sean

To be fair, the FAQ isn't here, it's only a link in someone's signature. Otherwise, beneath the distracting sense that you're yelling this entire post, LOL, I think are some legit criticisms of the FAQ, even just from a basic marketing perspective. Would love for it to start by answering basic questions, like What is Mo Pai? Who started it? Who holds the lineage now? Are there multiple schools? How does Mo Pai compare to other living neigong traditions? Instead we're thrown into the deep end about anus wires and an unintroduced character named Jim's cancer. 😳 Hopefully constructive criticism. Sean

Welcome @Nier 👋 No need to apologize, nice to hear your story.

Fine by me. I was originally proposing that we'd solicit questions from the community. But if you'd prefer to just incrementally update your FAQ as you encounter common misconceptions or whatever that's fine. My other two cents, "Is Mo Pai Qigong?" seems like it could use a bit more explanation, e.g. from your school's perspective what is qigong, what is neigong, why specifically is your system neigong, why do you mix Chinese romanization spellings 😜, etc. Sean

Very cool. I really like Clojure. I built an admin dashboard at my current job in ClojureScript, with Reagent and re-frame. Pleasant experience. I barely enjoy coding anymore without immutable data structures at least. Shen looks like an interesting Lisp as well. Though, outside of Elixir/Erlang, I seem to be gravitating more toward Haskell and ML family languages rather than Lisps lately. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Sean

Welcome @EFreethought 👋 What kind of software dev do you do? I'm a nerd too. 🤓 Elixir and PostgreSQL these days, mostly. Sean

Welcome @tbikeev 👋

EDIT: Revised based on suggestions. You can see latest along with revision history here: https://gist.github.com/seanomlor/d3c6caca3263bfe3706fd54456316f66 I'd like to simplify the forums a bit. The biggest change I'm wanting is to merge Daoist Discussion and General Discussion, along with many of the subforums. Given the nonsectarian roots of this space, I've never been super stoked on the compartmentalization of e.g. Buddhist vs Hindu, etc. etc. It's also a can of worms because we're certainly excluding innumerable traditions. My feeling is that merging a bunch of these separate forums into one big, weird "Discussions On The Way" simpler, flatter forums will promote more cross-pollination between us. Anyway, here's a quick rough draft of what I'm imagining the new forum/subforum structure to be. THE COURTYARD - Welcome! (merges Welcome and Newcomer Corner) - Discussions On The Way (previously Daoist Discussion) - 道家学说 - Textual Studies (merges Daodejing, Zhuangzi, etc.) - Vast High Weirdness (😆 still working on this name, previously General Discussion. The word "general" just feels so boring.) - The Rabbit Hole (merges "The Rabbit Hole", "Off Grid". Basically an off topic forum to talk about whatever, but not an "anything goes") - Meta-Talk (merges Forum and Tech Support, Moderation Logs, Rules and Use) PRIVATE GARDENS - Group Studies - Personal Practice (still has everyone's private subforums under this) - Gender Gardens - Nonbinary (for nonbinary, gender questioning and intersex) - Women (for women and female identified) - Men (for men and male identified) - Interviews - Lending Library - Local Meetups and Events (merges Local Meetups and Upcoming Events) Please discuss, definitely want to hear your feedback, concerns, any subforums you think should still be separate for whatever reason, etc. etc. Sean

Welcome @miwizi 👋

Neither a moratorium nor a private dedicated area are gonna happen, for reasons already mentioned. So we can just put those ideas aside for now. A FAQ is not a fix, but I think it's hard to argue that it would not help? Isn't this a third best option? Houses concise responses to all common questions/criticisms in your own voice in a single location Locked so no worry that it will turn into hundreds of pages Helps other members make up their mind, regardless of any past trolling and misinformation Saves your labor of combing topics and responding to every perceived inaccuracy Assuages a primary frustration/criticism, that you're being disingenuous about why you never respond to anything I think not wanting to do a FAQ kinda hurts your stated case. Active or passive, what's the material difference? You are here on the forum and you are recruiting. Sean

@MildMouse23 what do you think about a "Mo Pai FAQ"? We gather and distill a list of commonly asked questions from the community Your group responds to the questions that it's willing and able, on your own terms I'll post and lock the FAQ to prevent trolling and nitpicking (you can request edits/additions anytime) You can link to the FAQ whenever these questions come up without derailing other topics The community feels more satisfied that its questions are responded to, and we're not just being trolled Just brainstorming, but seems that something like this could be part of a solution to both sides of the tension around this. Sean

Welcome @Gurney 👋 I have some close friends that practice HEMA and I've enjoyed myself some Ho'oponopono. Sean

