Recently, I started a project to take something I do regularly and expand upon it using the online character I created called the Polymath Slacker. The Polymath Slacker is basically a layered avatar resembling and incorporating the ethics, bias and morality of an actual limited liability company located in the state of Florida called Polymath Enterprises, LLC. There is a bbs forum as the meeting space for evaluating ideas, a YouTube Channel for world-wide communication, and this blog for recording the history of the venture.
Because the company actually exists it is the parent-body or authority figure... the boss to which the Polymath Slacker pays a token bit of allegiance. The forum is not for the above mentioned project specifically, it was developed to create a space for civic discussions about Florida. It allows me, though, to demonstrate points of view exhibited by people in and around the state, mostly told through local media.
The method is a little bit bullshit detector and a little bit bullshit producer, but the website marks history pretty well, and seems like good practice.
The "Post-it Project" has to do with making something out of the doodles and life-notes I write on notepads every day. I took notes on ten different post-its, then tried to explain each of the thoughts more thoroughly on the pages of a spiral flip-book.
The flip-book was the script for the narration for each video, which were recorded in mp3 on a Sony voice-recorder and set to pictures of the notes in the video made with Windows Movie Maker.
Admittedly, it does sound a bit obsessive, but this all took place over a period of months with minimal impact on other tasks. It was just guided effort in a focused direction.
Using the characters built up over the last year or so (explained further here), I tried to spin my opinions of the videos from the worldviews that match each character's bias.
The whole project is a sort of advertisement for the forum, itself just a way for a writer to record history over time, and a way for a man to learn about himself and where he lives. But it provided further evidence of the overall style of the Polymath Slacker in action.
Total Words for Thread - 848
1. CmdroObvious - 285 (33.6%)
2. Minarchist - 141 (16.6%)
3. Josh - 96 (11.3%)
4. Fiscal Conservative - 85 (10.0%)
5. Egalitarian - 71 (8.4%)
6. Social Traditionalist - 59 (7.0%)
7. Social Liberal - 44 (5.2%)
8. Conservative Intellectual - 16 (1.9%)
9. Central Planning Statist - 15 (1.8%)
10. Anarcho-Capitalist - 14 (1.7%)
11. Localist (Provincial) - 12 (1.4%)
12. Social Conservative - 9 (1.1%)
13. Anarcho-Syndicalist - 1 (0.12%)
Rather than trying to build a road-map for an unknowable world, I found a way to highlight my own political biases within a subject. The process of doing this has seen me take reason from a completely different perspective than my own and argue against reason from still other different perspectives. And, the pattern of character use almost certainly correlates to the types of influence I have perceived, or those that I am able to articulate for each philosophy.
The method of simulating discussion by comparing 'thought bubbles' derived from various political philosophies has proven useful thusfar in reflecting on our civic structure and history. The "Post-It Project" outwardly demonstrates the process, as well as publicizing the forum, YouTube Channel and earlier blogs.
more to come... thanks for reading.
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