Author: VD

2025: The Year Europe Lost its Mind

Or perhaps it was the year it became obvious that the European elites were taking orders from someone who isn’t the Americans and who doesn’t give a damn about the various European peoples.

To be fair to the dismal year on the way out, at least 2025 won’t be a hard act to beat. In particular, if last January anyone was recklessly optimistic enough to hope for the West to come to its senses about its catastrophic relationship with Russia and the war in and over Ukraine, they will have been largely disappointed. (Let’s not waste time on those who were still dreaming about actually defeating Russia: the clinically delusional and deliberately disingenuous are an unrewarding topic.)

It is true that the disappointment delivered by 2025 in this area has not been total. There has been one major positive – if still incomplete and reversible – development: After many abrupt twists and turns, Washington seems to have settled on a policy of “strategic stability” (in the language of the new National Security Strategy) with Moscow. This marks a possible path to mutually beneficial normalization, perhaps even a future détente. (I will plead the Trump Unpredictability Caveat here, though: if the American president and disrupter-in-chief flipflops again, don’t blame this author.)

But, at the same time, the almost 30 countries best labeled NATO-EU Europe, with politically rigid and ideologically zealous Germans in the lead not only in Berlin but Brussels as well, have found the single most perverse issue to finally assert some independence from their US overlords: stalling an end to the Ukraine War. This obstructionism has been so obvious that even (some) Western observers have started noticing it.

Though little noticed, this is actually a historic reversal. Silly pundits used to say that Americans are from Mars and Europeans from Venus. But now when even the traditionally ultra-bellicose Americans have finally been backing out of an ever-worsening confrontation between, in effect, the West and Russia, NATO-EU Europe’s odd – and unpopular – elites have resisted the prospect of peace.

The insanity, the oddity, and the unpopularity of the European elites cannot be exaggerated. I don’t know anyone, of any political persuasion, who actually supports anything the EU is doing. No one wants war. No one will be willing to go to war. If they try to make anyone go to war, they’ll fight their own governments before they’ll fight the Russians.

It wouldn’t surprise me in the least if the Russians already have a plan in place to help those who would rather fight the people that want to fight Russia than fight them.

I expect more than one European government to collapse completely or be overthrown before 2026 is through. And if one goes, there will likely be a domino effect.

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KOKORO

“Love is a sin. Do you understand that?”

Natsume Sōseki’s Kokoro (1914) is one of the essential novels of modern Japanese literature—a haunting story of friendship, guilt, and the isolation that follows betrayal. In the more than 100 years since its publication, Sōseki’s masterpiece has not aged a day.

A Friendship Shrouded in Silence A young university student encounters a mysterious older man at a seaside resort. Drawn to his intellect and profound melancholy, the student calls him only “Sensei”. Their friendship deepens over time, but Sensei maintains a calculated reserve, shadowed by a darkness in his past that he refuses to share. When he finally breaks his silence, what he reveals is a shattering betrayal with life-altering consequences.

The Right Tempo for the 21st Century For decades, English readers have viewed Kokoro through the lens of academic translations that often feel as distant as the Meiji era they describe. Kenji Weaver’s vibrant new translation brings the classic into contemporary English without sacrificing the spirit of the original Japanese.

About the Weaver translation:

  • Intimate Prose: The language breathes. Sensei’s long confession—one of the great set pieces in world literature—unfolds with the terrible intimacy of a letter you were never meant to read.
  • Emotional Immediacy: By rejecting the emphasis on literalism of the two previous English translations, Weaver allows the silences to land and the psychological heat of the story to hit the reader directly.
  • Accessible Beauty: From the casual atmosphere of the oceanfront in Kamakura to the suffocating tension of an old man’s deathbed in the country, this version makes Sōseki’s century-old world feel immediate and alive.

For readers who know Kokoro, this translation will feel like hearing a familiar piece of music played at the right tempo. For those coming to it for the first time: this is a story about what it costs to betray someone, and what it costs to keep that secret for a lifetime.

For an example of the new translation, visit Castalia Library.

