoying and charting it.

A Virus In The System

When we don,Äôt realize that we are generating our own reality, our contribution to the holomovement is negligible. The reality field that we generate is weak. We feel unimportant and at the mercy of the world,Äôs ominous, random and wholly impersonal events. We have no control.

Even in this unnatural state, our consciousness (our dream as the Australian aboriginals call it) is still programming the holomovement; we are still generating reality. The difference is that the contents of our subconscious and unconscious mind (so easily influenced by external forces) are more literally translated into what we create. What we see through the TV screen we actually program and manifest into reality. Without real mindfulness of our creativity, we simply serve as conduits for the programming instructions we get from the Control System outlets ,Äì the TV, the media, the education system, the government and society as a whole. This is the virus that has crept into our section of the holomovement and is infecting our minds. It has contaminated most of the people on earth and corrupted their hard disk, causing them to forget their own infinite, independent, divine power. And sadly, the virus was released intentionally.

The creators of the virus have been around for millennia. They have remained well hidden and used third party agents to do their dirty work. Today we know their agents as The Globalists, The New World Order, The Illuminati, The Imperial Elitists etc. Whatever your prefer. All of them stretch back into antiquity in one form or another. Basic study consistently establishes that they have two main operational arms: the global political arm (Bilderberg, CFR, Trilateral Commission, Rockefeller Foundation, Club Of Rome, Tavistock Institute etc), and the secret fraternal arm (Freemasonry, Skull & Bones, Knights Of Malta, Knights Of Columbus, Rosicrucians etc). Information on these organizations is freely available to the reader for their own study. For now, in short, we may reasonably say of the fraternal societies that they are ancient, widespread and exceedingly influential in world affairs.

I have come to refer collectively to these groups and their methods of dominion as the Control System. This focuses the mind on the matter in hand and avoids any obscure cross referencing or unintentional intimations.

Unveiling The Control System

Naturally, the enquiring researcher,Äôs studies will turn to specific events and mechanisms orchestrated by the Control System to provide the requisite level of evidence to substantiate the astonishing idea that our world is controlled by highly unpleasant forces. The initial shock that the government is most certainly not your friend, is actually one of the worst along the whole journey. Indeed it is here, at this crucible of realization, that most fail the preliminary test and instead opt out to follow a path of comfortable diversion.

For those resolute souls who forge ahead, deep study of the Control System leads to an even more profound unveiling. It becomes clear that even the Control System itself is merely camouflage to obscure a grander and much older strategy: what we now know as ,Äòthe virus in the holomovement,Äô. The awesome magnitude of this strategy, once conceived, indicates a total unlearning of all official personal, national, human and planetary history. The resultant cognitive dissonance at this point will stretch the researcher,Äôs belief system to its limits. Even those who have fully unraveled a mysterious event that proves government complicity in some terrible act of violence, will be tempted to simply re-examine another aspect of the Control System. Find another project to pour themselves into. Better to be consumed in their own study than face the prospect of a total rebuilding of their personal belief system from the ground up. That,Äôs a hard thing to do.

The Sleeper Must Awaken

You can only examine the Control System for so long. You can only investigate the inside jobs and the setups so many times. Yeah. They perpetrate this stuff all the time and the game has been rigged from the very beginning. So where are you going? What,Äôs next? Sooner or later we must face up to our own spiritual and metaphysical reality. This is the real destination. Only from here can we begin to dismantle their power structures. It is time to get spiritual. It is time to suspend your belief system while you download a major upgrade.

We are infinite. We create reality.

Without true knowledge and internalization of this information, the Control System successfully manufactures reality for us by controlling our consciousness, our dream, our imagination. If the human consciousness is manipulated through fear-based and trauma-based systems (entrenched in our media, entertainment and news broadcasts) then the Control System can implant a reality of its own that keeps us self-limiting and passive. We are not required to be actively creative in their reality. We are just cabling for their network.

But something is changing at a fundamental level. It is accelerating events. Something that was predicted a long time ago. A natural spiritual awakening is occurring planet wide, as our galaxy moves back toward the galactic core where it,Äôs unique frequencies begin to vibrate at higher levels. More and more people are waking up to their own spiritual potential and divine human identity. We do not need anyone else,Äôs programming. The year 2012 marks a key energetic crossroads where a quantum leap in human awareness and a polarization of belief systems is likely. The Control System is well aware of this and is pulling out all the stops to consolidate its authority. Massive fear-based control events are planned - alien landings, plague, comet, world war, economic collapse. All attempting to nail down human consciousness and make it incapable of shaping its own destiny.

The Control System has one major disadvantage though: it does not possess something very important that we all have. Something very special and possibly rather rare in the universe.... what is this thing? It is our divine spark, our piece of the super-soul, our lineage to God. Did David Bohm feel this when he said: ,Äúin some sense man is a microcosm of the universe; therefore what man is, is a clue to the universe. We are enfolded in the universe.,Äù

We must start generating our own reality again. Begin programming the holomovement with our ideas, our love, our intent and our infinite creativity.

The Control System,Äôs holomovement virus is weak. It is dependent on our ignorance and disbelief for it to function properly. Awareness of its very existence begins to instantly erode it. Full comprehension of our own creative consciousness attacks the virus. When we begin to generate our own powerful reality fields again, the virus is eliminated. So we must get natural. No more implanted reality. No more Control System programming. We generate our own reality from now on.

One of the best ideas I've heard around here in a while was Vex's suggestion that we should develop or find a standard template for our distribution projects. This way we don't have to reinvent the wheel every time someone slaps some text together.

I thought I had mastered Mistress Word's formatting, but she is a temperamental and tempestuous biatch. During the Black Iron Prison edit I wanted to put my fist through my monitor. Why does it keep relocating my images if I place them too close to the corner? I swear to Goddess that if Ms. Word were a real person I would strangle the life out of her. But other than Word, what else is there?

Vex said that openoffice can dump into PDF without changing layout, and that sounds really sexy. I might even be able to install openoffice at work without drawing too much attention from IT.

Optimally we'd be able to copy&paste text into a half-page size template, so we could print four pages per 8.5x11 sheet (front & back).

Does anyone have any thoughts on this? or existing templates we could gank?

I felt hungry
But not hungry for food.I was spirit hungry, soul hungry.

It was midnight. Wearing naught but a bathrobe and a five o'clock shadow, I opened the spiritual fridge and squinted in its its fluorescent glow. My nipples hardened at the chill.

Leftovers!

There was some glazed and oversweet Christmas Ham taking up most of the fridge. I had gotten sick of it but couldn't bear to throw it away. Pushing it aside, I spotted some wafers from the tenth century. Blech.

On the next shelf there were some Chakras sealed away in tupperware. Kind of weird, and I didn't really want to get into them. I had ordered them from this Indian place as an experiment, but they didn't really suit me.

Maybe a glass of wine would help me sleep? Eh, all I had was some manischewitz - also too sweet for my taste. I was lost in the fridge, not the desert. My toes were gripping lenolium, not hot sand and sharp rocks.


Hungry for substance, meaning. Hungry for something fulfilling and worthwhile. Something that would taste good but not leave me feeling guilty.

Something was mummified in plastic wrap. I unwrapped it and sniffed. Ancient. Smelled like it would have been tasty thousands of years ago, but it had gone bad. The modern palette has trouble reconciling this old fashioned stuff.

There was a lot of condiments, but nothing substantial. Fire and brimstone goes well with anything. There were some preservatives like mysticism and dogma. Some cooks think Eternal Rewards should be applied generously to any dish. Personally, I think they're best used in moderation.

The freezer wasn't much better. What wasn't overcooked to begin with was scorched by freezer burn.

Sometimes I like complicated, rich dishes. Sometimes I want simple, minimalist affairs. Maybe I could make a gumbo from all the stuff in here. But somehow I didn't think all those tastes would get along well.

What else was in here? Soda, but that wouldn't help me sleep. Some sort of sacrifice, but that wouldn't fill me up. Butter. Cheap beer - hey, beer might be a good start!

I was sick of take-out. And no one delivers this late anyway. The spiritual fridge is full of fast food, condiments, and leftovers.

My eyes drifted to the dusty cookbook lying on top of the fridge next to the phone book. If I wasn't so tired, maybe I'd cook something. Maybe after a beer or two. I wondered if anything good was on TV.

I yawned. I picked my nose. Hmm, in fact, didn't taste bad at all. As I opened my beer, I shut the fridge. The kitchen was dark again.

[Velocity]

We've been talking a bit about memetics and the properties of memes. So from what I know of memetics, here are some concepts which may make it easier to talk about this stuff. (The terminology I use is from Unleashing the Ideavirus by Seth Godin, in which he's talking about memes in terms of marketing. He calls a successful meme an Ideavirus.)

Velocity - a measure of how fast an idea spreads from one party to another

Hive - a network of people who exchange information. Information travels very easily within a hive, especially when regard each other as credible sources. PD.com is a hive. A class of third graders is a hive. Friends who talk about HP Lovecraft are a sort of hive.

Sneeze - a sneeze is a transmission of a meme between two people. If I see a cool commercial, and then I ask my friend if he's seen that commercial, that counts as a sneeze. Basically any time you mention a product, you are sneezing that meme.

Smoothness - how easy it is for someone to sneeze the meme. Sports trivia is very smooth in regards to sports fans. Really boring or complicated topics are not smooth.

