Author: VD

The return of the epic

After reading some of my past posts related to the degraded state of epic fantasy, it is a pleasure to be able to say that there are still writers who harbor sufficient regard for the genre to write it more or less straight rather than attempting to subvert it in some tediously predictable manner. While there is always a place in any genre for an interesting subversion – and few have ever done it better than Tanith Lee’s supremely dark take on various classic children’s tales – once the subversion becomes the norm, the novelty aspect is gone and the new sub-genre must stand or fall on its own merits rather than upon the borrowed merits of the genre it is subverting. And at this point, the antihero in epic fantasy, or to put it more accurately, the villainous protagonist, is about as novel and intrinsically interesting as the creaking Hollywood chestnut featuring the grand climactic mano-a-mano confrontation between the hero and antagonist in which the hero is all but vanquished when a last taunt enrages him and inspires him to battle back to ultimate victory. Yee-hee-hee-awwwwwn.

Read the rest at Black Gate.

Look, they’re just not funny

When evidence cited proves the precise opposite of the claim it purports to support:

Look – in the era of Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, Sarah Silverman, Kristen Schaal, Kristen Wiig, Maya Rudolph, Lisa Lampanelli, Amy Schumer, Samantha Bee, Whitney Cummings, Melissa McCarthy, Anna Faris, Kathy Griffin, Chelsea Handler – are we really still having this stupid discussion? As this list shows – and this is, of course, just a random and minor sampling – not only are there lots of funny women around, but they’re being funny in many different ways.

That’s it. That’s what is supposed to prove that female comedians are as funny as male ones?

Tina Fey – not funny
Amy Poehler – not funny
Sara Silverman – so not funny
Kristen Schaal – who?
Kristen Wiig – all right, she’s moderately funny
Maya Rudolph – not even a little bit funny
Lisa Lampenelli – who?
Amy Schumer – who?
Samantha Bee – who?
Whitney Cummings – She’s attractive. She’s not funny.
Melissa McCarthy – She’s fat, which is admittedly funny. Otherwise, no.
Anna Faris – She’s cute and amusing in certain roles.
Kathy Griffin – Actually anti-funny.
Chelsea Handler – Not funny.

The easily confirmable fact is that all of them in their entire careers combined haven’t produced half the amount of humor as Frankie Boyle does in any given five minutes on Mock The Week or in ten minutes of standup:

Mock the Week is great and you can always tell the best comedians, because they are the ones who regularly crack up the other comedians. What I found particularly amusing about the various collections of his most offensive jokes is that they don’t even include his ruthlessly offensive explanation for why Katie Price dates cage fighters. Number eight was edited out at some point, but it was this joke:

“I’ve been studying Israeli Army Martial Arts. I now know 16 ways to kick a Palestinian woman in the back.”

Another thing to like about Boyle is that he can take it as well as dish it out.

Climate change is the new evolution

I couldn’t agree more, considering that they’re both most likely little more than pseudo-scientific fiction.

Is climate change education the new evolution, threatened in U.S. school districts and state education standards by well-organized interest groups? A growing number of education advocates believe so, and yesterday, the National Center for Science Education (NCSE) in Oakland, California, which fights the teaching of creationism, announced that it’s going to take on climate change denial as well.

NCSE expects this task to be much harder than fighting creationism. “The forces arrayed against climate science are more numerous and much better funded,” Scott says, and are better able to get their message across in the mainstream media than creationism supporters.

The reason the task will not only be much harder, but impossible, isn’t because of the more formidable nature of “the forces arrayed against climate science”, but because it is significantly harder to lie to people about something that they can readily observe, at least in part, for themselves. That is why I am merely deeply skeptical about evolution by natural selection whereas I completely reject the observably false assertion of anthropogenic global warming.