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Too Doggone Funny

One of the most self-righteous SJWs in science fiction is getting cancelled over her use of AI in writing fiction:

Perhaps the biggest possible scandal among the BlueSky crowd is the use of AI. Traditional publishing has worked itself into a frenzy over the technology tool, and people are out looking for, in many cases, literal blood from people who utilize it. Now, Mary Robinette Kowal is under fire after admitting to using the tool in her latest DEI sci-fi screed.

The world first heard of Mary Robinette Kowal as she was brought into Brandon Sanderson’s Writing Excuses podcast as a co-host. The men there wanted to virtue signal by bringing in a female with feminist leanings as a “new perspective” for their audiences. The show’s tone soon changed from fun to something different, but it propelled Mary Robinette Kowal to some prominence in the industry.

Most of Kowal’s work appeared to be romances billed as sci-fi, for which she started winning the award circuit for her outspoken feminism with the John. W Campbell award for best new writer. Her clout in the industry increased, and soon, her award nominations did as well.

Like many writers in the elites, there’s little information on how much she’s sold or what kind of readership she’s cultivated, but a string of award wins and nominations a mile long.

Eventually, she parlayed her awards into a Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association (SFWA) presidency, where she began the decline of the professional organization into the embattled social club it is today.

Only the old school readers will remember this, but she’s also the woman that John Scalzi confessed to not-creeping on back in the day before serving as his Vice-President. Anyhow, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with writing with AI – I’ve now completed five books with it already, including two that will be absolutely groundbreaking, plus three very high-quality translations, including from Japanese and into French.

But the SJWs hate it, mostly because even vanilla AI writes better than they do. Like every other tool, AI is going to separate the writing elite capable of mastering it and turbo-charging their work from the slow-witted hacks who wouldn’t know their Murakami from their Murakami or their Kawakami from their Kawakami.

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Never Buy In to Netflix

Even if they have to wait until the very end of the final season, they’re going to SJW it up.

Will’s long speech about sexuality jarred with the urgency of the impending final battle and insisted that Nancy’s martial prowess seemingly came out of nowhere and felt exaggerated. Will gathered the whole gang together before listing everything he had in common with them, before concluding: ‘I just don’t like girls.’

After he finished speaking they enjoyed a group hug – seemingly sweeping the battle ahead of them, which will define the fate of the world, under the rug. He claimed that Vecna would use his fear of coming out against him if he didn’t get it off his chest, despite Vecna never mentioning as much in his many interactions with him before. 

Meanwhile Nancy managed to take down three armed soldiers in watch towers with an assault rifle from a atop a truck. She somehow caught them off guard despite the huge vehicle crashing through a gate and a soldier screaming for backup as soon as the group entered the military compound. The feat of heroism was accused of being a crowbarred ‘girl boss’ moment that didn’t align with Nancy’s skillset as an investigative journalist. 

One penned on X: ‘Btw the Will coming out scene may be the worst in the entirety of ST. Making that the most important plot point for the penultimate episode of the show is such a waste. Plus it was super cringy too. A hard watch…’

Another wrote: ‘The girl-bossing in Stranger Things S5 is another example of how this show has fallen off… Nancy Wheeler, who is 5 ft. nothing 90lbs soaking wet, is like a Navy SEAL and John Wick combined, taking out highly-trained military personnel. She also broke up with her bf because she need “don’t need no man” and needs to be “independent” so she can “find herself”.’ 

I have to admit, it’s a plot point you’d never see coming. Back in the early ’80s, I thought it was strange that just turning your back on Freddy Krueger and pretending not to believe in him was sufficient to defeat the dreamwalking killer. But defeating a supernatural, psychokinetically gifted sociopath by bravely declaring your sexual attraction to other men may arguably be an even more ridiculous path to victory.

Why not just make Vecna a homophobe and have will chase him off by making a pass at him while you’re at it?

Fandom Pulse addressed the episode too, and featured this amusing review:

Season 5, episode 7: The Bridge, is probably one of the worst written episodes of TV I’ve ever seen. Worlds colliding, humanity on the brink of non existence, incredible villain, plans coming together, and they pause for a very long melodramatic coming out story.

