Towards a new RI

[brainpanhandler]

I started out here as a blog-person. It was horrible. The only commenter whose name I can remember was GalacticGreenGoblin, who was going on and on about transcendental meditation and projecting orgasmic energy at twelve year old girls.

That was the infamous Drew Hempel, wasn't it?

Yes and other than projecting his "orgasms at a distance" at unsuspecting adolescent girls(creepy), he was an interesting quack and relatively harmless it seemed to me, other than endlessly clogging the comments with entirely off topic schizo blather. He also posted at Tao bums or something like that.

I am a blog refugee. Deleted every comment I made(took awhile). I think the comments were changed thereafter to prevent such things.

[Elihu]

And holy hell, I'm an American, christ, that's the biggest, most twisted raping Nazi sack-o-shit FUBAR to ever exist, ever. Why haven't I stopped it yet? Am I just a useless imperial zionist drone? Paying my taxes? Or a Fourth Reich stooge, a brownshirt fanboy furiously assuaging my guilt by touristing the fora at http://www.secretnazi.com.
?

?

All roads start to lead to the worst areas of Rome for me. I begin to wonder, should an objective observer examine this forum, will they feel as I do then? And yeah, it's embarrassing. After all this time to be wondering if the whole thing isn't a scam, an elaborate satirical essay, a perverse "in-joke" to which I was not invited but decided to try and share anyway. Clueless. Or worse, an ARG where you're being played, or a bland data collection repository for the NSA and anybody to do some fifth-tier project on. If that! Or just a place to keep this particular stuff. Fuck me. I begin to wonder if there isn't some bizarre verboten frisson in the air and I worry that I've been rubbernecking a car accident outside my front window with a bit too much interest. You know the feeling?

all too well. something i've thought since i digested this blog over a period of a couple of years. and it remains foundational for me. the rest of the story if you will: that more than the basic outlines of every evil thing has been revealed. and so? what changes? i've always felt that the basic equation is for us the ruled to call our representatives to account but we don't seem to have the sack. their leverage over us is increasing not decreasing. waiting for or electing a hero is a non-starter for me although i think the pattern is inevitable as things get worse. and so they can't be shamed into stopping. no one's going to jail. i think they literally are or have become in due course purely evil. and we're their enablers. there's no one and no place to prosecute. it has enveloped us all. and so the daily angst will continue. the past has been revealed an we're only breaking it story by story now as the macabre story continues to unfold. i only wonder who's actually better off in a cosmic sense. us who live in a disquieted state of semi-comfortable frission? or one of the victims that gets tortured and blown to $h1t...

there's a nostalgic flavor to it for me. And melancholy. Such is life.

yes...

[MacCruiskeen]

Thanks, barracuda. Your response deserves a lengthier reply than I give it right now. Regard this as a placeholder. (I don't think we're in any essential disagreement about anything that greatly matters.)

[Ben D]

I am a blog refugee. Deleted every comment I made(took awhile). I think the comments were changed thereafter to prevent such things.

Was that to remove the evidence of your lengthy verbal fight with Shrubageddon.....he had such a sharp tongue, as did his side kick Mulebone, known there as Just another Dick?

[JackRiddler]

"Strawberry Fields Forever"

Let me take you down, cos I'm going to - Strawberry Fields
Nothing is real - and nothing to get hung about
Strawberry Fields forever

Living is easy with eyes closed
Misunderstanding all you see
It's getting hard to be someone but it all works out
It doesn't matter much to me
Let me take you down, cos I'm going to - Strawberry Fields
Nothing is real - and nothing to get hung about
Strawberry Fields forever

No one I think is in my tree
I mean it must be high or low
That is you can't you know tune in but it's all right
That is I think it's not too bad
Let me take you down, cos I'm going to - Strawberry Fields
Nothing is real - and nothing to get hung about
Strawberry Fields forever

Always, no sometimes, think it's me
But you know I know when it's a dream
I think I know I mean a "Yes" but it's all wrong
That is I think I disagree
Let me take you down, cos I'm going to - Strawberry Fields
Nothing is real - and nothing to get hung about
Strawberry Fields forever
Strawberry Fields forever
Strawberry Fields forever

[Cranberry sauce...]