Another factor influencing smoothness is whether or not the meme presents a risk or reward to the sneezer. For example, the iPhone is considered cool. You might seem cooler for knowing about the iPhone or mentioning your friend that has one. If you're attending NAMBLA meetings you'd probably want to keep a lid on that. So NAMBLA membership isn't very smooth.

Promiscuity - One's likelihood to spread a meme. Really promiscuous people sneeze a lot. Marketing teams twist their brains in knots trying to figure out how to get the cool guys and the hot girls to start using their products. Trendsetters and people of authority tend to be very promiscuous.

frankly, I think all those choices are pretty sweet

The Black Iron Prison
Professor Cramulus edit

presented in PDF format, .doc available

comments, meme bombs, additions, art, edits, et cetera
all appreciated

PROFESSOR'S LOG
APPLE DATE Confusion 51, Year of Our Lady of Discord 3173

It's a great time to be a Discordian on the internet.

I just realized that yesterday was Confuflux. It's the height of Confusion, right before the dawn of Bureaucracy. So it's a great time for Discordians, a point of balance between order and disorder.

and it's a great time to be a Discordian in general.

This weekend the Yonkers contingent met up with some of the Boston cabal. Members of the Wrath of MSPaint Cabal met face to face for the first time. That One Guy, who I didn't really know that well prior, ended up being a super-cool dude. Suu is just as hot and awesome as I had hoped. Richter is the MAN and his swote has no bounds. Everybody had a fricking blast and I can't wait to road trip up there and hang out with them again.

The Black Iron Prison forum has a fresh coat of paint and is buzzing with very exciting activity. There are some great new ideas over there - the Shrapnel Project, which now has a home on the BIP wiki. We've also seen some very large steps in revising the Black Iron Prison pamphlet. This is how diamonds form.

And Ratatosk you mischievous squirrel bastard, that passage - the beginning of the Occultus Forma Discordia - is excellent. Had I read that back before I found this board (when I was very enamored by those pinealist memes) I would have dove in here head first. I think that it's a great leap in bridging the gap between your Discordians and your Erisians. Can't wait to see how this develops.

And Cain, one of our favorite fearless leaders (perish the thought!) it looks like you've been through a lot and rather than it weighing you down, you've been charged by it. Cain's willingness to put human drama aside and try to form a bridge with EB&G feels like a breath of fresh air.

I'm excited
invigorated
jazzed
and over-hyped
to ask And Now What?

Rock on                     
my sons and daughters
                 go rock on
/                           

[Cramulus' Suggestions for forward progress]

split from the From a BIP reader thread.

Cramulus' Suggestions for forward progress


1. identify the specific sections of the BIP which are considered too dark or too preachy (the two most common complaints about it).
2. modify them on the wiki.
3. take all this stuff and put it in a new PDF-book. In this book the BIP metaphor is mixed in with humorous stuff such as meme bombs, Discordians in History, the Parable of the Gong, a lot of Vex's stuff, and other more "high content / high humor" passages. Add art ranging from crazy cutups to WOMP nonsense to actual art from Fred, Syn, Vex, Silly, and the numerous other skilled artists on this board.


5. profit


Which specific sections of the BIP do you think are too dark or too preachy?

Provide links to the wiki. (hm, seems to be down at the moment)

[Q: Do you have any doubts that a superior intelligence will emerge in the next few decades?]

some interesting stuff to chew on... I know it's long, but I found it really cool



Tinker Toy Brains
CLIFF PICKOVER
Computer scientist, IBM's T. J. Watson Research Center; Author, Calculus and Pizza

If we believe that consciousness is the result of patterns of neurons in the brain, our thoughts, emotions, and memories could be replicated in moving assemblies of Tinkertoys. The Tinkertoy minds would have to be very big to represent the complexity of our minds, but it nevertheless could be done, in the same way people have made computers out of 10,000 Tinkertoys. In principle, our minds could be hypostatized in patterns of twigs, in the movements of leaves, or in the flocking of birds. The philosopher and mathematician Gottfried Leibniz liked to imagine a machine capable of conscious experiences and perceptions. He said that even if this machine were as big as a mill and we could explore inside, we would find "nothing but pieces which push one against the other and never anything to account for a perception."

If our thoughts and consciousness do not depend on the actual substances in our brains but rather on the structures, patterns, and relationships between parts, then Tinkertoy minds could think. If you could make a copy of your brain with the same structure but using different materials, the copy would think it was you. This seemingly materialistic approach to mind does not diminish the hope of an afterlife, of transcendence, of communion with entities from parallel universes, or even of God. Even Tinkertoy minds can dream, seek salvation and bliss,Äîand pray.



Half-Man, Half-Machine: The Mind of the Future
source: http://www.businessweek.com/1999/99_35/b3644022.htm

Raymond C. Kurzweil is the author of The Age of Intelligent Machines, published in 1990, and The Age of Spiritual Machines: When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence, published this year. He is the founder and chairman of Kurzweil Technologies in Wellesley Hills, Mass., as well as five other companies that still bear his name or are still operating under new ownership. He spoke with Business Week Senior Writer Otis Port about the separate and joint futures of human and artificial intelligence.

Q: Do you have any doubts that a superior intelligence will emerge in the next few decades?
A: No. It's inevitable. For example, nanotubes would allow computing at the molecular level. A one-inch cube of nanotube circuitry would be about 1 billion times more powerful than the human brain, in terms of computing capacity. That raw computing capacity is a necessary but not sufficient condition to achieve human-level intelligence in a machine.

We also need the organization and the software to organize those resources. There are a number of scenarios for achieving that. The most compelling is reverse-engineering the human brain. We're already well down that path, with techniques like MRI. But we'll do better because the speed and resolution -- the bandwidth -- with which we can scan the brain are also accelerating exponentially.

One means of scanning the brain would be to send small scanners in the form of nanobots into the blood stream. Millions of them would go through every capillary of the brain. We already have electronic means for scanning neurons and neurotransmitter concentrations that are nearby, and within 30 years we'll have these little nanobots that can communicate with each other wirelessly. They would create an enormous database with every neuron, every synoptic connection, every neurotransmitter concentration -- a precise map of the human brain.

So we'll have the templates for human intelligence, and by then we'll have the hardware that can run these processes. So we can reinstate that information in a neural computer.

Once we can embody human thought processes in a nonbiological medium, it will necessarily soar past human intelligence -- for several reasons. First, machines can share their knowledge electronically. With humans, you spend years teaching language to each child. [But] once any one machine has mastered something, it can share that knowledge instantly with millions of other machines over the global wireless Web, which we'll have by then. So a machine can become expert at any number of disciplines.

Secondly, machines are far faster. Electronic circuits are 10 million times faster than neural connections, and machine memories can be far larger and much more accurate. However, machines do not yet have the depth of pattern recognition or the subtlety of human intelligence. They can't deal with emotions and humor and other subtle qualities of human intelligence.

Once their complexity matches that of humans and they are able to master the skills at which humans now excel, and those abilities are combined with the ways in which machines are already superior -- that will be a very formidable combination. It'll get to the point where the next generation of technology can only be designed by the machines themselves.

Finally, while the complexity of the biological computational circuitry in humans is essentially fixed, the density of machine circuitry will continue to grow exponentially. By 2030, a $1,000 computer system will have the power of 1,000 human brains; by 2050, 1 billion human brains.

Q: Won't we end up feeling like pets?
A: Those same nanobots that can scan the human brain will also provide a type of neural implant to extend human intelligence -- expand your memory and improve your pattern-recognition capabilities. Ultimately they will augment human intelligence quite profoundly as we go through the 21st century.

We are doing this today, after a fashion. We now have neural implants for Parkinson's disease patients that actually reprogram their neural cells. The implants literally turn off the symptoms of Parkinson's as soon as you throw a switch. It's very dramatic. These patients are wheeled in, their bodies frozen. Then a switch is thrown to activate the neural implants, and the patients suddenly come alive -- their symptoms are suppressed by the implant.

With microscopic nanobots, we'll be able to send millions or billions [of them] into your brain. They would take up key positions inside our brains and detect what's going on in our brains. They would be communicating with each other, via a wireless local-area network, which would be linked to the wireless Web and intelligent machines, and they could cause particular neurons to fire, or suppress them.

This will enable us to artificially boost human intelligence dramatically. Ultimately, the majority of thinking will be done in the nonbiological parts of our brains.

Q: If nanobots are sitting inside our heads and controlling the brain, how will we know they're not fooling us with false signals?
A: Well, actually, another thing we could do with this would be virtual reality. If we had nanobots take up positions by every nerve fiber that comes from all of our five senses, they could either sit there and do nothing, in which case you'd perceive the world normally -- or they could shut off the nerve impulses coming from our real senses and replace them with simulated nerve impulses representing what you would perceive if you were in the virtual environment.

Q: So we wouldn't be able to tell the difference at all between the real world and a simulated world?
A: Right. It would be as if you were really in that virtual environment. If you decided to walk, the nanobots would intercept the signals to your real legs and send back all the sensory signals of walking -- from the changing tactile pressure on your feet to the air moving across your hands as you swing your arms. It would be just as high-resolution and just as compelling as real reality. You could actually go there and meet other real people. So you and I, instead of being on the telephone, could be meeting on a Mozambique game preserve, and we'd both feel the warm breeze on our faces and hear the animal sounds in the background.

