• corbin@awful.systems
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    3
    ·
    4 days ago

    I’m now remembering a minor part of the major plot point in Illuminatus! concerning the fnords. The idea was that normies are memetically influenced by “fnord” but the Discordians are too sophisticated for that. Discordian lore is that “fnord” is actually code for a real English word, but which one? Traditionally it’s “Communism” or “socialism”, but that’s two options. So, rather than GMA, what if there’s merely multiple different fnords set up by multiple different groups with overlapping-yet-distinct interests? Then the relevant phenomenon isn’t the forgetting and emotional reactions associated with each fnord, but the fnordability of a typical human. By analogy with gullibility (believing what you hear because of how it’s spoken) and suggestibility (doing what you’re told because of how it’s phrased), fnordability might be accepting what you read because of the presence of specific codewords.

    • diz@awful.systems
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      edit-2
      4 days ago

      I think I have a real example. Non hierarchical (or, at least, less hierarchical) arrangements. Anarchy is equated with chaos.

      Anything in nature we ascribe a hierarchy to; ants or other hymenoptera and termites have supposed “queens”, parent wolves are “alphas” and so on. Fictional ant-like aliens have brain bugs, or cerebrates, or the like. Even the fucking zombies infected with a variant of the rabies virus get alphas somehow.

      Every effort has went into twisting every view on reality and every fiction to align with the ideology.