Dear Pirsigians, Now the moment has come that I have reached my self-imposed deadline by means of this countdown-stuff. I really do not wish to leave but I feel I have to. Like those two locomotive-conductors argue mostly against each other, a reasonable one (the second) and a hell-driving sort of person, there is one part of me saying "Just stay! It's utmost worthwhile to do so. Why do you want to leave when you have little difficulties to understand what's written and also have little difficulties to participate in discussions?". The other one says "Don't do it! It will take you another 10 years :-) to finish your studies when you stay. You are a turbulence-provoking character even if you consider yourself a polite person and consider you articles quite understandable. Some people have left for you being here and you make others feel uncomfortable perhaps." Finally, I'd choosen to go along with the reasonable one, to pursue what is called 'normal life' which does not mean that I will do not think no more about all those valuable impulse had been given to me on those two discussion forums (MF and MD) as well as my personal considerations about Mr. Pirsigs ideas and related topics. But I've come to realize that I had changed in profound way which pulls me away from the obviously (still) different way of thinking that is necessary to get along whith an every-day life. I appreciate these changes but on the other hand I have to face my personal reality, for example concerns of my studies. What it had done good to me has been at least partly the answering of questions arising out of my confused mind; here it looks as if I have really achieved something. It may be that I'm making too much words about such a simple act as the unsubscription from a mailing list but this is for me as well besides all this is very important to me. I wish to express my wholeheartedly thanks to, especially the founder of this site, Diana for starting all this, for making slight but necessary corrections to MoQ's direction keeping an eye on static quality without limiting dynamic quality and also many thanks to the co-founders and members of the maintenance team, Magnus, Keith, Horse, Bodvar and Marco for running this website. Thanks to everybody gving my ideas and impulse - the ones I exchanged as well as the ones whose posts I only read (Jonathan for instance) and I've read nearly everything since joining in - to my personal MoQ and for helping me to understand so much more of Pirsigs work. At least I hope also having given other people a little impulse not only irritation and boredom. I apologize to everybody who felt insulted by my input and I hope that it has not me being the reason for some of the contributors to recede from these forums. One idea I had in the past I wish at least to give a sketchy description of. It is GOSIM, the Giant Of Silent Majority. It goes back to some discussions with friends and relatives as also discussions on various discusson forums on the web and I'd tried to find out what the MoQ could contribute to this idea. I did a lot of thinking during my regular nightwalks spinning threads on ideas that came to my mind or have been inspired by others, recording those thoughts on a dictaphone and copied them afterwards on a recording tape. I have a few hours of recordings on GOSIM solely and it is much to much to bring it now in a considerable form unfortunateley. I started to think about it already in this years spring but it never reached a satisfying state so I always postponed it for the right moment to come; there was none and other ideas seemed to be of higher value to pursue. When I got once a hate-mail from a group of Neo-Nazis, I remebered those earlier discussons as named above. I become aware of the fact that those Neo-Nazis, though still small in number, have wide-spread communiction networks all over the world such as Austria, Russia, nations on the balkan, but also USA, Sweden, Denmark and France and I realized that they could be not fought against solely by means of national security institutions (for immanent reasons) but only when single individuals of people from all over the world find together in a similar network to which the internet enables 'US' as it does for the Neo-Nazis and Racists all over the world. The main problem here is 1.) to find the smallest common denominator (as one would say in german) between all those very different small and bigger groups apart from the extraordinary variety of political opinions and points of view as well as their national mentality and 2.)to find a structure that hinders this GOSIM from getting infiltrated and indoctrinated by those opposing racists to much for it cannot be avoided them joining in such a network too; a quality-structure so to say which is resistant to those non-quality-thoughts. Of course I do see very well the great problems that lie in the realization of this idea not to mention how to start it but no reason to drop it IMO and as said above Pirsigs ideas may be of much help at this point. I believe in case one could find the right (a good) structure this could work very well indeed. One idea is the creation of a specific software that collects opinions, forming in a way self-organised collective 'same-opinion' areas and bringing them to an organised movement, a