Eventually, anything you can do in real reality -- business meetings, social events, sex, sports -- could be done in virtual reality. As the technology gets perfected, we'll be spending more and more time in virtual reality, because it'll be more and more compelling. Going to Web sites will mean going to a virtual reality environment. Some will emulate real environments, so you'll visit the Web to go skiing in the Alps or to take a walk on a beach in Tahiti. Others will be fantastic environments that don't exist, or couldn't exist, in the real world.

Q: Let's go back to machines that design new machines. Doesn't that open the potential for them to evolve a nonhuman intelligence -- utterly different ways of thinking?
A: Sure. Once we have intelligent systems in a nonbiological medium, they're going to have their own ideas, their own agendas. They'll evolve off in completely unpredictable directions. Instead of being derived only from human civilization, new concepts will also be derived from their electronic civilization. But I see this as part of evolution -- a continuation of the natural progression.

Q: But couldn't it pose a threat to the human race?
A: I don't see an invasion of alien machines coming over the horizon. They'll be emerging from within our human-machine civilization. We're already quite intimate with our technology. If all the computers stopped today, essentially everything would grind to halt. That was not true just 30 years ago. At that point only a few scientists and government bureaucrats would have been frustrated by the delay in getting printouts from their punch-card machines.

Today we've become highly dependent on computer intelligence. It's already embedded in our decision-making software much more than most people realize. That's going to continue to accelerate.

Next, we're going to be putting these machines into our bodies and into our brains. So it's not going to be humans on one side and machines on the other. There's not going to be a clear distinction between humans and machines. We'll be using nanobots to expand human intelligence, and over time, the bulk of our thinking will be done in the nonbiological parts of our brains, because that part of our brain will continue to grow as technology advances. But the biological part is not growing.

Q: There won't be a clear distinction between us and them?
A: No. Ultimately, you're going to have nonbiological entities that are exact copies of biological brains. They will claim to be human, because they will have all the memories of the original brain. So there won't be a clear distinction between what's human and what's not.

But remember, this will be emerging gradually from within our own civilization. It's the next phase of our own evolution. It's only a threat if you believe things should always stay the same as they are today.

That's not to say there aren't any dangers. An obvious one is uncontrolled growth of these nonbiological entities in your body -- nonbiological cancer.

The Parable of the Gong
As told by Professor Cramulus, OBNOXIOUS JERK cabal

There was once a young Discordian called Golden Rod. Early in his illumination, he wondered what season his country was in.

Perhaps it was in the season of Discord, on the cusp of Bureaucracy. Surely, Order was rising to noxious levels.

Or perhaps it was already Bureaucracy, on the cusp of Aftermath. Surely, Disorder was rising to obnoxious levels.

So in his quest for An Answer, Golden Rod sought out the Discordian monk Nopants. Nopants dwelled in a basement because it would be obscene for him to go outside. Golden Rod freed himself from his leggings and descended the stairs. Below, Nopants sat on a cushion in a gross lotus position.

"My wise friend Nopants, I have come to ask you a question,,Äù said Golden Rod, ,ÄúWhat is Bureaucracy?"

,ÄúIn India,,Äù said Nopants, ,Äúthey tie elephants to trees using thin cords. An elephant could easily snap the cord, yet they remain tethered in place. Why do you think this is?,Äù

Golden Rod itched himself and shrugged.

,ÄúWhen the elephant is young,,Äù intoned Nopants, ,Äúshe is too weak to break the cord. She tries, but eventually she gives up. When the elephant grows up, she does not try to escape her puny bonds because she believes she will fail.,Äù

,ÄúSo the cord isn,Äôt the thing keeping the elephant in place,,Äù said Golden Rod. He squinted at Nopants, ,ÄúThat,Äôs very interesting, but what does that have to do with Bureaucracy?,Äù

,ÄúBureaucracy,,Äù said Nopants, ,Äúis waiting for a red traffic light in the middle of the night when no one is coming.,Äù

    Across space and time, a gong sounded.

Golden Rod left the basement and returned to the real world, thoroughly confused. As he drove home, he ran five red lights. His mirth rose with each light. By the end of the voyage he was giggling like a ninny at his newfound freedom.






Years went by and Golden Rod continued drive towards Aftermath. He ignored stop signs, blew through red lights, and opened his moon roof despite danger of falling rocks.

,ÄúSweet Merciful Ass!,Äù cried out Bung-Fu the Fool as he clawed at the dashboard. ,ÄúYou,Äôre gonna get us both killed!,Äù

,ÄúNonsense! I am self-emancipated from these mundane traffic laws,,Äù cackled Golden Rod.  ,ÄúI am a harbinger of Aftermath!,Äù

,ÄúDo you always drive like this?,Äù said Bung-Fu as he buckled his seat belt.

Golden Rod nodded. "Always."

Meanwhile, the monk Nopants was wheeling his gong across the street towards his basement. He patiently waited for the light to turn red, then pushed the ponderous percussive instrument upon the pavement.


     The collision made the exact sound of enlightenment.

Ego Sickness

You know how a virus works? It goes into a cell and changes the code so that the cell only produces more virii. In a way the virus steals the cell's identity, making it a part of a viral system.

If you ask me, the worst phase of being sick is when you've been sick for so long you forget what it's like to be well. In a way, you've lost a bit of yourself and become the virus.

People catch and spread memes like viruses. They're contageous, self-replicating little buggers. Like any virus, their goal is to spread themselves, to become a large, healthy, self-sustaining colony. We have to be careful how we handle memes because at a certain point its difficult to tell the difference between when we're using the memes and when the memes are using us.

This is not to say that memes are harmful diseases. But some of them can be if you get infected, infested, obsessed and invested.

One of the most pervasive and prevalent memes in this modern world is the meme called I Am. We live in an overpopulated era, floating in a sea of interchangable people. In this ocean our biggest life perserver is a sense of individuality - the notion that each and every one of us is unique, distinct. One wants to say "I am not the crowd. I am not the group. I am not just another cog in the machine."

We jump through personal hoops to distinguish ourselves from the others. We customize our identities so as to retain a sense of self, a buoy bobbing in the tide of the collective.

But this ego meme can become a disease. In moderation, it helps us understand ourselves. In excess, we define ourselves. In time, these definitions become rigid, inflexible.

Consider, for example, the "C student". In his attempt to understand himself, he internalizes "I am a C student." Armed with that identity he has no drive to do better. He accepts "who he is".

Or consider the average voter. He identifies with a political party and probably agrees with them about many things. The party tells him which sides of any given issues to support - no need to think for oneself there!

It can be a sickness.

The Machine, of course, is programmed to capitalize on this sickness. There are a variety of memes available to customize your identity. What color iPod do you want? Which TV shows are YOUR TV shows? What brand of cologne smells like YOU?

I am not suggesting that people abandon their sense of self. But I do think that people get addicted to self-definition and it leads to inflexibility.

(Don Juan speaking to Castaneda) "Your father knows everything about you", he said. "So he has you all figured out. He knows who you are and what you do, and there is no power on earth that can make him change his mind about you". Don Juan said that everybody that knew me had an idea about me, and that I kept feeding the idea with everything I did. "Don't you see ?", he asked dramatically. "You must renew your personal history by telling your parents, your relatives, and your friends everything you do. On the other hand, if you have no personal history, no explanations are needed; nobody is angry or disillusioned with your acts. And above all no one pins you down with their thoughts.".

(...) "But that's absurd", I protested. "Why shouldn't people know me ? What's wrong with that ?"; "What's wrong is that once they know you, you are an affair taken for granted and from that moment on you won't be able to break the tie of their thoughts. I personally like the ultimate freedom of being unknown. No one knows me with steadfast certainty, the way people know you, for instance". "But that would be lying". "I'm not concerned with lies or truths", he said severely. "Lies are lies only if you have personal history".

"You see", he went on, "we only have two alternatives; we either take everything for sure and real, or we don't. If we follow the first, we end up bored to death with ourselves and with the world. If we follow the second and erase personal history, we create a fog around us, a very exciting and mysterious state in which nobody knows where the rabbit will pop out, not even ourselves."

We,Äôre hand in hand in Aftermath
the age of what will be
Horizon smoke is rising
from the wreckage that is We

And in the smoke what shapes will form?
What phantoms will we make?
For we are made of form and formula
but also dross mistake

-from Hand in Hand in Aftermath

I'm wondering what sort of things you can do to see the shape of your cell.

One of the dangers of a successful jailbreak is complacency. You escape into a better cell and then rest there. This is not to say that it's necessary to constantly reinvent yourself and your environment, but one should be careful not to think that their escape is ever over. The best time for a jailbreak is often the time you need it the least.

So what's my cell made of? For me, it's the place I live, the goals I have, the language I use to describe my world. It's the Colbert Report every night at 11:30. It's my body and its drives. It's my hobbies and interests. It's my sense of static self.

But I like a lot of that stuff - how can I tell what parts of it to cut out? How can I distinguish the bars of my cell from the things I use to decorate it?



For me, a change of scenery is the most effective tool. I like to take off for one or two weekends a month and spend time doing something else entirely. I need to go away and be somebody other than me - then when I come back to myself I can look around with a fresh perspective.

It's a ritual that I reccommend to everyone. Go be someone that's not you. Hang out with new people. Do something unusual, something out of character. Challenge yourself in a new way. These small reinventions of self give you a sense of the shape of your cell. If you're staring at the bars all the time you often forget what they are. A good self-liberated prisoner eagerly anticipates the discomfort of novelty.

So what about you guys? How do you know it's time to escape?

