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Jhet posted:The personal part is unfortunate. But if they're doing in the suburbs without transit, you may as well not even be in Chicago. Yeah there's plenty of space--churches, meeting rooms, etc. Sometimes it's a bit pricey, though. AFAIK MES ran, in terms of LARP, a V20, a nVamp 1E, and nChangeling 1E. I only played in the V20 but it was gonzo enough for the ruleset, and oWoD LARPing still has the broadest base, so anyone looking to rebuild could do pretty well for themselves in a Saturday Morning Camarilla sort of game. Nessus posted:Are these remote areas somehow full of cool play areas or relative privacy from the mundanes, or is it because transit accessibility is "sketchy" and "feels unsafe" because "there are black people on the train/bus" From how I had it quoted to me, it was a combination of amount of private space for a good price, but the amount of space that was theoretically available out there was way more than a modest vampire LARP really needs. Most everyone who attended lived in the city proper and was fine using public transit, that sort of attitude is more a deep-suburban thing, especially in Chicago where there are plenty of neo-yuppies who take pride in not owning cars in much the same way people who didn't own a television around the turn of the millenium could be a bit smug.
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# ? Apr 14, 2017 06:37 |
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# ? May 26, 2024 02:40 |
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long-rear end nips Diane posted:They already made a demon TV show That is profoundly accurate, but there are effectively only like 3 people that have ever seen that show so it's hard for them to know it.
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# ? Apr 14, 2017 07:25 |
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long-rear end nips Diane posted:They already made a demon TV show Holy poo poo I need to watch this it sounds incredible.
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# ? Apr 14, 2017 07:41 |
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It is amazing - it's well worth your time if you can track it down. That and The Lost Room, another surprisingly good but obscure weird americana show.
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# ? Apr 14, 2017 08:22 |
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Mulva posted:That is profoundly accurate, but there are effectively only like 3 people that have ever seen that show so it's hard for them to know it. I saw season 1 years ago when it snuck on Netflix. Amazing show.
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# ? Apr 14, 2017 09:35 |
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Quick question. Does 8/9 again stack with rote quality?
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# ? Apr 14, 2017 10:04 |
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It should. I can't remember seeing anything to the contrary.
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# ? Apr 14, 2017 10:39 |
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For those looking for good infrastructure for Demon, and who aren't already familiar with it, look into HAARP and the conspiracy theories surrounding it. I just did part of an initial write-up on it for the Typology of Conspiracy thing and remembered how big a fixture it was in conspiracy theories for years. Even if none of those are true, it easily lends itself to use as Infrastructure or a Holy Engineers site.
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# ? Apr 14, 2017 13:48 |
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long-rear end nips Diane posted:They already made a demon TV show This was a great show and I really need to drop "guy with a book who gives you tasks" into some game.
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# ? Apr 14, 2017 13:58 |
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Mister Olympus posted:A couple problems emerged, one of which was deeply personal to some very involved people, and deeply dramatic and utterly inappropriate to talk about in a public forum. Was this just in Illinois or was it a national thing? Also, it's pretty lovely to talk about something so vaguely when it apparently has huge repercussions for the organization. As a former member I'm very interested because there was always crazy drama that didn't impact the group. My local group was pretty much split in half right after I got out because two members couldn't make the sacrifice to have one of them spend the night at home with their special needs kid. They just let their 9? year old kid wander around a college campus until midnight every weekend. EDIT: For those who aren't familiar, the Mind's Eye Society has always been a dumpster fire of problems on the national level. White Wolf at one point had to take them over because what was then the Camarilla tried to sue WW for joint ownership of all of the game line copyrights. They soundly lost that lawsuit and got taken over so nothing like that would happen again. They eventually got cut loose again but there's still issues. It can also differ wildly by local game but LARP's attract that element. RocknRollaAyatollah fucked around with this message at 14:30 on Apr 14, 2017 |
# ? Apr 14, 2017 14:21 |
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Loomer posted:For those looking for good infrastructure for Demon, and who aren't already familiar with it, look into HAARP and the conspiracy theories surrounding it. I just did part of an initial write-up on it for the Typology of Conspiracy thing and remembered how big a fixture it was in conspiracy theories for years. Even if none of those are true, it easily lends itself to use as Infrastructure or a Holy Engineers site. A week or two ago I started digging really deep into the MKULTRA/STARGATE/First Earth Battalion/psychotronics conspiracy theories because I had an idea for a WoD-style fangame based on just that, but I got kind of burned by what I saw. Most conspiracy theories are just the mind going pareidolia on political patterns, but writing about the MKULTRA and psychotronics stuff made me feel really rotten because I was basically making light of the troubles of people with very serious delusions and troubling mental disorders, and I felt like writing not very seriously about this stuff just had me enabling people who really need help.
