View source for International Conspiracy of Mad Scientists/origins

==About==
Below is something I wrote in a chat room some years ago, describing the idea as I saw it then.

Since that time, it occurred to me that the "collective sanity" of trusted individuals could also be a powerful force for making the world better, not just a support group. This grows directly out of the original concept, however, in that one of the main reasons for a lot of the crap which some kids have to put up with is due to society's lack of sanity; fixing that &ndash; or at least calling it out for what it is, identifying the problem and sticking a label on it which says "this is not right, and no, you aren't crazy for noticing that" &ndash; will take care of a huge chunk of the problem.

The only missing piece now is to design it in such a way that there is sufficient reason for anyone to bother with it (other than just having a cool name) when there are now so many other social groups and venues out there.
==The Monologue==
:<TheWoozle> Ok, so once upon a time (way back in [[1997]] or so) I had this idea for a society of weirdos...
:<TheWoozle> (where "weirdo" is a stand-in word for a concept that is somewhat more difficult to encapsulate or even define... but I think it basically has to do with the sort of people who get teased a bit because they are different, and tend to get teased more when they overreact because of being "too sensitive"...)
:<TheWoozle> (where was I? Oh, yeah.)
:<TheWoozle> ...where people who were going through the teasing-thing could talk with people who had been through it... and people who had various weird things in their heads, like [[phone phobia]] or [[gender dysphoria]] or general depression or general different-brained-ness or whatever, could talk with others who had been through those things... or knew a little bit about them, or had maybe just *heard* of them, because sometimes that's over half the battle...
:<TheWoozle> And the society was going to be called The [[International Conspiracy of Mad Scientists]], or ICMS. And I bought the domain "iseeamess.org", because icms.org was taken and "iseeamess" sounds like "icms" and it's also funny and stuff.
:<TheWoozle> But then, along came sluggysquad, and... it was suddenly kinda redundant. Except that I couldn't exactly print up little cards with irc://irc.villageirc.net/#sluggysquad and a brief description on them (especially since there wasn't really much of a web site until the wiki happened).
:<TheWoozle> But it was still kinda redundant, because there were the misfits and so on, already there. Complete with webcomic to attract more of them.
:<TheWoozle> But then, just now during Kitten's story, it occurred to me...
:<TheWoozle> ...that the ICMS could be specifically a thing (branch of SluggySquad, or affiliated but not part of, or whatever would work best) for reaching out to the younger set.
:<TheWoozle> I mean, the name is perfect for appealing to intellectual but slightly offbeat kids, without being... um, what's the word... "talking down" to them.