Year: 2023

Import X, Become X

You can call the truth whatever you like. You can utilize rhetoric to make people fear to speak the truth. But none of that will ever change the fact that it is the truth.

Students have accused a Cambridge University professor of racism after he tweeted ‘Import the Arab World, become the Arab World’ in response to footage of pro-Palestinian protesters in London.

Dr James Orr, an academic at the Faculty of Divinity, made the comments on a video showing crowds of demonstrators outside the Israeli embassy in Kensington on Monday – two days after Hamas terrorists attacked Israel.

The footage showed protesters waving Palestinian flags and holding banners in Kensington High Street, where the air was thick with smoke from flares. At one moment it panned to men who were praying on the street.

It is racist for a people to wish to remain a people and retain their language, customs, religion, laws, and culture. That’s literally what the neologism “racism” was coined to describe by the US general who articulated it as part of his personal war on the American Indian, and it is what it has always meant despite repeated attempts to move the goalposts as required for the purposes of rhetorical effectiveness.

The only thing that has changed is that people have been deeply indoctrinated to believe that racism is bad, even that it is a sin. The important thing is to understand that it is not possible to a) prefer to preserve your nation, your language, your customs, your laws, and your religion and b) not be racist.

The sooner people stop running in fear from rhetoric, the better.

The correct response to accusations of racism is a simple question: why do you think racism is bad?

DISCUSS ON SG

Agreement Incapable

Iran discovers why neither Russia nor China are interested in talking substantively to the USA or making any deals with it anymore.

Washington has gone back on its promise to unblock $6 billion in frozen Iranian assets even after Tehran released five American citizens accused of espionage against the Islamic Republic.

Under the deal last month, the money was transferred from a South Korean bank to a bank in Qatar, where Tehran could access it under strict monitoring by the US Treasury Department to ensure that the cash is used only for humanitarian purposes.

However, on Thursday, the US and Qatar reportedly reached an “understanding” that Doha will ignore any withdrawal requests from Tehran, according to several officials who spoke to the media on condition of anonymity.

You know, the American Indians could have told them how pointless and self-defeating it is to make any deal with the USA. From 1772 to 1867, the US government signed 374 treaties with American Indian tribes. It broke nearly every single one.

The Russians are right. The USA is agreement-incapable, which is why it is incredibly stupid and short-sighted for any sovereign entity, be it friendly or inimical, to sign any agreement or come to any “understanding” with a representative of the US government.

DISCUSS ON SG

Mailvox: SSH and Non-Solipsism

Prompted by your post today on seeing your neologisms in common usage, I thought it might interest you to know that middle schoolers at a Methodist church in Orlando, FL are using your expanded SSH terms casually in conversation with each other. I’m a parent and small group leader, so I’ve been able to have some interesting conversations. Without giving away that I was aware of the terms, I asked what they meant (as if they were any inscrutable zoomer slang), and they were using them more or less correctly.

The ideas, they disseminate. It’s encouraging that the younger generations will have the opportunity to understand and utilize their behavioral patterns in a way that their predecessors did not. Like most information, it can be used for good or for ill, but making informed decisions tends to lead to better consequences than uninformed ones. And before one can surmount one’s flaws and weaknesses, one must be aware of them.

Speaking of surmounting one’s flaws, a woman on SG seeks to understand what not being solipsistic is like.

Does male non-solipsism mean that when a man gains any information, he does not by default consider its relevance to himself? Sincere question from a mystified woman. #womanposting

That’s correct. It should be readily apparent, in fact, by the way men have a habit of turning themselves into subject matter experts in their particular areas of interest which have nothing whatsoever to do with the man involved. When I was working out the details concerning whether Lionel Messi was the greatest soccer player of all time – and he quite clearly is – the thought of comparing myself to him, or to Ronaldo, or to Pele, never crossed my mind. I simply wasn’t relevant to the topic. It never occurred to me to work out my own career goals-pens+assists per-game average.

Men tend to be more interested in the idea, the subject, or the event for itself than in its potential relationship to himself. This, by the way, is why so many men find women to be tedious and seldom enjoy talking with them, because the female tendency to turn every conversation toward herself is readily apparent, mildly annoying, and generally uninteresting.

For example, let’s say that you took in a family of Ukrainian refugees after the start of the special military operation. Do you mention that every time the topic of the Ukraine war comes up? It might be relevant if the discussion is about refugees or the depopulation of Ukraine, but most of the time, it won’t be. There is a lot to discuss about the war that doesn’t have anything to do with you or your past actions. Every mention of a subject that has something tangentially to do with you is not an invitation to start talking about yourself, and should not be taken as one. In most cases, you would do well to resist that solipsistic urge.

One thing I would encourage women to do, if they want to be held in higher regard by men, is a) to be aware of the conversational context, and b) to never talk about themselves or to mention people that the men don’t know. To better understand the desirability of this try silently counting the number of “I” and “me” used by your interlocutors when they engage in a conversational soliloquy. It can be very enlightening.