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# ? Apr 14, 2017 14:32 |
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Flavivirus posted:That and The Lost Room, another surprisingly good but obscure weird americana show. Was that the one with the guy from 6feet under hunting down all these objects with weird powers right?
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# ? Apr 14, 2017 14:48 |
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LatwPIAT posted:A week or two ago I started digging really deep into the MKULTRA/STARGATE/First Earth Battalion/psychotronics conspiracy theories because I had an idea for a WoD-style fangame based on just that, but I got kind of burned by what I saw. Most conspiracy theories are just the mind going pareidolia on political patterns, but writing about the MKULTRA and psychotronics stuff made me feel really rotten because I was basically making light of the troubles of people with very serious delusions and troubling mental disorders, and I felt like writing not very seriously about this stuff just had me enabling people who really need help. Yeah, conspiracy can be a very delicate subject sometimes. I actually started work on the MKULTRA article yesterday, and it's a difficult thing to walk the line on. This is horrific poo poo that actually happened, of which the victims are still alive in many cases - but it's also iconic and permanently engrained in conspiracy culture. I think it's one of those subjects that it's important to recognize is real, but that not every claim made is real. For instance, I cite the work of Karen Wetmore. She may just be crazy, but she also presents one of the most plausible cases of MKULTRA experimentation on the mentally ill out there, well-researched, in-line with what is known of the various projects under that umbrella, and without the stuff that goes under the seperate-but-related Monarch project header (which is nearly always a layer of delusion on top of an MKULTRA background.) It's difficult to say if she's paranoid for thinking she's being followed while agitating about what was done to her, but even if she is just paranoid... Well, who could blame her, right? The government may have literally tried to reprogram her mind with drugs and trauma, and if that doesn't entitle you to a healthy fear of the CIA, nothing does. Really, MKULTRA doesn't even belong in the same list as fake or semi-fake conspiracy theories, but since it spawned so many (including that it's still operating today in secret, that Julian Assange is a product of its Australian continuation after it became impossible to pursue in the CONUS, and that Charles Manson was an MKULTRA plant used to discredit the hippy movement - not to mention the entire Monarch theory) it sort of needs to get a treatment as well. It definitely doesn't belong in the same breath as primarily delusional psychotronics or even the factual Project Stargate (which harmed no one but the taxpayers) because of the scope and horror of what was done under it. So I'm going mostly with a stance of 'this is real, this was awful, and if you're going to use it, show respect to the victims' for this and similar subjects that aren't the feelgood 'reptiles run the world!', 'Batboy is alive and well in Florida!' and 'tony abbot is a robot!' mostly-harmless delusions.
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# ? Apr 14, 2017 14:54 |
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I'm liking Last Podcast On the Left but boy can they be painfully unfunny at times.