sudden movement in case it becomes necessary to oppose against any racists organisation as well as, of course, wide-spread criminal networks such as the mafia in Italy, the 'cosa nostra' in the USA and the Triades in asian coutries or perhaps organized crime in russia. I finally droped, or better postponed it to the future, for I considered any software program - those I know of - to be unable to offer enough dynamic potential while in the same forms a reliable static structure. As stated by Pirsig, also having been a former subject of discussion on MF in August '99: > " That's the whole thing: to obtain static and (!) dynamic Quality > >simultaneously. [...] ". But as many members are programmers or deal in a wider sense upon internet-stuff, there may be possibilities however, that I do not see. Whatsoever, I turned to the already existing possibilities of e-mail and chat-rooms and private web sites such as MoQ considering them as more nearby for this idea. Human beings are themselves dynamic and static, much more IMO than any program could offer but this I leave to you to judge whether this could be done by software as well. If it would be, it would be the preferable option because it reduces the necessity to spread reliable instructions or better the formulation of a sufficient common denominator for such a movement. I imagine to initiate it by a good basic agreement, similar to the MoQ rules as well as the netiquette which should be found in a limited circle of participants and once it looks as if it had reached a sufficient state, to spread it to every person each of the inner circles members trusts strongly. To ensure this - I consider this as still a growing phase of such a movement - it may be necessary to limit the number of persons each of the inner circles members is sending this 'basic agreement' via e-mail (only?). To reassure how many people had been contacted already, I imagine to organize in regular periods GOSIMS-members-countings on public places on the web as chat rooms for example, this had to be done on different place and/or with a kind of 'wandering through' a regular passing through presumably, because most chat rooms would break down in case GOSIM is really strong enough to challenge it's purpose and it's wantings. After finding that GOSIM reached such a 'sufficient' state (whatever that is) one could let it grow in a more sloppy way. I believe GOSIM is sensitive in starting phase only, later on - in case the structure IS good - it is assumingly quite resistant and unaffected towards bad quality from the opposed groups. One last, important thing to mention is GOSIMs strictly non-hierarchical and de-central structure. And this is maybe the most important point one had to look for right from the start, to install dur�ng the inner-circle phase a strong, a reliable agreement that hinders by all means any group of particular interest from occupying GOSIM to it's own purposes such as communists or conservatives (parties) as well as any other already existing interests-group. They are hostile to GOSIM in a way, they are hostile 'organisms' that would try to occupy the small GOSIM. When it comes to act not only in the virtual world so when we are in need of a reality-complement that I call Ataleus. It is a mythical figure, a giant too, from ancient greek legends who is thought to become alive when touching the ground. But describing this would lead to far for now. Many aspects about this are still unmentioned and many unanswered questions are still on the table. I will reconsider GOSIM on the base of my latest considerations and the meme-idea. It's up to you to value this GOSIM-stuff and to sort it through, yet this is in a few heads only and some others having some vague imagination of it. If anybody is interested in this, she/he may contact me personally and I hope to give some more information what I had collected since and whatmore I can remember from various talks about it. I hope that I find myself able to recede from MoQ-matters, nevertheless I will have a look at current threads via the homepage-archives now and then, I guess. But I expect it to diminish during the next weeks, at least I hope so, but I will take notice of threads, I have been involved in or that have been of greater interest for me in the past, for awhile. I wish all of you the best and may DQ be with you! And remember that we try to find a way to look upon the world, that is understandable by a child also and that does not require a University degree in Mathmatics or natural sciences. Thanks for reading for the last time and: Think paths, they are not far! Sincerely, JoVo countdown:1 "This value-being seems to have a life on his own, if you ask me...<putting hands on the surface>...It is almost cool already...Maybe one small amount of qualtiy-coal again...what do ye think?" "No!! You will stay from the controls not until we have reached Engineer-town! ...hear it? I will do this alone....I'm the one to be responsible for this thing...Life on his own??...HA!...Now step back and let me keep control" MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org Mail Archive - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/ MD Queries - [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at: http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
