Pontificating, Teaching, Subverting or just Whacking Off?

[LMNO]

Tom & I are both in Boston, and have spent waaay too much time in the Goth/Fetish/Industrial scene.

Where IS that scene now that Man Ray is the site of (still unfinished) Cambridge Condos? I never see anything specific anymore and my ties to the Industrial scene have gone lax since I got involved in local hip-hop.

Also, our best bet is probably to recruit random people via a "girls gone wild" strategy: booze, cameras and release forms, and maybe a free hat (HIMEOBS of course).

The DJ and head bartender have Saturday nights upstairs at Axis for the New Wave Night.  Machine does an Industrial/Fetish night some Saturdays.  Xmortis is at TT the Bear's on occasional Fridays.  and Ceremony is at Tua An Nua on Mondays.


LMNO
-knows too much about this shit.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

Pope Tom still has some connections to the club kids, we can ask him.  I used to know a lot of people who were expressing their individuality via exhibitionism, but they grew out of it.

Club kids as in Michael Alig and James St. James? Or some post 90's group?

[LMNO]

Pope Tom still has some connections to the club kids, we can ask him.  I used to know a lot of people who were expressing their individuality via exhibitionism, but they grew out of it.

Club kids as in Michael Alig and James St. James? Or some post 90's group?

Tom & I are both in Boston, and have spent waaay too much time in the Goth/Fetish/Industrial scene.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

Damn, blast from the past!

Where were you in 1993?

[LMNO]

In Boston, looking at latex-clad tits in a dark & smokey club.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

Damn Boston!

Manhattan was where the scene was at

Not that I got to see it very often seeing as how I had to sneak out of the Watchtower Society complex in order to go play.

[LMNO]

NYC?


Bullshit.

Everytime the fetish troupes went to NYC, they blew those fashion victims out of the water.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

 

[Triple Zero]

B U M P

imo this has been the most win thread in the BIP forum with the most impressive fresh new ideas for a while.

(of course they were written up by a relatively new n00b, that only makes sense)

I have not commented much on the BIP because I determined to read it from Cover to Cover (which involved a lot of paging about since its in flyer format). However, now that I've finished it (and reread it) I had a couple observations.

First, I suppose I would need to understand the spirit in which it was written, particularly the goals of its writers. Based on other comments hereabout, I was under the assumption that perhaps the BIP was seen as a way of pushing forward some of the popular philosophies held by many Discordians. However, what I read was more of a political/social rant which doesn't look much different from many blogs these days. Should I be looking at BIP as rants, or as propaganda? (Is the audience existing Discordians/Anarchists or Pinks/Cabbages/Thuddites that you wish to thwack open?)

Second, the format feels very ordered. While I don't think that there's a need to do cut-up method for all Discordian works, the overall feel was of a single linear series of rants, preached at an individual, rather than a discourse of philosophy, discussion of models/ideas or anything like that.

Third, there may be some value in examining the perspective... there appear lots of "I think", "I know", "You are" sort of statements, which make the overall feel of the document preachy. Maybe that will work... in my experience though it tends to fall flat.

Observation: In the 1960's when Omar and Mal were working on the PD, the written word was the best form of communication (for the sort of communication they were forming). They used guerrilla publishing and distribution to push their ideas out. In such, they utilized Burroughs's Cut Up method to make their writing very different than the normal writing (for comparison, check out some of the pamphlets being pushed by Chomsky and others during that time). This, I think, was very important. In several of Bob's books and the PD (and a lot of other stuff written by the early proto-discordians), the writing style intentionally breaks from the 'normal' writing style. This makes the read more 'discordant', it makes the read more memorable (I will never forget the telegram to Jehova) and (most important in my opinion), the cut up method plays tricks in the synapses. When the brain doesn't get what it expects, it gets surprised. Surprise information tends to stick in the brain more effectively than expected information. Further, assuming that Leary's theories were, in any way, shocks can also induce meta-programming opportunities. This seems to have been the goal of Mal, Omar and the gang and I've found that it does seem to work (in some sense) in many cases.

However, when reading BIP, it felt just like a Noam Chomsky, Libertarian or similar pamphlet. It had good information, but there was no style, no panache, no finesse.... Good points for the content, but low marks on presentation and use of today's secret ingredient. Remember, any written work can tell someone where to go, but a good one can tell someone where to go and make them look forward to it.