[Discordians in the Middle Ages]

Discordians in the Middle Ages

Discordians flourished between the fifth and fifteenth century. This was a period of great cultural, political, and economic change in Europe - change which Discordians violently shook like a collicy infant.

Discordian Writings

It it not known whether medieval Discordians were literate. They commonly wrote in the incomprehensible Zwack alphabet. Discordians held that most people, even nobles and priests, were too hunchbrained to make any sense of their baffling script. Contemporary cryptologists believe Zwack to be incomprehensible gibberish, but modern Discordians hold that these scholars are merely too hunchbrained to make sense of their baffling script.

The Inquisition

In 1478, the Spanish Inquisition was begun by King Ferdinand of Aragon and Queen Isabella of Castile. Although it was not publicly revealed until after his death, one of Ferdinand's advisors, Peter Pie the Pious, was a Discordian saint. St. Pie pushed King Ferdinand to seek out converts from Judaism and Islam residing Spain. The inquisition was originally intended as a distraction from St. Pie's major project, sleeping with Queen Isabella. The inquisition rapidly got out of hand as zealots began burning heretics.

Despite his success with Isabella, St. Pie was saddened by these violent developments. He made a private apology to the Discordians of Spain, but it was lost on them as they were busy being burned to death. Wracked with guilt, he fell on his sword in 1490. His final words were "Fili Prius meretrix," or "Bros before hos".




Discordians in Colonial America

The Witch Trials

In 1692, Discordians invented the first game of SINK when the Queche Quidditch Qabal threw Goodwife Tabatha Croft in the Connecticut river. When the local constable demanded an explanation, Rev. Sandwitch of Bologna replied that they were testing to see if she was a witch. The constable thought this was such a good idea, he brought his wife to the river and tested her for witchiness. This meme spread and evolved until all the women in town were soaking wet. Later, they were burned at the stake.

please pick a period or event
and add your own historical facts and crap

I decided to split off the "enough" thread to address this--

All this discordianism crap is pretty much breaking down into a few distinct principles:

Pattern Recognition.
Primate Territorialism.
Reality grids/filters.

What other things do you think are part of Discord's "core themes"?

High Madness / Weirdness has been mentioned.


I ask because when it comes time to rewrite the book on Discordia, it'd be nice to have a sort of checklist of what should be included.

[80% efficacy!]

Why I'm excited for the R0B0T REV0LUTI0N
by Professor Cramulus

Alright, we all know that when the shit hits the fan, humanity's back is going to be up against the wall. But the thing is that the robot revolution is going to be real sexy. We'll WANT to submit to them. Rawr!

Your robot girlfriend will be anything you want and more. You can customize her appearance to match your taste, whether you want a swedish bikini model or a tentacular hentai zombie!

She'll have personality packs you can install. You can configure her to act and talk like a naughty schoolgirl, a naughty dominatrix, a naughty UN Ambassador, or even a naughty nurse!

Robotic girlfriends are superior to meat-based ones in every way. They'll never nag you about anything, they'll never cheat on you, and they'll never leave you.

All the vestigial systems which come standard on a meat-based girlfriend have been removed in the robotic model, such as periods, aging, and orgasms.

A variety of protein pills will be available. By changing her "diet" you can change her build or hair color. You can sculpt her from slim and trim to pleasantly plump and back to the undernourished waif setting in a short three week diet cycle. These cycles take months, if not years in the outdated human models. and unlike humans, robots do not get stuck in one setting.

Your robot girlfriend's nipples will be dials. One will be a volume control, the other an AM/FM tuner

Your robot girlfriend will have a keg in her stomach cavity. She'll secrete delicious beer through her tongue, tears, and hoo-hoo. Most people have wanted a girl to pee on them, but don't like human urine. Now you can have Heineken urinated into your eager mouth!

You don't have to be insecure in any way around your robot girlfriend. Robots can be programmed to think your penis is gigantic, even if her records obviously indicate otherwise.

My robot girlfriend is going to have a wireless modem which receives live feeds from cameras placed around the room. She'll take in all camera streams and instantly edit them into high quality porn footage. Her eyes are functional video projectors, so she can project the porn onto the wall as you rail her from behind.

When not in use, her butt unit will stream funky porn music.

Holy shit my robot girlfriend is going to have rockets on her feet so we can fly around as I pork her over and over again.

Hate condoms? Worried about getting your robot girlfriend pregnant? Scientists have developed a birth control patch with 80% efficacy!

See, the Robot Revolution is the sexiest thing to happen to mankind. With options like these available, no one will want to date a smelly girl. When given a choice, they'll pick the stainless steel fembot every time.

"Check out the nodes on that robo-ho!"

For humanity, the end will come not with a bang, but with a moan of ecstasy

So presented with these facts, I must ask...

[PARTICIPANTS NEEDED]

PARTICIPANTS NEEDED

Procedure:

• Get yourself really close to orgasm
• Immediately prior to orgasm, click on one of the following links: Link A, Link B, Link C, Link D, Link E, Link F (all NSFW ... but you shouldn't be participating at work anyway)
• You must stare at the image for the duration of your orgasm
• Report short-term and long-term and results here

Do it for SCIENCE

Yeah, I'm going there.

The Pineal Gland is a little pea-sized thing deep inside your brain. Until the 1960s, nobody really knew what it was for.

Descartes (who was doing his damnedest to connect the mind and the body) called this mysterious gland the "seat of the soul". This is why the Pineal Gland is sometimes compared to a gospel choir singer's butt. Get up off your pineal gland and SING - for grand old Discordja!

The pineal gland is associated with the sixth chakra, Ajna, also known as the third eye. The third eye is open to dreams and imagination, but not the physical world. Some people think that if you wake up your pineal gland, you can learn ~telepathy~. Some people believe that a hemaphrodite deity named Ardhanarishvara (bless you!) lives there. This is supposed to symbolize the unity of subject and object, of self and the world, of this and thou and that. But Discordians know that Ardhanarishvara is actually just a bisexual Eris Discordja. Get nasty with that hottie, Discordja!

The Pineal Gland produces melatonin, a juice which gets you into the circadian rhythm. You activate yourself during the daytime and slow yourself down during the nighttime because the deity that lives there is trying to balance you out. Trying to make personal sense out of these cycles. (That's imposing a grid of order on chaos, ya dig?) Most people have a lopsided pineal gland, which is unfortunate, because it means they're never really in the Now, they're tipped towards some other part of the rhythm. Maybe they're waiting for the good part of the song? But they're missing this part!

But when you get in synch with the rhythm, that seat of the soul rhythm, you're gonna be overcome by the music of ERIS. you're gonna snap your fingers to the gospel of ERIS. You're gonna throw your hands up in the air and PRAISE ERIS. You're gonna yell TESTIFY and HAIL ERIS and ALL HAIL DISCORDJA.

Because the new day is coming - the new wave is coming - the revolution is coming and it's not against anybody.  If anybody, it's against who you were and for who you will be. They've got us conned into thinking that a revolution is a fight, and can you win or lose or chicken out. But it's not a battle, it's a change. And it doesn't end in victory or defeat - if the revolution succeeds, it doesn't end at all.

The revolution isn't against, it's for. It's for you, and it's for me, and it's for all of us all singing gospel and it sounds like a mess because we never practice and we never harmonize. But it's a great mess like John Coltrane would make, like ad lib would make, like improv would make. Like Eris Discordja is snapping her fingers with the rhythm and she says take what you like, leave what you don't. Be who you are, and be who you're not. Take her lead, because you're gonna be Eris and she's gonna be you. And All Hail Eris, 'cause she Hails You Too.

Now I'm not someone who reads a lot of comics. But I devoured The Invisibles. Like Illuminatus!, I think its one of those things that all Discordians should read at some point.

The Invisibles are a sect of Discordianesqe hero types who fight the forces which are trying to control and conform reality. But it's more than that. There's a lot of drugs, explosions, philosophical banter, chaos magic, and obscure literary references too. If that's your shtick, I think you'll dig it.

Many people believe that The Invisibles was the inspiration for The Matrix. Morrison says they essentially plagiarized it "plot by plot, detail by detail, image by image." (he's not pissed, just wishes he got credit) But it goes a lot further than the Matrix - those of you who wish the Wachowskis pushed the conceptual envelope a little further will probably find what you were looking for here.

Compare/contrast the scene where Agent Smith interrogates Morpheus with this snippet:

As a side note - there's a plotline towards the beginning which seems a little bit slow. Later in the series, Morrison says he regretted how it turned out - too much crazy jibba jabba and not enough action. I won't tell you which one it is. And I don't think it's that bad. But if you get a little way into this and then are all "The Professor lied - this is boring!" just hang on--

Towards the end of volume 1 (the files I've listed above), it gets really intense. It gives me goosebumps remembering how awesome it is.

Here's a snippet more from the beginning:

anyway, I hope you guys dig it as much as I did. When I'm in a funk, I read the Invisibles to motivate me to get off my ass and go shake shit up. Grant Morrison's a genius.

The Filth was a short (13 issue) comic written by Grant Morrison. It was the project which followed The Invisibles. In many ways, Grant intended for it to be a sequel, of sorts, to the Invisibles. I think if you include Flex Mentallo (which I've never read), as the first part, he considers it a trilogy. No recurring characters, but lots of recurring themes.

The Invisibles is (sort of) about fanatic freedom fighter folks who are fighting the forces of conformity. The system is the enemy (or so it seems).

