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Quote – “If you want to live a happy life, tie it to a goal, not to people or things” – Albert Einstein
Original Painting (fuckin mixin it up guys! What does IT MEAN!?)
Joseph Stella (1877–1946), The Brooklyn Bridge: Variation on an Old Theme, 1939. Oil on canvas.
Description –
To Italian-born Joseph Stella, who immigrated to New York at the age of nineteen, New York City was a nexus of frenetic, form-shattering power. In the engineering marvel of the Brooklyn Bridge, which he first depicted in 1918 and returned to throughout his career, he found a contemporary technological monument that embodied the modern human spirit. Here, Stella portrays the bridge with a linear dynamism borrowed from Italian Futurism. He captures the dizzying height and awesome scale of the bridge from a series of fractured perspectives, combining dramatic views of radiating cables, stone masonry, cityscapes, and night sky. The large scale of the work—it is nearly six feet tall—conjures a Renaissance altar, while the Gothic style of the massive pointed arches evokes medieval churches. By combining contemporary architecture and historical allusions, Stella transformed the Brooklyn Bridge into a twentieth-century symbol of divinity, the quintessence of modern life and the Machine Age.
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@daela I think you could on point with this… we have been so focused on who to follow, that the bigger picture and overall mission these factions have in mind is probably being missed by us
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I believe in ideas, not people. People can be corrupted and killed, ideas cannot.
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First, it seems like there’s a thematic difference between this, a more modern painting of the Brooklyn Bridge and a quote from a scientist and the older posts, quoting writers and philosophers and depicting more classical art.
The quote itself seems rather clear based off the recent events: people change, their philosophies, their actions, and their allegiances all do. Our recent discovery about Morgan made a lot of people question a great many things. To focus instead on goals rather than people is a more secure foundation
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Based on the description provided, the painting itself looks to be a combination of both the old and the new (and the summary explicitly mentions in a religious way). We’ve seen references to clashes between the Old Book of Anoch and the New, so perhaps some sort of accord has been reached and we’re about to see more contemporary ideas filtered through the Old Book of Anoch.
Also of note, the following phrase:
He captures the dizzying height and awesome scale of the bridge from a series of fractured perspectives, combining dramatic views of radiating cables, stone masonry, cityscapes, and night sky.Everything we’ve seen so far hasn’t appeared to be connected in an obvious way. Could be that it’s all about to start coming together…
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Totally. As much as I love Morgan, he’s not the reason I’m 100% on board with the BOS. Y’all know I was already siding up with the Resistance even before I saw who the leader was. The talk last week of being skeptical, of duplicating their practices to expose it for what it is, struck a nerve for me as something I’ve been trying to promote for years. Skepticism, cutting down on being manipulated by being aware of the practices being used. You can’t avoid being manipulated every time, because we are human and humans are easy to dupe. But if you’re aware of the techniques and HOW people are manipulated you can look out for the warning signs and avoid falling for the obvious traps. Morgan may be the leader, but it’s not him I’m fighting for, it’s the cause.
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Concurring with @shankfx22 and @kevin here that the presence of a futurist painting about the collision of Old vs New is a window to what’s to come. As far as goals…OSDM as always is mining emotional data, and perhaps seeking to bring back Anoch in the flesh. BOS wants to stop that; at least, that what we’ve been told they want so far. Things always seem a lot simpler at face value.
But @daela is right: If we’re drawing a line in the sand and choose to stand on one side of it, we need to be prepared to represent the goals of that side, not just its representative.
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@nothenrygale @wanda102 Dead-on with both points. It’s fun to characterize myself as being Team Joyce — honestly, the moment any of you meet her you’ll want to do the same — but it’s the mission of HCDI and OSDM that I ultimately support, and will continue to advocate for.
In fact, I’ve used a lot of the downtime this past week to think — about how I feel about OSDM, and about how I can best articulate those feelings to others. Then I found myself at the D23 Expo this past weekend for work, and the solution suddenly hit.
