Author: VD

Predators go where the prey is

I don’t trust ANYONE involved with children’s charities, especially not those related to sex trafficking, refugees, or vaccines.

A photo has emerged showing accused sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell at a charity event to oppose sex trafficking prior to her arrest. Maxwell, smiling, is seen at the 2013 fundraiser for Stop the Trafficking of People in New York’s Meatpacking district, posing with the group’s founder Celhia de Lavarene. 

‘She’s got some nerve. But I am not surprised,’ de Lavarene told The Sun. ‘I’ve come to realize that these people need to appear to be doing good and make people believe it.’

In July, Maxwell was arrested in New Hampshire and federally charged with enticement of minors and sex trafficking of children in connection with her decades-long association with pedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein.

I’m not saying that everyone involved in charity organizations is evil, I’m simply observing that being heavily involved in the charity world can be every bit as indicative of being massively evil as being a generally good person.

Of course, if your cause is something like “clean water for African villages”, you’re probably just well-meaning and stupid.

The cost of anti-racism

 Anti-racism is expensive, because once you start paying the Danegeld you will never be rid of the Dane:

Bands of shoplifters are terrorizing Soho’s high-end boutiques, lifting hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of designer merchandise, and in some cases, threatening security guards to keep quiet — or be labeled racist, The Post has learned.

The disturbing pattern began in late May during the riots that rocked the city in the wake of the George Floyd police custody death. High-end Celine was looted of $1.5 million in merchandise then, and the blatant thievery continues “every week” in ritzy stores such as Prada, Moncler, Dior and Balenciaga, one plugged-in local said.

“This is happening every week. Walk around Soho on Wooster Street and Greene Street, Mercer Street. … You have huge bouncers out there trying to deter hit-and-run activity,” the source, a restaurateur, said.

But in some cases, the thieves are given carte blanche to steal.

“If they [store personnel] stop them and say anything in the store before they’ve left the building then it often gets turned into a racial accusation,” the source said. “The brands … tell their employees to walk away,” the insider added. “They don’t want to be the next Instagram video claiming they are a racist brand.”

These brands will go out of business, but at least no one will be able to call them racist. Although, of course, they will be called racists anyhow. 

But who cares if white liberals are robbed and raped and ruined by their precious disadvantaged POX? They are metaphorically, if not literally, asking for it.

Black on Pink

One can’t exactly call it “friendly” fire, but it is amusing to watch the SJWs in science fiction and fantasy shooting at each other. The Pink SF-SJW faction is backpedaling furiously after being accused of violence and racism for failing to provide free memberships to the Pox. Or rather, to provide them soon enough:

We have sponsored 46 people of color to participate in the convention at no cost (so far – more to come I hope), and have worked very hard to ensure that every panel is comprised of people from a variety of ethnic backgrounds, cultures, and perspectives. The panelist list hasn’t been published yet, but when it is I hope the list demonstrates our commitment to equity and diversity.

But their desperate retreat has been deemed too little, too late by the Black SF-SJW faction.

Please, no one jump in to save WFC at the last minute by fixing programming. If you want to protest these panels, tell them you won’t be on *any of them*. Why? They were offered help in June & didn’t take it. Bottom Line: @WFC2020 & ALL World Fantasy Conventions are not safe places for BIPOC & other marginalized folks. In some ways, it is an actively harmful, hurtful, & oppressive to these groups. I Do Not suggest you attend. If you’re BIPOC I suggest giving back that free membership.

And now Pinks are defecting in increasing numbers, lest they find themselves in the Black crosshairs.

  • I’ve withdrawn from programming and membership at @WFC2020. Increasingly uneasy about the way they’ve gone about fixing the program and the lack of board-level structural response. 
  • After reading through the information @tinytempest provided, I have withdrawn from World Fantasy Con as attendee/volunteer/program participant. Thank you, Tempest, for the abundance of work you do trying to make our community more inclusive.
  • Very sorry to say this, but I’m going to have to withdraw from World Fantasy Convention 2020. Despite a lot of effort on many people’s part, the recent fiasco with panel descriptions demonstrates that the convention simply doesn’t understand how to operate in a diverse world without stepping on marginalized people
  • The Writing Excuses podcast hosted by authors Dan Wells, Brandon Sanderson, Mary Robinette Kowal, and author and web cartoonist Howard Tayler will not provide content for use by the virtual convention.
  • Just told what panel I’m on and I’m bowing out. Just the Caribbean panel description was enuf to make it depressing. In addition to everything else it boils down to: why can’t cons be professional? Operate on a sharp, knowledgeable level? I understand the weariness.