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# ? Apr 14, 2017 15:12 |
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Loomer posted:Yeah, conspiracy can be a very delicate subject sometimes. I actually started work on the MKULTRA article yesterday, and it's a difficult thing to walk the line on. This is horrific poo poo that actually happened, of which the victims are still alive in many cases - but it's also iconic and permanently engrained in conspiracy culture. I think it's one of those subjects that it's important to recognize is real, but that not every claim made is real. For instance, I cite the work of Karen Wetmore. She may just be crazy, but she also presents one of the most plausible cases of MKULTRA experimentation on the mentally ill out there, well-researched, in-line with what is known of the various projects under that umbrella, and without the stuff that goes under the seperate-but-related Monarch project header (which is nearly always a layer of delusion on top of an MKULTRA background.) It's difficult to say if she's paranoid for thinking she's being followed while agitating about what was done to her, but even if she is just paranoid... Well, who could blame her, right? The government may have literally tried to reprogram her mind with drugs and trauma, and if that doesn't entitle you to a healthy fear of the CIA, nothing does. Honestly, the whole ChroD and WoD have these problems. ChroD moreso since it and its players actually seem to care about not being disrespectful. The place is analogous to the real world, with the same locations and a lot of the same history, and when you start throwing supernaturals and divine conspiracies into everything it has the problem where you can be taking real-world issues and problems and simplifying their causes and effects in a manner that could be perceived as and could actually be terribly disrespectful. It's a problem a game I was in ran into when an entire arc was set in Chicago and involved an ancient gulmoth that had been sitting in Lake Michigan since before the Europeans sailed over, and possibly since before time began. That's a fun hook, but it's also implying that a lot of what's going on in Chicago may just be due to bad vibes in the water instead of the rampant socio-economic inequalities and issues thereof--something the ST stressed pretty hard wasn't the case, just an exacerbating factor.
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# ? Apr 14, 2017 15:36 |
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Ironslave posted:That's a fun hook, but it's also implying that a lot of what's going on in Chicago may just be due to bad vibes in the water instead of the rampant socio-economic inequalities and issues thereof I get wanting to be respectful and all, but there's "treating a topic with due consideration" and then there's concern trolling yourself, and I think this is getting pretty close to the latter.
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# ? Apr 14, 2017 16:05 |
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Loomer posted:Really, MKULTRA doesn't even belong in the same list as fake or semi-fake conspiracy theories, but since it spawned so many (including that it's still operating today in secret, that Julian Assange is a product of its Australian continuation after it became impossible to pursue in the CONUS, and that Charles Manson was an MKULTRA plant used to discredit the hippy movement - not to mention the entire Monarch theory) it sort of needs to get a treatment as well. It definitely doesn't belong in the same breath as primarily delusional psychotronics or even the factual Project Stargate (which harmed no one but the taxpayers) because of the scope and horror of what was done under it. So I'm going mostly with a stance of 'this is real, this was awful, and if you're going to use it, show respect to the victims' for this and similar subjects that aren't the feelgood 'reptiles run the world!', 'Batboy is alive and well in Florida!' and 'tony abbot is a robot!' mostly-harmless delusions. Yeah, of course, MKULTRA was an actual thing that happened - but like you say lots of things have sprung up around up that definitely didn't happen, which get connected to all the other stuff. MKULTRA's mind control experiments being used to develop psychotronic weapons to create MONARCH sex slaves and all that. And one thing is the real victims of MKULTRA and Dr Cameron's research, but the ones who really drag in the conspiracy theory angle are the "Targeted Individuals", who are the ones I really feel bad about making light of. Also, since we're on this topic, have you found anything about H.C. Tien's experiments with "ELT" in your work? He's mentioned pretty much only in books by people talking about ritual abuse or the evils of psychiatry, and while he was a real psychologist, I've yet to determine if he actually ever had anything to do with all the mind control stuff he's accused of. Also also, if you're interested in stuff about MKULTRA and its foreign counterparts (MKDELTA), I might be able to dig up some stuff for you about claims of MKDELTA experiments on Norwegian psychiatric patients in Norway. I read up on it and it was all bogus, so it made for a great Delta Green plothook. :P
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# ? Apr 14, 2017 16:48 |
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LatwPIAT posted:Yeah, of course, MKULTRA was an actual thing that happened - but like you say lots of things have sprung up around up that definitely didn't happen, which get connected to all the other stuff. MKULTRA's mind control experiments being used to develop psychotronic weapons to create MONARCH sex slaves and all that. And one thing is the real victims of MKULTRA and Dr Cameron's research, but the ones who really drag in the conspiracy theory angle are the "Targeted Individuals", who are the ones I really feel bad about making light of. I've run into the name a few times, but usually not as anything more than a reference and nothing too reputable. Mostly the same stuff you ran into, I'm betting, including that atrocious scan of the 1972 article that I'm not convinced isn't a photoshop. That, or he escaped notice because the files relating to his work were among those destroyed or censored by the CIA (which is one of the creepiest things about MKULTRA. What we do know is horrifying, but it's also only a tiny fraction of the files - and possibly, CIA story aside, what they deliberately let us see. The classic conspiracist mindset immediately asks, what was in those files and just how bad was it? Were the 20,000 files we got to see an accident, or did they give us something just bad enough to make it seem like no worse abuses could have been involved?) and wasn't as prolific publishing as Dr. Cameron was. I'll check the books for him if you like, but I'd be willing to bet he doesn't surface as more than a name in the bibliography. Breggin's work might be worth a look, but it's out of my price range for a niche check and he's a... Controversial figure, to say the least. And yeah, chuck the MKDELTA stuff over. It all goes in the pile to be added to the list of conspiracies. Loomer fucked around with this message at 17:48 on Apr 14, 2017 |
# ? Apr 14, 2017 17:16 |
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If I want to know more about the Crypt of the Butterfly / Packet Theta / just general "what the hell is going on on the moon, particularly in a non-Werewolf-centric sense" stuff, where should I go for that? Any splatbooks or fiction I should look out for?
