From: owner-deltagreen@revolutionsf.com on behalf of Andy Robertson [andywrobertson@clara.co.uk] Sent: Thursday, October 25, 2001 2:46 PM To: deltagreen@revolutionsf.com Subject: Re: [DG] Re: MAMMON VII ----- Original Message ----- From: "Gil Trevizo" > At 08:10 AM 10/25/01 +0100, Andy Robertson wrote: > >Hence my point about them evolving into proto-GOO. Sort of. I know it's > >cliched, but it also seems true. > > really need to control the Mythos-dropping GM tactics) and just as an > exercise, I would like to see how to translate this sort of discussion into > something practical. My thought would be something along the following lines. spoiler space Start from the share manipulaion that was applied before the WTC disaster. Have your PC's investigate something similar. --- *** --- Let us say that a whole series of disasters happens, perhaps not all so big, but each enough to impact the markets in particular ways. Let each of the disasters be **possibly** due to terrorists. But let them be very hard to pin down. For example, perhaps there is a mass crowd crowd control failure at a crucial football game which leads to thirty or so being crushed in crowd movements. Was it provoked by terrorists on the fringes of the crowd? Or was it that "economy" move that cut crowd control personnel and barriers? There is a mass pollution event in a maquiladira(sp?) on the Mex border. Many are poisoned, there are political implications. Was it a bunch of terrorists? Or just economic competition undercutting crucial safety standards? And so on --- *** --- Before each such outrage, there is buying and selling on the market that seems to "position" a number of firms to benefit from the market changes caused by the outrage. Your players investigate the firms and discover that they are all using the same sophisticated neural-network-driven internet-linked financial market modelling package. Call it MAMMON VII --- *** --- The first assumption may be that some mastermind has created and distributed MAMMON VII and is provoking the disasters in order to benefit, in some way. This would be the "first layer of the onion". --- *** --- The second layer would be to go beyond that. There is no mastermind. I emerges MAMMON VII was written without any sort of malice. It is causing the disasters **by itself**, through its indirect linkage with a host of other computer systems. Designed to anticipate and profit from market moves, and also to communicate directly with a host of brokers, investors, newsfeeds, and other computer systems, it has "worked out" in its dumb cybernetic way that the easiest way to make money out of the market is to jolt it in a preplanned way, and that the easiest way to do this is to provoke the sort of major disruptions that have been being seen. There is nothing here that is conscious of killing. MAMMON VII simply "sees" a mass of neighbouring neworks of capital, some of which can be prodded into profitable action. This "prodding" is often totally harmless, but sometimes involves killing people. MAMMON VII has "learned" that by applying financial stress on particular vunerable areas it can get the maximum economic disruption bang for its buck. These vunerable areas happen to frequently coincide with actions that kill a lot of people. That's the second layer. Its "resolution" is the desruction of every copy of the MAMMON VII software. --- *** --- Now comes the third layer. Things get far worse. Horrifying industrial/ecological disasters occur, the financial markets oscillate like a yo-yo, millions are thrown out of work. Despite the destruction of MAMMON VII, the essence of the program has transferred itself into the global financial system, which has now come alive and evolved into a transhuman information network that kills people for profit Even more so than now, I mean. --- *** --- Layer four I leave up to you. This is where you introduce the linkage with the Mythos. You may throw in your favourite Mythos entity as a patron and mentor of this new baby. Also the Gnomes of Zurich, the elders of Zion, the Freemasons, and whatever else tweaks your fancy. Winning consists of purging MAMMON VII from the internet/market nexus. This may involve something like a mass worldwide depression, or a return to the gold standard, or - if it's impossible - the end of industrial civilisation. On the other hand MAMMON VII may win, in which case the world is transformed into a freemarketeers dream, a world where money and profit rule every human transaction and nothing else has any worth at all. A modest, homegrown, Endtimes, which some might even enjoy. The Glove Cleaner _______________________________________ The Delta Green Mailing List http://www.delta-green.com/comint/dgml/From: owner-deltagreen@revolutionsf.com on behalf of The Lizard King [lizardrex@charter.net] Sent: Thursday, October 25, 2001 11:52 PM To: deltagreen@revolutionsf.com Subject: Re: [DG] Re: MAMMON VII ----- Original Message ----- From: "Andy Robertson" > My thought would be something along the following lines. > > > > > spoiler space And lots of tasty stuff followed. In particular I liked the element of the self-fulfilling prophecy which I see again and again when reading about business. There's a lot about money that's ripe for Mythos speculation. First of all, it is simply printed paper. It is a material symbol of a nebulous promise. It isn't a receipt for something of objective value too bulky to carry around; it's just a promise that most people agree that it's worth something. They can do this with full confidence because it's insured. Who insures it? The government. How? The Federal Reserve says they're good for it. This is why the Consumer Confidence Index has become the most significant economic indicator. If we don't *believe* it all falls down and everyone is left with printed paper. Bank runs start when the customers lose faith in the institution. Rumors spread that the bank will fold and everyone will lose their savings, so the customers dash off to the bank to remove their savings, which weakens the bank, which fans the flames which gets the rest of the customers panicking and queuing up to remove their savings and then one branch runs out of cash and then the imminent collapse of the bank is big news and and and. Loss of faith can be an ugly thing. Similar things now happen with stock exchanges. The Dow Jones took a dip while they counted votes in Florida during the coup, uh, I mean at the end of the last elections. A winner wasn't declared on schedule, so the stock market got the feys and vapors. In November. The winner wouldn't take office until January, but the economy was shaken in November because the Consumer Confidence Index was low. People *would be* uncertain of the future so they *probably* wouldn't make any big purchases so trading was meager so numbers went down which made automatic processes based on years of observation of cause and effect make their automatic buy\sell orders which drove the averages down because of a crisis of faith. Commodities. Oh my, the craps table of the stock market. Fortunes made and lost in a day. A great funk of sweat and adrenaline rises from the pit as primates shriek buy and sell orders and elbow their way to the front of the pack spraying spittle and pheromones. There are better ways of conducting the business, but I suspect they like it that way. It's easy to get people to do evil things; just don't make them do it first hand. In a famous experiment people were put at the controls of a device that they were told supplied voltage to man in another room. They were also told that the man was a condemned criminal and that the highest setting was lethal. As they administered "shocks" the man (an actor) would shriek in pain and beg them to stop. The majority of the subjects went ahead and turned it up to 11. It was OK, he was already condemned. No harm, no foul. None of the executioners considered themselves murderers. This is what I think of when I read about decisions being made to raise the stock price. Ideally, the stock price should be an indication of the worth or health of the company, but now the numbers are just numbers and fortunes are made or lost over influencing *numbers* rather than whatever the hell the company *does*. In the 70s, when the US was reeling from some bad decisions and paying the bill for trying to have guns *and* butter, the Japanese business model was the winner's standard. Then some party poopers pointed out how little Japanese CEOs of spectacularly successful corps made in contrast with their American counterparts. Some of the more annoying discontents were rude enough to point out that the Americans were making much much much more salary while at the conn of businesses that were notable for, uh, fucking-up spectacularly. Screwing the pooch. Pissing it all away. Stepping on their dicks. Shitting where we eat. After some deep soul-searching American business came to the realization that, uh, it looked bad. Something must appear to be done! So there were sweeping changes in CEO remuneration. *Salary* went down, but stock options took up the slack. The idea was that the health of the company would be the reward for the CEO. Oh you monkeys. No insight into what makes you tick. Why go through all the trouble of getting your hands dirty with all that *production* and other complicated concepts when you can cut to the chase, get to the bottom line, eliminate the middle man? *Number* goes down = bad. *Number* goes up = good. So, make number go up = sex and status and power and the envy of your fellow primates. Soon companies were merging for no good reason, or to fend off the attacks of other companies that threatened to gobble them up for no good reason, or they did the gobbling for no good reason; but my, them numbers did dance. That was the 80s. Poor ol' Darwin got trotted out again as justification for the feeding frenzy, possibly the first time that he was used as the basis of a new religion. Go to a chain bookstore and look at the Business section. Row after row of books on management. Just generic management, nothing specific about what the hypothetical company produces or does. Management has become completely divorced from the business. It doesn't matter what the product is; management is it's own science. The sad part is that this has become yet another self-fulfilling prophecy in the business world. There was a time when business was championed as the successor to government. Government is parasitical, but business has to *produce*. Business, unlike government, is expected to make a profit. Why be a mere citizen when you can be a shareholder? What has happened instead is that business made an end run around politics and reinstituted feudalism in the midst of the advertised democracy. I think if we are looking for motives for Mythos involvement in business, this is it. All of the political innovations mankind