A good conversation is not two or more people waiting to talk and exchanging unrelated monologues. Try actually listening to people, no matter how tedious or stupid they are. You really can learn a lot from them, even when what they’re talking about is of zero interest to you.

Gammas and Lambdas are the most solipsistic men, which is why they are also the men who most enjoy talking with women and who are most likely to be a woman’s best male friend. Show me a man who is a woman’s best friend, and if he isn’t gay, nine times out of ten he’ll be a gamma who secretly pines after her.

DISCUSS ON SG

The Midwit Range

It’s interesting to observe that another of my neologisms has gradually spread into common usage. It’s always fascinating to see what previously unarticulated concepts are found to be useful by others, and which are not, because the only reason I create them is for my own private reference in the absence of any existing term. There doesn’t appear to be much rhyme or reason to it; I personally think the distinction between the three aspects of science is considerably more useful than identifying the Sigma behavioral pattern, for example.

I created the term midwit to explain the phenomenon I was observing of individuals who, while not stupid by any conventional intellectual measure, nevertheless behaved like angry, retarded chimpanzees whenever presented with any concept or abstract thought beyond their ability to follow. They also exhibited what struck me as the bizarre tendency to attempt to lecture those who were not only their intellectual superiors, but also those whose knowledge, credentials, and experience considerably exceeded their own on the matter at hand.

As the midwit is more intelligent than the norm, albeit not significantly more intelligent, his IQ will generally fall somewhere in the 105 to 120 range. The midwit is therefore someone who, in his formative youthful years, is accustomed to thinking of himself as one of the smartest kids in his junior high school class, even though that is only statistically true of the upper end of the midwit range. But even at the low end, the midwit tends to be smarter than two out of every three people he encounters.

However, unlike the high school athlete who discovers he is unable to compete at the college level, let alone the professional level, the midwit never quite relinquishes the idea that he is, fundamentally, a Smart Boy who Knows Better than everyone else. It is the midwit, more than anyone else, who dictated the need to articulate Vox’s 1st Law.

Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from insanity.

However, the midwit is even more inclined to claim that anything he cannot understand, and anyone who is observably more intelligent than him, is “stupid”. This is because the midwit relies upon a tautological syllogism.

  • Major premise: the midwit is the smartest boy in the room
  • Minor premise: the midwit does not understand something said by someone else in the room.
  • Conclusion: what was said doesn’t make sense because it is stupid and so is the person who said it.

Those who understand the socio-sexual hierarchy will see that there is a strong correlation between the midwit and the gamma, although the two concepts are not identical. There are no shortage of Delta midwits, and the midwit illogic is not based on psychological issues or insecurity, but rather, ignorance and intellectual immaturity.

The midwit’s fundamental problem is that he is insufficiently intelligent to communicate with the most intelligent. The difference between the midwit and both VHIQ and UHIQ intellects exceeds the 30-point IQ communications gap, and the midwit’s pride in his intelligence prevents him from accepting his relative retardery enough to listen to the simplistic explanations he is able to follow.

Which is why midwits, like the poor, will always be with us.

DISCUSS ON SG

Never Ask a Natural

Haruki Murakami explains how to become a better writer:

“Hello, Mr Murakami. I’ve always enjoyed reading your books. Currently I’m a graduate student, so I’ve got to deal with reports, presentation planning, and emails and letters to professors, and anyway I have to write a lot of compositions. But the fact is, I’m really not good at writing composition. But be that as it may, if I can’t write I can’t graduate and I’m in a tough position, so since it can’t be helped I do my writing while struggling and groaning. Is there nothing I can do to make writing easier? If you have any advice, like what you’d find in a composition primer, I would be most grateful for it.”

Considering that getting into graduate school in the first place is no mean feat, we’re going to give Ms Sakurai the benefit of the doubt and assume she has a decent head on her shoulders, problems with the pen notwithstanding. Also, having shown the wherewithal to recognize her own academic shortcomings, plus the initiative in reaching out to someone who appears to be a more-than-qualified mentor, we’d also say she’s got the commitment and work ethic necessary to overcome her difficulties.

So how did the famous author respond?

“The act of writing is the same as sweet-talking a woman, in that you can get better, to an extent, with practice. Fundamentally, though, your abilities are determined by the talents you’ve been born with. Well, anyway, do your best.”

Haruki Murakami’s advice, Japan Today, 23 Jan 2015

A lot of people ask a lot of writers about how to become a better writer, seeking to learn the secret about making writing less painful, completing a book, writing something that a lot of people want to read, or writing a bestseller. And while Murakami’s answer is effectively the only practical one, I would provide a little more detail on the basis of my experience.