I think I’ll skip the last episodes, thank you very much.

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Did Chase Just Go Down?

This has been floating around. I saw it on Hal Turner’s site, which isn’t particularly reliable, but the specifics mentioned tend to indicate that this one might be.

Reports have been coming in CLAIMING “a systemically important bank, a major player in Silver Futures, failed to pay its Margin Call by 2:00 AM and was liquidated by the futures Exchange at 2:47 AM eastern US time.”

The reports are CONCEALING the name of the bank, but it is confirmed that overnight, the federal reserve was forced to pump another $34 Billion into the Banking System through its Emergency Overnight Repo facility. This $34 Billion is on top of the $17 Billion which had to be pumped-in two days ago, on Friday morning.

The Bank involved is described as “one of the largest players in the precious metals derivatives market” blew past every risk limit, breached every covenant. and exhausted every line of credit.”

The Bank is further described as having been “massively short silver; we are talking massive positions numbering in the hundreds-of-millions ounces.”

According to the information coming out this morning, when Silver broke through $70 per ounce on Friday, this bank received a “Margin Call” from the Commodities Exchange(s) which “exceeded their liquid capital.” I am further told that “the clearinghouse gave them until Sunday morning to post $2.3 BILLION in additional cash collateral.”

UPDATE 12:48 PM EST —

According to additional information, at 2:47 AM the Bank notified the Exchange that they could NOT meet the $2.3 Billion margin call. At 3:03 AM, the Exchange began forced liquidation of the Contracts. By 4:15 AM, the Banks positions on the Exchange were fully closed. SIXTEEN MINUTES LATER FEDERAL REGULATORS SEIZED THE BANK TO PREVENT A DISORDERLY UNWIND.

The reason Turner suspects the failed bank might be Chase is because he was blocked from his business account there last night.

Tonight, I logged-in to my bank and tried to send a Wire Transfer.  I’ve done this a couple times in the past and everything went fine.  Tonight, I get a call from their FRAUD Department . . . things went downhill fast…

I’ve sent wire transfers before, and for amounts much higher than tonight. . . . . Like seven times higher than tonight. Never a problem. Tonight, they say I am not me and I’m cut off.

I wonder if the bank that reportedly got SEIZED by federal regulators at around 4:30 this morning because they couldn’t make Margin Calls on Silver Shorts, maybe, might be, JP Morgan CHASE ? ? ? ? ? ? ? (Story HERE) Is it possible they won’t send the wire transfer because they’re broke?

Maybe I am not the only one being cut off from my Business account?

It’s all just rumors at this point, and I have no wish to scaremonger for clicks or anything, but we all know how fragile the system is right now. And it wouldn’t even be remotely surprising if one of the banks that was holding a short position against silver went down about now.

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The Junior Classics 9 & 10 Ebooks

First, if you’re getting a notice of a failed payment for an Arktoons subscription charge, don’t worry. That’s just the inevitable consequence of our refusing to work with Paypal anymore. However, if you’re in the market for an ebook, or a Library book for that matter, this would be a very good time to buy one just so we can confirm everything else is working properly.

As it happens, we have two new ebooks available, namely, The Junior Classics volumes 9 and 10. They’ll be on sale for $4.99 for the pair until the end of the year. If you want the whole set, you can also obtain that, although there is no rush because we plan to keep the sale price for the 10-volume collection at the $39.99 sale price.

Anyhow, if this is at all of interest to you, please go ahead and pull the trigger on it so we can confirm that everything is in order. Thank you!

UPDATE: All good, thanks very much.

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The Logic Holds

If we can suspend the constitution in its entirety over a 99.999% survivable virus, we can suspend it to expel all the Somalis and the Democrats facilitating their welfare and election scams.

Without question. Furthermore, the Somalis, naturalized or not, have no Constitutional rights as Americans. The Constitution was written to protect the rights of the Posterity of the Founding Fathers of the American Revolution. Regardless of what immigrant judges may have declared over the years, no one else resident in the USA has any claim to any rights protected by the U.S. Constitution.