The OSDM is Disney.
What does Disney the corporation do? They make entertainment. They create theme parks. Talk to them, and they’ll say they spread fun and joy around the world. But they don’t do it because they want to make the world a better place, and they don’t do it because that want to be everybody’s friend.
They do it because they want to make money. Zoom back, and you can see it’s a con: they give us something we want (escape, optimism) and we give them something they want (money, information, and incredible cultural influence).
OSDM offers the same bargain. They offer us emotionally engaging experiments they call The Experiences. We make new friends through them, we are pushed emotionally in ways we couldn’t expect — and in return we give them our honest emotional reactions.
Both companies: offering entertainment not out of nobility, but for their own cold, hard reasons.
I imagine most people here are fine with that bargain when it comes to Disney. That’s because we choose to believe the messaging; the optimistic, smiling PR face. Disney collects data about every single person that walks through one of its establishments (MagicBand, anyone?). Disney is a global corporation that throws elbows and plays dirty when it needs to (its history with DMCA takedowns, anyone?). Disney pretends that every single person in its parks is the happiest person on the freakin’ planet (a deception if there ever was one). We know all of these things intuitively… but we choose to let them go. Why? Because it suits us. Because we’ve already decided we’re okay with the basic equation: you give me something I want, and I’ll give you something in return.
So you’ll have to forgive me if I don’t feel a sense of indignation about this bargain that’s being offered. I feel no need to “burn it down” any more than I feel the need to burn down the place that’s given me The Incredibles, The Force Awakens, or Mary Poppins. If anything, I’m excited about where both entities are going.
Disney wants to give me an immersive Star Wars resort? Hell yes, sign me up. Is OSDM working on something similar, deep in its R&D labs? Sign me up for that, too!
If you find yourself eager to resist, awesome – I applaud you. We’re all friends here, and we all get to make our own choices. But let’s at least be honest about the bargains we’re making, and what we all really want at the end of the day.
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@bcbishop You make a compelling point, and being a fan of Disney I totally can see the argument. Thing is, some times you need to separate the end product of an organization from the methods and ethics behind them. Ask anyone about my love of Disney and they’ll go on and on about my many MANY posts about trips to the parks, upcoming movies, games, etc. I love their end product. I also don’t have any MAJOR issues with the company itself and their mission. Sure, they make make some decisions I do not agree with, but I wouldn’t go so far to say it’s an ethical violation with what I think is right.
Because we seem to love food analogies (maybe I’m just always hungry?) I’d compare the OSDM not to Disney, but to Chik-fil-a. I think we all agree we LOVED the experience they created for us last year with the OOA. But now we’re seeing the people BEHIND the organization and seeing their goals and methods.
I love me some damn fine chicken sandwiches. I think the product CFA puts out is top quality for fast food chicken. BUT I can’t ignore the people at the top of the company using those profits to fund agenda’s I not only disagree with but find harmful to society. Similar situation going on here. As much as I love Ascension, I don’t agree with what the OSDM is doing. If my being a loyal customer to them is supporting their agenda that I do not agree with (as they’ve implied their agenda resulted in influenced elections), then I cannot in good faith continue to be a loyal customer to the OSDM.
So many times I keep going back to that thinking that “good” things can come from “bad” people, and “bad” things can come from “good” people. Being able to separate the product from the company is something that we need to do in this case. Ascension was not “bad”, but what the investors are doing because of our continued participation could absolutely be seen in that way.
That of course also opens up that box of “what exactly determines good and bad”, but that’s a discussion best left for philosophers.
Needless to say, I’m eagerly awaiting Morgan reaching out to one or all of us. Bring some fucking light to the OSDM and show us what they’re up to.
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I think @nothenrygale, you rather prove @bcbishop’s point. Those of us that are supporting Joyce, and perhaps by proxy the OSDM, are separating the actions of an organization from it’s goal and the “product” it’s providing. You, too, separate the actions of BOS in hoodwinking it’s own recruits in support of it’s goal and the way it fulfills a natural desire to resist the Big Bad.