[MayDay]

How insignificant, our little corner of the web, at least in the grand scheme of things. 50 or so regular posters. 2 or 3 hundred regular readers. Imo, this forum has been going downhill for quite some time. The misogyny thread was a low point, as far as I can tell (I avoid flame threads like the plague they've proven to be), and it seems like we've been crawling along ever since. Remember the "Slowdown of RI" thread, circa summer 2012? ( It sticks in my head because I was visiting my childhood home for the first time in eight years at the time). It seems that was the first time we acknowledged the situation en masse. Simulator disappeared soon after, if I recall correctly. (Gosh, was that even their screen name? It's been so long- I can't even remember why I liked that person person)

I can't begin to tell you how much this forum has meant to me over the years. So many times I have felt exactIy what Barracuda describes, and yet i haven't been able to swear it off. And trust me, I've tried a hundred times. If you can point me to another discussion forum on the web that even comes close to addressing, in an intelligent, informed and articulate manner, the range of material we cover here, please by all means, do tell. I'm all ears. The fact is, I was lost in a sea of disinformation before I found this place. I was 23 years old, 5 years into the rabbit hole and still anchorless. I was hysteric, blathering about the illuminati, the 9, chemtrails, the nwo, et's, magick, freemasonry, ad infinitum, to anyone who would listen. Hell, I was an avid reader over at "signs of the times" before I found this place (how embarrassing).

It took me a long time to chime in- I've been a daily reader since '07 (excluding frequent, prolonged excursions in wilderness areas). I guess I felt I had nothing to add to the conversation- someone here was almost always saying, with more grace and wit than i could hope to achieve, exactly what I was thinking. This was a place where I could have my thoughts, ideas, and influences challenged by people who were better informmed than I- without ever h even having to voice them. So yeah, it was a haven.

I hope this place continues. I hope people keep posting reams of material for me to read and refer to over the years. F$&% the memory hole, lets archive everything!

[JackRiddler]

Mayday, yes!

Oh, and it's Simulist - rhymes with much missed.

As is slomo, I dare say.

[MayDay]

Mayday, yes!

Oh, and it's Simulist - rhymes with much missed.

As is slomo, I dare say.

Ah, Simulist. How we miss you. And slomo too.

So many of you had a hand in teaching me to think critically, something the public/ private schools I attended never even tried to accomplish. My IRL communnities are a sight to behold- cavers ( such a weird amalgam of geeky science types and rugged outdoors-people), radical queer, organic farmers/ bioneers, conscious dance/ art/ music festival types- but they don't come close to the level of insight I find here. Thank you everyone! Be kind to each other!

[82_28]

Yes. Simulist is very much so missed. I hope he is OK. We have had flyovers through the years trying to get "us" to bite. I don't know why this is. All I can tell you is that 82_28 is certain that this joint is made up of very real people and people that I intrinsically love. The WOO shit has basically disappeared. We SHOO'D THEM AWAY. It's pretty damned easy when you use rigour and intuition. We might not be right, but we are here.

Who was that joker with the fucking lines on Mars? There was also some clown trying to get us to bite on some kind of thin threads falling from the sky, I think in Texas. It would be funny if at least it wasn't.

[brainpanhandler]

I am a blog refugee. Deleted every comment I made(took awhile). I think the comments were changed thereafter to prevent such things.

Was that to remove the evidence of your lengthy verbal fight with Shrubageddon.....he had such a sharp tongue, as did his side kick Mulebone, known there as Just another Dick?

It was not to remove the evidence of anything. A poster by the name of Abe had joined a few months prior and I had been thoroughly enjoying exchanges with him when the low life trolls that infested the comments ran him off. He deleted every post he made. I was so impressed by the gesture and so disgusted by endlessly fighting the trolls that I decided to follow suit and join the board instead.

I avoided shrub. Very unstable. I had no lengthy verbal fights with them. JustAnotherDick was another matter. I went around and around with him. He always eschewed the board as a bunch of wankers sitting about mentally masturbating. Funny he joined. Happy he was eventually banned not long ago by wrex. What a miserable asshole that guy is.

