The Sacred Chao Te Ching

[hooplala]

You don't understand what "free" means?

Is this another one of your episodes where you just didn't realize you were baiting people or are you aware of how douchey you sound by asking that question, considering what just happened with Intermittens?

Perhaps you didn't realize that I'm one of the people who think that entire episode was douchey, as was dragging it into this conversation in the first place.

[Bu🤠ns]

Tao or GTFO, respectfully.

[hooplala]

Agreed.  Sorry for the derailment.

[Lies]

Holy chao you guys did a lot fast.

[LMNO]

I was on a roll.  In the 60s now.

[Bu🤠ns]

heh, i can't keep up with him.

[Telarus]

Holycrap. Well, at least I can help you guys edit.

[Bu🤠ns]

Even though LMNO has ripped through them, I think I'm still going to do a few them for my own edification. 

[LMNO]

I lost a little steam in the higher chapters.  Feel free to chip in, I want to get the first pass done by the end of the week, at the latest.

[LMNO]

Did I say end of the week?

I meant end of the day.


LMNO
-on the last 11 as we speak.

[LMNO]

[triple post]

Ok, it's done.

SUGGESTION FOR EDITING:

Now that we have stolen the structure of the Tao te Ching to hang our thoughts on it, I propose to delete the original translations.

That way, we can focus on what our version is trying to say, rather than seeing how closely it matches the "original".

For me, it doesn't matter if we get some drift, it only matters that we get our ideas right.


All those interested in editing, please respond to this.

[Cramulus]

interested. I just have too much on my plate ATM to give it as much attention as I'd like. I'm glad to see the initial draft completed! I will make some edits, but I can't promise full investiture.

I support your notion of removing the original translations. We can always re-look them up if we have a chapter which seems too  ""

Since you've written the bulk of these -- how do you feel about it? What themes did you manage to capture, vs which themes/symbols eluded you? What advice would you give to editors (ie "needs moar jokes" or "text should better address wu-wei" or whatever)?


Broader questions for the editorial process:

Can you come up with a few adjectives to describe what "type" of Discordia we're presenting here?
ie People critiqued the BIP for its "darkness" - what kind of critique would this receive from other Discordians? from Taoists?

[LMNO]

1) I think other people should edit mine, to maintain balance; so long as they don't mind me editing theirs.

2) Honey, I'm not sure if name dropping TGRR is appropriate... I was thinking this could be slightly more universal than directly relating to a poster at PD.com.

3) I may not have given good enough definitions of our shorthand: Barstool, Prison Cell, Bars, Pinealist, spag, et al.  The editors should keep an eye out for poorly-defined terms.

4) As far as my verses go, I think the phrase "not that silly" would be appropriate to describe the kind of Discordia I'm presenting.  Other people's verses ar a bit more light-hearted.  Maybe that's an editing goal we could look towards.

[Cramulus]

1) I think other people should edit mine, to maintain balance; so long as they don't mind me editing theirs.

agreed. Editing each other's work is part of this engine - people need to be comfortable seeing their work edited.  Knowing when and what to edit is a bit tricker...

2) Honey, I'm not sure if name dropping TGRR is appropriate... I was thinking this could be slightly more universal than directly relating to a poster at PD.com.

agreed. All of this stuff should make sense to people who don't know us. And TGRR doesn't really evoke the notion of a zenarchist to me.

3) I may not have given good enough definitions of our shorthand: Barstool, Prison Cell, Bars, Pinealist, spag, et al.  The editors should keep an eye out for poorly-defined terms.

Cool - the trouble being that we won't know if the term is poorly defined until somebody reads the whole thing cover to cover...

So I think one of the ways we could handle the editing would be to dump the whole book (as it currently stands) into a PDF. then give that PDF to some uninvolved parties who can give us feedback from an outsider point of view. Then we'll have some perspective to keep in mind when editing.

4) As far as my verses go, I think the phrase "not that silly" would be appropriate to describe the kind of Discordia I'm presenting.  Other people's verses ar a bit more light-hearted.  Maybe that's an editing goal we could look towards.

I always like the "Discordia as a form of sillyness" vibe, and I think that's essential to keeping a dense, heavy text like this not so "weighed down". The book needs to be able to laugh at itself. The more jokes and surprises we put in, the better IMHO. We might even want to insert a totally unrelated (albeit hilarious) chapter just so we don't get stuck in the trap of trying to reinvent the Tao Te Ching.

[LMNO]

Should we post individual chapters in this thread and discuss them, or should we keep this to the wiki?