(no subject) +1

Somehow the "size relative to a bus" ties all this together with the praxis for me.

(no subject)

I didn't look into that. Technically, one person could drop another off in under ten minutes, so it's not that. My problem with the sign is more simple than that.

At Owner's Expense

Oh, I c.

(no subject) -1

That's cool. If you want to discuss it, PM me. Admittedly, I was tired while doing the write-up as well as encountering said individuals, so my 'politically correct filter' of thought wasn't running. However, notice the actions I took on such rogue, 'creepy' thoughts.

Exactly.
Flame bait, anyone?
I'm not going to beg for your vote.
In fact, I stopped tasking so I wouldn't have to beg.
This was one of the most unique and inspiring moments of my life, and I chose to share it with you. Take it or leave it.

(no subject) +1

I don't really want to PM you, The Animus. You said creepy shit in public. If you have anything else to add to the matter, you can add it in public too.

I guess you want me to take note that you did not act on your creepy thoughts. Noted. What do you want, a medal?

SF0 is a community and we are all participants here. You shared your praxis, now it's our turn to react. It's not up to you whether I (or anyone else) "takes it or leaves it", or responds in a manner that is neither taking it nor leaving it.

(no subject) -1

I didn't want to cause a scene, out of respect for Zer0Gee, and I most certainly didn't want to disgrace her dedication to this task (and apparently cost her a vote -- oh noes!). But hey, maybe we can talk sweet nothings for awhile and make it turn out like another task that you seemed to have judged me by. So you have a grudge. Noted. What do you want, a medal? Or is it attention?

Go ahead. Push your morals on me, over the internet. Get laughed at.
In the meantime, I'm going to make pipebombs. Err-- Task. I meant task.
You're taking it, alright. :: grins :: Have a good one.

I Disagree +1

I'll drop some thoughts in on this, as it was linked to from Extreme Kite Flying. The thought was startling -- but then again, I think there is a morbidity inherent to all of our thoughts to a varying degree, particularly regarding interactions with strangers. There are only so many Homo Sapiens in the world we can actually see as "people", about 150 for an average person. You can love a monkey, but what about ten? A hundred? A million? We don't see other people as "people" with thoughts and dreams and lives and friends and primary school memories by default. Usually they are just Traffic, or Guy In Line, or The Thing That Picks Up Garbage On Wednesday.

Standing in line at the bank you don't look at someone in front of you in line, and think "Ooh, I bet they are a hard worker." Most of us are willing to accept some truth to this ingroup/outgroup hatred we can manifest for strangers -- C. K. Louis is a master at showing us that:
Louis Ck - Stamps At The Post Office


That said, I think our inclination is here akin to what is was in Lincoln's Deadzone -- try to reinforce "acceptable" behavior for fear of encouraging thoughts or acts that could develop into something more malignant. Lincoln won't kill himself, and I doubt The Animus will go Tyler Durden on us and

...destroy something beautiful I'd never have. Burn the Amazon rain forests. Pump chlorofluorocarbons straight up to gobble the ozone. Open the dump valves on supertankers and uncap offshore oil wells. I wanted to kill all the fish I couldn't afford to eat, and smother the French beaches I'd never see.

I wanted the whole world to hit bottom.

Pounding that kid, I really wanted to put a bullet between the eyes of every endangered panda that wouldn't screw to save its species and every whale or dolphin that gave up and ran itself aground.

(no subject)

well, there is a big difference between thinking the animus is actually going to go tyler durden on us, and simply finding his sentiment creepy.

Such a good book.

You (and Louis) said it better than I could. But alas, this is still the internet, and understanding wasn't invited to the party.

I think this is an interesting and worthy comment. +3

Since I, too, was directed to this from reading the kite flying praxis, and since the above is very interesting, I'll comment. (Also, I'm bored at work today. Meh.)

My initial reaction to reading The Animus' inner monologue bit above was merely "Wow... Ok." and then I just continued on reading the praxis. J.M. Bot's comment at the bottom made me pause to consider it a little more before voting, though, which I've ultimately done because I think regardless of what was or was not written in the praxis, ZeroGee and The Animus - two near strangers from SFØ - went on a journey together and fulfilled a task. They had an experience which I found to be interesting to read about, even if one bit of it was, yes, I suppose, startling (not sure that's the right word, but it fits for now) for me to read. I would hope that even though the articulation or self-examination that might have provided context for his comment is perhaps lacking in the praxis, The Animus learned something about people, and travel, and experiencing otherness in the world from this task and their trip. I say this not because I necessarily feel The Animus *needs* to learn anything... but just because I interpret that as being what the task was about, at least in part.

I think being stuck with someone you don't really know for an overnight roadtrip is exactly the kind of thing that leads you to bring someone from the outgroup of 'not really human' to the ingroup of 'not so different than me.' (Actually, hopefully it doesn't always take something that intense.) It's harder to extend that to people in line at the bank, or irritating strangers around you. I think it takes effort sometimes. But I think tasks that force you into interactions with strangers beyond the usual help foster this natural extension. And they can be, occasionally, fascinating. It seems to me like ZeroGee and The Animus have touched on these things a bit, in their completion of the Sub-24 Hour BartPA Team Building Overnight Adventure.