[Ben D]

^^ But you got to admit, JAD/Mulebone has a wicked sense of humour...

[Sounder]

JackRiddler » Sat Jul 26, 2014 9:57 pm wrote:Mayday, yes!

Oh, and it's Simulist - rhymes with much missed.

As is slomo, I dare say.

Ah, Simulist. How we miss you. And slomo too.

So many of you had a hand in teaching me to think critically, something the public/ private schools I attended never even tried to accomplish. My IRL communnities are a sight to behold- cavers ( such a weird amalgam of geeky science types and rugged outdoors-people), radical queer, organic farmers/ bioneers, conscious dance/ art/ music festival types- but they don't come close to the level of insight I find here. Thank you everyone! Be kind to each other!

Ah yes, Simulist and slomo, two of the best. Sure would love to hear from them sometime.

And thanks for the reminder MayDay, I like to think that we all are assisted in refining our thoughts and thought projection ability by participating in this melange that is RI. It has been so incredibly helpful for me to read intelligent 'takes' on events that come from different angles than my own.

It's to be noted also in your writing that while (some) of the 'doers' may be short on insight, they are still folk that get things done and support and build community. (Insight ain't everything)

Plutonia, yes I participated in the blog, and was reticent to post here because two of my favorite posters, starroute and iridescent cuttlefish were treated poorly on GD.

[Plutonia]

Ah, I remember Iridescent Cuttlefish! It took me a long time to post here when I came over from the blog - it may even be that it was a more hostile environment then than it is now.

And re: Drew Hempel, Brainpan, not sure about his harmlessness since he seems to be a megalomaniac with a Secret Weapon, ie his orgiastic energy. There is a rumour that he knew Carlos Castaneda back in the day, but who knows.

As to a New RI, I'm too busy right now to participate here, though I still read what I can, so I'm around and as others have said, there is no place I've found that can beat RI for the convergence of my specific interests, so it matters to me.

I'll just say that in my experience of group dynamics, there is a tendency for people to "make friends" (and "make enemies") as the group drifts towards emphasizing social aspects over whatever-it-was that brought everyone together in the first place. This this not a failure, per se, as it does seem to be biologically-driven, tribe-formation behavior, but it has derailed more than one project I've been involved in. If it's possible to re-orient the RI community towards purpose-driven interactions, that may improve matters.

In other words, we need to start a WAR, lol!

Barring that, a thread about group dynamics might be useful - to help us get a view-from-a-distance so that we can see when we are acting like monkeys.

That's all.

[Luther Blissett]

Slomo came briefly out of retirement to yell at me on the Santa Barbara shooting thread for suggesting that MRAs were anything but upstanding citizens.

On edit: coincidentally, it is exactly that exchange that gave me the impression that gender and feminism are hostile topics here sometimes, probably leading to a less-than-ideal environment for non-cis male gendered people looking to participate.

[MayDay]

Yes. Simulist is very much so missed. I hope he is OK. We have had flyovers through the years trying to get "us" to bite. I don't know why this is. All I can tell you is that 82_28 is certain that this joint is made up of very real people and people that I intrinsically love. The WOO shit has basically disappeared. We SHOO'D THEM AWAY. It's pretty damned easy when you use rigour and intuition. We might not be right, but we are here.

Who was that joker with the fucking lines on Mars? There was also some clown trying to get us to bite on some kind of thin threads falling from the sky, I think in Texas. It would be funny if at least it wasn't.

Er... There were some kind of anomolous thin white threads falling from the sky in Austin Tx a few years back. Super sticky stuff, too. In some parts of Austin it covered everything , for several months, in a layer of nearly unwashable gunk. The papes reported that the build up was due to an unusually high amount of tree pollen, but I wasn't buying it. No clue what it could have been, but nearly everyone I talked to about it agreed that it was strange and unprecedented. So, not sure what sort of theories the poster you are refering to was trying to pitch, but it may not have been entirely meritless. It's not the sort of thing I'd normally bring up here. Or anywhere, for that matter.