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# ? Apr 14, 2017 18:48 |
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hangedman1984 posted:Was that the one with the guy from 6feet under hunting down all these objects with weird powers right? Yup, exactly. Works equally well slotted into NWoD (using Reliquary probably) or Unknown Armies.
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# ? Apr 14, 2017 18:52 |
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Loomer posted:I've run into the name a few times, but usually not as anything more than a reference and nothing too reputable. Mostly the same stuff you ran into, I'm betting, including that atrocious scan of the 1972 article that I'm not convinced isn't a photoshop. That, or he escaped notice because the files relating to his work were among those destroyed or censored by the CIA (which is one of the creepiest things about MKULTRA. What we do know is horrifying, but it's also only a tiny fraction of the files - and possibly, CIA story aside, what they deliberately let us see. The classic conspiracist mindset immediately asks, what was in those files and just how bad was it? Were the 20,000 files we got to see an accident, or did they give us something just bad enough to make it seem like no worse abuses could have been involved?) and wasn't as prolific publishing as Dr. Cameron was. I'll check the books for him if you like, but I'd be willing to bet he doesn't surface as more than a name in the bibliography. Breggin's work might be worth a look, but it's out of my price range for a niche check and he's a... Controversial figure, to say the least. Yeah, Breggin is the "evils of psychiatry"-kind of person. On the topic of MKDELTA, what I wrote in my notes was "The CIA and Stay Behind experiment with LSD and mescaline on Norwegian-German war children and quislings at Lier, Gaustad, and Reitgjerde Hospitals, and at Modum Bad Neuropsychiatric Sanatorium from 1953 to 1975." where Stay Behind is the Norwegian counterpart to the Norwegian Gladio. I "know" this is bogus because it was part of a larger government investigation into Stay Behind in 1994 and again in 2003, and it determined that there was no substance to the claims. I can translate the juicy parts of this for you, which covers the allegations in some greater depth. But not now, because my Internet disappears in two minutes.
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# ? Apr 14, 2017 21:29 |
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:If I want to know more about the Crypt of the Butterfly / Packet Theta / just general "what the hell is going on on the moon, particularly in a non-Werewolf-centric sense" stuff, where should I go for that? Any splatbooks or fiction I should look out for? I'm pretty sure the first fiction anthology for CoD had that stuff in it
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# ? Apr 14, 2017 21:41 |
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Yawgmoth posted:I think the point where you start worrying about this is the part where you need to take two big steps back and a long deep breath. It's a game. The game world is based on ours, it is not ours. The game world has supernatural stuff by the bucket full, ours does not. By playing a vampire you are not saying you want to drink blood, and saying there's an ancient and terrible monster in the depths causing bad things in this game world does not mean you think or are implying that the awful things in our world aren't entirely of human make. As a followup on this, there's really no reason it can't be both socioeconomic issues compounded by a horrible monster in the lake that is making everything even worse. The World of Darkness is supposed to be shittier than ours, after all. It also adds an interesting dynamic in that destroying the big monster doesn't magically fix everything. In fact, it may be minor in the face of the entirely human aspect of the problems facing the area.