That is why AGW/CC will go the way of phrenology, the global Ice Age, the food pyramid, and other past scientific consensuses sooner than TE(p)NS. I’m confident that genetic science will eventually shoot down the latter, but it’s going to take a considerable weight of incontrovertible evidence to finally root out the die-hard Neo-Darwinian dogmatists, considering how they are still clinging so desperately to their evolutionary epicycles.

Dealing with decline

In which approaching the peak is contemplated:

Memory and other brain skills begin to decline at the age of 45 – much earlier than previously thought, say researchers. A major study shows the brain’s capacity for memory, reasoning and comprehension starts waning in middle age rather than in the 60s. Experts say the finding is important because younger people should be encouraged to boost their brain power with healthier living, while some may benefit from medicines to stave off further decline.

This report doesn’t surprise me in the slightest. One of the things I have learned about playing soccer and 3D shooters after the age of 40 is how comprehensive the physical decline is. Since most people don’t compete directly with younger athletes after the age of 35 or so, it can be difficult to believe how much speed and quickness one loses. I can’t imagine that there isn’t a similar deterioration taking place elsewhere as well.

It is not only the top gear that is gone, but there is a also the complete absence of a first step; it’s almost as if the first thing the middle-aged mind does is instead of react is to perform a quick calculation of whether or not it’s likely going to be worth it to go through with the physical exertion required. One feels as if one is always going at about three-quarters speed, trying to harbor a reserve for when a complete effort will be required in order to make a difference.

It’s been interesting to see how the athletic decline translates to video game performance. While my Battlefield 3 performance is generally respectable, as I usually finish around the middle point of points scored, both my kills and deaths usually tend to be low because I simply don’t do well in the sort of run around and spray SMG fire game that the younger guys with their faster reflexes play. I’ve had to learn to avoid taking quick potshots at enemies running past when I have the drop on them; taking the time to aim a careful headshot that drops them at once is much better than a fast shot that misses and permits them to turn around and fire back in a more accurate and lethal manner. And while I’ve racked up the occasional 2-1 K/D ratio and even a few top scores, my average is barely above 1/2. But it’s been steadily improving as my rank and unlocks improve, so I’m optimistic that I’ll be able to get it above 1 by the time I level out.

I do think that the mental exercise involved in maintaining this blog and playing wargames helps sharpen my mental focus; how much that will stave off the approaching decline will be interesting to see. Thinking about it also makes me wonder if the abrupt decline in the quality of novels by certain authors later in life might be attributable to degraded mental powers rather than them simply losing interest; I’ve never understood how Colleen McCullough’s Rome series could drop so precipitously off a cliff the way it did after Fortune’s Favorites.

While I have at least a few more years at the height of my powers, it really makes me wish I had worked more diligently at my books. Such is the inevitable regret of the dilettante.

“Get back on board right now!”

This is a fascinating glimpse into a news story. It is the recording of the conversation between the commander of the port of Livorno and the captain of the cruise ship that sank. Even if you don’t speak Italian, you can hear the total disbelief, then anger in the voice of the commander as he realizes that the captain has not only abandoned his ship with the passengers still on it, but has no idea how many passengers are still on board. The captain seems to want to try to BS his way out of his responsibility to get back on the ship, but the commander is having none of it.

At one point, the commander even threatens the captain, telling him that he needs to know how many people are on board. This isn’t a perfectly literal translation, but it better captures the spirit of the conversation:

Commander: “Look, Schettino, you may have gotten out of the sea but if you don’t get back on board, I will make it seriously bad for you. Go get back on board, dammit!”

Captain: “Commander, for pity’s sake.”

Commander: No, for pity’s sake, you go get back on board now!”

Here is a complete translation.

Voltaire had it wrong

This is absolutely the best of all possible worlds. You can’t possibly tell me otherwise:

Harp seal activist William Walkman has long been admired for his devotion to the cause of saving baby harp seals from their annual slaughter. For years, Walkman has lived among the seals, befriending them, and caring for the babies while the parents went off in search of food. Walkman’s story is made even more compelling through the video he has shot of himself interacting with the seals. On one day he is seen beating off a killer whale with a pole as it attempts to catch seals, a staple of the killer whale diet. The next day he is seen trying to feed fish to the baby seals, as adult seals nervously circle him, barking and pounding their tails on the ice in their attempts to protect their babies….