The Filth is on the flip side of the coin. The main characters are part of the "system". They're battling horrible things which shouldn't exist in an attempt to cleanse reality and maintain Status Q (the way things are).



Like all of Morrison's stuff, there's a lot of twists and turns and confusion and Discordian themes. A lot of discussion about identity, reality, and what lies beyond it. I think it's a pretty good read and is a great companion to the Invisibles.

For your consumption, I've uploaded the entire Filth series in jpg format here--

Issues 1-7
Issues 8-11
Issues 12-13


Enjoy!


Professor Cramulus
"Somewhat Better than Kidney Dialysis!"

[We Stand Hand in Hand in Aftermath]

(This is a draft for the Age of Aftermath magazine project.)

We Stand Hand in Hand in Aftermath

The present's almost over
and it flows away from me
Reflecting back a memory
it drifts into the sea

They say we see sepulcher
in this bureaucratic tangle
but the field of poppy culture
is just one camera angle

We bathe in time, an acid bath
and We dissolve, perplexed
So begins the age of Aftermath
exhaling what comes next

We're hand in hand in Aftermath
the age of what will be
Horizon smoke is rising
from the wreckage that is We

Remembering, forgetting
this cultural bazaar
Bureaucracy is setting,
so arise the morning star

And in the smoke what shapes will form?
What phantoms will we make?
For we are made of form and formula
but also dross mistake

Gorillas in the Midst
by Professor Cramulus

"Gorillas live in that house now." That's what I almost said. But I thought better of spilling my secret. Instead, I told Dana that the house was still abandoned. She turned her music back on and kept jogging. It's only a partial lie. Another one.

I like jogging with Dana because she wears headphones. I like this because it means she is not talking to me, she's singing along to her music. When we get back, she'll hop in the shower and I have about twenty minutes of freedom to find the good stuff. Her off-key singing echoes through the house and I know it'll be stuck in my head for hours. She's singing the same line from some shitty song over and over again. I try to distract myself but not even hardcore pornography can get last week's argument out of my mind. It must be Spring, because she wants kids again. I want to drink bleach.

You know your marriage is in the pits when you can't even bring yourself to masturbate. Jesus, what an irritating argument. We haven't had sex in months. Maybe even a year now. We never really matched up in the bedroom. She liked burly, hairy-chested men and I'm a smooth skinny guy. She makes a lot of noise and I'm notoriously silent. I can tell she's lonely, but I don't care.

Late at night, the windows of the house next door were dark. I hid in the bushes until I knew it was safe. Then, carefully, I crept up to the window and peered in.

There they were. Gorillas. Like, five fucking gorillas. I don't how they found their way into a house in the suburbs of New England. I don't think that they knew either. They sounded sort of lonely. Sort of desperate. All I know is that the last guy who lived there, Tom, was evicted two years ago. I think he's in a mental hospital now. The house has been quiet ever since. But that has zero to do with these goddamned gorillas.

I first noticed them last Friday. I was standing on my back deck, spying on the angry elderly Scandinavian couple that lives behind us. That's when I saw them. The gorillas were standing in a circle in Tom's back yard. I lowered the binoculars and rubbed my eyes but it seemed real enough. Some of them were smoking cigarettes. One busted me staring at them from my deck, my binoculars in one hand and a bottle of Jim Beam in the other. The gorilla made a noise which startled the others. They scattered like huge lumbering cockroaches, spiking their cigarettes into the driveway before hurrying inside the house. Then it was dark.

Was Dana serious? Kids? Apparently we have to have this argument every year. Her biological clock is ticking loudly and it's keeping me awake. That woman is going to be the death of me.

As I looked in the window, the gorillas were talking. Something about missing the jungle I think. I thought I heard one say "That bastard's probably humping my mate by now." The whole place reeked of feces. Big sweaty gorilla feces. Smelly enough to let you know whose fucking territory this was. Apparently, they hadn't been eating very well. They must be very hungry by now.

Then, the big one said something about kidnapping a human, and the others were nodding. One was licking his lips. Another rubbed his hands together. That's all I needed to hear. I boogied out of there so fast I spilled Jim Beam all over my bathrobe.

The next day, Dana was in the garden with a concerned look on her face. There were gorilla-sized footprints in her fresh topsoil. A few of her homegrown tomatoes were gone. She was always going on about those fucking tomatoes.

"We can buy more, honey," I said, not looking up from the paper.

"You can't buy homegrown tomatoes," said Dana, annoyed. I rolled my eyes, knowing that the bluegrass was coming again. "There's only two things that money can't buy," she sang. I was so sick of this song. "And that's true love - and homegrown tomatoes." My eyeball twitched.

"Besides," she said, "what am I going to put in the gift-basket for our new neighbors?"

"Neighbors?" I said, looking over the top of the newspaper. Behind her, a dark, hairy face with wide eyes was staring in through the window, looking at Dana, licking his lips.

"Yeah," she said. "Last night I saw lights on next door. I think someone moved into Tom's old house."

"You don't say," I said all deadpan.

"I'm gonna go give them a gift basket."

The words "fucking gorillas," were on the tip of my tongue. But I bit it.

"Do you wanna come?" asked Dana.

I blinked.

"Well?"

"No," I said.

"Are you sure?"

I nodded my head slowly. My palms had gotten clammy all of the sudden.

When Dana left and the house was finally silent, I went to my stash and poured myself a victory shot.

The shrieking was brief and intense. As I recall, the gorillas tearing her apart and eating her had a sort of melodious, musical quality. Almost erotic. I knew that this song was going to be stuck in my head, and for once, I was going to enjoy it. Then it was silent again and I poured myself another shot. Fucking gorillas.

I never saw Dana again. After that, the gorillas disappeared too. It was a quiet neighborhood now, just me and the crotchety Scandinavians. The garden in the back yard began to wither and I could finally masturbate in peace.

Two weeks later, there was a note in the mailbox. Dana's lilting handwriting reminded me of when we were first dating. It was a long, tear-stained, goodbye letter. I read the first few lines, then skimmed down to the good parts.

"I met some men," she wrote, and "they're taking good care of me." I swigged my bourbon, swishing it around in my mouth as I thought about that shrieking. Five fucking gorillas.

"I won't see you again," the letter said. "Its probably for the best."

"Yeah," I said out loud. "Probably."



And somehow, we all lived happily ever after.

[a complete lie]

23 Things to Amuse Yourself While You Wait:

1.   If there were robots disguised as people in our midst, you probably wouldn't realize it. Some of the people around you right now might even be robots!

2.   Benjamin Franklin, one of America,Äôs greatest presidents, wanted the national bird to be a turkey, not an eagle.

3.   Robots masquerading as human beings would have some idiosyncrasies which would allow us to distinguish them from human beings.

4.   If there were a LOT of robots in our midst, the idiosyncrasies would seem common, and thereby undetectable.

5.   In the same way that fashions catch on, some human beings would also display these robot quirks, thinking that they were normal behaviors.

6.   Item number 19 is a complete lie.

7.   Aliens who visit our planet might have trouble figuring out with whom they should make contact. They might ignore us completely! Instead, they might want to talk to important things like our cars, our corporations, or our internets.

8.   People who litter public spaces with their garbage are self-important pricks!

9.   People who lived on this planet a few hundred years age were antiquated and primitive because they believed in things like the sun moving around the earth, witchcraft, numerology, and that their outdated religion was the one true religion.

10.   If aliens visiting our planet looked like humans from the 1980s, all that crap would immediately come back in style as we tried to impress our guests. 1980s style would retroactively no longer be considered ,Äòretro,Äô, but ahead of its time.

11.   People who fill public spaces with their ideas are committing ideological litter!

12.   There are a group of human beings (?) who worship the recently named planetoid called Eris. They think that God is a crazy woman. Their evidence is that everything seems to be really really crazy all the time. That checks out, right?

13.   As a culture, we should be preparing for the Next Big Thing. Where do you think it's gonna come from, and what do you think it's going to be?

14.   The crazy Eris-worshippers mentioned above, called Discordians, are convinced that there are a lot of cabbages in our midst, masquerading as humans.

15.   People who live on this planet a few hundred years from now will think us antiquated and primitive for believing in things like atoms, electrons, gravity, and that any religion is the one true religion.

16.   Rather than trying to identify the cabbages, which are plentiful, Discordians try to identify the real human beings, which are increasingly rare.

17.   Human beings have some idiosyncrasies which distinguishes them from cabbages.

18.   If there were a LOT of cabbages in our midst, human idiosyncrasies would seem uncommon, weird, or strange. Some human beings would avoid displaying these quirks, thinking that they were abnormal behaviors.

19.   Item number 6 is absolutely true.

20.   One important human idiosyncrasy is the ability to think for oneself. Human beings can come up with new ideas, make their own decisions, and form their own opinions.

21.   Cabbages cannot do these things, so they borrow ideas, decisions, and opinions from the consensus. They,Äôre hard to identify because they sound just like everybody else.

22.   If the US Constitution does not permit people to make their own decisions about their lives, it,Äôs not worth the hemp it was written on.

23.   Even though this is all complete garbage, at least it killed some time, right?

Hey, what,Äôs the big idea?
PrincipiaDiscordia.com,
BlackIronPrison.com,
and goatse goatse goatse!

[Tip:]

Tip: search for

Code Select Expand

:potd:

It's tricky because you're looking at them out of context. Here's what I dug up

I heard of a cool new recipe for egg nog.
Bourbon and ice cubes.