  • Practice and experience makes writing less painful. Eventually, it becomes almost automatic. When a writer is in the groove, he is barely aware of his own thought processes at all. John C. Wright describes the inspiration that substitutes for them as “the muse”, one might not unreasonably call the experience “dancing with the muse”. This is something I have very rarely experienced and never with fiction, but I have occasionally observed it in writers I’ve edited.
  • Completing a book requires nothing more than focus and determination. I wrote A THRONE OF BONES in one year. It took nearly seven years to complete A SEA OF SKULLS, mostly because I had other priorities interrupting my focus. It won’t take that long to complete the trilogy.
  • Writing something that people want to read requires getting out of your own head and actually paying attention to what other people think and do. It requires empathy, and if one is inclined toward solipsism, putting a firm restraint on the tendency. I can’t tell you how many authors have told me “I think a lot of people would like to read a book about [insert obviously stupid idea that is of interest to virtually no one besides the author]!” And it’s almost impossible to get a good author to write what will actually sell instead of whatever he feels like writing. I do this much more with my non-fiction than my fiction; on average, non-fiction sells better anyhow.
  • Get lucky or take the ticket. Be aware that most “bestsellers” are manufactured and fake; do you really believe Hillary Clinton and Katie Price are two of the most successful post-2000 authors in the world? If so, Ron Desantis has a mountain of his #1 New York Times, Publisher’s Weekly, Wall Street Journal, and Amazon bestselling book, THE COURAGE TO BE FREE, for you to take off his hands. Published just seven months ago, the current sales rank of the paperback is #1,073,496 on Amazon.

DISCUSS ON SG

Israel Caught Lying

The US Foreign Affairs Committee confirms that Egyptian intelligence warned Israel about the Hamas attacks three days prior, and in doing so, proves that Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu publicly lied about the Israeli government not being warned by Egypt.

Israel was warned by Egypt of potential violence three days before Hamas’ deadly cross-border raid, a US congressional panel chairman has said. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee head Michael McCaul told reporters of the alleged warning.

Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu described the reports as “absolutely false”.

“We know that Egypt has warned the Israelis three days prior that an event like this could happen,” Mr McCaul told reporters following a closed-door intelligence briefing on Wednesday for lawmakers about the Middle East crisis, according to AFP news agency. “I don’t want to get too much into classified, but a warning was given,” the Texas Republican added. “I think the question was at what level.”

Egypt warned Israel days before Hamas struck, US committee chairman says, 11 October 2023

Translation: the US intelligence services knew about it too.

Green Flag confirmed. At least some of the attacks were real, and were committed by Hamas, and were allowed to take place as planned by the IDF. But there’s still some question about how some of those attacks appear to have been either a) a false flag or b) crisis theater, especially given the way some of the “murdered victims” have been found to be alive.

Not only is the Israeli government lying about having been caught totally unaware by the attack, but it’s now come out that the venue for the targeted rave was moved just days before it was scheduled to begin, much to the surprise of the organizers. An honest investigation would be focused on discovering who moved the rave and how Hamas got word of where it was. And a failure to investigate those things would serve as a practical confession that there were some false flag elements to the attacks.

To be fair to the Israelis, they practically admitted to the green flag when they declared the attacks were a “Pearl Harbor” and a “9/11”. It would really have been making it too easy had they thrown in a “Lusitania” and a “Maine” as well. And they haven’t claimed that Hamas was hiding yellowcake in the Gaza Strip either.

DISCUSS ON SG

Thus Spake Spacebunny

An SG reader reads Gab:

This comment is the written equivalent of watching someone get thrown off a roof onto concrete. You can almost hear the crunch.

MILO: For all the times I had to read “YOUR JUST JEALUOS” and sit baffled wondering what exactly I was supposed to be envying. It has been so immensely satisfying to see the same mediocre midwit screen names sulkily and silently reappear on Telegram trying to forget Jordan Peterson ever happened

WILLIAM: I suspect it’s not so much that you cannot grasp the wisdom that Peterson brings to the table as it is being contrarian simply for the sake of eliciting a response. Perhaps not textbook trolling, but certainly in the same ballpark.

SB: Imagine still falling for Peterson’s drug-induced prattle this far in.

WILLIAM: So, I’ve got two “he’s a drug addict” and one “he’s a paid-for shill” responses. I’ve been reading Dostoevsky and Solzhenitsyn recently – one of which warned his people against what we’re entering into now, and the other who lived through it and fought back against it. Peterson frequently references them, and the way he talks demonstrates a deep understanding of the evil they were fighting against – something he is committed to fighting himself. So what’s the real problem? Is he just not snide and mean enough? Is it that he’s not telling you who to hate?

SB: Wanda: To call you stupid would be an insult to stupid people. I’ve known sheep who could outwit you. I’ve worn dresses with higher IQs, but you think you’re an intellectual, don’t you, ape?

Otto: Apes don’t read philosophy.

Wanda: Yes they do, Otto, they just don’t understand it.

Congratulations – you’re Otto.

Go here https://voxday.net/?s=peterson and start reading – there are pages of posts dedicated to explaining to idiots like you why Peterson is an evil fraud.

I just can’t imagine how she managed to get herself kicked off Elon’s bastion of free speech… again.

DISCUSS ON SG