Maybe we’re all pointed in the same direction. Maybe that’s not a coincidence.
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You, too, separate the actions of BOS in hoodwinking it’s own recruits in support of it’s goal and the way it fulfills a natural desire to resist the Big Bad.
One again, my girl @wanda102 hits the nail on the head. But I *can’t* separate the actions from the goal anymore, can’t sit back and say “oh, it’s for the greater good so I’ll stick with BOS anyway”. You can’t claim the moral highground if you’re fighting dirty
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@wanda102 @blondie As I’ve pointed out several times now, “hoodwinking” people isn’t a bad thing if it’s done to educate and make people aware of how they’re being taken advantage of. The actions AND the goal of the BOS are both in harmony for what I’m fighting for. There’s no conflict here, they’ve been the most honest organization we’ve seen so far. Their ONE instance of “bait and switch” was to show how easily we could be drawn into something potentially nefarious with the tactics of the OSDM. Beyond that, Morgan stated and made it pretty damn clear what they’re all about last weekend.
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Fun fact: Most people have heard of being “hoodwinked”, but few have ever seen a real pair of hoodwinks. This particular set is probably from the early 1900s.
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OK @nothenrygale I have a couple of questions for you.
1. You say that Disney doesn’t do anything that you would ethically object to – do you attend a lot of immersive theatre? I’ve been up to my eyeballs researching ethics in immersive theatre and planning to team teach a class on the subject at some point. Very, very, VERY few shows have opened and closed without any kind of complaint or ethical “violation” on some scale. I spent a good chunk of energy defending Tension’s ethics to a particular ********* (I censored myself) last year. Tons of fun! Yet here you are, enjoying the product.
2. What are the methods that you disagree with? What are the actions you dislike? WHAT IS IT SPECIFICALLY YOU OBJECT TO WITH THE OSDM?
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@winstonsmith I love this, haha.
@coryphella
1) Malicious manipulation of a populace to gain political influence
2) Emotional abuse of certain individuals (Tina comes to mind)
3) Invasion of privacy / hacking / phone tapping
4) Breaking and entering
5) Blackmail
6) Kidnapping (we all forget about Andy?)
7) False Advertising (iConfidant)
And finally potentially 8) Brainwashing (if the helmet tech turns out to indeed be real)BOS is only guilty of #3 and #7 so far, both done as a means to educate the populace. The hackings and release of information on the OSDM done as a whistleblower action, and #7 done as a means to show us how easy it is for us to be drawn into a potentially dangerous situation by using OSDM tactics.
Now that I think more on this potentially #4 if Noah is teaming up with the BOS but that could very well just be Noah being Noah.
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@nothenrygale This is something you keep saying, but it just doesn’t hold true for me. If someone sucker punches me as a lesson against getting sucker punched, I’m still going to be upset that I just got punched in the face. If someone steals my wallet to show how easily I can be pickpocketed, I’m not going to trust them because they still just stole my wallet. Several people here were clearly affected by what happened, and I suspect that people that thought the Midnight Commission was something it turned out not to be are upset in a different way. You can’t just say it was to help them when they don’t feel that way.
If you’re going to claim that they lied to people for their benefit, at least own it, don’t call them honest in the same breath. You think they’re the right side to be on, I get that, but don’t justify their actions to make them look better than they are. If The Resistance is so righteous why are they stooping so low as to use tactics they pretend they’re above?
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@kevin No one got sucker punched. They didn’t harm anyone. Hell even magicians who pickpocket or take a watch from someone give it back. Your examples here don’t line up with what happened. Sure, some people felt like fools. That’s never a good feeling. But I’d much rather feel like a fool and still keep my money, be unharmed, and be more aware of potential scams than be made a fool and be out money from a person who actually has ill intent.
Those who felt bad about TMC not being a “real” thing are absolutely cool to feel hurt. But to use THAT as a reason to support the OSDM just makes absolutely no sense to me.