You can point horse and say cow all you like, but that doesn’t make the horse a cow.

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Giving Them a Chance

It’s always fair play to give your opponent a chance to concede gracefully even if you have no expectation that he will do so whatsoever. That’s why Claude Athos and I submitted one of our papers to a leading science journal today. I can’t say which one, and I can’t say what subject the paper concerned, but certainly their response will be of extreme interest either way.

We shall keep you informed as events proceed.

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More Bass More Better

I’ve posted an excerpt from Sigma Game from my other forthcoming book, HARDCODED. I didn’t intend to write it, but it came about as a direct result of writing PROBABILITY ZERO, then discovering how the various AI systems reacted so bizarrely, and differently, to both the central argument of the book as well as its supporting evidence.

And as with PZ, I inadvertently discovered something of significance when substantiating my original case with the assistance of my tireless scientific colleague, Claude Athos. Namely, many scientific fields are on a path toward having a literature completely filled with non-reproducible garbage, and three of them are already there.

How long does it take for a scientific field to fill with garbage? The question sounds polemical, but it has a precise mathematical answer. Given a field’s publication rate, its replication rate, its correction mechanisms, and—critically—its citation dynamics, we can model the accumulation of unreliable findings over time. The result is not encouraging.

Read the rest of the excerpt at Sigma Game if it’s of interest to you. I think this book is going to be of broader interest, and perhaps even greater long-term significance, than the book I’d intended to write. Which, nevertheless, did play a contributing role.

  • Field: Evolutionary Biology
  • Starting unreliability (1975): ~20%
  • Citation amplification (α): ~12-15 (adaptive “just-so stories” are highly citable)
  • Correction rate (C): ~0.02-0.03 (low; most claims are not directly testable)
  • Years in decay: ~50
  • Current estimated garbage rate: 95-100%

The field that prompted this book is a special case. The decay function analysis above treats unreliability as accumulating gradually through citation dynamics. But evolutionary biology faces a more fundamental problem: the core mechanism is mathematically impossible.

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The Inevitable Arrives

I have always said that feminism is the dumbest, most incoherent, most violent, and most destabilizing ideology in the history of ideology. Now Great Britain is discovering one of the many reasons why:

Britain’s leading abortion charity has been criticised for encouraging ‘sex-selective’ terminations – amid fears these are on the rise among the country’s Indian women. The British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS), which carries out 110,000 terminations a year, suggests that aborting a baby on the basis of sex is not illegal – despite Government advice explicitly stating it is against the law.

Furious campaigners called the advice ‘irresponsible’ and pointed out that many pregnant British-Indian women are under huge pressure to have boys, and may be coerced into having an abortion as soon as a scan reveals a female foetus.

Women of Indian origin are likely to have aborted 400 girls on the basis of their sex in the five years up to 2021, the latest figures reveal.

But Department of Health guidance issued to doctors in 2014 states: ‘Abortion on the grounds of gender alone is illegal. Gender is not itself a lawful ground under the Abortion Act.’

But the BPAS website says: ‘The law is silent on the matter. Reason of foetal sex is not a specified ground for abortion within the Abortion Act, but nor is it specifically prohibited.’ BPAS carries out almost half the abortions in the UK, through drugs it sends by post or surgical procedures at its 55 clinics nationwide.

If women have the right to choose abortion, then they have the right to choose abortion for any reason. The entire concept of the freedom of speech is literally founded upon the undeniable observation of the freedom of thought, which is not a right, but a definitional tautology: one man cannot know what another man thinks.

Human Action was written on the basis of acting man alone knowing the basis for his actions. Or, in this case, her actions.

A society cannot have both a) abortion rights and b) laws against women having abortions for the wrong reasons. Obviously, there is no such thing as a “right” to murder unborn children simply due to the physical location of the child and abortion should be illegal.

But in places where it isn’t, these issues will inevitably arise, as I pointed out nearly 20 years ago. Now, what was once a problem in India is now a problem in the UK thanks to the joys of mass immigration.

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