The very first time I read the PD, I had moments of shocking awareness. This wasn't due to the Illumination within the PD, but rather the PD's interaction with my brain... it didn't teach me something new, it just flashed something I should have realized in front of my face and then went on its merry way. Moments later, my brain caught up and said "OH!". The PD is manipulative in its writing, not willing to just lay out the data, but it hides the data in chocolate so you'll eat it before you know what's good for you.

We no longer live in the era of the printed page. We live in a time when data is interactively processed by individuals, nearly simultaneously, complete with multimedia support and LULZ. Maybe a modern revisitation to the PD would be better processed in a new and different format (Maybe weekly YouTube posts or something of that nature). If you want to stick to written work, then I think you may want to find a format that appeals to the modern reader which I'm not sure you've done yet.

I'm sure I'll have more thoughts, but I felt that getting the overall intention would probably be the best first step... so is BIP intended to be more:

Pontificating, Teaching, Subverting or just good ol' Whacking Off?


Ratatosk, Squirrel of Discord
Muncher of The ChaoAcorn
Chatterer of the Words of Eris
POEE of The Great Googlie Mooglie Cabal

holy fuk

that's a way of looking at the PD i hadn't considered yet.

it does make me feel we might have kinda missed the target with the BIP pamphlet in that perspective
(btw i don't want to dismiss the original BIP pamphlet here, it has its own definite value in its own right)

ok considering this, we are facing some interesting challenges:

- there's hundreds of different forms of communication out there and indeed, print form might not be the most effective one anymore.
- we have the talent among us to make some interesting new use out of these communication channels, something that hits people from an unexpected angle, and shake them up.
- on the downside, new memes are being created every day over the entire internet, and interest stuff is short-lived
- on the upside, somebody discovering a year-old meme for the first time, often still enjoys it
- uh

interesting and different ways of communication this board has produced so far:

- Silly's upsidedown faces
- Cram's newspaper articles
- the Wrath of MSPaint Cabal's work
- TROLLING other messageboards
- LMNO/Earfatigue voice rants and POEEcasts (though IMO those could be *immensely* improved if Silly were to slap *any* sort of video or whatever behind those and publish on Youtube, for great instant exposure)
- some HIMEOBS tech (RSVP)
- ..

one thing, i think augmenting the LMNO/POEEcasts with a simple sort of video (talking head with appropriate background, whatever) and putting it up on youtube, would increase their audience a LOT. for starters, the sound quality is already a lot better than the average thing you find on youtube, so having a simplistic video going along with it is probably easiest. people want something moving to look at while listening to talking, otherwise their attention is gone like that. anything that moves. srsly.

addition: boobies

[Forteetu]

B U M P

imo this has been the most win thread in the BIP forum with the most impressive fresh new ideas for a while.

(of course they were written up by a relatively new n00b, that only makes sense)

mucho breakfast strudels to the writer of those posts

I've had similar thoughts in the "new medium" of getting the message out which is the basic motivation for the first couple vids I've done so far.

I'll throw in the mix to this party.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

holy fuk

that's a way of looking at the PD i hadn't considered yet.

it does make me feel we might have kinda missed the target with the BIP pamphlet in that perspective
(btw i don't want to dismiss the original BIP pamphlet here, it has its own definite value in its own right)

ok considering this, we are facing some interesting challenges:

- there's hundreds of different forms of communication out there and indeed, print form might not be the most effective one anymore.
- we have the talent among us to make some interesting new use out of these communication channels, something that hits people from an unexpected angle, and shake them up.
- on the downside, new memes are being created every day over the entire internet, and interest stuff is short-lived
- on the upside, somebody discovering a year-old meme for the first time, often still enjoys it
- uh

Well, I didn't originally look at the PD that way... I thought its style was simply nonsense style. Once I read Illuminatus! I realized that there was some trick being played on my brain, but I didn't really put it all together until I had read and correlated the information in Quantum Psychology, Prometheus Rising, The Historical Illuminatus Chronicles (a must read to catch the psychological programming tricks), and the Cosmic Trigger Series. All of that together (with Angel Tech and InfoPsychology) created in my mind an environment which I think may have been in the minds of Hill, Kerry etc. I've found a lot of interesting patterns in the data (and it may all be in my head), but it does appear to me that Wilson and company were specifically trying to play in our minds with this style.