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Here’s where I’m the annoying not fun player.
1) Specific example of?
2) Anything that involves a character could easily be part of the “theatre.” We have no idea what’s real, what’s not real, what’s fourth wall, etc.
3) Of who? If it’s of us, we *consented* to all of that. “Please understand that The Tension Experience is a paranoia, fear based experiment. We use personal information and data collected to tailor the experience for each participant involved. By using this website you understand that we will go out of our way to create a unique experience based on YOU. Tension will blur the lines between reality and fiction. We will use actors, emails, phone calls, live video streams, in person events, and just about every other avenue to get inside your head.” We also have given up ALL privacy with social media. We really have. If you’re on Facebook and you click on those damn quizzes and you say yes please have access to my profile, you’ve given up your privacy. I have told this group of people and TPTB things about me that I should NOT have told, and I did that willingly, and I may come to seriously regret it. So I don’t buy that there’s any kind of privacy invasion that we need to be calling foul on. WE gave that up.
4) Again, we kind of said this was ok.
5) We kind of said this was also ok.
6) See #2, also, See #3. Yeah, it’s a stretch, and I highly doubt TPTB would agree with me on any of this but it’s how I view this type of thing. If this is done to one of them (Stacey, Sarah, PlAndy, etc) then it’s quite possible it’s fiction. If it’s done to one of *us* (Morgan) and we didn’t see proof of it, then it’s likely done to get inside our heads.
7) A rebellion based on false advertising of a dating service?
8) According to 50% of the country I do this for 9 months of the year and am paid for it. No technology needed. I watched this 10 month long performance last year and could draw direct parallels to a couple of fairly famous performance-based psychological experiments. Who was brainwashed? Again, if you’re talking about Sabrina, we can’t tell if it’s part of the theatre or not.My point is that every time that there’s been a thing that could be despicable, it’s turned on its head. At any point someone could easily say “we don’t like what they’ve done to Sabrina.” However…what have they done, exactly? We have no idea what’s even real. We have no idea who’s in charge, who is behind anything. Sabrina came back of her own free will. And yes blah blah cults, but I’m not going to stand in the way of a woman and what she wants to do.
And if Mike were reading this he would say something snarky like “thanks for injecting some reality into our alternate reality, Megan.” But honestly I don’t know anymore where the walls are. I don’t know that there ARE walls. I don’t know that there IS an “out of game.” And I could also make an argument that there *is* no “alternate reality” (not in an insane/mental kind of way but in a philosophical kind of way). That The Lust Experience is reality.
So I’m kind of wish Bryan that it really does seem to be like people rebel because they want to rebel – which is fine. People don’t go to Westworld because they want to save the damsel in distress, they want to go to immerse themselves in a story (or kill or rape). You don’t have to have a noble objective to be a part of one side or the other. But the resistance thing has frustrated me from the start here because no one has yet said clearly what it is they are resisting. And the more we talk and theorize and think through things, the more it seems like the resistance might be a part of OSDM. It’s another storyline to immerse yourselves in but it all leads back to data collection and privacy invasion, one way or another, so make sure that the real reason why you’re there is to enjoy it.
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@coryphella Who said you weren’t being fun? These are good discussions to be having.
1) Michelle has mentioned the election results were manipulated by the OSDM at “The End” event last year. This was reiterated again early on in Lust with the posts about election hijacking from bots.
2) If, as you mentioned later in your post, there are no walls, then there are no more “characters”. Sure, this WHOLE thing could be yet another scam by the OSDM to get a rise out of us. I’d love that to be the case because then there’s nothing to worry about here. But the “we don’t know what’s real and what’s not real” would set us up perfectly to stand by and watch while REAL shit goes down, with us thinking it’s all just a show. Perfect cover for the OSDM to do some real shady shit.