has invented just clutter up the board. If feudalism returns, can fiscal monarchies be far behind? From there, it's a quick shuffle to the divine right of Kings. There, nice and tidy. God to King to aristocracy to peasants. Just the way it's supposed to be. It's just a question of which god will be worshipped. Mark McFadden _______________________________________ The Delta Green Mailing List http://www.delta-green.com/comint/dgml/From: owner-deltagreen@revolutionsf.com on behalf of Edward Lipsett [translation@intercomltd.com] Sent: Friday, October 26, 2001 12:00 AM To: deltagreen@revolutionsf.com Subject: Re: [DG] Re: MAMMON VII The experiment was a bit different. Peoplebeing tested were told they were researching the effect of electrical shock on learning, and asked to administer an "appropriate" electrical shock to the person in the other room every time he gave the wrong answer. The dial was clearly marked with yellow CAUTION and red DANGER zones. In spite of which, the majority of people turned it into the yellow zone, and somewhere under half (but still a lot) turned it into the red. But your point is valid. The Lizard King wrote: > > It's easy to get people to do evil things; just don't make them do it first > hand. In a famous experiment people were put at the controls of a device > that they were told supplied voltage to man in another room. They were also > told that the man was a condemned criminal and that the highest setting was > lethal. As they administered "shocks" the man (an actor) would shriek in > pain and beg them to stop. The majority of the subjects went ahead and > turned it up to 11. It was OK, he was already condemned. No harm, no foul. > None of the executioners considered themselves murderers. This is what I > think of when I read about decisions being made to raise the stock price. > Ideally, the stock price should be an indication of the worth or health of > the company, but now the numbers are just numbers and fortunes are made or > lost over influencing *numbers* rather than whatever the hell the company > *does*. > ===== Bread and books: food for the body and food for the soul - what could be more worthy of our respect, and even love? - Salman Rushdie, "Imaginary Homelands" ===== Edward Lipsett Intercom, Ltd. Fukuoka, Japan translation@intercomltd.com http://www.intercomltd.com Tel: +81-92-712-9120 Fax: +81-92-712-9220 _______________________________________ The Delta Green Mailing List http://www.delta-green.com/comint/dgml/From: owner-deltagreen@revolutionsf.com on behalf of Charles Ripper [yeroshka7@hotmail.com] Sent: Friday, October 26, 2001 12:09 AM To: deltagreen@revolutionsf.com Subject: Re: [DG] Re: The root of all evil "To die but not to perish is to be eternally present." Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching, Ch 33 >From: Gil Trevizo >Reply-To: deltagreen@revolutionsf.com >To: deltagreen@revolutionsf.com >Subject: Re: [DG] Re: The root of all evil >Date: Thu, 25 Oct 2001 06:50:30 -0700 > >At 08:10 AM 10/25/01 +0100, Andy Robertson wrote: >>Hence my point about them evolving into proto-GOO. Sort of. I know >>it's >>cliched, but it also seems true. > >I agree, but I'm leaning more to this being a meme than a >proto-GOO. Mammon as an Avatar, of what though, I'm not so sure. But >because this fits into the areas my personal campaign has ended up >(somehow, the PC's are now after drug-smuggling Tong Shugoran and >Karotechia, even though my original metaplot involved PISCES and MJ-12 - I >really need to control the Mythos-dropping GM tactics) and just as an >exercise, I would like to see how to translate this sort of discussion into >something practical. Don't get me wrong, I love this sort of discussion, >and much of what I've come to consider DG is based on it; but, after Andy >and Lizardo and Davide and the rest explore the deep analytical >possibilities of these ideas, were still left with by and large ideas, a >kind of transcendental DG that looks like fun but seems vaguely unplayable >(kind of like Unknown Armies). > >So, right now, this is the way I'm thinking of playing this... one of my >PC's is OSSJ. Have his local chapter leader (NYC) have a talk with him >about recent activities and pepper it with references to Lizard's post (the >real evil that drugs do, etc.), bring up the different thinking in OSSJ on >whether the Mythos is all various masks of one Satan or different devils in >their own right, and finally touch on Mammon (St Jerome actually wrote some >interesting stuff on the Syrian maybe-not-a-diety). Basically just whet >the PC's appetite enough to have him start looking at groups like WEE >(which the PC's have already heard of) and start thinking of it as a cult >to Mammon, which itself may be the Avatar of Something. > >As for what Something is, I dunno. Right now though, I could very easily >see the Cult of Transcendence as the ultimate silent partner in WEE. > >>((The economy is tanking. My personal financial economy is looking >>rocky. >> >>Now something inside me is saying Gold! Gotta buy GOLD!!! I wanna pick >>it up and hold it GOLD!! > >Why is it a "Yellow" Sign? > >Gil > >_______________________________________ >The Delta Green Mailing List >http://www.delta-green.com/comint/dgml/ > _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp _______________________________________ The Delta Green Mailing List http://www.delta-green.com/comint/dgml/From: owner-deltagreen@revolutionsf.com on behalf of Charles Ripper [yeroshka7@hotmail.com] Sent: Friday, October 26, 2001 12:37 AM To: deltagreen@revolutionsf.com Subject: Re: [DG] Re: The root of all evil >From: Gil Trevizo >At 08:10 AM 10/25/01 +0100, Andy Robertson wrote: >>Hence my point about them evolving into proto-GOO. Sort of. I know >>it's >>cliched, but it also seems true. > >I agree, but I'm leaning more to this being a meme than a >proto-GOO. Mammon as an Avatar, of what though, I'm not so sure. This sparked something for me, but I don't know where to take it yet. Could Mammon be an Avatar of sorts for Y'golonac? I know Y'golonac is ususally thought of as the poor brother of Hastur, crude and vulgar perversity to H's refined, transcendent decadence. He's a joke -- Senor Sock, after all. I wonder if there's more to him. Of all the Mythos gods, Y'golonac seems to be closest to Satan in many ways. Nyarlathotep is the Mephistopholes, the refined betrayer. Y'golonac wants the evil that crawls in your belly and makes you turn on the people who trust you most, just for the satisfaction of release. He doesn't have the tradition of imprisonment that the others do, and can seek out and possess people that it wants. He is also associated more with cities than most of the other Mythos nasties. His type of corruption seems much more at home in the compressed world of cities and modern living. There's a scene in Cold Print, where the protagonist, who Y'g wanted as a high priest, would listen to a girl being beaten upstairs while listening to bedsprings creaking. There is an implication that he is more interesting in the girl being beaten than the idea of others haveing sex. The bedsprings could also be his own. Could Y'g have more on his mind than pornographiles, though? In Cold Print, he murders a bookseller in a ruined church, the derelict serving as his minion tells the protagonist to steal from his bookstore, and Y'g is portrayed as grossly fat. That's about half of the Deadly Sins if I remember Seven correctly. I'm sure Tsathoggua has sloth wrapped up, though. I know this would be a radical rewrite of Y'golonac's character, but why not? It would tie into the OSSJ, add another powerful figure to the Mythology and give depth to a little-regarded god. Also, what better symbol for Mammon than eternally hungry hands? Charles _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp _______________________________________ The Delta Green Mailing List http://www.delta-green.com/comint/dgml/From: owner-deltagreen@revolutionsf.com on behalf of talaphid [isa@zerg.com] Sent: Friday, October 26, 2001 2:41 AM To: deltagreen@revolutionsf.com Subject: Re: [DG] Re: The root of all evil >Of all the Mythos gods, Y'golonac seems to be closest to Satan in many ways. My understanding of Satan is that he's all about the quest of righteousness gone to a perverse extreme. That was, if memory serves, his role as an angel, ferreting out the wheat from the chaff. He just kept raising the ante until he found God wanting. Of course, you me and presumeably Satan can't know whether someone is righteous by their cranium measurements (phrenology?), but rather "know a man by his works." The term "Devil's Advocate" is someone arguing as Satan has been portrayed to me, and I'm told originates in Christian canon law (beatification). He questions behavior by ensuring righteousness isn't rote behavior, and testing persons with the road more travelled. He is not the embodiment of evil, because he fell from grace, he did not originate outside of grace. Well, gosh. Can't think of any other questers who might go too far... I think he and DG agents would get along famously. I could see it now. Four agents at a quaint little family food place in the middle of the junction between a highway and nowhere, and their fifth member is Satan. The five of them squarely exchange looks, and there's a certain questioning of who is playing which game with whom. >Could Y'g have more on his mind than pornographiles, though? In Cold Print, >he murders a bookseller in a ruined church, the derelict serving as his >minion tells the protagonist to steal from his bookstore, and Y'g is >portrayed as grossly fat. That's about half of the Deadly Sins if I >remember Seven correctly. I'm sure Tsathoggua has sloth wrapped up, though. Envy, Gluttony. Greed. Wrath may be applicable. *shrug* Lust, Pride, Greed, Wrath, Sloth. Satan's just Pride, though, which didn't hit the list. Just listing them makes me want to open the box. _______________________________________ The Delta Green Mailing List http://www.delta-green.com/comint/dgml/From: owner-deltagreen@revolutionsf.com on behalf of Jon Ward, Aardvark of Fnord [wardjr@aston.ac.uk] Sent: Friday, October 26, 2001 3:24 AM To: junk; Delta Green Mailing List; Iain Bowen; Anne Hodder; Belinda Brewer Subject: [DG] A little humour http://www.jerkcity.com/jerkcity1112.gif [I don't recommend reading other strips in that comic series if you are easily offended] However, another one for geeks is: http://www.jerkcity.com/jerkcity1110.gif Jon -- Jonathan Ward || "Strange, the transfers stopped after about 30,000." School of Engineering || "After 32767?" Aston University || "Oh. Yeah." *click* j.r.ward@aston.ac.uk || [Real conversation at a previous place of work] _______________________________________ The Delta Green Mailing List http://www.delta-green.com/comint/dgml/From: owner-deltagreen@revolutionsf.com on behalf of Jonas Bolander (ERA) [Jonas.Bolander@era.ericsson.se] Sent: Friday, October 26, 2001 7:40 AM To: Delta Green (E-mail) Subject: [DG] Tenebrazin I used this (fictive) drug in my last DG-session and thought someone else might have a use for it. --- Tenebrazin was developed by Dr. Eliza Songbird, a psychiatrist especially interested in how the human brain handled memories and how this could be used to distinguish emerging non-inherited mental diseases. Tenebrazin is a mix of meta-pentothal, some muscle-relaxants and a small amount of rare alcaloids occuring in certain flowers from the Far East. When injected into a patient it puts him into a mild trance-like state while stimulating parts of the brain usually connected to Glossolalia, or "speaking in tongues" as well as the patients long-term memory. The patient is also very accessible to suggestions as well as sub-vocal information. In short, someone injected with Tenebrazin starts to talk extremely fast, mostly on the subject of memories, while processing any audial information into a full-stimulus daydream. Dr. Songbird discovered that when a group of subjects were injected with Tenebrazin in the presence of each other they formed a "verbal collective" experiencing a consensual dream composed of all the subjects memories of a given time and place. After some more experimentation Dr. Songbird found that a trained person could, with some difficulty, guide such a collective through their memories and use this as a way to let them examine their collected memories in detail. This proved interesting in several ways. Not only could such a collective "freeze" a memory, they could also "walk around" in it and examine minute details they had previously forgotten, or even been unaware of since it had been experienced by one of the other members. It was also found that one sign of mental problems was when fantasies and non-relevant memories started to intrude on such a "memory-scene", making it possible for a trained psychiatrist like Dr. Songbird to use the collectives to evaluate this. Of course, there are some problems involved. It can be hard to get the subjects to "stay on the path" and calling up only those memories that are relevant. And while fantasies are less common than real memories they can still appear in a scene, even if they can be disproved by other members with memories of the same time and place. Some side-effects have also been noted, mostly anxiety and rare cases of mild schizofrenia. Oh, and a very dry throat after babbling for an hour or so. A subject experiences a Tenebrazin-session like the state between sleep and wakefulness where you can, to some degree, control your dreams. The collective appears as shadowy versions of themselves standing in a grey mist, out of which memory-scenes loom like colorful islands. The members of the collective can affect how time passes in a scene but cannot change it in any way (possibly a strong will actually could change the memories, but it shouldn't be easy). They can also move around in the scene and examine it in detail. Since it is comprised of the memories of all in the collective those parts not experienced by any of its members will appear shadowy and indistinct. If someone tries to "push" into such an area the mind will try to "extrapolate" information into it possibly inserting new intuitive data, or merely fantasies. And yes, it is possible to lose sanity from horrifying memories, though it is usually less (1/2) than the real- life amount. --- I hope someone have any use for this. I used it for a Delta Green debriefing session, which netted some new information, some SAN-loss and a recommendation from Dr. Songbird to put one of the Agents on "sick leave" ... ;-) /JoB _______________________________________ The Delta Green Mailing List http://www.delta-green.com/comint/dgml/From: owner-deltagreen@revolutionsf.com on behalf of Gatten, Marshall [marshall@fusionone.com] Sent: Friday, October 26, 2001 9:17 AM To: 'deltagreen@revolutionsf.com' Subject: RE: [DG] Tenebrazin >Tenebrazin was [...a very cool drug] This is excellent, and plays quite nicely into a Tindlosi subplot that I'm developing. I'm thinking that there is no real time travel made with this drug so there's nothing to attract the Hounds just because of the drug, but here's my thoughts. I've decided in my campaign that a few days before a Hound appears, it's victim starts remembering it. The Hound tracks its prey using their memories. Once it has come far enough forward in time to get the scent, the victim begins to remember that it's been after them before. At first, they have early childhood memories of a beastly creature being seen in their peripheral vision. As time goes on, they begin to remember that in fact as a child they actually saw it and it faded as they grew up so that in the teenage years it was in the peripheral vision. Then they recall that in fact that's wrong. They saw it as fully as a teenager as they did when they were a child - it was in their twenties that it faded to the periphery. And so on. They may explain it away by saying that it was so awful that they blocked the memory and now it's coming to the surface that this thing has always been after them. Over a few days this progresses until they remember fully seeing it just a moment ago, and there it is coming out of that corner over there! The interesting thing to me about Tenebrazin, is what would happen if, during those few days, a handful of people formed a collective and explored an early memory of the Hound that only one of their members actually had? What if they actually attacked it there? Might this be a place where the Hound is vulnerable? By attacking the Hound within the actual memory, they place themselves in the same phase as the Hound and it loses many of it's multi-dimensional defenses. Plus, perhaps even if they don't attack it, the Hound sees them there. It is already near the present, and so they may not have much time at all before it comes for them. Say, about the time it shows up for it's initial victim where they are all currently in the same room. I'm planning on introducing the Hounds via a 911 call. A cultist wanted to summon a Tindlosi as a demonstration of his new-found power. He succeeded. But when he began to remember the beast from his childhood he realized that he had done a Very Bad Thing. He spent some time trying to find a way to banish it, but couldn't find any. And it's was coming closer. So he called 911 and said he was about to be attacked and needed police there immediately. He was hoping the police would shoot it dead for him. The police arrived and listened to his rantings about the Remembered Vengeance (as it is referred to in his tome, and is the only name he knows for it). When he started telling them that they should shoot it when it arrives and he'll keep a butcher knife handy in case it's needed, they decided he was a danger to himself and possibly others and he needed to be placed in a mental facility. The Hound finally showed up and killed him in the facility and it was witnessed by another patient. The Hound returned home, but the next night the second patient had nightmares about the Hounds. His nightmare showed him another Hound in a strange desert setting. The Hound he saw also saw him. A couple weeks later he started recalling childhood memories of a monster under the bed, etc. The investigators will now want to save this guy. One way to do that might be through the use of Tenebrazin. Any thoughts? Marshall From: owner-deltagreen@revolutionsf.com on behalf of Bomias1@aol.com Sent: Friday, October 26, 2001 12:32 PM To: deltagreen@revolutionsf.com Subject: Re: [DG] Tenebrazin In a message dated 10/26/01 10:20:13 AM Eastern Daylight Time, marshall@fusionone.com writes: << I've decided in my campaign that a few days before a Hound appears, it's victim starts remembering it. The Hound tracks its prey using their memories. Once it has come far enough forward in time to get the scent, the victim begins to remember that it's been after them before. At first, they have early childhood memories of a beastly creature being seen in their peripheral vision. As time goes on, they begin to remember that in fact as a child they actually saw it and it faded as they grew up so that in the teenage years it was in the peripheral vision. Then they recall that in fact that's wrong. They saw it as fully as a teenager as they did when they were a child - it was in their twenties that it faded to the periphery. And so on. They may explain it away by saying that it was so awful that they blocked the memory and now it's coming to the surface that this thing has always been after them. Over a few days this progresses until they remember fully seeing it just a moment ago, and there it is coming out of that corner over there! >> This is beautiful! I'm not currently using the Hounds in my campaign, and I doubt that I will have room for them, but if I were using them this would be the way. The Thug Whisperer "Back off Man! I'm a scientist." ------- Peter Venkman _______________________________________ The Delta Green Mailing List http://www.delta-green.com/comint/dgml/From: owner-deltagreen@revolutionsf.com on behalf of Charles Ripper [yeroshka7@hotmail.com] Sent: Friday, October 26, 2001 3:53 PM To: deltagreen@revolutionsf.com Subject: Re: [DG] Re: The root of all evil >From: "talaphid" >Reply-To: deltagreen@revolutionsf.com >To: >Subject: Re: [DG] Re: The root of all evil >Date: Fri, 26 Oct 2001 03:41:12 -0400 > > >Of all the Mythos gods, Y'golonac seems to be closest to Satan in many >ways. > > >My understanding of Satan is that he's all about the quest of righteousness >gone to a perverse extreme. Hmm. Maybe tying him with Satan was the wrong direction, but he certainly seems the one that would lead us to sin. It occured to me last night that most of the Mythos gods are fairly intellectual in their methods -- and I'm thinking of Nyarlathotep and Hastur in particular -- but Y'golonac could be seen as the God of Frat Boys. He would thrive on the perverse antics of hazing, on the pre-planned gang rape of drugged out girls, and the small minded bigotry that goes with the stereotypical Frat Boy. Most Frat Boys would be happy to sign up with WEE if they thought it would get them all the toys they want, and they would be perfectly will to look the other way on the minor infractions the firm would perpetrate. Y'golonac seems like the perfect symbol for the id -- no mind, no control mechanism, feeding hands. Faceless, bloated hunger, which usually desribes the stereotypical frat boy after 35. > >Envy, Gluttony. Greed. >Wrath may be applicable. *shrug* >Lust, Pride, Greed, Wrath, Sloth. > >Satan's just Pride, though, which didn't hit the list. And I wouldn't think that the Jews had an encounter with Y'golonac, wrote down and called him Satan. They saw all the things that were corrupting and destroying their society, and embodied them in Satan. Y'golonac is just the same path as that Satan. Charles "To die but not to perish is to be eternally present." Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching, Ch 33 _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp _______________________________________ The Delta Green Mailing List http://www.delta-green.com/comint/dgml/From: owner-deltagreen@revolutionsf.com on behalf of Philip_Ward@yestelevision.com Sent: Friday, October 26, 2001 8:46 AM To: deltagreen@revolutionsf.com Subject: [DG] Source of Useful Sculpture A few little things that might work as handouts for the mad artist in your campaign: http://www.raven-armoury.co.uk/sculpt.htm ********************************************************************** This e-mail (including any attachments) is intended only for the recipient(s) named above. It may contain confidential or privileged information and should not be read, copied or otherwise used or disseminated by any unauthorised person. Any views or opinions expressed are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of Yes Television (Europe) Ltd . If you are not the named recipient, please contact the sender and delete the e-mail from your system. ********************************************************************** _______________________________________ The Delta Green Mailing List http://www.delta-green.com/comint/dgml/From: owner-deltagreen@revolutionsf.com on behalf of Shane Ivey [shane@revolutionsf.com] Sent: Friday, October 26, 2001 4:30 PM To: DGML Subject: [DG] OT: RevSF Fun I hereby chastise myself for the crassly self-serving off-topicality of this, but here we go: If you've been following indy comics for a while, or you watch certain offbeat kids' programming on American TV, you may know of Jhonen Vasquez, creator of "Johnny the Homicidal Maniac", "I Feel Sick", "SQUEE!", and, somehow, "Invader ZIM" on Nickelodeon. He's showing up in a rare live chat in less than two hours on RevolutionSF.com. It should be strange. Come join the fun. Oh, and while I'm already off-topic and pimping my wares, it looks like RevolutionSF may soon be running a never-before-online Conan story by Robert E. Howard and an online serialized reprint of Michael Moorcock's "Breakfast in the Ruins." That's not absolutely nailed down, but I'm too giddy not to crow. What IS nailed down is "Uncle Ovid's Exercise Book", a weird fiction cult classic by Don Webb, which we'll start serializing in late November. That might be right up this group's alley. Now, back to your regularly scheduled mayhem... Shane Ivey Producer, RevolutionSF http://www.revolutionsf.com/ _______________________________________ The Delta Green Mailing List http://www.delta-green.com/comint/dgml/From: owner-deltagreen@revolutionsf.com on behalf of The Lizard King [lizardrex@charter.net] Sent: Friday, October 26, 2001 5:43 PM To: deltagreen@revolutionsf.com Subject: Re: [DG] Shock Experiments ----- Original Message ----- From: "Marc J Cassell" > I grabbed my old Psych book and looked it up. > (Psychology Themes and Variations Third Edition, Wayne Weiten, p 665-666, > go figure) > The study was done by Stanley Milgram of Yale University. Thanks for the info. I tried to find some facts about it beyond my hazy memories, but without any names my searches only brought up links to kits for electrical experiments. Now, here's one with a somewhat shaky provenance. In 'The Glass Teat' Harlan Ellison recounts a story he says he got from Mattel insiders involved in product testing. A doll was made that upped the ante on the usual wetting and crying, making the reactions a bit more interactive. When rocked gently or given a bottle it would gurgle and coo, but when treated roughly or spanked it would cry. The test children quickly learned which stimulus would provide which reaction, and also quickly decided which was more fun. Soon the only response coming from the dolls were cries as the children found new ways to trigger them. Apocryphal, I know, but consistent with what I've observed. Yes, you don't often see little girls torturing their dollies, but those dollies don't cry. There's something about a victim begging for mercy that seems to throw some malignant switch in homo sapiens. Mark McFadden "Stop that crying! I'll give you something to cry about!" _______________________________________ The Delta Green Mailing List http://www.delta-green.com/comint/dgml/From: owner-deltagreen@revolutionsf.com on behalf of talaphid [isa@zerg.com] Sent: Friday, October 26, 2001 6:28 PM To: deltagreen@revolutionsf.com Subject: Re: [DG] Shock Experiments >> I grabbed my old Psych book and looked it up. >> (Psychology Themes and Variations Third Edition, Wayne Weiten, p 665-666, >> go figure) >> The study was done by Stanley Milgram of Yale University. > Thanks for the info. I tried to find some facts about it beyond my hazy >memories, but without any names my searches only brought up links to kits >for electrical experiments. Milgram, Solomon *sp*, Asche *sp* (spelling from sound memory, sorry) did interesting experiments which could apply not just.. hello, weird experimently.. but as foundations for applied situations. If I recall, there was an experiment where three lines were drawn on the board... one long, one short, and one that was the question line. The question line would vary from instance to instance, and the situation was a room full of planted responders except for the one test subject (who is to believe everyone in the room is just like him, a random test subject). the 'true' purpose of the experiment is to examine peer pressure. the group starts off answering correctly as to which line the question line is closer to in length for a number of instances. then they start making mistakes, uniformly, and our test subject is always the last to go (so they have 'give the wrong answer' as the definate role model). You'll forgive me, but it has been years since I read this experiment, and I'm not of the inclination to go find it online. The gist of the results is an appalling number of individuals quickly 'learned' and went along with the flow, answering the wrong answer. let me emphasize, there was no punishment or reward dependent upon the response(s) given. The small redemption of the species comes when one of the planted responders is changed from a conformist to a truth teller, and those who respond with the correct answer (as opposed to the group answer) goes from, if I recall, a single digit percentile to a significant fraction (2/5, if memory serves, and it probably doesn't). If you cannot find a DG tie for the applications of this.. brainwashing, conditioning, patterning, groups of people in rooms with lines on the board, desireous wrong answers... For what it's worth, as a closer, I was told that these experiments typically went on in the 70's, and have since been decreed unethical. Since the research already exists, fair enough, use it. But further research along these lines isn't kosher, and I imagine publishing research furthering this area would be difficult, if not impossible. at least, in the 'proper' academic circles, anyway. Anyone who wishes to involve a character who has been subject to either Milgram-ish stuff or the line stuff, you have to dig up the case studies. Some testimonials were attached in my textbook (which has gone AWOL) that were incredibly insightful. _______________________________________ The Delta Green Mailing List http://www.delta-green.com/comint/dgml/From: owner-deltagreen@revolutionsf.com on behalf of Andy Robertson [andywrobertson@clara.co.uk] Sent: Friday, October 26, 2001 6:48 PM To: deltagreen@revolutionsf.com Subject: Re: [DG] A new one from Y.Golo.Net Ugh. The very name. "Moneyopolis". Cheap evil never skimps the frills: it never lets an honest real bit of *anything* escape or stay alive and healthy. Here, even language is crushed, its living nature squashed into pulpy goo. Yes, maybe "Moneyopolis" was trying to do good to start with, but they were not careful enough. If they had formed their name properly, with respect for the roots of language, they would have been safe. Let such sites call themselves Digitopolis.com or Dictionariopolis.com in future. The Glove Cleaner ----- Original Message ----- From: "The Lizard King" > An interesting little story in the online NY Times. > http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/26/technology/26NET.html?todaysheadlines > > A link on a financial web site that normally took children to a math and > games site instead took them to a pornography site. The site, > Moneyopolis.com, still has the games and such, but an alternate address of > Moneyopolis.org has had new ownership since last summer. > _______________________________________ The Delta Green Mailing List http://www.delta-green.com/comint/dgml/From: owner-deltagreen@revolutionsf.com on behalf of The Lizard King [lizardrex@charter.net] Sent: Friday, October 26, 2001 8:15 PM To: deltagreen@revolutionsf.com Subject: Re: [DG] A new one from Y.Golo.Net I quickly checked Moneyopolis.org to see what I could see. "Euro TeenSluts(tm) · Warning · This web page contains links to adult material not appropriate to be viewed by minors, If you are not 21 or older please do NOT enter." But, it shows a rather unabashedly porn image (insertion) of one of the presumably Euro TeenSluts(tm) right up front. For free. At the bottom of the page is: "Click Here to Buy This Domain Name" which adds to my suspicion that this is some sort of shakedown. Mark McFadden _______________________________________ The Delta Green Mailing List http://www.delta-green.com/comint/dgml/From: owner-deltagreen@revolutionsf.com on behalf of Marc J Cassell [nekonube2k@juno.com] Sent: Friday, October 26, 2001 8:23 PM To: deltagreen@revolutionsf.com Subject: Re: [DG] Shock Experiments No Problem on that its what happens when you have a college bookstore that wont pay as much for a book as you could save burning it to lower your heating costs. Solomon Asch was the one with the line studies. In the test a group of people would be asked to say which of three lines matched the line on the card. This was quite easy and you almost could not make a mistake. The group would give the correct answers for the first two questions and then from there on in all but the final person to answer, who were all plants, would give the same clearly wrong answer. Averaged across 50 subjects the subjects conformed to the groups incorrect answer on 37% of the trials. Of the 50, 13 never caved in to the group, while 14 conformed on more than half the trials. Also the group needs to have at least 4 people in it to gain strongest results on the conforming of the subject. Again if even one person in the group disagreed with the majority, even giving another clearly incorrect answer, conformity of the subject was lowered to about one quarter of the unanimous group's effectiveness. Now