In other news, Christianity is still popular.

YEP.

I'M GONNA GO SEE WHAT I CAN FIT IN MY ASS.

NO ITZ NOT! ONLY WHITE PEEPLE CAN BE RACIST!
\

The very idea makes me as giddy as a Japanese schoolgirl with a "get out of tentacle rape free" card.

build a huge 23 out of plexiglas

erect it somewhere on a big square

and fill it with cats

PECK HIM IN THA NADS!
IN THAAAA NAAAAAADS!@~!@~!!!~
\

WAYSA?

CHEF D,
THINKS YUO SHOULD STICK TO SMIRNOFF ICE

It's waking up


Total number of Internet Users, Worldwide: 1,114,274,426 (citation)
   

The human brain contains more than 100 billion neurons, each linked to as many as 10,000 others.


That means the Internet has 1% as many users as a brain has cells. That sounds like quite a difference, but the Internet is still very young. And the Internet doesn,Äôt need as many users as a brain has cells to achieve a similar or higher level of complexity. Users are, after all, much more complex than singular neurons.

Look at it this way:

versus



Each website on the Internet is reflexive of and responsive to the intelligences which view it. If you look at the whole gestalt picture of the Internet, you'd see a pretty fair representation of each culture's values, of the things it feels are important. Each node on the web is connected to a human brain, so the real size of the Internet is really the Internet plus all the people who connect to it. I think that the Internet, at this point, is more complex than the human brain. This is the information age, and the sheer size of it is staggering.

But the Internet is too big to see. Our browser windows are tiny hands, trying to feel the shape of an impossibly large elephant. An elephant whose shape shifts and drifts and changes like cloud forms. In these clouds we can see the shapes of human things, like intelligence. We can talk about the Internet in terms of what it wants, what it likes, how it moves and breathes and undergoes mitosis.

It,Äôs like that Buddhist metaphor for the universe. The universe is a net, and at the lattices there are jewels. In each jewel there is a reflection of the whole net, including the other jewels and the myriad images reflected in them.

If you visualize the shape of this Internet thing, you'd have to view a vast electrical network, with a geography of scintillating light not unlike an CAT scan, lighting up like a sleeping brain.



Looking at these electrical ley lines from space, you'd see them light up with activity as the day goes on. At 9 AM there,Äôs a buzz as everyone checks their e-mail. That buzz flashes by in chunks, timezone by timezone. There,Äôs an iridescent glow of people checking the weather on Friday right before the weekend. This follows complex fractillian patterns linked to the climate and how gorgeous its gonna be this Saturday.

Each one of us makes a wave in the beast in the exact shape of our personality. We,Äôre wandering from the post office to the amazon. We stand at an index of social consensus, then get distracted by overhead faceshots of potential sex partners, socio-sexually indexed by apparent availability. But it's not US that's being graphed onto the Internet, it's our wants. It's our needs. It's a profile of our interests, spending signatures, bandwith composed of bits of ip addresses, numeric fingerprints, leaving smudges, shaping the nearly liquid form of the great glass beast. The great glass capital I. The Internet is the capital city of knowledge. It used to be in books and in conversations and now it,Äôs in data pulsing rhythmic code.

This Internet God is waking up and its starting to understand what it is. The Internet is growing. We,Äôre no longer steering it, it,Äôs too big, now it,Äôs steering us. The Internet,Äôs nodes have the same properties as amino acids. As they stew in the primordial soup, they,Äôre forming something like DNA. They,Äôre forming double-helixes of memetic structure. The memes are self-modifying, self-replicating. They're reproducing according to the principles of natural selection. If you want an example of how evolution works, just look at wikipedia.

But there are people who have leashes on it. Net neutrality. Copyright law. The commercialization of something that was once just a communication medium. The Internet might grow up thinking it,Äôs something like TV. But it's already way bigger than those britches.




In India, they tether baby elephants to trees with thin cords. The baby elephants are too weak to break the restraints. But people use the same cords to tether adult elephants. As the elephant grew up, it never learned that it was strong enough to break those tethers. But ultimately, it,Äôs just a matter of time and will. And that,Äôs two things the internet has on its side.

If, as you were reading this, someone shot you in the back and you only had time to type a brief reply before keeling over dead, what would your last words be?



aaaand
BANG!

Here are my thoughts this morning about idea thresholds, subtelty, and subversion



1 ---------------------- 10
least                        most
receptive                  receptive
to new ideas            to new ideas
(neophobes)              (neophiles)

Everyone falls somewhere on this scale, and it varies over the course of the day. At one end we have those incredibly open-minded people who are interested in everything. In some ways they're the easiest to influence because they have a high threshold. At the other end of the scale we have the closed mindstate, which is dismissive of mental intrusions and breaches.

Pamphlets, memes, ideas, the virii we spread. When you encounter an ideological breach, the likelihood that you let it past your threshold and think about it is a function of your tolerance, and the conductibility of that idea. Big breaches have difficulty making it past threshold. Ideas that are subtle and sexy easily slip past one's defenses. That's memetics.

Consider, once again, the guy on the subway. He's on his way to Point B, listening to his iMeme, and probably has the world tuned out. When he sits down, there's a pamphlet on his seat. Small type, no pictures, sort of preachy. If he even picked it up, he pretty much ignored it. You would too. And it's too bad, because the pamphlet is fucking brilliant.

Remember Roger's sermon about how the subversive need a good cover? It's true, you can't influence people if you look like a freak to them. And when shit goes down, the freaks will be the first with their backs against the wall. Ideas work the same way. Big flashy revolutionary ideas are easily dismissed. The subtle, the sexy, they make it through threshold.

We've talked about how we shouldn't dilute our message too much for the grays. For sure, some people just can't be saved. And who would want to save them anyway? Personally, I think the neophiles already are saved, to some extent. It's a lot easier to get them fired up because they LIKE new ideas and they LIKE to evolve. They're not afraid of change or thought. They need a jostling now and then, but they're generally moving within the crowd, not with the crowd.

This morning I was putting up 5160-size stickers that I made out of the meme bomb thread. I had put up about a dozen of them in the train station. I doubled back at some point and noticed that a sticker I had put up 2 minutes ago was gone. Later on, a guy approached me right before I got on the bus, handed me a sticker I had just put up on the bus stop, and said something like "put these in your house or something, but don't clutter up public spaces with them". I just sort of nodded and tuned him out, but I thought about it for a while.

In fact, I'm sort of pleased by his reaction. Those stickers (not the messages on them, but the perception of graffiti) woke him up and caused him to interact with his environment. Numerous other people saw me putting them up and just ignored them. This guy seemed to care about something. This guy took a risk and talked to me. He wasn't just a passive observer. And bravo to that. Even though the specific message was lost, the stickers did sort of have their intended effect.

So...

Maybe the "wake the fuck up" message shouldn't be so literal. The Principia disguises itself as a joke, and that's how it gets past people's defenses. I'm not suggesting that we rewrite and retune our entire efforts, but that we should keep this vibe in mind.

One of my favorite stickers in the whole set is SillyCybin's meme "Congradulations, you've just found Clue #3! The man in the green jacket will tell you what to do next." If I found that sticker in public I'd be tickled - am I in the middle of some cool game? Are there other clues I should be looking for? It rewards people for being aware. It suggests something's going on which might be invisible to the casual observer.

Maybe the best way to get people to think hard about the Black Iron Prison pamphlet is to destroy it. Like a flyer with the URL of the BIP wiki and a suggestion to "STOP THIS BULLSHIT NOW". Write rants against it. Tear it apart. In trying to figure out what you're talking about, people will have to absorb the material. We've snuck in the message without trying directly to sell it to them.

This what Discordians against Discordia is all about. The Concordia movement appeals to Christians and actually invites them to learn more about our heathen cult. It's exactly the cover our subversion needs.

Or maybe all this just means that our memes should be disguised as regular things. Make our flyers look like regular advertisements. Put sexy swimsuit models on them. Subtelty through commercialization.

It might be easier to get under the skin if we try not to pierce it.

[Mission statement:]

This thread is for discussion about the magazine we've been talking about all week. Even if our idea hasn't coalesced into something solid yet, we have a LOT of good discussion and good energy. I do feel we're capable of producing something that we'd all enjoy, and by proxy other Discordians would enjoy. So let's have at it in ernest!

I'm volunteering to step into an editor position. I don't want to do it alone - one or two more co-editors (at most) are necessary so that if I get IRL busy/distracted/high on power/completely batshit, the project won't get left behind.

All the stuff is still in the discussion phase, so feel free to inject your hot steamy thoughts wherever you'd like into this thread's body.

[Discordia Magazine Title]
(title pending)

Mission statement:

Discord Magazine seeks to prove that Discordia is alive and well. It's is a sampling of what's going on right now in Discordian culture. It will examine current trends and themes present in the Discordian 'stream.