3) OK, “invasion of privacy” aside (because yes, we do live in a world where we basically give up privacy to be on social media), that point doesn’t account for hacking and phone tapping. Pretty sure I didn’t agree to either of those things being done to me.
4-5) I’d love to see where in the agreement for Lust B&E and blackmail are part of the deal. Using information to customize the experience is one thing, using information to coerce us is another.
6) Same response as 2.
7) You asked what methods I disagreed with. While this is lower on the rankings of “bad things” to do, I disagree with it. And if this is a non-issue for the OSDM, this should be a non-issue for the BOS as well. As I mentioned, this is essentially the one legitimate complaint people against the BOS could really have.
8) As I mentioned, this only comes into account if the helmet tech is real. It could absolutely be just another theatrical trick of the OSDM. But if it’s not, it would be a major ethical problem I’d have with them.
But the resistance thing has frustrated me from the start here because no one has yet said clearly what it is they are resisting.
This is the biggest confusion I have with those who support the OSDM. This is not the first time I’ve seen this point made, but it just makes me feel like none of the OSDM supporters actually saw the Periscope from TMC account. This is a resistance against the OSDM. Morgan laid it out in no uncertain terms. They’ve lied to him, stolen from him. He is building up the BOS for real to fight back. How is this unclear in any way shape or form?
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Prologue: The OSDM tries to ensnare by appealing to those who are attracted to an alpha mindset.
Chapter 1: The OSDM tries to ensnare by appealing to those interested in personal, confessional feelsie moments to penpals.
Chapter 2: The OSDM tries to ensnare by locking up those who find comfort in joining anti-establishment movements.
Are you not entertained?
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@bcbishop
Chapter 3: Cake is a lie.
Chapter 4: ??????
Chapter 5: ProfitI’m no oracle, but I’m betting on it.
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@bcbishop Interesting way of framing all the chapters of Lust so far.
I still find myself left wondering whether the new Resistance is an ODSM product or the product of what Michelle revealed as Tension was ending: that the BOS had gone from a fictitious group and become a real one.
If the ODSM, so far, has simply been trying to poke and prod us to see how we react to certain stimuli then I wonder what chapter 3 will bring us.
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1. OK. You’re mad at OSDM for manipulating the presidential election. Have you been this mad at entities in the past that have also manipulated elections? Or is this a new thing?
2. And like I said, when I see evidence of “shady shit,” I’ll let you know. But I haven’t.
3. Where is the evidence of hacking and phone tapping? Seriously? And while you may not have agreed to have either of those things done to you what you *did* agree to was to let them inside your head – to perhaps make you THINK that you had been hacked, or had your phone tapped. THAT you most definitely consented to.
4-6. See #3. Also the terms that cover all of this are “blanket consent” and “consensual non-consent.” It means that we have consented that “anything goes” until we say stop. Our lives can be intruded upon in any way TPTB choose – phone calls, visits to our home, etc. – until we say “stop.” We don’t get to know what’s coming and we don’t get to control it. And my guess is the longer you stick around the deeper down that rabbit hole you’re allowed to go. Are they going to *actually* kidnap you against your will? Highly unlikely. But here’s an interesting ethical question for you Brad: would they kidnap *me*?
8. Again we are back to having ethical problems with immersive theatre.
Morgan laid it out in no uncertain terms. They’ve lied to him, stolen from him. He is building up the BOS for real to fight back. How is this unclear in any way shape or form?
What did they steal from him? Where is the evidence?
What did they lie about?
Why are *you* beholden to him to fight back for those things? -
@bcbishop’s OSDM=Disney comparison is a good, well-thought-out way of looking at things, but what gives me pause and makes me lean towards the Resistance is the possibility of the OSDM abusing their position. An Experience taking its participants into darkness? Cool, I’m on board. Paying for that with personal information? Fine. We do that every day. But should the OSDM ever take its hurting people beyond the scope of the “fiction” they’ve created for us via DLB and CS (perhaps they’ve done so already!) we’d never know, and we’d be complicit in that suffering. That’s what I’m resisting.