However, I also think that, responding to someone's legitimate comments or concerns in your praxis by dismissing their thoughts as flame bait, or possibly just fodder from some grudge, is a bit obnoxious. And I definitely think that not beating up strangers is less about turning on a "politically correct filter" and more about not being sociopathic, or lacking some basic empathy for human beings, even if they are annoying and loud and occasionally bump into you with shopping bags.

I don't know. I've been irrationally very angry at strangers, too. I usually don't trot those moments out in public forums, or if I do it's usually for the purpose of really trying to tear those impulses apart to really understand them. I also think SFØ tasks can be great opportunities to examine these parts of ourselves. Not to say that tasks have to be *for* anything other than fun... just that, I know I would have enjoyed a little more self-reflection along with the comment that sparked this discussion. Without it, it does read as a slightly creepy and out of nowhere addition to an otherwise smooth praxis. I admit though that when I read it, I sort of filled in that blank where the self-reflection should have been myself, because I'm usually willing to give the benefit of the doubt to others. I assumed the mere mention of the random violent thoughts was some nascent attempt at said self-reflection. I mean, otherwise, why mention them at all?

This probably isn't worth this much discussion... but as I said, I'm bored at work and thought the above comment was something really interesting, and more importantly an appropriate response to the concerns J.M. Bot brought up.

So thanks, Waldo, for your thoughts. I'm going now to check out the link to the man you mentioned in your comment.

(no subject)

Very well spoken. I have a tendancy to get drawn into the drama around here, mostly due to some obsessive will to make every one agree on things (funny how it ends up creating a schism instead). I thought very little of what I said about these strangers -- I think the only reason I mentioned them at all is because it was the only adverse 'vibe' I got from any of the thousand or so people I encountered on the trip. It was a fleeting reaction, and Julian did make me think about it more as well.
"::scrolls up:: I wrote that? Heh. Interesting. Yeah, I remember them."
It digressed into ethics, which tends to get resolved by the concept of free will for me. And after that, it was just a matter of reminding Julian, in a very crude fashion, that no one's to say what SF0 is about, and that the impending drama is why I nearly quit SF0 and went back to a much worse addiction.

I appreciate your ideas.

(no subject) +1

i will also add that part of the reason for my reaction is that animus just keeps pushing my buttons for some reason. i really dislike the response of requesting to take it to private messages, when the original offending comment was stated in public. people do this a lot (obviously, not just on sf0 but plenty of other forums where flamewars are inappropriate) and i find it a tired trend. i feel like, when someone offends someone else in public, there is no reason to take that discussion private. it makes me feel like the person requesting the private discussion has something they want to hide and that i will then be obliged not to share the content of whatever we would talk about privately. it just rubs me the wrong way.

(no subject) +2

Understandable. I'm actually glad you didn't listen to me on that note, because we got hear Waldo's and Meredithian's input on the matter as well. Again, I offered that out of respect for Zer0Gee, who might not want my meddlesome banter on her task page. It seemed more civil, I suppose.
Glad we're clear on everything. Let me know (publically) if I push any more of your buttons.

(no subject)

Re: Waldo/Meredithian. I think both of you make excellent points, and to a great extent managed to make explicit what I felt about the praxis. I've been typing/deleting/typing a long comment but I just reread and realized that I'm pretty much repeating what you two said, so instead here's a summary: I agree that violent thoughts and that mental flattening out of people that we do is part of being human, but as Meredithian noted, I also am not particularly eager to see those feelings go unexamined.

Not, The Animus, to say that I expect/am asking you to change your praxis writeups, but to note that the line does reads to me as creepy for those reasons. Which is why, when it looked like Muffinbot's comment might be dismissed, I decided to chime in.

So, anyway, the discussion feels closed to me, and my intention here is not to ask for any more responses from anyone. But I wanted to weigh in a little, as my previous contribution had been one sentence, and so the reasoning behind it was understandably opaque.

(no subject) +1

I've been trying to avoid posting about this one, because I didn't want to contribute to a potential flamewar, but things seem pretty civil and I think Sparrows hit the nail on the head with the summary sentence there.

I also noticed the passage about wanting to hurt those people when I first read it - and it struck me as creepy, but in a good way. I know I've had similar destructive urges (very rarely), and they're something I imagine everyone experiences on occasion. Mentioning it is chilling not because it makes me think you'd act on it, but because it reminds me that humans have such an innate cruel streak in us.

And then you didn't follow up on it. A moment like that, if brought out into the open, could have been the start of a paragraph examining the dark side of human nature. Instead, it was presented as if it were an uninteresting detail of the trip - a fact which, I think, is creepier than the fact that the thought occurred at all.

I'd love to see the self-examination that probably should have prompted appear in another praxis or just a comment sometime, if you care to introspect in that way. (There are several HC tasks that it could potentially be part of.) I imagine it could be pretty enlightening.

(no subject)

I noticed that as well, and was tempted to photoshop it in so there wouldn't be any confusion. So two points to you as well. :: grins ::