It’s hilarious! Especially when you realize that neither you nor anyone else you know who reads science fiction has ever read a single work by any of these zeroes, with the possible exception of Brandon Sanderson.

Dr. Jordan Peterson, plagiarist

The accusation strikes me as bordering on the impossible, given how incoherent Dr. Peterson’s writing is. But what is much more remarkable than the accusation of plagiarism is the identity of the author Jordan Peterson is supposedly plagiarizing:

The Devil and His Due: How Jordan Peterson Plagiarizes Adolf Hitler by Troy Parfitt offers into evidence some 3,100 instances of Dr. Jordan B. Peterson allegedly copying the written and spoken text of Adolf Hitler. Volume One of a two-volume series will be released on November 1, 2020 in e-book and paperback edition. Its length is 460 pages.

Jordan Peterson is a professor of psychology at the University of Toronto, best-selling author of 12 Rules for Life, and pop-psych guru whose YouTube channel boasts 2.87 million subscribers. Often described as controversial, Peterson shot to fame after challenging Canada’s Bill C-16, which made it illegal to deny employment to or discriminate against people based on their gender identity or expression.

In The Devil and His Due, Parfitt argues that “the Jordan Peterson Phenomenon” is a mainstream cult whose leader identifies as “the saviour,” feigns Christian beliefs, glorifies Satan, discusses “the Jewish question,” encourages converts to slaughter goats in backyard sacrifices that ought to be “sufficiently bloody,” suggests that suicide can be an effective method for achieving revenge, touts banned substances as “miracle cures,” and teaches that the alt-right project is “incomplete.” Parfitt also asserts that Peterson employs Hitlerite speech to communicate in a crypto-fascist code, but that his supporters seem generally unaware of this.

Parfitt wondered if Peterson might have been borrowing from Hitler after noticing that he frequently complimented the dictator. “He says he’s rescuing people from the clutches of the far-right, but tells his followers that Hitler was a genius who was good at nearly everything, so I read Mein Kampf to see if he had found it inspiring. What I discovered was blatant academic theft.” Parfitt claims that Peterson’s 12 Rules for Life and Maps of Meaning are riddled with language and ideas from Hitler’s Mein Kampf, Second Book, Table Talk, and speeches. 

Do you know what this means? It means Jordan Peterson is literally Hitler. We are amused. 

Nevertheless, color me very, very dubious indeed. Because as awful as Jordan Peterson is, those who have read Jordanetics will know that Jordan Peterson didn’t even manage to get Hitler’s description of “the Big Lie” correct. 

Don’t bother asking for a link. This is from a press release from the publisher.

UPDATE: Interesting. Speaking of those who have read Jordanetics, the author may not be anywhere nearly as out there as the press release makes it sound. If nothing else, Parfitt correctly picked up on the occult elements of Peterson’s philosophy.

As author Troy Parfitt began to doubt his own sanity with his discoveries of Jordan Peterson’s freakish love affair with the occult, Vox Day’s book “Jordanetics: A Journey Into the Mind of Humanity’s Greatest Thinker” provided a welcome validation that it was not Parfitt who had lost his marbles, but Peterson.

It is impossible that Day’s and Parfitt’s revelations about Jordan Peterson’s infatuation with the occult–and indeed the Great Beast himself, Aleister Crowley–could be mere coincidence.

Despite having opposing political views, Parfitt maintains that Day deserves a lot of praise for his book, and says “Jordanetics” was largely ignored because of Day’s far-right political views, and that even left-leaning JP critics have bashed Parfitt for even mentioning Vox Day. The media has a lot of explaining to do, Parfitt says. Vox Day gave them the evidence and they ignored it. Peterson critics are so blinkered by their own political hang-ups that they refused to read or even discuss Day’s book.