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# ? Apr 15, 2017 01:06 |
Obligatum VII posted:As a followup on this, there's really no reason it can't be both socioeconomic issues compounded by a horrible monster in the lake that is making everything even worse. The World of Darkness is supposed to be shittier than ours, after all. It also adds an interesting dynamic in that destroying the big monster doesn't magically fix everything. In fact, it may be minor in the face of the entirely human aspect of the problems facing the area.
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# ? Apr 15, 2017 01:11 |
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Basic Chunnel posted:I'm pretty sure the first fiction anthology for CoD had that stuff in it Thanks!
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# ? Apr 15, 2017 01:13 |
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Nessus posted:On the flip side (since without hope, horror is just depression porn), lancing the spiritual boil may make it easier for the mortals to make headway. I think that was, in principle, the idea and cycle behind a lot of the stuff in W:tA; heal the spirit so the material world can get its poo poo right. Oh, I definitely agree. I do think it makes it more interesting if your characters are basically fighting on two fronts though, addressing both issues at the same time. In the end, victory isn't defeating the supernatural threat, it's defeating the concepts it embodied. One of my favorite games I ever played in had a lot of that going on.
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# ? Apr 15, 2017 01:14 |
Obligatum VII posted:Oh, I definitely agree. I do think it makes it more interesting if your characters are basically fighting on two fronts though, addressing both issues at the same time. In the end, victory isn't defeating the supernatural threat, it's defeating the concepts it embodied. One of my favorite games I ever played in had a lot of that going on.
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# ? Apr 15, 2017 01:20 |
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I forgot to mention the Doctor in our group doesn't know the difference between small dogs and horses.
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# ? Apr 15, 2017 02:30 |
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Senior Scarybagels posted:I forgot to mention the Doctor in our group doesn't know the difference between small dogs and horses. Small dogs are sweet boys who deserve our love. Horses are the worst, despised by all right-thinking folk. Hope this helps!
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# ? Apr 15, 2017 02:32 |
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Dammit Who? posted:Small dogs are sweet boys who deserve our love. Horses are the worst, despised by all right-thinking folk. Hope this helps! Having owned a small dog and worked in a stable, this is correct.
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# ? Apr 15, 2017 03:21 |
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RocknRollaAyatollah posted:Was this just in Illinois or was it a national thing? Also, it's pretty lovely to talk about something so vaguely when it apparently has huge repercussions for the organization. Just in Chicago, just on a people-level, not talking about it because of the severity of the issue, possible identification, and I don't want to buy platinum or email random people about other people's poo poo. I wouldn't call it "lovely" of me to do so if the standard of drama you're envisioning is just people being lax with their kids. This was much worse. The LARP was very small when it happened anyway, a great deal smaller than many non-affiliated LARPs in the area. It wouldn't have taken much to get it to blow over. Mismanagement--i.e. letting it get to the point of being 10 people at a CC in the middle of nowhere--was the stronger factor, but player loss from the personal drama was still part of a one-two punch. e: In theory this is also a chicken-and-egg thing. Chicago has a big, vibrant LARP scene that is totally unaffiliated with any national organizations whatsoever, so where's the interest to have a MES chapter? I'm not saying it couldn't work, just that you'd have to run it well. Mister Olympus fucked around with this message at 03:35 on Apr 15, 2017 |
# ? Apr 15, 2017 03:25 |
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LatwPIAT posted:Yeah, Breggin is the "evils of psychiatry"-kind of person. On the topic of MKDELTA, what I wrote in my notes was "The CIA and Stay Behind experiment with LSD and mescaline on Norwegian-German war children and quislings at Lier, Gaustad, and Reitgjerde Hospitals, and at Modum Bad Neuropsychiatric Sanatorium from 1953 to 1975." where Stay Behind is the Norwegian counterpart to the Norwegian Gladio. I "know" this is bogus because it was part of a larger government investigation into Stay Behind in 1994 and again in 2003, and it determined that there was no substance to the claims. Of course, this is exactly what a disinformation agent would say! I'll do a write-up later about the Aussie version, which is a theory that some of our sleep lab experiments and the Family cult (where Mr. Assange got his hair. For some reason this is now a debunked theory, which is strange since it's actually true. Julian's mother was romantically involved with a Family man who wound up driving them onto the run, settling for a while up in the region I live. But people assume that because he was never a direct member of the cult proper he wasn't influenced in any way.) were CIA projects that 'took over' in the post-1973 period to continue exploring certain aspects of the work, especially psychosynthesis and the use of long-term brainwashing. As always, extremely difficult to track down truth in the matter, though the Family did have surprisingly easy access to large quantities of LSD straight from Sandoz for basically free which is interesting.
