5 ms·
I like this stuff because I think things like Ancient Aliens are the Subgenius and Discordianism of our time. The genius of it is that it is a note for note sen
by motohagiography 5y ago
I like this stuff because I think things like Ancient Aliens are the Subgenius and Discordianism of our time. The genius of it is that it is a note for note send up of ideologies of every kind, literally, the logic of an idea, where when you project it on something, the reflection doesn't illuminate the object so much as reinforce the underlying idea itself as a lens. If I could coin a term for it, I would call it "profound comedy," where the genius of it is that when you apply its structural absurdity to other ideas whose logic people iterate into funhouse mirror beliefs, it shows how equally dumb they are. The laughter is involuntarily revealed truth. This is what makes it so dangerous and subversive, and the people who react to it do so because they know they are being mocked with impunity.
I would seriously consider donating to a cryptozoology scholarship fund.
- selestify 5y ago> The genius of it is that it is a note for note send up of ideologies of every kind, literally, the logic of an idea, where when you project it on something, the reflection doesn't illuminate the object so much as reinforce the underlying idea itself as a lens. Could you expound on this? I’m afraid I don’t quite understand what you are saying
- hluska 5y agoIt sounds like David Icke. If you really need someone to expound on this, you could read the source but we’re both on HN and likely reasonably similar. Can I give you some loving advice?? Forget this. There’s nothing good in Icke. I’ve seen way too many brilliant hackers get sucked into David Icke’s bullshit on their way to a crash. If you still really need closure, I can sum it up as the royal family, the elite and the ‘Illuminati’ are lizards, descended from aliens. Find architects who designed buildings for the Baha’i faith, then trace their contributions back to North American parliaments, legislatures and the like. Find the allusions to the Baha’i faith, find the allusions to Freemasonry and then you’ll see the projection of reality. Once you’ve seen the projection, you’re free from it. Be safe. If you want to rap about the ideas with someone reasonably safe, I’m Greg and my email is in my profile. If you’re getting lost, I’ll give you my phone number. Be safe and healthy. Edit - The danger of Icke is that he takes basic geometry and civil engineering and somehow turns them into conspiracy. If you’re remotely scientific, you’ll see signs of Icke all around you. But some principles are principles because they work. We don’t need conspiracy theories to explain how professions grow. Edit 2 - Don’t google David Icke. You’ll want the time back and I can’t offer refunds. :(
- batshit_beaver 5y agoWhat in tarnation
- hluska 5y agoI can’t make this shit up. The dude has published many books and found people who actually believe it all… If this startup thing doesn’t work out, maybe I’ll just start a cult. :) Edit - The second paragraph was a bad attempt at a joke. Don’t start cults. Fuck David Icke.
- colechristensen 5y ago> If this startup thing doesn’t work out, maybe I’ll just start a cult. :) I know you’re not being serious but unfortunately many people are in this kind of thinking. All over society are movements and groupthink driven by a small group of people that realized that you can get a whole lot of money and power by making people believe outlandish things.
- lowdose 5y agoJust enjoy the show!
- pstuart 5y agoI googled him. It took 3 seconds to realize I wanted my 3 seconds back.
- hluska 5y agoShitballs. Sorry bud - I edited the original post to suggest that people don’t google him. I’m sorry you went through that. :(
- pstuart 5y agoThanx, but I was braced based on your advice ;-) It's still in the same general territory as QAnon and the fact that 1/5 Americans drinks that kool-aid fills me with despair (and fear). https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/meet-the-press/study-finds-nearly-one-five-americans-believe-qanon-conspiracy-theories-n1268722 https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/meet-the-press/study-finds-...
