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Topic: Infectious pursuits (Read 1537 times) |
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Fox
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Never underestimate the odds.
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Infectious pursuits
« on: 2006-07-08 18:13:18 » |
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Greetings fellow Virians.
As some may know, myself and pickles have begun a beneficial memetic operation within the communications network known as PalTalk.
The purpose of this is to raise awareness of the Church of Virus, and for the spreading of beneficial memes within a (nonvirian) general populated system.
However, we do lack a sufficient number of virians, (volunteers) for this in becoming room administrators and to aid in the teachings and philosophy of the CoV. If you feel that you could help in availing and assisting this situation it would be greatly appreciated.
If you have any further questions on the subject feel free to ask.
Regards,
Fox
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I've never expected a miracle. I will get things done myself. - Gatsu
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Hermit
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Prime example of a practically perfect person
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Re:Infectious pursuits
« Reply #1 on: 2006-07-09 15:09:50 » |
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WhiteFox, pickles and shemalewizard,
I'm currently a little more than usually tied up, so won't be helping directly with your efforts for now, but hope that some suggestions might be useful. Please note that the following is (like all Virian material!) intended purely for your consideration, is possibly not normative and is definitely not prescriptive.
You might find it helpful to read Virian Ethics: The Soul in the Machine and the Question of Virian Ethics as well as the embedded Twain story, "The Story of the Widow's Son". To my mind, this story highlighted something that a number of Virians concluded while considering how we should expand, and that was that we should primarily "feed the hungry". In other words, talk only to people who are "ready" for the CoV and avoid those who might try to resist the thinking behind it. Indeed, for many years we had as our primary address, http://virus.lucifer.com which "frightened away" many potential recruits (See also the Why Lucifer FAQ.)
This does not mean that we thought that one should not do as you are doing, and allow or even encourage the pleasant aroma of wholesome mindfood to waft across other locales (a process which a number of us have attempted with greater or lesser success), but rather that our efforts were probably best served when aimed towards the informative, intended to attract visitors to the CoV website, wiki, bbs as well as virtual (mainly IRC at http://www.churchofvirus.org/bbs/index.php?board=67;action=chat and irc.churchofvirus.org:6666 to date) and real life meetings/discussions with Virians rather than propagative. I saw this as being rather like the difference between "targeted marketing" and "cold calling."
As we are largely an intellectually driven religion (Reason, Vision), I feel that this approach of encouraging people to consider and possibly adopt the Virian religion on their own terms and at their own pace is preferable and has longer lasting effects over attempting to persuade them of our "self-evident" benefits - and possibly have them reconsider their position later when the "introducer" is no longer around to keep them motivated.
Other approaches I and others have used to "spread awareness" (rather than spreading the word) include attempts to introduce "Virian definitions" and "terms" (see e.g. Weyken) as well as showing people links to Virian papers and discussions on other forums when appropriate (i.e. when it was appropriate in on on-going dialog or as a source encapsulating what I wanted to say about something) has appeared to work reasonably well*. I have also distributed CoV "antitracts**" in locales where other religious propaganda has been disseminated where I could not avoid it - more with the intention of "balancing offense" than out of any hope of making "converts to the cause" and had other people offended by the continuous barrage of unavoidable Christian meme-spewing in the US thank me for having done so. At least four people who saw these antitracts are now regular visitors here in consequence.
Kind Regards
Hermit
*At least, this has worked fairly well for us when we have not been engaged in using our feet for target practice (something which has happened from time to time). To my mind it is never worth introducing potential Virians to our thinking during such periods, as such newcomers might well be turned off the entire ideaplex forever whereas a later introduction during a period when the on-line instantiation of the CoV is looking reasonably attractive might well lead to their adopting or adapting our concepts.
**The most recent I distributed in New Orleans after Katrina, featuring the Virian Virtues (only slightly reworked from the Website) along with a reasonably subtle, (but very effectively nasty) anti-Christian piece based on the life of Hypatia. Printed as gate folds, with Hypatia on the cover, they made a nice contrast to the Christian handouts. I did notice that in the catastrophe center where the piles of Christian handouts on all the break-out tables inspired my response, that the Christian tracts disappeared and did not return after I placed the anti-tracts - in nice acrylic holders - on all the tables next to the piles of Christian advertising.)
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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