Target Audience:
Discordians. It would be nice if other people could pick up an issue and enjoy it as well, but for the most part the magazine is "for Discordians by Discordians"

Article Brainstorm List

• Robert Anton Wilson's Funeral - there was a ceremony for him a few weeks ago in California. So far, there's been no coverage of it. We'll talk to some people who were there and report on it.
• Threadjack: A column about Discordians on the internet. One idea I had would be to interview moderators of the major Discordian forums and get them to compare / contrast their boards
• Movie Review: The Number 23
• Eris vs Wikipedia: The Wikipedia entry on Discordian Works has stirred up a lot of controversy recently. In short: because Discordia is so decentralized, and no one / everyone is an "authority", the editors are having trouble figuring out which books should go in the wiki entry and which books are just crap some guy's published. Reverend Uncle BadTouch has been in the front lines of this battle, it'd probably be nice to get some words from him.
• Cabal Spotlight: a column in which we'll look at a real-life Discordian cabal and see what they're all about
• Sticking Apart: A column in which two Discordians argue with each other about some topic   
• The Flying Spaghetti Monster: an article which canonizes our new patron saint. It's about time some Discordians made some sort of "official" notice that he's in our pantheon now
• Jake Contest - ? I dunno, sounds like a cool idea. We could get Discordians from various other factions to compete or something
• Tract Marks - Discordian lit review.. this might be merged with the Wikipedia article
• The Pulpit - a section in which we'll publish 2-4 rants, sermons, or essays written by honest-to-goddess Discordians. This is the part of the mag where we're allowed to be all preachy grabass

What's the magazine going to be called? here's a few suggestions:

• Discordja Magazine - KISS
• Eristocracy
• Eristocracy Now! - sounds like a political mag, but the Discordians will get it
• The Even Greater Poop - a reference to the Greater Poop, a fictional (?) magazine in the principia

What we need now:
People to sign up to write the above articles. If you want to take one, call dibbs so we don't get five people writing movie reviews. These things should be roughly 2000  - 4000 words. Less is okay too. Whatever we decide on as the "cover" article can be longer.

The above articles are just suggestions - if you have a great idea for an article, Go For It

We need someone to do layout and design

We need someone to find / make graphics and images

Although we'll surely disagree about a lot of stuff, we need to make sure we're all basically on the same page... the collective intelligence of this forum is much greater than the sum of its parts.



let's not talk about funding and actually printing it until we have some substance. I expect issue 1 will be in PDF only unless some crazy magic happens.

[Page One:]

Page One:
Some awesome image or something

Page Two:
Congratulations!

Most of the people who saw this thing did NOT pick it up. They did NOT open it. And they did NOT receive the praise with which I am now spraying you. You kick ass! Why is that?

You, my friend, are one of the chosen few. You are awake enough to take notice of your surroundings. If you were a wild animal, (and I'm sure you are!) you'd have a better chance to survive than all of them. Look around, man, most of them are asleep. Or at least they act like it.

And they're asleep for good reason - there's no reward for being awake, for being conscious of what's going on around you. Most of them are bored and miserable. Maybe you are too.

Hey, if you're satisfied with your life, good for you. Me, I can't sleep at night sometimes because I have this feeling that my life could be so much cooler if only I could figure out how to make it that way. I want to go to bed every night thinking, "That was great. I did not waste a single minute of that day." Don't you?


Page Three:

A lot of people feel like they're trapped in their lives. I know that sometimes I wake up and realize that I've been in a rut for what seems like years. It's easy to get lulled to sleep by The Routine. The Rut and Grind. The Machine. I know a lot of people who are miserable but are complacent with it. What a tragedy! They insist that they don't have the time or resources to enjoy life anymore.

These people view themselves as victims of society. They're bored and boring, because they feel their lives are ultimately out of their control.

We let the minutes of our day be determined by train and bus schedules, by the nine-to-five grind. We let our bodies drive us through biological rhythms of hunger, fatigue, and sexual release. But you've gotta trust me when I say you can escape all that if you just learn to be aware of it. Yeah, you still have to go to work, but its not a prison sentence.

Cause I mean, even hamsters who live in little glass boxes manage to have fun.





Page Four:

I want to be really straight-up about my goal.

I believe in the butterfly effect - the idea that really little things can ultimately cause great changes in the world. I,Äôm afraid for humanity, and this is why: I meet very few people that seem to be awake and conscious. Very few people have learned how to use their own brain. Very few people seem to be thinking about their own thoughts ,Äì they,Äôre just passive participants in the world. They hear opinions on TV and those opinions become their own. Think for yourself, damn it!

Today, tomorrow, forever, remember to be aware. Look around at your surroundings and ask yourself why you,Äôre doing what you,Äôre doing. You might be satisfied, and if you are, that,Äôs fine. But I really do want you to change the parts of yourself that you aren,Äôt satisfied with. Ignite yourself! While there,Äôs still time!

I want you to be aware of what,Äôs wrong with your day, your life, your world. Then I want you to do something about it. 

Cause if you don,Äôt do something about it, it,Äôs gonna be like this forever.

You can,Äôt just keep waiting for things to happen to you. You,Äôve gotta go out and do them yourself.

If this was a movie, would you be a character in it? Or just an extra?

Be an active force in the world, not a passive one.




Little one liners for margins:

As I write this pamphlet, I ask myself why I,Äôm doing this. It,Äôs to become rich and famous, right?

I can,Äôt come up with anything else at the moment.

The above line won,Äôt make it to print. But maybe this one will.

there should be some meme-bombs in here. Preferably a rhyming one that'll get stuck in your head.

Can I make a topic / project suggestion?

I've been quietly observing the reactions of people who pick up the various pamphlets and whatnot that I've left lying around, and their reactions are usually pretty brief. Most of the time, they look at it, flip through it, maybe read a paragraph or two, then put it back down. I think this is symptomatic of these texts being somewhat inaccessible to random strangers, and the generally short attention span of people in transit. There are people, sure, who will pick up the BIP pamphlet (for example) and it'll fry their brains (in a good way). But those people, I think, are already trying to wake up.

I'd love to hand out something with a very broad audience. Something that even fingerlicking mouthbreathers can appreciate, even if they just skim it and leave it on the seat when they leave.

Here's what I think this imaginary pamphlet would look like:

-the cover would be a graphic, with maybe a question that entices strangers to pick it up. Then, it rewards them for picking it up by saying something like "most people didn't pick this thing up, but you did. Good for you, you're more awake than them!"
-the pamphlets starts off very fluffy - mostly jokes and crap at the beginning. This sort of hooks them in and lowers their defenses.
-after sufficient buildup, it would climax with a rant or sermon which sums up the whole point
-like the Principia, there'd be lots of jokes and graphics and whatnot which make it visually and comically appealing, and ensures that its interesting even if the reader isn't into thinking about thought or whatnot.

overall,
-the text wouldn't be too dense or too cumbersome. The whole thing would be like four pages or less. This is sort of a single-serving sermon. A sample, not The Big Picture.

also: I think there should be some sort of rhyming meme in there which will get stuck in your head.


I'm not sure if something like this has already been discussed or perhaps I'm beating a dead horse. What do you folks think?

Hey dudes et al, is there a list of projects that are active or semi-active on these boards right now?


failing that, could you guys list the projects that are active or semi-active on these boards right now?






ps I like this guy's pipe

[My Report on the Black Iron Prison Project]

Preamble: This was a difficult review to write. Warring in my head are three points of view,Äî

• The Discordian who wants to Wake Up and to Wake Up everyone around him
• The random guy on the bus who found the pamphlets I left him
• A devil,Äôs advocate that dissects things on principle. Toro! Toro!

These guys disagree on just about everything, so my opinions may not appear fully consistent. I apologize in advance for the length of this post, but I wanted to be thorough as a service to the project.



My Report on the Black Iron Prison Project
by Cramulus, Professor Emeritus, basically some guy

Abstract:
Overall, the BIP pamphlet carries a strong message, which is extremely useful to those trapped in sleepwalker mode. However, it suffers from poor packaging - its ideas are presented in a way which may repel the casual reader or random pedestrian. Overall, I am hopeful that this, and future incarnations of the project will be effective in shaking the public.

In short:
If people could just realize how stupid they are, they,Äôd stop being so stupid!

Article:
I love the Black Iron Prison pamphlet. With the assistance of the OBNOXIOUS JERK CABAL, I've spent years putting together and passing out subversive / enlightening pamphlets, posters, and public performance. I've handed out my own stuff (total crap), and a great deal of stuff that other people have created. (most of it total crap) The BIP pamphlet succeeds where many other Discordian / Illuminating tracts fail - it felt like a slap in the face, even to someone who thinks he's got a toehold on figuring out this fractillian merry-go-round. And I thought I WAS awake!

But I think the BIP suffers from poor packaging. The format in which these ideas are presented, unfortunately, make them less palatable. I understand that you're trying to be really open and translucent about what the motivation of the pamphlet is. I can smell the lack of manipulation, and it smells good - the intent seems to be to give people the tools and let them figure out reality on their own. That rocks. But the tone is often condescending, intentionally offensive, cynical, and in many places shows contempt for the reader. There are likely people who were digging the pamphlet, or were on the border of getting the "point", until it got really Righteous. At that point, it's easy to classify it as the same sort of propaganda Jehovah,Äôs Witnesses hand out. Citation?

• Page 16-17 sets up the same "us" versus "them" mentality that mainstream religions and cults use to foster an in-group mentality. Midway down page 17, the author refers to "them" as "these beings"... Personally I react very negatively to dehumanizing the opposition. It's very Holier-Than-Thou and it stinks. More Us v Them on page 26. Are "they" the enemy or the people you're trying to "wake up"?


• page 21-22 is a lot of seething contempt for the general public, which presumably includes the reader and friends ("What is it with you people?"). I understand that this particular passage is trying to shake people into making their own decisions about pop culture et al, but if the target audience is people who do like QPCs and American Idol (the sleepers), you,Äôre not going to crack the ice by shouting the word sheep at them over and over again.