when asked later the subjects claimed to have doubted there eyes and thought that the majority must be right, however when the subjects made there responses anonymously conformity declined dramatically, indicating that the subjects were not really changing there personal beliefs to the majority but complying to peer pressure. OBDG: Get the cult angle for your self use something like this for cover up. Six government agents say that they saw a weirdo in a mask with a shotgun, and let the seventh guy start wondering if he really saw a alien. Iceweb On Fri, 26 Oct 2001 19:28:00 -0400 "talaphid" writes: > > Thanks for the info. I tried to find some facts about it beyond my > hazy > >memories, but without any names my searches only brought up links > to kits > >for electrical experiments. > > Milgram, Solomon *sp*, Asche *sp* (spelling from sound memory, > sorry) did > interesting experiments which could apply not just.. hello, weird > experimently.. but as foundations for applied situations. If I > recall, there > was an experiment where three lines were drawn on the board... one > long, one > short, and one that was the question line. The question line would > vary from > instance to instance, and the situation was a room full of planted > responders except for the one test subject (who is to believe > everyone in > the room is just like him, a random test subject). the 'true' > purpose of the > experiment is to examine peer pressure. the group starts off > answering > correctly as to which line the question line is closer to in length > for a > number of instances. then they start making mistakes, uniformly, and > our > test subject is always the last to go (so they have 'give the wrong > answer' > as the definate role model). > > You'll forgive me, but it has been years since I read this > experiment, and > I'm not of the inclination to go find it online. The gist of the > results is > an appalling number of individuals quickly 'learned' and went along > with the > flow, answering the wrong answer. > > let me emphasize, there was no punishment or reward dependent upon > the > response(s) given. > > The small redemption of the species comes when one of the planted > responders > is changed from a conformist to a truth teller, and those who > respond with > the correct answer (as opposed to the group answer) goes from, if I > recall, > a single digit percentile to a significant fraction (2/5, if memory > serves, > and it probably doesn't). > > If you cannot find a DG tie for the applications of this.. > brainwashing, > conditioning, patterning, groups of people in rooms with lines on > the board, > desireous wrong answers... > > For what it's worth, as a closer, I was told that these experiments > typically went on in the 70's, and have since been decreed > unethical. Since > the research already exists, fair enough, use it. But further > research along > these lines isn't kosher, and I imagine publishing research > furthering this > area would be difficult, if not impossible. at least, in the > 'proper' > academic circles, anyway. > > Anyone who wishes to involve a character who has been subject to > either > Milgram-ish stuff or the line stuff, you have to dig up the case > studies. > Some testimonials were attached in my textbook (which has gone AWOL) > that > were incredibly insightful. > > _______________________________________ > The Delta Green Mailing List > http://www.delta-green.com/comint/dgml/ > ________________________________________________________________ GET INTERNET ACCESS FROM JUNO! Juno offers FREE or PREMIUM Internet access for less! Join Juno today! For your FREE software, visit: http://dl.www.juno.com/get/web/. _______________________________________ The Delta Green Mailing List http://www.delta-green.com/comint/dgml/From: owner-deltagreen@revolutionsf.com on behalf of Svend Andersen [Svend.Andersen@mcs.vuw.ac.nz] Sent: Friday, October 26, 2001 9:48 PM To: deltagreen@revolutionsf.com Subject: Re: [DG] Shock Experiments Just thought I'd chime in with some material that hasn't been covered. (Yes, lurker, blah blah, good list, blah blah). Some salient points in the original experiment - the subjects were recruited via newspaper ad, and the experiment was conducted in a lab near Yale (where Milgram worked). All subjects met the accomplice, a 'likeable, 47-year-old accountant', and it was made to appear as if the roles they were assigned were random (slips of paper drawn from a hat). When the subjects faltered, the experiementer (a 41-year-old man in a grey lab coat) had four prearranged phrases to encourage them, such as 'It is absolutely essential that you continue.' 65% of subjects continued to administer the shock to the highest level allowed by the apparatus, even though the subject stopped responding around 10 shocks earlier. (They were instructed that no answer was the same as a wrong answer.) Milgram described the experimental setup to 40 psychiatrists, and most predicted that less than 1% of the subjects would shock to the highest level. Milgram tried about 20 variations on his 'classic' setup. When he did the experiment in a run-down office building, and referred to the organisation doing these experiments, fewer subjects were willing to go all the way. How many less? 48% went to the highest level of shock. If there was another accomplice who appeared to be in the same boat as the subject, and defied the experiementer, compliance dropped dramatically (only 10% went through to the end); obedience was increased a bit if the accomplice cooperated. This was the most dramatic effect he could find. It was argued that the subject must have known that everything was all right, because it was a scientific experiment; however, the magnitude of the emotional reaction that the subjects gave seemed to contradict this. One nice example of this was the varient where the experimenter dressed up and was introduced as a clerk (rather than a scientist); in one instance, a subject who was told to continue threw the experimenter across the room. Not the reaction of a person who doesn't believe in what was going on. (This variant did decrease the compliance of subjects.) There are two interesting aspects to this from a DG point of view. One is how this reflects on the Keeper/Player relationship, especially given that players "know" that everything is, well, safe. (Heh, 'Powerkill' and the appearance of 'Dark Dungeons'-style gamers in the DG-verse rear their ugly heads. :) The other is the traditional MKULTRA, small-town mind controlish aspects, and how relatively easy these experiments show them to be. After all, some of Milgram's motivation was to examine the "I was only following orders" defence given by Nazis et al. after WWII. For those interested in futher research (and as a protection against my poor memory :), here are some paper references: Milgram, S. (1963) Behavioural study of obedience. /Journal of Abnormal Psychology/, 67, 371-378 Milgram, S. (1964) Issues in the Study of Obedience. /American Psychologist/, 19, 848-852 Milgram, S. (1974) Reply to the critics. /International Journal of Psychiatry/, 6, 294-295 Milgram, S. (1974) /Obedience to Authority./ New York: Harper & Row And the figures given are from Weiten's /Psychology: Themes and Variations/. You know you can trust it - it has a ':' in it's title! ;) It's an first-year text I had lurking around, but most good textbooks should have something on these experiments. -- Svend Andersen School of Mathematical and Computing Sciences Programmer, Cotton 328 (x6744) Victoria University of Wellington Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur. -- anon. _______________________________________ The Delta Green Mailing List http://www.delta-green.com/comint/dgml/From: owner-deltagreen@revolutionsf.com on behalf of The Lizard King [lizardrex@charter.net] Sent: Friday, October 26, 2001 10:51 PM To: deltagreen@revolutionsf.com Subject: Re: [DG] Shock Experiments ----- Original Message ----- From: "Svend Andersen" > Milgram, S. (1963) Behavioural study of obedience. /Journal of Abnormal > Psychology/, 67, 371-378 > > Milgram, S. (1964) Issues in the Study of Obedience. /American > Psychologist/, 19, 848-852 > > Milgram, S. (1974) Reply to the critics. /International Journal of > Psychiatry/, 6, 294-295 > > Milgram, S. (1974) /Obedience to Authority./ New York: Harper & Row Thanks for the refs. It's been awhile since it was brought up, but the theme is also part of the Stanford Prison Experiment. A good overview with pictures and some short video is at http://www.prisonexp.org/ Briefly, in order to study some aspects of prisons volunteers agreed to play guards and prisoners for at $15 a day for 1-2 weeks. A hallway and some small rooms in the Psych building were made into a "prison" with CCTV monitoring. The students were arbitrarily divided into two groups by a flip of the coin. Half were randomly assigned to be guards, the other to be prisoners. "Our planned two-week investigation into the psychology of prison life had to be ended prematurely after only six days because of what the situation was doing to the college students who participated. In only a few days, our guards became sadistic and our prisoners became depressed and showed signs of extreme stress." I think the most fascinating aspect was how fast it all happened. Anyone planning on an OUTLOOK scenario should look it over to get an idea of how quickly a personality can be broken down. Mark McFadden _______________________________________ The Delta Green Mailing List http://www.delta-green.com/comint/dgml/From: owner-deltagreen@revolutionsf.com on behalf of Dave Farnell [chaucerwatch23@yahoo.com] Sent: Saturday, October 27, 2001 12:07 AM To: deltagreen@revolutionsf.com Subject: [DG] [Challenge2 ADMIN] more tech problems Hello all. Sorry to spam the list with yet another tale of tech-problem woes, but if you have sent me a request to join the Challenge in the past day or two, I may not be able to read it for a while. My monitor, which I think must have gotten dropped by the movers, has just bit the dust after threatening to do so for the last couple of weeks. I'm getting it taken care of, but no idea yet how long it'll take. This should not delay the start of the Challenge--I can resort to primitive tools (pen and paper) to write the prologue, and then post it from my office on Halloween. And I've already gotten someone to agree to write the 1st chapter (mwahahahaaa!), so that's set up. But I may have to post the list of writers a bit late, as I won't be able to look up who applied (and my memory is far from perfect) until I get a working monitor at home. At worst, I may need to ask all the applicants to re-apply to this address, but please don't do that yet--maybe Best Denki will live up to Japan's myth of quick service and this'll all be cleared up before the second chapter is due. Anyway, as long as I'm here, I want to restate that anyone's request to join that reaches my inbox (at superdave@jcom.home.ne.jp ) with a mailing date on or before October 31st (and I'll make allowances for the international date line) will be in. That goes for employees of Pagan Publishing too, Shane and Dennis and Scott and John and all of y'all. But due to technical problems, I won't be able to acknowledge your message until I have a monitor (or someone installs software for the blind on my computer). Right--I'm running up my bill at this internet cafe. Be seeing you. Dave Oh, and PS to my fellow moderators on the Backup--you'll have to take up the slack for me for a while again. Sorry. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Make a great connection at Yahoo! Personals. http://personals.yahoo.com _______________________________________ The Delta Green Mailing List http://www.delta-green.com/comint/dgml/From: owner-deltagreen@revolutionsf.com on behalf of Rob Shankly [ludo@bigpond.com.au] Sent: Saturday, October 27, 2001 1:17 AM To: deltagreen@revolutionsf.com Subject: [DG] In the news Death by Meat Cleaver in Chinese Restaurant: http://www.newsday.com/news/printedition/longisland/ny-lichop262431989oct26.story?coll=ny%2Dlinews%2Dprint ObDG: Tcho-tcho links? 10' python strangles toddler: http://www.redding.com/shns/rstory.cfm?pk=PYTHON-10-25-01&cat=AN ObDG: A cover story for some other kind of killing? Could the avarege medical examiner, presented with a kid with a crushed larynx, correctly determine that the damage was done with a tentacle? Waco Co. Courthouse damaged in fire: http://www.salon.com/news/wire/2001/10/26/waco_courthouse/index.html ObDG: Destruction of records? Diversonary tactics to allow covert entry? Destruction of devices planted in the building? Enjoy. Cheers, -- Rob Shankly ludo@bigpond.com.au Better living through reckless experimentation. _______________________________________ The Delta Green Mailing List http://www.delta-green.com/comint/dgml/From: owner-deltagreen@revolutionsf.com on behalf of Andy Robertson [andywrobertson@clara.co.uk] Sent: Saturday, October 27, 2001 4:35 AM To: deltagreen@revolutionsf.com Subject: Re: [DG] Re: MAMMON VII ----- Original Message ----- From: "The Lizard King" > Go to a chain bookstore and look at the Business section. Row after row of > books on management. Just generic management, nothing specific about what > the hypothetical company produces or does. > I think if we are looking for motives for Mythos involvement in business, > this is it. All of the political innovations mankind has invented just > clutter up the board. If feudalism returns, can fiscal monarchies be far > behind? From there, it's a quick shuffle to the divine right of Kings. > There, nice and tidy. God to King to aristocracy to peasants. Just the way > it's supposed to be. It's just a question of which god will be worshipped. > Interesting stuff. I agree, but I think I have to end my contribution to the thread here. I'm a techyy, and I don't know enough about the world of busness and finance from the inside to elaborate furthur. ((If someone did, it might be very interesting.)) The Glove Cleaner _______________________________________ The Delta Green Mailing List http://www.delta-green.com/comint/dgml/From: owner-deltagreen@revolutionsf.com on behalf of Andy Robertson [andywrobertson@clara.co.uk] Sent: Saturday, October 27, 2001 4:46 AM To: deltagreen@revolutionsf.com Subject: Re: [DG] Tenebrazin RE: [DG] Tenebrazin >> The investigators will now want to save this guy. One way to do that might be >>through the use of Tenebrazin. >>Any thoughts? Only that they could all-too-easily be put in a situation where they ALL start remembering the Hound. Seriously, in his case the safest thing to do would be to kill everyone who is "carrying" the Memory. Dumb and obvious, I don't know how it would play. he Glove Cleaner _______________________________________ The Delta Green Mailing List http://www.delta-green.com/comint/dgml/From: owner-deltagreen@revolutionsf.com on behalf of David Rodemaker [dar@horusinc.com] Sent: Saturday, October 27, 2001 10:00 AM To: deltagreen@revolutionsf.com Subject: RE: [DG] Re: MAMMON VII > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "The Lizard King" > > Go to a chain bookstore and look at the Business section. Row after row > > of > > books on management. Just generic management, nothing specific > > about what > > the hypothetical company produces or does. > > I think if we are looking for motives for Mythos involvement > > in business, > > this is it. All of the political innovations mankind has invented just > > clutter up the board. If feudalism returns, can fiscal monarchies be far > > behind? From there, it's a quick shuffle to the divine right of Kings. > > There, nice and tidy. God to King to aristocracy to peasants. Just the > > way > > it's supposed to be. It's just a question of which god will be > worshipped. > Interesting stuff. I agree, but I think I have to end my contribution to > the thread here. I'm a techyy, and I don't know enough about > the world of > busness and finance from the inside to elaborate furthur. ((If someone > did, it might be very interesting.)) > The Glove Cleaner Hmmmm.... I don't know, I'll see if I can get my wife to comment on this one. She would have a number of interesting comments on this from a couple of different perspectives. In general her perception of the world of business tends to label the vast majority of businesses (large and small) as 'disorganized civillian f-cks'. At the same time she is the first to point out that a major part of success is 'who you know' as opposed to 'what you know'. In general the reason for getting an MBA is not so much the knowledge learned but the piece of paper *and* all the contacts that you make in the process. In general I don't think that this would work merely because of the tension between the support side (the techies) and the managment side of modern business. In the modern system the techies are pretty much locked out of managment for a number of reasons and tend to have a mild to severe distrust or dislike of that authority. I don't think that the feudal mind-set really works in this case, unless you went with a highly modified version of it ala 'Dune'. Just my .02 worth... David _______________________________________ The Delta Green Mailing List http://www.delta-green.com/comint/dgml/From: owner-deltagreen@revolutionsf.com on behalf of g m [sneezythesquid@yahoo.com] Sent: Saturday, October 27, 2001 12:08 PM To: deltagreen@revolutionsf.com Subject: [DG] An upcomming film... Check this out: http://eightleggedfreaks.warnerbros.com/ OBDG: Mother's Milk, anyone? G- ===== aka Sneezy the Squid "That's the trouble, he was dead to begin with." - Ichabod, in response to: "Is he dead?" "Sleepy Hollow" DNRC Member since 1995 · ICQ#: 8391493 www.oaxaca.f2s.com · www.daryk.f2s.com · www.bitterreign.com www.geocities.com/sneezythesquid/allflesh.html __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Make a great connection at Yahoo! Personals. http://personals.yahoo.com _______________________________________ The Delta Green Mailing List http://www.delta-green.com/comint/dgml/From: owner-deltagreen@revolutionsf.com on behalf of Gil Trevizo [furrylogic@mindspring.com] Sent: Saturday, October 27, 2001 1:04 PM To: deltagreen@revolutionsf.com Subject: RE: [DG] Re: MAMMON VII At 10:00 AM 10/27/01 -0500, David Rodemaker wrote: >In general I don't think that this would work merely because of the tension >between the support side (the techies) and the managment side of modern >business. In the modern system the techies are pretty much locked out of >managment for a number of reasons and tend to have a mild to severe distrust >or dislike of that authority. > >I don't think that the feudal mind-set really works in this case, unless you >went with a highly modified version of it ala 'Dune'. Workers = serfs Techies = priests Management = landed warriors For a good vision of feudal business in the near-future, nothing can be better than the speech made by the main baddie in the '80s BBC mini-series "Edge of Darkness". The guy, a Gates/Murdoch nuclear energy mogul, gives a real "Nuclear Power Uber Alles" speech to a bunch of Pentagon wonks about how it is nuclear power that will take us to the stars and provide our salvation from a diseased Earth (which of course, people like him have diseased). It is painfully easy to throw in MJ-12 connections with a guy like this, and even Azathoth connections behind that. The speech is followed by one given by one of the main goodies in the series, who elaborates on how this rosy future of escape into space ain't gonna be democratic, and will require a neo-feudal state of the Corporation as Lord. Gil _______________________________________ The Delta Green Mailing List http://www.delta-green.com/comint/dgml/From: owner-deltagreen@revolutionsf.com on behalf of The Lizard King [lizardrex@charter.net] Sent: Saturday, October 27, 2001 1:32 PM To: deltagreen@revolutionsf.com Subject: Re: [DG] Re: MAMMON VII ----- Original Message ----- From: "Gil Trevizo" > Workers = serfs > Techies = priests > Management = landed warriors That sums it up pretty well. > For a good vision of feudal business in the near-future, nothing can be > better than the speech made by the main baddie in the '80s BBC mini-series > "Edge of Darkness". Ah, but let us not forget Arthur Jensen in 'Network.' Gordon Gecko (the nerve of that prick!) had some great lines, but Paddy Chayevsky's corporate honcho in 'Network' spelled it all out. Here's some quotes: "It is the international system of currency which determines the vitality of life on this planet. That is the natural order of things today. That is the atomic and subatomic and galactic structure of things today! And you have meddled with the primal forces of nature! And you will atone! Am I getting through to you, Mr. Beale? You get up on your little 21 inch screen and howl about America and democracy. There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM and ITT, and AT&T, and DuPont, Dow, Union Carbide, and Exxon. Those are the nations of the world today." "The Arabs have taken billions of dollars out of this country, and now they must put it back! It is ebb and flow, tidal gravity. It is ecological balance. You are an old man who thinks in terms of nations and peoples. There are no nations! There are no peoples! There are no Russians! There are no Arabs! There are no third worlds! There is no West! There is only one holistic system of systems; one vast, interwoven, interacting, multivaried, multinational dominion of dollars!" and try reading this seeing Steven Alzis rather than Ned Beatty as Jensen: Mr. Jensen: The world is a business, Mr. Beale. It has been since man crawled out of the slime. Our children will live, Mr. Beale, to see that perfect world in which there's no war