I have taken much advice in the form of who could contact me durring recently appearing episodes of unpleaseantness. I have read the writeup on the E2 user survey and found it to be most enlightening. I also have been giving much thought about what exactly I wish to achieve using this system and it's services.
I guess that there has been a major problem that I have had was that I heard of the change of servers durring a long ago visit to http://everything.slashdot.org and was eventually referred here.
I spent a great deal of time majorly lurking the site and previewing the content. It was my reviewing of the content that made me deserious to really want to create my own content to rival much of the stuff that was there.
I have not read all of the survey results but most of the material is interesting. I read the entire introduction and the section 6 on newbies was most enlightening.
Also comments about the ideal of longevity of the site really makes my mind hard to reconsile with what is here. I don't know it's almost like the stuff that I remembered from high school creative writing. A great deal of that upset me. I like to think of writing as the only true form of totally free expression that is and can be timeless. What would aliens think of stuff that sounds like an amateur comedy act?
It is that impulse that makes me really think that there is something to be done. I really think that there would be a nice version of a free encyclopedia to be added if there could be a good agreement amongst the users as to what to add. Personally I think that there can be creative writing but it should be identified as such.
What does this mean for my work and place therein? Do you want to know what I think
I LIKE A CHALLENGE
I like to think that everything that has happened in my life is some sort of masohistic test from god and personally I will make everything work or take the end of heroes and fall on my sword (as in Brutus fame). There is nothing that cannot be overcome witout extreme work. I went through Engineering Physics and it was hell but I passed with a decent grade. I perservered through Calculus. I went through hellish programming classes in my CS degree. Written papers and received decent grades. Passed hellish tests. Made my way under difficult problems in almost every realm of society: legal, moral, psychological, and I have come to something that I really wish to share with the readership.
I AM NOT ALONE AND I WANT TO BELIEVE
This makes me have hope. I have thought of suicide over more (now) trivial ammounts of blood, sweat, and tears than this will entail but it's something that is giving me a long think.
Abraham Lincoln is my personal hero (for those of you not in the US check out the link to discover a little about this man or if the writeup is lacking just ask me about what I mean more fully). He was able to educate himself and raise himself in a background which was quite humble (even worse than mine) and even against the background of people who were more educated than he.
Anyone can play the game but it takes a really good soul to rewrite the game to the best of their ability. That is my plan. I will win my game through superior tactics against a background that is against the chances for success.
They (the E2 documents) say that a writeup has to be interesting and it has to be factual and it has to be emotively expressive at the same time. (editor's note: this is completely untrue.) Quite a formidable task. This means that there is a great deal of thinking about what one wants from the system.
It's almost like a good example of a Faustian Bargain (yeah I am sure I'm a dum dum just because I have spelling problems and such but I can have a full set of ideals like this). It seems that even high level users are complaining about such things I believe someone is even quoted in the document as saying that to rise one has to become an automaton. That is a bit chilling.
How best to change this little theory? I don't really know. There is a rather applicable quote which is about the power elite which (sorry don't have the book handy right now) states that people fracture into units called 'veto groups' which are basically ideologically inclined units which give individuals power against their own powerlessness. Collective security and such are the outcome. People who don't ally with a grouping which can settle their feelings of a will to power are out of luck.
In the presence of such ideas I have to believe that there are intense feelings (which I have personally felt) that ammount to fiefdoms. People need to have their power. If I directly challenge even a simple thing like why an issue isn't covered or take a position that someone dosn't like I am blasted. Then *my* personal rant button starts to get into play and then I have ideologically oriented conflicts out of the deal. This is bad form in a public forum which aspires.
What is the next thing that I have to deal with. It's probably the mix of formalistic language which can sometimes be employed and some quality of acerbic, cynnicism that I can't identify. It's like what would happen if Charles Dickens had grown up in the 80s. It's almost as if all the things I would like to say/be were stripped of their content and their essence was used for an aim that I don't totally support in some other veto group that I don't entirely like.
However that really isn't fair is it? I mean that can't be what the vast majority of patrons could believe? Is it? I mean not everyone is really like they sound: independently wealthy, cynnical, and uncareing now are they? As the document stated these people are human, they make mistakes and they engage in folly.
It would be wrong to think that everyone really is that. I mean even home nodes don't tell you the heart and soul of someone. That is a fact I will believe in. In a way a kernel of truth which is an axiomic statement remains as to what is good and bad.
Ok so what motivates my propensity to debate? It's thinking that people have an ulterior motive. If they say started to write a book, maybe *the* book. The only reccord of themselves as human beings which had to have more of a purpose than just being a diary what would be the defineing essay of their character? What would it be? In other words what makes them tick and what are they trying to express? What are they trying to say and *not* trying to say in their communications?
Unfortunately I assume that the combination of sarcastic, cynnical, non-trivial, and idealistic statements (which are not bad in and of themselves when taken in ammounts of moderated thoughtput) and the strucutre, and composition of some of these ideas when taken to form an idea seem to be both evil and cunning in what they are trying to achieve. It's good and all to think that let's say aliens will discover E2, or that somehow people believe that something without a neural network can suddenly evolve sentience and become the sum of it's parts or practitioners, or even that this is a good thing to create a jolly good time, as reasons to creat information but I think it's a good deal more compelx.
When you say create a short story, write an essay, or maybe choose a subject to do some visual arts work on (my sister is good at this I just reference this as the greatest act of dissipated acumen that is out there) you are chooseing to make a statement that could say include a nice hefty essay about intent, and motivation, etc.
It's this that worries me intellectually speaking because it makes for a grand old time of putting up the following scenario for general consumption: what would the world be like if this person was in charage and what would my life be if I was John Doe within it. Maybe this isn't fair but it's my personal barometer and sometimes when the world looks like some sort of dystopia of the proletariat it begins to make me get my own counter proposal.
So that is what I thought of when I was reading this and openly stated my own motivations.
On to what to do to deal with this problem.
Well I'm formulating a solution that looks good. I can tell you for example that I don't have a whole lot of abstract creativity when it comes to things artistic(I was never a good artist but I have good ideals when it comes to thinking so I think I'm not totally deficient.) Humor dosn't really play a large part in my life in a publically understandable way that people would understand.
That seems to be a minus point in my favor. However I have a passion for various things that deal with intellectual argumentation, and historical information so that does something right? In addition to that I have more than a passing association with CS as it is my chosen major. So I guess I could do something with that. I also have an interest in microbiology and with related fields.
Maybe if I get to know some more people a little more intimately I wouldn't assume that because they have odd nodes that means that the next book along the lines of Mao says... is coming out for a new book run.
In return I will suspend disbelief in perpetuity and use more of our friend spellcheck.net in the future along with whatever I can remember of long ago grammar lessons. I doubt that you all are souless minions of orthodoxy or leaders of some dictatorship of the proletariat. Of course when there is a stated verbotten flag for Getting To Know You Nodes I have little ability to just devine the answer.
So in conslusion for the day's remarks I believe that there is a good place for such information. I might just start with Abraham Lincoln from my notes or just about a non 100% fact filled analysis about him. I just hope that *that* particular node dosn't get eaten for uningenious reasons. Honest Abe and his beliefs are something I take very seriously and think of the most highly.
Aufwieterzehn, farwell, Da Svidanya, etc.
Until we node again
--sincerly
operation-phoenix
And as one noder noted this is indeed the end of the operation-phoenix show(tm).