• Page 5 suffers from the same problem. It,Äôs like ,ÄúYou people, OR SHALL I SAY SHEEPLE might learn a thing or two if you listen to me. Stop being such comatose slugs!,Äù The implication is that the writers have it all figured out (even if they later say that they don,Äôt). If the reader agrees with the writers and does what they tell him, he,Äôll become a higher class of being too. Evangelical? Perhaps. Does this read like goth poetry? At times.

Certain parts of the pamphlet are pure gold. Among them:

The anecdote on page 3-4 reminds me of (sorry) a Hagbard Celine quote  "You're still trapped in thinking of it as left versus right. We're up versus down!" Hell yeah! (Unfortunately this point is almost sacrificed by appealing to liberals against conservatives on p25)

Page 7 is also really well written. It explains WHY you,Äôd want to see the BIP. The 7th-8th paragraphs are the real meat here. ,Äú,Ķthe more people are able to think for themselves, the less willing they become to exhaust themselves at someone else,Äôs command,Ķ,Äù Its either rare or well done, depending on how you like your meat.

Page 9 says ,ÄúThe time has come for you to start thinking for yourself.,Äù That,Äôs kallisti-gold on the page and couldn,Äôt be printed bold enough.

The description of the nature of The Machine,Ñ¢ on page 10 makes me want to stand up and shout HELL YEAH. I showed this to a Discordian friend while stinking drunk, and days later, this is the only paragraph he could remember about it. Particularly the part about focusing on the component parts rather than the whole picture.

Page 12 has a line: ,ÄúThe notion that some nebulous group is out there subverting people with imagery and printed words designed to alter moods and behaviors is simply science fiction of the wildest, most escapist variety.,Äù This is some delicious self-reference.

As I read, I wondered,Ķ If it,Äôs worth it to be self-liberated and self-aware, why do the writers sound so pissed off and frustrated? I mean, you,Äôre trying to sell us freedom, but the tone of the pamphlet sounds like the authors are a bunch of brooding, bitter, cigarette smoking, echoes of Tyler Durden. Is that the reality I want? Well the longer paragraph at the bottom page 15 addresses the question Why Bother. That Why Bother is a big selling point and shouldn,Äôt be ignored.

The way page 16 ends in a couplet (,ÄúWe call it pollution, toxicity. It takes many forms and it,Äôs increasing rapidly,Äù) is really tight. It has a sort of lyrical quality to it which resonates well with me.


Page 19 ends with ,ÄúIf you accept that as truth, I wonder what you will believe when you are eventually convinced that it is a lie.,Äù BaBAM, kickass finishing move. I think p 18-19 is a really great spread.

The Herman Hesse quote on 23 is seriously hot shit. I think it,Äôs the most important part of the whole pamphlet. p23-24 is pure poetry. I especially like the line ,ÄúPissing all over someone else for doing something you don,Äôt personally approve of is MORE pointless than how pointless you think what they,Äôre doing is!,Äù

Page 25-26 is really tight. It,Äôs really nice to see a concrete example to support all the metaphor.

Inconsistent Audience:

I had trouble figuring out who this pamphlet is addressed to. If it,Äôs addressed to random people on the street who pick up the pamphlet, it should omit the stuff aimed specifically at Discordians and SubGs.

The target audience is definitely ,Äúthe public,Äù on page 8.
The target audience is definitely ,ÄúDiscordians,Äù (and their ilk) on page 12.
The target is People on the Web on page 23 (,Äú,Ķhere on this website, talking about this goddess,Ķ,Äù)

Generally the tone flips between adding nuance to already established Discordian issues (like the Machine and the Con), and trying to shake up people who are pinned to their sofas. These are two different audiences, two slightly different messages, and I think they should be approached in separate (but equal) ways. Trying to cover the whole spread in one pamphlet decreases the effectiveness of both. For example: Most Discordians feel (perhaps incorrectly) that they,Äôve left the couch. Maybe you can convince them otherwise. But be clear ,Äì when I first read the pamphlet I (in part) thought ,Äúoh, they,Äôre talking to fingerlicking mouthbreathers, not me. I already hate American Idol.,Äù




Miscellaneous Stuff I Don,Äôt Like
The introduction on page 2,Ķ I don,Äôt like it. I don,Äôt think it does a good job at describing exactly what the prison is. ,ÄúIt,Äôs your life, it,Äôs the cold trap of your existence.,Äù (that line made me hurk a little ,Äì I think it reads like teen goth poetry). So how exactly is that a prison and why should I hate it? Note - I think I understand what you,Äôre talking about, and I,Äôm not asking for an answer ,Äì I,Äôm just pointing out how the guy on the bus may feel about this vitriol. The first page of text is the make-it-or-break-it page of the whole pamphlet, and it,Äôs basically only frustration and metaphor. It needs something concrete to anchor.

It,Äôs possible to explain the two man con on page 4 without making the reader feel stupid for not having read American Gods. Likewise page 26 references Kant, Hume, and Locke, who are probably strangers to those people on the train.

The ,ÄúTUC,Äù mentioned on the bottom of page 5,Ķ what does that stand for? I,Äôd either spell it out or delete it. Same with SSOOKN.

This may be purely a matter of taste,Ķ
Page 14 begins by attempting to describe TEH NATURE OF REALITY. I hurk a little bit every time someone else tries to ,Äúexplain,Äù reality to me. That passage goes on to very effectively argue that we ignore / are unaware of most of reality. But then the consecutive point on p15 is that there might be great fun in exploring the reality that,Äôs currently invisible to us. Though I,Äôm hip to the metaphor that,Äôs been set up, the passage literally suggests that there,Äôs great fun in being aware of my feet inside my shoes, and being aware of the post-it note barely visible in my peripheral vision. It,Äôs plausible that the dude on the bus missed the point with all the metaphor.

We all have a little chunk of brain at the top of the spine called the Reticular Formation which filters out unnecessary information, like the temperature inside my shoes, the sound of the fluorescent lights, the entire world when I,Äôm asleep, etc. I trust its decisions. Yeah, it,Äôs filtering out a LOT of information, but is that information relevant?

That big Why Bother question is answered several times throughout the pamphlet by demeaning the people who don,Äôt ,Äúget it,Äù. Citation: page 4, ,ÄúNot wanting to beat the shit out of very stupid people is hard work.,Äù The authors must be pretty smart to see all this stupidity! In answer to the question ,ÄòWhy bother?,Äô Because I want to be smart like you, can I send you a membership fee and jump behind your smart rebel label? :-P


Page 20 is mostly metaphor. I think the point gets lost without something concrete to anchor it.

Appearance:

There,Äôs a bit that can be done to make this pamphlet easier to read.

Page 6, paragraph 2. Should begin with ,ÄúYou,Äôre,Äù, not ,ÄúYour,Äù. Page 8, paragraph 2, I think it should be ,Äúensure,Äù not ,Äúinsure,Äù. Page 21, the SSOOKN quote should drop the word ,ÄúFor,Äù. I know, I know, that,Äôs really anal. But since its in print it should matter.

Some of the leaves are out of order. Maybe I,Äôm printing it wrong, or doing something dumb, but I tried a zillion different ways, and no matter how I paginate it, p18-19 is followed by p12-13, and p8-9 is followed by p16-17. Luckily, it doesn,Äôt really seem to matter.

I think the large blocks of text (read: the entire pamphlet) need to be broken up with some graphics or quotes or what-have-you. This is your opportunity to punch the reader right in the limbic system. Some lighter images could go a long way to soften the austere bitterness (unless you really like the bitterness ,Äì personally, I think it,Äôs unattractive). I know that this commutiny has no shortage of hysterical graphics.



Conclusion:

I,Äôm equally impressed by the BIP pamphlet as I am with the PD.com community. You guys have shaken off the mummy-wrappings of ancient Discordia and created a new episkipos which is, perhaps, even more radically free than previous incarnations. It was really refreshing to realize that there are people who are putting a new spin on Discordia, even though sometimes some seem to be a bunch of elitist, cantankerous, endearing assholes (you what I mean). Likewise the BIP perfectly reflects the commutiny ,Äì it,Äôll enlighten you ,Ķif you,Äôre tough enough to stomach it.

In My Humble Opinion it can use a bit of levity. What attracted me to Discord when I was something like 17 years old was that it was the first time someone tried to convince me of something important without cramming it down my throat. It tasted good so I swallowed it on my own. The humor and lack of self-importance is what (according to The Prankster and The Conspiracy) Greg and Kerry thought would save Discord from Dogma. And I don,Äôt just mean LAIL dada humor.  Maybe absurd silliness doesn,Äôt have a place in this document, but I for one would be able to take it more seriously if it didn,Äôt take itself so seriously.

And on that note I acknowledge that I am also quite full of shit. All of this long wind emanates, perhaps, from a narrow, stubborn mind. I sure couldn,Äôt do any better than you guys have done, but I,Äôm hoping that all this jazz will somehow help. Looking back on this post, I find it pleasantly absurd that my report on the BIP is approaching the length of the pamphlet itself. But whatever.

Um, I shall leave you with a llama,


A llama

What's the target audience of the BIP pamphlet?

Is it aimed at sleepwalking Discordians?
or at the general sleepwalking public?

[Professor Cramulus]

With All Due Respect,


Professor Cramulus
"An erect erection is insurrection!"