The Monastery of the White Tiger

As part of The Divinity of Infrastructure, entertainment media is not exempt from this precept. Entertainment media not created by The Organization is haram, but because The Monastery of the White Tiger is not about complete isolation, we do include some entertainment media. Right now, only entertainment media produced from before is considered halal. In metric time, ignoring the current number of days in the cycle, that's ten cycles ago. Originally, it was going to be ten cycles from the present day but then I realized that I don't want to constantly be checking every day, "What new media do I have access to today?" so it's easier to do it this way. That way, there's another positive to every new cycle. (Though, this time period may be extended even further.) There's also other media that's been grandfathered in due to its nature: White Tiger (2021) and Anathem (2008).

Notice that previous statements were in regards to entertainment media. Anything non-fictional that is not for entertainment purposes is grandfathered in. News reports from new organizations are considered halal. Editorials and commentaries from after the previously mentioned time period are considered haram.

(Another thing I was thinking about today is the role of websites in this schema. If I just start perusing random websites, isn't that against the nature of what I'm doing? Shouldn't there be some kind of limitation?) How is that really different from any other type of media or a program? But in a different way, websites can be informational so in that context, it should be fine, but I think if I'm using the website in a way that could be supplemented in a different way, that should be avoided. So informational is okay, entertainment or to use its infrastructure (like communication) needs to be marked down.

Though, there is a fuzzy margin there in the context of non-fiction. Yesterday, I researched EPUB vs PDF and found a reddit post where people were discussing the merits of each format. Now that is opinion, similar to an editorial, but it is informational in the sense that it is giving me context to weigh different options.

Another interesting conundrum in regards to researching the release dates of these media. Should I include the first time it was ever released or when it would have been available to me? As of right now, The Usual Suspects is fine if I judge it by when it was released at Sundance but if I go by the general release, that's after. For now, we'll do the first time, but it does create questions.

What if media is informational but not in service to The Discipline? Maybe that's too dogmatic. Though, there is something kind of masturbatory about learning facts for the sake of facts.

A part of me is wondering if I need to log my consumption of media too, because there was this movie (Orbiter 9) that I had been debating watching on streaming services for a little while. In a roundabout way, I found out: I already watched it. But that experience was so disposable that I didn't put that into my mind -at all-. And that's happened before. I remember I was somewhere towards the end of the Alice in Wonderland reboot and I was like, 'oh, I've seen this.' I feel like that's not great that I have no recollection at all of watching a certain piece of media. Albeit, this particular movie was from 2017 and it's been 7 years now, but idk, I feel like these experiences should be more meaningful to me.

There's another part of me that's thinking about this from another perspective. This 10 cycle prohibition is to disengage a member of The Organization from being a consumer of media in the sense of beinmg part of a marketing cycle but if they received media as a gift or a donation, I don't think that's as big of a deal. Though, they couldn't ask for it. Like, putting it on a wish list and then recieving it as a gift, that would be off limits. Any communication in which they say, "I would like [name of media]" would prohibit their ability to receive it as a gift. And I think they also shouldn't talk about it. Maybe with other member that's fine, but with outsiders, like, say there was social media account, you couldn't say how much you enjoyed a new media because that might encourage a company to use you as a marketing channel or if you received it as part of a donation, you could thank the person for the donation but not -that- donation.