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But should the OSDM ever take its hurting people beyond the scope of the “fiction” they’ve created for us via DLB and CS (perhaps they’ve done so already!) we’d never know, and we’d be complicit in that suffering. That’s what I’m resisting.
This is the rough equivalent of saying that you are resisting a production of Hamlet because you don’t know for certain if the dead bodies on stage at the end are actually dead. What we’ve been shown is a piece of theatre. The dead bodies at the end of Ascension *literally* got up and walked. I’m all for skepticism and if there’s something bad going on, by all means resist – but blindly doing so? Because maybe? And you’d never know?
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Great points, @coryphella. I’d also elaborate on this:
Morgan laid it out in no uncertain terms. They’ve lied to him, stolen from him.
Morgan wants you to fight for him, @nothenrygale. So does Stacey Erickson, who magically “found” a bug in somebody’s home. I applaud the efficacy of their tactics, but statements like this are designed to get you to do what they want — so forgive me if I don’t take the words of Resistance leaders at face value. (They’re also saying things that will make you reject the OSDM out of ingrained moral habit, not objective truth.)
But should the OSDM ever take its hurting people beyond the scope of the “fiction” they’ve created for us via DLB and CS (perhaps they’ve done so already!) we’d never know, and we’d be complicit in that suffering. That’s what I’m resisting.
Thank you for this, @izryn – this is probably the best, most persuasive argument I’ve heard. Thanks for clarifying this.
I would ask one question however: you are right that if the OSDM had done nefarious things we would be complicit — and that there’s a possibility we would never know. However, the same can be said of BOS, which has a history of operating in darkness and secrecy.
If avoiding unintended consequences is the concern, shouldn’t one avoid taking any side until all cards are on the table?
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@coryphella I suppose the difference is that Hamlet is a piece of theater with a clearly defined fourth wall, put on by companies that have to meet certain regulatory requirements. The OSDM is subject to none of these that we know of. We have no way of keeping them accountable for their actions.
@bcbishop You’re right, the BOS could possibly do those things, especially since their MO at the moment is copying the OSDM. But it would be unreasonable to wait for the OSDM to willingly submit itself and the Experiences it produces to a regulatory body, so the BOS, with its flaws, will have to suffice.Going back to your Disney comparison, everyone would notice (and kick up a fuss) if Disneyland staff conspired to murder guests on its rides, because you normally wouldn’t expect to encounter that in the park. Similarly, some people refuse to attend Halloween haunted houses on the possibility of a real murderer using it as cover, as unlikely as that is. I should hope the BOS doesn’t start copying the OSDM by staging murders to further its cause, or I would be just as worried about them.
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@coryphella Yeah…I was deliberately vague since I know nothing about the specifics of said requirements or how well they actually work. I’m guessing not well >_<
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@izryn – the only time there are requirements is when a union is involved, and the union is there to either protect the actors or the stagehands (or the designers though our union is…surprisingly ineffective). There are “rankings” for theatres when you get to the regional level like the Guthrie or Broadway houses, but the majority of theatre – like fringe festivals, indie theatre, small houses, everything I have ever done basically – no regulations other than whatever the landlord/city/whatever government says you need to do to stay open, and even then, we do whatever we need to do to bend those rules.
And this is why with immersive theatre the whole thing is so interesting – there are no regulations at all. We accept the fourth wall as a social construct. That’s all it is. I can just as easily throw a “fourth wall” up between me and the Tension actors, it could literally have the same meaning.
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I think @bcbishop has it partially right. There is no mystery here. We are engaging in straightforward free-will transactions. Pick sides? Why? What transaction are they offering that benefits you?
“But let’s at least be honest about the bargains we’re making, and what we all really want at the end of the day.”
The mistake is thinking that what we give to OSDM is returned to us as simple entertainment. If that’s all anyone is here for, then by all means, sit in Plato’s Cave and watch the shadows dance.
We’ve already been told everything we need to know. Everything.
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