Leary, when you look at his early work, seemed to have a pretty good handle on how brain washing worked. Wilson, from a philosophical position saw these basic brainwashing (programming) techniques used by societies on their children. This further extended then to connect Antero Alli's research on ritual (looking at psychological/physiological effects of the ritual, rather than some supernatural base). Alli considers ritual as a programming tool. Wilson seems to have connected this to rituals among the Freemasons and the Historical Chronicles basically appear as a study of how these rituals might have worked. One book I haven't mentioned, but really seems key to the whole paradigm is "Masks of The Illuminati", we get a very interesting view of how Bob felt that ritual could be used to change people's perceptions.

After processing all of that, I went back and reread the PD and Illuminatus!, in both cases I tried to look for intentional programming (assuming that I wasn't just seeing patterns for my prover to fit my thinker). It seems to me that there are a couple key tricks used. (I'm a hacker, please excuse the metaphors)


1) The Buffer Overflow - In computer lingo, a buffer overflow means that you stick more data in an area than should go there. When that happens sometimes the system pukes the data into a different area, if that different area has higher privileges... then you might be able to execute a command that you shouldn't be able to. In mental metaprogramming we see a similar kind of thing. A deluge of information which may be of questionable value, then right around the end (when your brain has started puking the data back up a bit) there's the actual programming. This seems to occasionally work and I've seen such tricks documented as part of cult brainwashing and even among members of the intelligence community.

In the PD and TIT this seems to happen in many of the insane runon paragraphs (some excellent examples in Schroedinger's Cat as well). Numerous times there will be a mass of words that may or may not be saying anything useful... but right toward the end there's a key philosophical point which I think our brains are intended to simply pick up. The great imagry from TIT where we see the painting of Moses on Hagbard's submarine. After trivial statements, blah descriptions etc. there's that great line about the One commandment that Moses is pictured with "Think For Yourself, Schmuck!"

2) Injection Attacks - Injection attacks happen when you expect some data and instead get data + commands. In computers, if you expect the user to type their username and they actually type "username' or '1=1 " the computer (if its not looking for it) will process the data as "SELECT user where their username =username or 1=1" Well 1 always equals 1 so the attacker can now log in with no password. In a similar vein, some of the metaprogramming tricks I think I see appear similar. We get expected results, with superfluous data... the superfluous data is the actual payload.

I think Hypoc and the Bitter Tea might be an example where this is used. Also, perhaps in the Sermon on Ethics and Love.

3) Unexpected Response - Sometimes systems will get terribly confused if you provide them with unexpected information/commands/etc. In hypnosis there are a few tricks that make use of this with subjects. One, for example involves preping the user over a period of time to know what to expect in a hypnotic state, then eventually an unexpected response. For example, the hypnotist may extend his hand and as the person goes to shake it, they take their hand away. If the person has been placed in the right state of mind already, this can cause their neurological system to appear to simply drop into a wait state. Again, this same sort of trickery appears in both PD and Illuminatus!

This appears more often in some of Bob's later work, though I think we could connect a few of the PD parables here. In Schrodinger's Cat, I think the first one I noticed was his destruction of the planet at the end of the first couple chapters (or was it the first chapter?)

In short, I think these little mental tricks are one of the key things that keep the PD relevant. Even if you don't get all of the period references, the mental programming still works.

Of course, I may be full of Bullshit (but it makes the flowers grow yadda, yadda, yadda)

[stromcrow]

If anyone else does, however, then let me know and I'll jump right on it.

why not take short sequences of other videos (maybe currently popular youtube videos) and put some meme bombs into it, just as text over the image. so people would be bombarded with information via three layers: the audio, the images, the text.

this is where i got the ideas from. unfortunately it's german and i don't know if there's some similar tv show in the us/uk; but maybe you're getting the idea, or the inspiration. they're talking about the theory of relativity....
http://youtube.com/watch?v=MFg2L_B3Lgc

[Cramulus]

, Ratatosk

[Forteetu]

why not take short sequences of other videos (maybe currently popular youtube videos) and put some meme bombs into it, just as text over the image. so people would be bombarded with information via three layers: the audio, the images, the text.

this is where i got the ideas from. unfortunately it's german and i don't know if there's some similar tv show in the us/uk; but maybe you're getting the idea, or the inspiration. they're talking about the theory of relativity....
http://youtube.com/watch?v=MFg2L_B3Lgc

there's heaps of ideas being kicked around for vid clips. i do think it is a great new medium to include in the campaign

Silly's new forum at  http://p3nt4gr4m.com/boards/ ; looks to be a promising new place to hold these discussions


fixdidit, cuz i'm an idiot

[LMNO]

Rat, that was an awesome analysis.

Could you explain #2 a bit more?