The recent discovery of Walkman’s body by some fishermen, beaten to death in his sleep, was met with widespread suspicion that seal hunters had taken matters into their own hands. But an investigation by Labrador provincial police has now revealed that blood samples taken from the tails of several adult seals match Walkman’s blood.

The tragic death of Walkman is now believed to be the result of an attack by the adult seals, probably in the middle of the night while Walkman was trapped in his sleeping bag.

Whether it is true or not, if this heart-warming story of a self-righteous activist being beaten to death in his sleep by seals doesn’t put a little spring in your step this morning, you simply cannot be considered to have evolved sufficiently claim membership in homo sapiens sapiens. It’s at moments like this that I am certain Dr. Pangloss was right, for on what other worlds are men beaten to death by angry seals?

Now, I’m not particularly a fan of slaughtering baby seals, mostly because I think they are extremely cute, but I have to admit, the fact that all that bloody seal-beating appears to have laid the foundation for the death of William Walkman does prove rather conclusively that it is all for the best.

When terrorism isn’t terrorism

Jonathan Tobin tries to claim that killing scientists isn’t terrorism:

As far as he [Glenn Greenwald] is concerned, if the U.S. or Israel are behind the killings, then both are “terrorist states” and President Obama may be a “a terrorist, a state sponsor of terrorism or, at the very least, a supporter of terrorism.”

But you need a particular form of moral myopia not to see that heading off a potential second Holocaust in the form of an Iranian nuclear attack on Israel or the nuclear blackmail of the rest of the Middle East is not a form of terrorism. Anyone who believes Iran should be allowed to proceed toward the building of a nuclear bomb has either lost their moral compass or is so steeped in the belief that American and Israeli interests are inherently unjustified they have reversed the moral equation in this case. Rather than the alleged U.S. and Israeli covert operators being called terrorists, it is the Iranian scientists who are the criminals. They must be stopped before they kill.

Given that terrorism is defined as violent acts which are intended to create fear, are perpetrated for a religious, political, or ideological goal, and deliberately target or disregard the safety of civilians, it should be completely obvious that murdering scientists for the purposes of preventing Iran from developing a nuclear weapon is terrorism. Whatever state is responsible therefore is guilty of committing acts of terrorism, although I would not go so far as to call it a terrorist state because terrorist states typically make a formal policy of terror and direct terror against their own citizens. The First French Republic was a terrorist state, but I don’t think either Israel or the USA can be categorized that way even if they are responsible.

But does anyone doubt that if China started murdering scientists at Honeywell, Boeing, or Lockheed Martin who were working on the next generation of U.S. military weapons, it would be regarded as both terrorism and an act of war?

What Tobin should have done is to try explaining why intentionally targeting civilians for murder is justifiable and why it is a worthwhile risk considering that doing so exposes American and Israeli scientists to reprisals in the future. Now, I think that one could probably make a reasonable case for Israel to target the civilians of various Arab nations because their own citizens are already being similarly targeted and attacked. But the same is not true of Americans, so it would be a massive mistake for the USA to do it.

The problem is that the American media appears to be preparing the citizenry for more military action against civilian targets in friendly nations, such as took place already in Pakistan. For example, on Hawaii Five-O the other night, the intrepid heroes prevented planned assassinations against a SEAL team, then were permitted to watch the live video stream of a SEAL assault against a drug cartel in Mexico.

Regardless of how worried you are about Iran possessing nuclear weapons, history very strongly suggests that they will obtain them sooner or later. It wasn’t all that long ago that doomsday was prophesied if North Korea ever obtained nuclear weapons, and yet they now have them and nothing has happened except for the death of the North Korean leader… which does tend to raise a few more questions about the true extent of these targeted murders. Anyhow, the point is that the prospective justifiability of an action does not modify the substance of the action, and to insist otherwise is a particularly clumsy and counterproductive form of propaganda.