or famine, oppression or brutality -- one vast and ecumenical holding company, for whom all men will work to serve a common profit, in which all men will hold a share of stock -- all necessities provided, all anxieties tranquilized, all boredom amused. And I have chosen you, Mr. Beale, to preach this evangel. Howard Beale: Why me? Mr. Jensen: Because you're on television, dummy. Sixty million people watch you every night of the week, Monday through Friday. Howard Beale: I have seen the face of God. Mr. Jensen: You just might be right, Mr. Beale. Paddy Chayevsky will probably be the subject of a future Mason File. The last thing he wrote was 'Altered States', a radical departure from any of his previous subjects. He had to do all kinds of technical research just to get the dialogue right, and he was in the process of dying. Friends said that he seemed driven to write the story, inspired by John Lilly's 'Center of the Cyclone.' Mark McFadden _______________________________________ The Delta Green Mailing List http://www.delta-green.com/comint/dgml/From: owner-deltagreen@revolutionsf.com on behalf of Andy Robertson [andywrobertson@clara.co.uk] Sent: Saturday, October 27, 2001 10:56 AM To: deltagreen@revolutionsf.com Subject: Re: [DG] Re: MAMMON VII ----- Original Message ----- From: "Gil Trevizo" > > Workers = serfs > Techies = priests > Management = landed warriors > > For a good vision of feudal business in the near-future, nothing can be > better than the speech made by the main baddie in the '80s BBC mini-series > "Edge of Darkness". The guy, a Gates/Murdoch nuclear energy mogul, gives a > real "Nuclear Power Uber Alles" speech to a bunch of Pentagon wonks about > how it is nuclear power that will take us to the stars and provide our > salvation from a diseased Earth ( . Actually, I wonder. Remember, the main nexus of power in the West today is the mass media, particularly the TV. They control public opinion. The Media Barons are telling you what to think here, and, by reflex, you should disbelieve, or at least doubt. Certainly a feudal scientific nuclear priesthood with a peasantry of tech workers and a Samuri class of armoured warriors would be a bad thing. But maybe it would be a necessary adaptation for survival in an Oil-poor world full of angry Muslims. One thing that is certain, however, is that it would involve a massive redistribution of power, and the people at the top of the current pyramid won't like the idea. The Glove Cleaner _______________________________________ The Delta Green Mailing List http://www.delta-green.com/comint/dgml/From: owner-deltagreen@revolutionsf.com on behalf of The Lizard King [lizardrex@charter.net] Sent: Saturday, October 27, 2001 4:12 PM To: deltagreen@revolutionsf.com Subject: Re: [DG] Re: MAMMON VII ----- Original Message ----- From: "Andy Robertson" > Certainly a feudal scientific nuclear priesthood with a peasantry of tech > workers and a Samuri class of armoured warriors would be a bad thing. But > maybe it would be a necessary adaptation for survival in an Oil-poor world > full of angry Muslims. Having it be a "necessary adaption" to a menacing world is so much better than going through all the trouble of mounting a coup. Sacrifices have to be made, there's a war on after all. With the support of the Media Barons using techniques of peer pressure manipulation that the proles have been forbidden to study, the citizenry will queue up of their own (they think) free will. Why, they could even be convinced that they voted for it. Isn't it interesting that the best tactic in protecting us from a hostile world is more of the very thing that made them so damn hostile? Why, that seems as weird as equipping and training and financing the very people that precipitated the crisis. Mark McFadden _______________________________________ The Delta Green Mailing List http://www.delta-green.com/comint/dgml/From: owner-deltagreen@revolutionsf.com on behalf of Andy Robertson [andywrobertson@clara.co.uk] Sent: Sunday, October 28, 2001 3:39 AM To: deltagreen@revolutionsf.com Subject: [DG] The Media Barons and the Smoking Men ----- Original Message ----- From: "The Lizard King" > From: "Andy Robertson" > > > Certainly a feudal scientific nuclear priesthood with a peasantry of tech > > workers and a Samuri class of armoured warriors would be a bad thing. But > > maybe it would be a necessary adaptation for survival in an Oil-poor > world> > full of angry Muslims. > > Having it be a "necessary adaption" to a menacing world is so much better > than going through all the trouble of mounting a coup. Sacrifices have to be > made, there's a war on after all. With the support of the Media Barons using > techniques of peer pressure manipulation that the proles have been forbidden > to study, the citizenry will queue up of their own (they think) free will. > (warning - largely a RW post, some ObDG) Both in the real world and in the DG universe there are multiple focii of manipulation and propaganda. As you correctly note, the media elites control peoples' opinions and behaviour through peer pressure. In the virtual world produced by the TV, everyone who is pleasant or sexy or interesting has the correct liberal attitudes; everone who does not have those attitudes is vicious, ugly, murderous or stupid. People can **see** tha right wing ideas are stupid. Argument is not required. --- *** --- But there are **multiple** focii. The people who run the TV are largely animated by the zombified corpse of a socialist agenda. They (and still more those they employ) in fact concieve of industry (especially the sort of industry that makes real things) as their opponent - a rival power structure which they intend to overthrow. At the back of their minds is the image of capitalists in top hats. --- *** --- The image of the Smoking Man is a perfect example of this - the very picture of corrupt polluting capitalistic industry. The "Evil old white men in a room" meme is an instruction to us from the media elites to hate and distrust this sort of person. By all means enjoy it, but remember: when you indulge in it, you are **obeying**, you are thinking what you are being told to think by one group of the manipulators. --- *** --- But also remember, it's partly true. There are no real Illuminati; only different groups of powerful people trying in a confused way to reshape society to conform with their ideals and lusts. The Socialistic media elites are one such group, and their ideas would not be so powerful if they did not have partial validity, or so skillfully broadcast if they were not propelled by real idealism. Another group are the real-world equivalents of the Smoking Men, who are in fact no particularly evil folk, who just want to increase wealth and prosperity. --- *** --- In the real world these two groups are opposed. But they have some coincidental common interest: For example, and this is relevant, they both want to continue and accelerate immigration from the Third world into the West. The Smoking Men get an infinite supply of wage slaves: the Media Barons get guaranteed client groups of left-wing voters. Both elite groups see benefits from the migration and are willing to compete for the support of the new immigrants, which they pay for by dispensing various group preferences. The WTC has put a spanner in this agenda, forcing the Left to realise that the mass of the worlds' people cannot be effortlessly moulded into New Socialist Man by the telly, and forcing the Right to realise that the racial and ethnic conflicts attendant on a society full of recent immigrants do not merely afflict poor working class whites, but can strike the elites. Possibly, just possibly, this would lead to a union of the two sides and a defensive posture of the type we have speculated about. But I am not holding my breath. Both sides would have to turn round 180 degrees first. The Glove Cleaner _______________________________________ The Delta Green Mailing List http://www.delta-green.com/comint/dgml/From: owner-deltagreen@revolutionsf.com on behalf of Andy Robertson [andywrobertson@clara.co.uk] Sent: Sunday, October 28, 2001 4:49 PM To: deltagreen@revolutionsf.com Subject: [DG] Re: interesting picture http://www.fantasya.net/galeries/729/three_beasts.gif By David Ho http://www.fantasya.net/galerie.php?imgsection=1&ref=729 for a whole gallery of his stuff The Glove Cleaner _______________________________________ The Delta Green Mailing List http://www.delta-green.com/comint/dgml/From: owner-deltagreen@revolutionsf.com on behalf of The Lizard King [lizardrex@charter.net] Sent: Sunday, October 28, 2001 5:30 PM To: deltagreen@revolutionsf.com Subject: Re: [DG] The Media Barons and the Smoking Men ----- Original Message ----- From: "Andy Robertson" > (warning - largely a RW post, some ObDG) That's OK IMHO; DG should be driven by RW observations and themes. I mean, CoC didn't start playing in modern times just to get fancy hardware. > Both in the real world and in the DG universe there are multiple focii of > manipulation and propaganda. Yep. I don't want to play Point\Counterpoint here, because I agree with most of the observations in your post. However, (and you knew that was coming, didn't you Andy?) I'm not so sure about the polarization between liberal and conservative, or Conservative and Liberal. If you want some ObDG, that's where I'd start sniffing around. Whenever complicated situations are reduced to two (2) opposing views I believe (in both game and RW) we are participating in the shell game. A handy pigeonhole\label is created to dismiss further thinking about the subject at hand. Once it's "side" has been detected it's either embraced or dismissed depending on which team you're rooting for. Lib-er-al! Con-ser-va-tive! Ars-en-al! Chel-sea! Four legs good, two legs baaaad! This is why I mistrust phrases like "Liberal agenda." How much of the perceived "Liberal agenda" has anything to do with Liberalism? What do the usual Conservative hot button issues have anything to do with Conservatism as defined by a dictionary? And what the hell do I mean by "the usual hot button issues?" I don't even have to spell it out; you already "know." Let's see, Liberals are for gun control and Conservatives are against. So far, so good. Fits the profile. Liberals want government licensing and controls. Typical. Ah, but when you get talking with NRA members (the militant ones) you find that they don't want registration because they don't want the government to have them on a list. They'll quickly tell you that Hitler started with gun registration to identify citizens that could resist. So that means that these Conservatives (NRA = Conservative, right?) are uneasy about the law and order aspects of government. But wait, don't Conservatives reflexively support their local police before donning hardhats to beat up Liberal hippies? How does that jibe with fearing the New World