Slashdot Mirror

You remind me of a Thelemite. You'd probably agree with a lot of the philosophy of Thelema:
http://hermetic.com/crowley/libers/lib77.html
http://lib.oto-usa.org/crowley/essays/duty.html

Not to forget Klaus Stoertebeker, a pirate in the northern seas around Hamburg. He is still kind of a folk hero in northern Germany - it's quite hard to google useful stuff about him in German, because all you get are Stoertebeker beers, Stoertebeker pageants, Stoertebeker seaside resorts, etc.

That pirates often had support in the local communities is little surprise - (not only) given the times, their policies were often quite favorable to those of "official" armies. E.g., Stoertebeker's group was known as "Likedeeler" " - an old German word, but a hint at the meaning should be clear to English speakers. I could find only German links for the exact setup (the English wikipedia article linked above doesn't mention it), but Likedeeler means approximately "equal sharer" - all proceeds from the group's endeavours would be shared in even parts among all, including captain (and, legend has it, often also with the poor along the coasts.)
No wait, here is a short summary in English.

There is of course no shortage of legends about other robberies, exploits, and pranks, most notably Stoertebeker's death (see wikipedia.) Little is known in written history, though.
And why not? These were freedom-living people, many of whom simply preferred being a pirate to being enslaved in some king's army. I'm sure they were cruel and all, but so were the times. I'm sure they could be fun to have around, too.

Hakim Bey has written some interesting things about pirates (and also many other topics.)

Or you could just walk away from it and let it collapse of it's own weight. Or to put it in slashdot speak some of us interpret governments as blockages and route around them.

Akido works too you know, sometimes meeting stupid force with more stupid force only leaves two pointlessly bruised and injured people. If you want to pirate music, or do drugs, or encrypt, or look at porn just do it already, they just don't have that many cops, really our own "internal cops" as William Burroughs put it is a bigger block than the thinly spread actual cops.

I've been to a lot of protests in my day yet recently I'm coming to the conclusion that the best revenge is not to fight the assholes but just live the way you want to live and ignore the assholes. See also the temporary autonomous zone:

http://www.hermetic.com/bey/taz_cont.html

See also the postcarbon institute which is people putting in gardens working on solar power and figuring other ways to "re-localize" and live outside leviathan/empire/molach.

http://www.postcarbon.org/

Really our effort is better put into figuring out how to practically live in a sustainable, peaceful way,that preserves knowledge and global culture in the 21st century, rather than to fight the dying dinosaur governments.

http://www.sacred-texts.com/index.htm http://www.hermetic.com/ http://www.hermetics.org/library.html

What if jesus was a highly functioning schizophrenic? :)

Mohammed apparently experienced altered states of conciousness:

"He was drawn to solitary contemplation, and he often experienced visions, some violent and disturbing. Some modern scholars have theorized that he was epileptic."

Link

• Russ Kick's Outposts & Outposts 2
• Re/Search Pranks
• From Chocolate to Morphine
• How to Get High Without Drugs
• A gift certificate to Good Vibrations
• Exhibitionism for the Shy by Carol Queen
• Screw the Roses, Send Me the Thorns
• The Herbal Abortion Handbook
• Electroshock Scorpion 200
• ASP Baton (check local laws)
• The Whole Earth Review
• Hakim Bey's T.A.Z.
• Drawing Down the Moon
• Ain't Nobody's bussiness if you do

That problem could be fixed. It's just a matter of time and ingenuity. There's no such thing as can't be done...

I suppose this is once again contributing to my dream of the geeks raging Beyist Poetic terrorism on the planet and subverting all the stupid (IMO entirely) laws we can eventually work our way around...

"Gaming" is no more a culture than "Cars" or "Food" or "Music" or "Technology".

That's right! It's sad to see culture defined in terms of products. That's how lame our "culture" has become, that it consists of what entertainment stuff you buy. Knowing "Up up down down etc." is no more meaningful than knowing the lyrics to an advertising jingle. But for inspiration about alternatives, see Immediatism.

never would have thought that katz, was into ONTOLOGICAL ANARCHISM...
dude jon, have you been reading Hakim Bey's T. A. Z.?
cause this sound just like something bey would say. hmmm, guess jon has grown out of 'trying to be geek' to 'trying to be hip'? or am i insane?

nmarshall
#include "standard_disclaimer.h"
R.U. SIRIUS: THE ONLY POSSIBLE RESPONSE