I'm intrigued by this proposed occultist vs shaman opposition as well. Might make sense to loosely define the terms, but I'm understanding occultism to mean the Western Theosophical, Hermetic (Anthroposophical?) traditions vs. shamanism being the animistic traditions of basically every indigenous culture (including witchcraft?). Am I close? Do you feel that there's something inherent to the goals and means of occultism that makes it a tool of oppressive governments and antagonistic to shamanism? In other words, is this organized, more powerful, "professional occultism" the "one true occultism" and self-guided occultists are clueless rubes to the actual real meaning of all their work? Or is it more that occultism is a tool that can be used for good, but also that oppressive regimes prefer for some reasons specific to the tool, while ignoring and antagonizing shamanism for reasons specific to it? Sean

Ahh. You caught my post before my last edit, in which I tried to soften a bit and moved the transphobia piece to another topic. OK. I'll trust your intention. I'm sorry if I'm being knee-jerk about this topic and caused you any stress. 🙏 Sean

Transphobia. What's the big deal? Transphobia directly and materially impacts tens of millions of particularly vulnerable human lives. Transgender people are constantly compelled to explain and defend their very existence everywhere they go, often with valid fears of being ostracized, fired, attacked and murdered. The very least that I can do here, is be an asshole sometimes to ensure that any trans or gender questioning people visiting this one so-called spiritual forum never need to explain, defend, or feel shamed or mocked for their existence. Period. If the price for this sanctuary is that some, perhaps innocently, ignorant members are no longer given a safe space to confidently air their incomprehension of the world being more complex than they were assured as little boys and girls — that's the price I'm willing to pay. I recognize this can be an exasperating subject for newcomers. Modern life already feels so complex. Now you're telling me that gender, something surely based on the definitive, "hard science of genitalia and chromosomes", is being questioned? I've had this conversation in person with so many people, and the visceral frustration that gender might not be simple "anymore" is palpable. I can empathize with that. For those of you trying to understand this stuff, I can recommend the following two very entertaining suggestions: What is Gender? (9 minutes) Pronouns (32 minutes) ❤️ Sean

I only have a small horse. Could even be considered a pony. 🐴 Also, my role here, for better or worse, is to get on my little pony sometimes. 😆 I like giving you the benefit of the doubt. And it's sincerely possible I'm being too trigger happy, given how frequently I see this exact meme deployed by jerks in online spaces. In plain English, what, specifically, is this meme suggesting went "terribly wrong" in the "changing standards of attire over the decades"? What I see it suggesting is that, by traditional gender norms, men are sometimes now more openly effeminate and that this is the core punchline of the joke and what's gone terribly wrong. In other words, the mere existence of gender nonconformity in modern life is "very bad, actually", and represents some sort of aberrant deviation from our proper social course. EDIT: Moved my potentially knee-jerk transphobia part here: https://www.thedaobums.com/topic/49802-transphobia Sean

Hey @Apech this meme feels low-key transphobic and kinda sucks. 👎 I get why this might cause a sardonic chuckle. Gender nonconformity and transgenderism is a new, strange thing for many of us and there are legit funny things about gender in 2019. But good sociopolitical humor is rooted in: A deeper understanding of the issue being mocked than the audience Not punching "down", i.e., at people that are already structural targets This meme fails hard at both. It's also so overplayed that's it's basically a meme format, and one that alt-right chuds online love, by the way. Sean

Fascinating 🔬 Via "About Microanimism " — https://www.microanimism.com/aboutmicroanimism

Listening to a podcast with the author of that site, and just learned that the human genome is 8% virus, i.e., 8% of our DNA has come from past viral infections, most of which have been retroviruses (a type that includes HIV). Placental birth, for example, would not be possible without a virus that infected our ancestors millions of years ago, inserting part of its DNA into our genome. 🐉 😳 Via: Microorganisms, your oldest lineage.

Very helpful, thanks! 🙏 Don't forget the Ron Jeremy War. And the recent Alt-lite/right War. I wish I could say it's the internet, but humans seem to love war IRL too. 😕 Sean

Just zoning out at work now, thinking about that Mo Pai crypto million to shut down these discussions. I'll deny it too.

Welcome @Xiao San 👋

Welcome @Cloudwalking Owl 🙇

I think I already talked about this insistence on proof. Sincere question, has anyone formally proved literally anything on this forum ever? From my perspective, it's all just storiiies in an informal language maaan. 😑 If this is super frustrating, what about this approach: You: I think the apple is red. Mo Pai Person: The apple is not red. You: How do you know? Mo Pai Person: I can't tell you. You: LOL. OK. 🙄 ** clicks ignore user button**

Welcome @imanamvet66 👋