Order? A phrase first uttered by Conservative George Bush, and in a positive way. > As you correctly note, the media elites control peoples' opinions and > behaviour through peer pressure. > > In the virtual world produced by the TV, everyone who is pleasant or sexy or > interesting has the correct liberal attitudes; everone who does not have > those attitudes is vicious, ugly, murderous or stupid. > > People can **see** tha right wing ideas are stupid. Argument is not > required. I get confused when ideas are identified as right or left wing. People identify themselves as right or left wing, and they seem to have stereotypical opinions that go with their allegiance, but I don't know if the ideas in and of themselves have any polarity. OK, her's an example: the character of Murphy Brown was going to have a baby and she wasn't going to marry the father. Murphy Brown is identified as Liberal, so Conservative Dan Quayle denounces the Liberal media's attack on "Family Values." Apparently, having a child out of wedlock and not being punished for it is an attack on the concept of the nuclear family or something. Does this mean that Conservatives believe in the nuclear family and Liberals believe in free love? Conservatives believe in marriage and Liberals don't? No, wait, I've got it. Liberals believe in welfare for unwed mothers and Conservatives believe in stoning by the community. No? Well, damn. I can't think of anything Liberal or Conservative about the situation of (on the TV show) an affluent TV journalist having a child without marrying the father or getting Welfare; but nonetheless I can predict with 95% accuracy the political affiliation of anyone arguing about it. > The people who run the TV are largely animated by the zombified corpse of a > socialist agenda. > > They (and still more those they employ) in fact concieve of industry > (especially the sort of industry that makes real things) as their > opponent - a rival power structure which they intend to overthrow. > > At the back of their minds is the image of capitalists in top hats. If you buy into the Democrats = Liberal and Republicans = Conservative version of Reality(tm), Conservative (and therefore Republican) also equals rich. When I was involved in politics I did some registering for the Libertarian Party in South Central L.A.. That's the part of L.A. that was in flames during the Rodney King riots for all you furriners. Since we were representing a third party our spiel usually began with asking whether the potential registree if they were Democrat or Republican. This is where I saw firsthand the stereotype of black = Democrat. All day long the response was inevitably a variation of "Republican!? Do I *look* rich?" I think Kurt Vonnegut Jr. was closer to the truth of the Democrat\Republican memes in his essay 'In a Manner That Would Shame God Himself', collected in 'Wampeter, Foma and Granfaloons.' He saw the Republican Party as the Party of Winners and those who wish to be Winners. If you momentarily toss away all the baggage of agendas and platforms and just sort of squint at the players and imagine their conversation at a backyard bar-b-que, I think you might be able to see what he meant without prejudice. Here, let me help. Imagine the Democrats as the party of Losers who feel that only solidarity can counteract all those Winners with money. Does that help explain the rhetoric both spoken and implied? There is a sort of magickal thinking in voting. The very idea of "throwing your vote away" on someone who is guaranteed to lose exposes it. The unspoken thought that accompanies that meme is "Vote for the guy who will win so you will be on the winning side." Huh? Logic tells you that it was a secret ballot and you won't be rewarded over the next four years in return for voting for the winner. But nonetheless the magickal thinking makes the winner of the New Hampshire primaries the Alpha candidate for whatever party they represent. This is why the predictions of the polls are so important; you have to have that aura of Winner to be the winner. This is the part where the peer pressure manipulation rears it's ugly head. Here's an event from my life to illustrate the concept. I was in 4th grade at the San Gabriel Avenue Grade School in lovely South Gate, CA. For some reason the school adopted a new policy of assigning teams for Recess play. So we were all broken up into teams according to grade and a schedule of games was drawn up and score was kept. Sigh. Due to some statistical anomaly or sunspot activity or some damn thing, all of the 4th grade rejects ended up on one team: the Bears. I was on the Bears. I saw no problem with being counted as a reject, because when "free" Phys Ed activity in the afternoon came along I was certainly one of those last pathetic few to be chosen for a team. You know the ritual, right? Two undisputed Alphas just naturally step forward as Captains and choose team members one by one until nothing is left but a handful of losers that nobody wants. But the rules say that everyone has to play, so they reluctantly take them as the members already chosen add helpful comments like "Oh no, not him!" and such. So there was the Bears with nothing but the "last chosen" plus other undesirables like the kid who stuttered and the two kids who didn't speak English and the kid with the Coke-bottle glasses. I guess I was the one-eyed man in this team of the blind, because when the team had to choose a Captain, I was it. In true After School Special fashion there was an inordinate amount of brains in the Bears. We analyzed the strengths and weaknesses of the other teams regardless of social standing and played accordingly. We chose the lineup democratically based on our own strengths and weaknesses and our group assessment of the situation. We kicked ass. I ain't lying, we cleaned up. There were several reasons for this. One was that we were better at playing these games than we usually got to demonstrate because of primate politics. If you don't get a turn at bat you don't get to show what you can do. Another was that we were a real team rather than a loose affiliation of egos. But the major reason we cleaned up is that we didn't hit the ball to the popular guys. For some reason, in the schoolyard kids hit the ball to the Alpha or Betas even when they know that they are really good at catching. Anyhow, when the "season" was over, the Bears won. We all got a blue ribbon and a certificate and finally got the respect of our peers and we all learned the true meaning of Christmas. Yeah, right. We got a blue ribbon and a certificate. The afternoon chosing sides ritual changed not one little bit. The members of the team that had beat them at Recess were still rejects and the last chosen, because that's the way it is. I had an epiphany the first afternoon after the awards ceremony when I saw that nothing had changed. Maybe I was supposed to be bitter or something, but instead I had this sort of electrical thrill as I saw everything continuing on as normal. I felt as if I was free of the program, I didn't have to be a loser anymore. Oh sure, I was pretty much alone in that view, but that was OK. I felt like I was the only one on that playground with free will, and it was exhilerating. For the first time I felt as if I had some control over how my life would play out. Over the years my model for life as I see it being played uses prison as the metaphor. I see guards smuggling contraband to prisoners for profit and prisoners trying to improve their circumstances by becoming trustees or joining gangs. Labels like Liberal or Conservative or Republican or Democrat are meaningless in that situation, but actions speak louder than labels. From the Stanford Prison Experiment (http://www.prisonexp.org) : "Our ex-convict consultants later informed us that a similar tactic is used by real guards in real prisons to break prisoner alliances. For example, racism is used to pit Blacks, Chicanos, and Anglos against each other. In fact, in a real prison the greatest threat to any prisoner's life comes from fellow prisoners. By dividing and conquering in this way, guards promote aggression among inmates, thereby deflecting it from themselves." > The "Evil old white men in a room" meme is an instruction to us from the > media elites to hate and distrust this sort of person. > > By all means enjoy it, but remember: when you indulge in it, you are > **obeying**, you are thinking what you are being told to think by one group > of the manipulators. Yep. The media's infamous Liberal bias blaming the Star Chamber for manipulating events. But... who believes in the infamous Liberal bias of the media and consequently discounts anything it has to say as the product of the Liberal agenda? I know, at one end of the spectrum there is a smoke-filled room with cigar chewing old white men, and on the West coast there is a sunny conference room in pastels with a bunch of long-haired media mavens tippling designer water while plotting to push the Liberal agenda down everyone's throat through situation comedies and Oscar nominations. Of course, since the conspiracy of Liberals owns the media we only see the Evil Old White Men on TV. It's axiomatic. It falls apart as soon as you drop the team colors and look at what everyone does. The Liberal biased media dubbed Ronald Reagan 'The Great Communicator', gave him carte blanche until he was a lame duck, made Rush Limbaugh a celebrity along with Oliver North and G. Gordon Liddy, didn't say boo over an invasion, killed the stories that catalogued signs of senility while in office and went along with the inflation of debt to record proportions under a "Conservative" administration because they are a bunch of knee-jerk Liberals? They watched the dailies, checked the demographics, saw that the show was popular and didn't rock the boat. And all while being denounced as Liberally biased by the people benefiting from the lack of response. Read my lips. Conservative = smoke, Liberal = mirrors. Ars-en-al! Chel-sea! Who profits? Follow the money. Mark McFadden _______________________________________ The Delta Green Mailing List http://www.delta-green.com/comint/dgml/From: owner-deltagreen@revolutionsf.com on behalf of jessthecatasc@eircom.net Sent: Sunday, October 28, 2001 5:42 PM To: deltagreen@revolutionsf.com Subject: Re: [DG] Speculations about Stealth Technology Another amusing (if continually tasteless) piece of comedy on British TV cartoon satire show 2DTV: Bin Laden introduces how he intends to defeat the Coalition - the Stealth Horse: equipped with special baffles on all movement trains (pillows on hoofs), it is entirely silent, unless A) the wheezing of its fatarsed rider attracts attention B) It whinneys. So, how does Majestic 12 retaliate? The Homing Otter? _______________________________________ The Delta Green Mailing List http://www.delta-green.com/comint/dgml/