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# ? Apr 15, 2017 03:36 |
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Current Game's Summary: 50 Cent Beer Nightthe Adventure posted:Starring The G-Man who lives in your nightmares Lakewood, the G-Man who lives in your hearts O'Conner, The Physician who should learn a bit about biology Dr. Clydsman, The Guy with all the Hookups Billy and the guy tired of all the other's poo poo - Agent Fetcher, with Unzealous as the ST.
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# ? Apr 15, 2017 04:04 |
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Loomer posted:Of course, this is exactly what a disinformation agent would say! I'll do a write-up later about the Aussie version, which is a theory that some of our sleep lab experiments and the Family cult were CIA projects that 'took over' in the post-1973 period to continue exploring certain aspects of the work, especially psychosynthesis and the use of long-term brainwashing. The only thing I've been able to determine with certainty when it comes to H.C. Tien is his following claims from PSYCHOSYNTHESIS: A TV-CYBERNETIC HOLOGRAM MODEL H.C. Tien posted:From 1962 to 1967, the author evolved gradually the theory of psychosynthesis and the technique of transmutation of a less adaptable personality to a more adaptable one, out of his practical experiences with the ELT. From 1967 to date, using the mass-energy equivalence concept of Einstein, the author unified the Darwinian concept of evolution, the psychoanalysis of Freud, the conditioning theory of Pavlov, the information theory of Shannon to build a practical cybernetic system of Wiener, utilizing the modern television technology and electrochemotherapy for the transmutation of less adaptable personalities to more adaptable ones in the community. As a result, the author has formed a TV-linked mental health mini-community of almost a hundred families, who have achieved 85% results in transforming less adaptable personalities to more adaptable ones, with relative mental stability, productivity and happiness in the complex and conflicting ecological sub-systems of the modern world. Which lends some credence to the claims in the 1972 paper the Tien was erasing personalities to make women into Stepford Wives, but on the other hand Tien's claims in this excerpt alone are ridiculously self-aggrandizing ("I created a unified theory of Freudian psychoanalysis, classical conditioning, information theory, and physics!") and the paper as a whole is a bunch of pseudoscience hogwash.
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# ? Apr 15, 2017 11:10 |
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I reached out to Breggin on the matter. Quack that he might be, he discusses Tien a few times so he may have some actually useful references.
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# ? Apr 15, 2017 12:33 |
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Mister Olympus posted:
In the 90s on IRC there were rumors of a house with a regular multi-day 24/7 game running based out of Chicago. But lol it was the 90s and on IRC and on a "free form" vampire channel. So yeah...
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# ? Apr 16, 2017 05:01 |
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Robotic Folksinger posted:Quick question. Does 8/9 again stack with rote quality? No. If you remember, only the "best" dice trick applies. It goes (if I recall right): Advanced Action -> Rote Action -> 8-again -> 9-again -> 10-again.
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# ? Apr 16, 2017 14:24 |
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MC Smoke Sensei posted:No. If you remember, only the "best" dice trick applies. It goes (if I recall right): Advanced Action -> Rote Action -> 8-again -> 9-again -> 10-again. Where does it say this?
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# ? Apr 16, 2017 15:06 |
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01011001 posted:Where does it say this? I looked through, and they must have tossed that out from successive edits of their books. So, I don't know anymore. 8-again and Rote together seem excessive, but then, it's also hard to say that one is always better than another from a standpoint of pure probability. That is beyond my ken at this present time.
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# ? Apr 16, 2017 15:21 |
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# ? May 26, 2024 02:40 |
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MC Smoke Sensei posted:it's also hard to say that one is always better than another from a standpoint of pure probability. Rote Quality, every time. The bonuses from 9-again and 8-again are really quite tiny.
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# ? Apr 16, 2017 19:33 |