Excursions in Alpha

I haven’t really bothered keeping up with the weekly summaries here as the Alpha Game blog has effectively taken on a life of its own. However, there are still occasionally posts there which I suspect may be of some interest to those here who don’t regularly follow it, so here are a few of the potentially more interesting ones.

1. Addressing the No-Win Game by deriving chaos out of order.

2. An observation that the marital commitment made by men and the marital commitment made by women are substantively and materially different and conclusions therefrom.

3. Answering a reader’s question concerning the wisdom of returning to the scene of past romantic defeats.

4. Explaining why female Facebook stalkers tend to hail from the lower end of the attractivity spectrum.

5. The increasingly misnamed Omega lays out his path forward as he steadily climbs the ladder of the socio-sexual hiearchy.

6. An explanation of how a woman can tell if the man in whom she is interested is sexually experienced or not.

Mailvox: the question of Palestine

The Deuce queries:

A question though, Vox: what’s your position on the Israel/Palestine debacle, and what our position should be regarding it, and do you think Ron Paul’s position is correct?

My position on the Israel/Palestine issue is the same as it is concerning every land dispute around the world. It’s neither my business nor my concern, I don’t care one little bit about it, and the two sides are welcome to fight it out as long as they care to do so. I think the US position should be to stay completely out of it since we have neither allies nor interests there, and moreover, those who are citizens of either side should be barred from any involvement in American electoral politics in order to prevent any attempts to draw the United States into it.

I don’t know the specifics of Ron Paul’s position, but based on his general principle of non-interventionism, I suspect it is in line with my own.

Unfortunately, history suggests that the only long-term solution to the conflict will involve ethnic cleansing of one sort or another. I suspect the Arabs will win in the end, despite Israel’s many current advantages, due to demographics and because far too many Jews haven’t followed through on the basic idea of Zionism, which is that Jews would actually move to Israel. Far too many of them prefer to live in the West where they can reap the benefits of European culture; they say “next year in Jerusalem” even though there is no longer anything preventing them from moving there.

The long term problem is that what historically was a powerful moral justification for a Jewish homeland has vanished now that it is obvious that many, if not most Jews, don’t want to live there.

You’ve come a long way, baby

One needn’t fail to feel genuine sympathy for the victims of a stupid showboating Italian cruiseship captain to nevertheless be amused at the complaints from women who suddenly find they aren’t so keen on that all-important equality when push comes to shove:

Survivors from the Costa Concordia spoke angrily yesterday of the nightmare evacuation from the stricken ship as women and children were left behind. In the terrifying moments after the giant vessel began to list, fights even broke out to get into the lifeboats. Men refused to prioritise women, expectant mothers and children as they pushed themselves forward to escape. Crew ignored their passengers – leaving ‘chefs and waiters’ to help out.

In heart-rending footage, recorded on mobile phones, British children could be heard shouting ‘Daddy’ and ‘Mummy’ in the melee. As she waited for a flight home from Rome, grandmother Sandra Rogers, 62, told the Daily Mail: ‘There was no “women and children first” policy. There were big men, crew members, pushing their way past us to get into the lifeboats. It was disgusting.’

This was not so much predictable as predicted. Women have methodically attacked the concept of male duty and honor through every possible means for the past ninety years, and now they are whining that they don’t get special treatment simply because a ship happens to be sinking. Why, exactly, should any man “prioritise women, expectant mothers and children”? On what grounds can they be reasonably expected to do so, those outdated traditional grounds that the schools teach is hateful, sexist, and bigoted?

Those big, burly crewmen shoving aside women as they prioritized their own escape should have been wearing t-shirts that said “this is what a feminist looks like”. Enjoy the crash.