Eppure le idee, si circolano…

A mostly peaceful murder

 Antifa are surprisingly lethal for a supposedly nonexistent organization.

A man participating in what was billed as a “Patriot Rally” sprayed mace at a left-wing demonstrator, and the left-wing demonstrator shot him with a handgun. Ambulances responded to the scene. Police said Saturday afternoon they were working on a homicide investigation.

Never forget that the enemy always gets a vote. 

UPDATE: the killer is “a self-described BLM/Antifa member”, which will presumably inspire the media to describe the murder a “mostly peaceful” one.

UPDATE: Now the killer is reported to be a bodyguard for Denver 9NEWS. But he looks more like he’s taking the offensive in a close-up photo of the shooting.

UPDATE: “The fake news media is literally killing conservatives. Do not go near them. Could end up shot and killed.”

– Mike Cernovich

UPDATE: The “security guard’s” tattoo appears to indicate that he was Antifa. The private security hired by 9NEWS, was definitely Antifa if you look at his wrist tattoo. Why did 9NEWS hire Antifa as its security?

UPDATE: 4chan has ID’d the alleged shooter as Mathew Dolloff, 30, an Occupy Wall Street activist.

UPDATE: Dolloff’s victim has been identified as Lee Keltner, a husband, father, and minister.

Mailvox: condolences

 ZT writes of a personal tragedy:

My husband passed away unexpectedly in his sleep Friday morning and I’m struggling. Any prayers offered from you all here would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

My condolences to ZT and her family. If you are so inclined, feel free to express yours here as well.

Keep dreaming

 Andrew Sullivan is dreaming of a Creepy Joe landslide:

I know it’s tempting fate to mention the idea, foolish to entertain it, mad to expect it, but the possibility of a landslide is now real. There are about ten points between the two candidates with three weeks to go, and the momentum is overwhelmingly with the challenger. Among the likeliest scenarios in 538’s poll of polls is now a Biden Electoral College victory of over 400. Texas is in play. The Harris-Pence debate changed nothing, but firmly established Harris’ credentials as a possible president.

And all this changes a huge amount. A Biden win would be a reprieve for the country; a Biden landslide would be an American miracle. 

Unlike anything else, it would cauterize the wound of Trump, preventing further infection. It would say to posterity: we made this hideous mistake, for understandable reasons, but after four years, we saw what we did and decisively changed course. It would turn the Trump era of nihilism, tribalism and cruelty into a cautionary tale of extremism, illiberalism and, above all, failure. It would suggest, especially if older whites come round some more, that the future need not be one of spiraling racial polarization, but of multiracial support for liberal democracy, its norms, and practices. What you learn from studying the decline and collapse of republics is that illiberal precedents become the new baseline if they are not instantly repudiated and punished. A landslide loss for Trump would mitigate, if not remove, the deep damage he has done. 

It’s really astonishing to observe the lengths that people will go to deny reality. And I’m not talking about the election results: who can be expected to accurately predict anything on the basis of the folded, spindled, and mutilated polls? I’m talking about the idea that the spiraling racial polarization is the result of Trump’s presidency or the failure of older whites to support liberal democracy.

It is, to the contrary, the inevitable result of the 1965 Immigration Act and subsequent demographic dilution of the American nation. Since Sullivan is an immigrant himself, though, he is psychologically unable to even entertain the possibility that what made his preferred life possible is the cause of the problem he decries.

But Sullivan isn’t the only one. 538 currently assesses the chances of a Biden landslide at 36 percent, with an 86 percent chance of winning the electoral vote. Of course, at this time in 2016, 538 assessed Hillary Clinton’s chance of winning the Electoral College at 86.9 percent.

That does explain the riots

 In which we are reliably informed that not providing free goods and services to black people, goods and services for which other people are expected to pay, is nothing less than VIOLENCE. No, seriously.