- hackingthelema 5y agoIn Discordianism, there is something called the Law of Fives[1], which says, 'all things happen in fives, or are divisible by or are multiples of five, or are somehow directly or indirectly appropriate to 5.' There is also a memo from one founder to another quoted which says, 'I find the Law of Fives to be more and more manifest the harder I look.' Robert Anton Wilson has some interesting personal experiments about this in his book Prometheus Rising, where you go looking for a quarter on the ground under different personal contexts[2]. Other instances are things like the 23 enigma[3] or ancient aliens. I took motohagiography's comment to be on this phenomenon, where the state of mind, or how you prime the mind (e.g. with images or ideas), changes what you tend to find. It can be applied in all sorts of contexts -- prime the mind with ideas like conspiracy theories, and you see them everywhere. Fnord. [1] http://www.principiadiscordia.com/book/23.php http://www.principiadiscordia.com/book/23.php [2] https://nevalalee.wordpress.com/2016/04/04/looking-for-quarters/ https://nevalalee.wordpress.com/2016/04/04/looking-for-quart... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/23_Enigma https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/23_Enigma
- wombatpm 5y agoMy meds must be off because I’m seeing the fnords again
- panzagl 5y agoHail Eris!
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y agoInterestingly, we had a thread not all that long ago about illusions and their relationship to the brain's prediction systems. It seems plausible that things like this are related. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29254496 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29254496
- motohagiography 5y agoOddly, you're right. I may have over egged the batter on that one. The smart version of my comment would have been "lol, confirmation bias," which describes cryptozoology, ancient aliens, and pretty much everything else that is the logic of an idea, or ideological. If you can find confirmation bias funny, like next level hilarious (especially when you are into the lettuce) you can find anything funny I suppose. But still, I laugh a through each episode and can't watch the news anymore because once you've seen it, you can't not. Cryptozoology is the same kind of game of pretend. Looking forward to leaving the house more in 2022.
- b3morales 5y agoI think parent is talking about the mindset or way of thinking that leads to revisionist history/conspiracy theory/etc. And saying that this mindset doesn't have much actually to do with the specific details of any given object/plotline (e.g. the Nazca lines). It's more of a self-reinforcing worldview, that there is a Story, that everything is significant in the story, everything points to everything else, and nothing means what appears on the surface. The novel Foucault's Pendulum is a book about this mindset; the Illuminatus! trilogy is too in a way, though it's more experiential than descriptive. There are a few non-fiction books, though I'm blanking on the key author's name. For a very contemporary non-fiction (albeit opinionated) take see A Game Designer's Analysis of QAnon https://medium.com/curiouserinstitute/a-game-designers-analysis-of-qanon-580972548be5 https://medium.com/curiouserinstitute/a-game-designers-analy...
- hackingthelema 5y ago> There are a few non-fiction books, though I'm blanking on the key author's name. I don't know if he is who you had in mind, but Robert Anton Wilson -- who was one of the writers on the Illuminatus! trilogy -- has at least two non-fiction books on it. One is Prometheus Rising, the other is Quantum Psychology: How Brain Software Programs You and Your World. They are both a series of essays with exercises at the end of each chapter. If I remember correctly, Quantum Psychology was more about language and semantics, and Prometheus Rising was more about belief systems and viewpoints. Quantum Psychology is both written in and a guide to E-Prime, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-Prime https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-Prime (Edit, via wiki: 'E-Prime refers to a version of the English language that excludes all forms of the verb to be, including all conjugations, contractions and archaic forms. Some scholars advocate using E-Prime as a device to clarify thinking and strengthen writing.')
- b3morales 5y agoThank you, not the person I was thinking of but that's an excellent point-out. I had two books in mind that I was completely misremembering as by the same author. In fact they are by two different journalists. The United States of Paranoia and Voodoo Histories: The Role of the Conspiracy Theory in Shaping Modern History.
- guythedudebro 5y agoIs this comment supposed to make sense?
- salawat 5y agoIt does. It's just more abstract wishy washy and metacognitive than most people tend to sanely run. The general theme or oomph of the point is that the world, and beliefs we hold tend to converge on certain structural relationships because they just work. Even if it isn't a concrete 100% accurate description of what we see in front of us it just feels right, so we hit a mental stop point and go on about our day. The belief literally feels good. To hell with reality, this is how it is. One of the tenets of Discordianism is there is no objective truth or order, as truth itself is just surprisingly convenient organizations of the fundamentally chaotic underpinnings of existence, and everyone sees things differently or different aspects of things thereof. We can all be looking at the same thing and see things completely differently, and in a strange sort of way, nobody is wrong. Fnord. Therefore, as Eris dictates, there is no one true Discordianism, or world, as everyone's view of the world is true into and unto themselves. Fnord! It can be disturbing to many, because it allows you to completely detach from all of your prior assumptions. Someone completely detached from everyone else's reality isn't terribly yuseful, but they are free to peer through the Chaos to find any momentary tendrils of direction that become revealed. The original poster posited positive utility from applying these principles to any mode of thought in such a way as to identify when those belief structures have fallen or been distorted by the same mannerisms of thought that make equally quacky, though more mainstream ideas feel good, thusly revealing that the holder of the idea is in a state of mental metastatic equilibrium. This makes the Discordian in the room a surprisingly strong catalyst for change, or at least the most aware of the set of Reality Distortion Fields at work/being projected by those in charge, and as a consequence, a threat to unified manipulation, and an escape hatch to individual notions of reality. Fnord Hail Eris! -A Discordian Malcontent
- jazzyjackson 5y agowhat is the truth that ancient aliens is revealing? that people are gullible? i don’t get it
- motohagiography 5y agoSo called "ancient astronaut theory," is an ideology. The premise is the hypothetical that earth was once inhabited by extraterrestrials, and then when you view archeology and history through that lens, and provide explanations for any outstanding questions or uncertainties using this underlying assumption as a premise (could it be aliens? ancient astronaut theorists say yes!), you have a complete and very accessible critical theory of history that is very entertaining bunk. I could write the same series as Ancient Objectivists, Ancient Anarchists, Ancient Socialists, Ancient Elites, etc. The details they use as justification do not illuminate the subject, they use archeological and historical stories as evidence of their theory - it's all the same thing. The reason people get the satisfying feeling of "it all makes sense" is because the one stupid idea seems to be reinforced by relatively neutral facts, when in fact, it's just a dumb idea displayed along side facts.
- hluska 5y agoHey bud, I made a reply on this thread and now feel guilty about it. I’ve got nothing against you and you’re a wickedly smart person. Please please please don’t think I was mocking you or anything you believe. You’re a wickedly smart person and a talented writer. Those are the only opinions I have about you. Okay??? I have strong opinions about some of the cats who publish these ideas. Those opinions in no way inform the opinion I have of you.
- motohagiography 5y agoI consider it a supreme privilege to have these thoughts read by anyone at all, so really, thank you, no issues here at all, even if someone (else) takes shots. This is public discouse, and sometimes it gets bumptuous. :)
- qrybam 5y agoReads like it was written by GPT-3.
- ycombinete 5y agoOr Slavoj Zizek
- wombatpm 5y agoDon’t be mocking the one true goddess! Lest Eris cast you out, leaving you to partake of hotdogs with no hotdog buns for all eternity or 5 weeks —which ever comes first. -Pope Wombatpm, KSC Burning Cow Cabal of lesser Chicago
- apocalypstyx 5y agoWhat does this mean for those of us who eat leftover hotdogs straight from the refrigerator, no bun, no condiments, no nothing?
- Lamad123 5y agoTotally agree!! Ancient Aliens has depleted the American market.. They they seem to have a pathological focus on RSS and BJP propaganda.
- emmelaich 5y agoI actually think 98% of qanon, flatearthers, cryptozoologist etc are trolling. And 1.9% percent are actually certifiable. The reason they get so much press and social footprint is that people love to think of themselves as superior / smart.
- ycombinete 5y agoI think it’s more likely that they’re doing a type of LARPing, rather than trolling,