This thing where *everyone* has to pay is not about making sure that everyone is equal. It’s about gatekeeping. … They make professional editors pay because they know professional editors have the money to do so. If you don’t have the money to go to this very expensive con, you are not in the club. I very much realize that this is not a fan con, because this con has always done its level best to keep fans OUT. And when fans do come, they’re treated like they crashed an exclusive party and are not made to feel welcome.

But beyond that, there is no reason why one should have to PAY to be on the committee. You said yourself that this has been a barrier to you getting BIPOC to work with you on this. That is the point. The WFC board won’t say that outright, but that’s the point. Any time you can’t volunteer at all unless you make a financial investment they are doing so in order to gatekeep.

There is no reason why WFC should not be allowed to have concom members and volunteers who just volunteer. … The first battle needs to be allowing people to volunteer to help without being forced to pay to become members.

I pointed Ginny to this thread about WorldCon in which the author says:

Pay to be a part of this space, where you are not welcome, where our imagination spanning FTL travel, fae, and vampires, cannot imagine of your joyful existence as equals, and then try, try to persuade us that you are worthy of respect.

That’s violence.

I concluded this email by saying:

“What WFC is doing is violence. To members of this community who cannot pay, to members of the community who might be willing to help.

I, for one, am glad to know that I am not a part of a community known for its racist violence. Notice that no matter how much you bend over, how much you dutifully obey, no matter how many hoops you very carefully manage to jump through, it will never be enough.

Your mere existence is violence.

The myth of the myth of IQ

 A new book debunks 35 commonly-held myths about intelligence, IQ, and heritability:

In the spirit of correcting misapprehensions quickly, here are some snap answers to the first 6 questions:

  1. In fact, when the same people are given very different intelligence tests, including tests constructed in the belief that there is no general factor, the general factors extracted from the disparate tests correlate at above the .9 level.
  2. Mental tasks correlate with each other, and it is easy to extract a general factor (and also some group factors) so it is not unwarranted to summarize people’s general level of ability with one number.
  3. Brain size is weakly related .2 to .4 with intelligence, frontal lobes probably in the higher part of that range. Brighter people have more neurons in their brains, and those neurons are more densely packed together and, perhaps counter-intuitively, have fewer connections branching off each neurone. So, intelligence does have a relation to brain function, but research is at an early stage.
  4. If intelligence really varies in character between different cultures, then it should be very difficult to extract the “Western” general factor, yet in 31 countries, and using a wide variety of tests, 94 of the 97 (96.9{5c1a0fb425e4d1363f644252322efd648e1c42835b2836cd8f67071ddd0ad0e3}) samples produced g either immediately or after a second factor analysis. Moreover, the g factor is about as strong in the non-Western samples as it is in typical Western samples. Most countries find “Western” intelligence tests very useful, once they have been translated and some language and specific knowledge items altered or removed. To cap it all, dogs, rats, mice, donkey and primates show g factors. It looks like an evolutionary adaptation.
  5. Everyone seems to want multiple intelligences, particularly educationalists. However, even when researchers attempt to measure these multiple intelligences, the result is a series of correlated variables that produce a general factor, which is exactly what should never occur, according to the theory. Moreover, the proposer of the theory did not think it necessary to make it testable.
  6. If practical intelligence could be measured, American Football teams would find it extremely useful. Instead, they use the Wonderlic intelligence test, because it correlates with some of the more complicated playing abilities. The proposer of the theory does not specify what results will prove that practical intelligence differs from general intelligence.

It’s true that IQ is an imperfect proxy for whatever multiplicity of genes happens to produce the observable differences in what we generally call intelligence. But even given the limited current state of scientage on the subject, what would have to be denied in order to completely reject intelligence and IQ, as well as their heritability, would also require the abandonment of virtually everything we believe we know on a statistical basis, as well as a considerable portion of the entire scientific knowledge base.

This is why I don’t pay much attention to IQ critics, even when they happen to be legitimately brilliant men who are otherwise well worth listening to. While their criticisms of this or that particular may be relevant, they don’t even begin to shake the foundations of what has been reliably observed to be true as well as solidly supported by scientody.

Labels mean nothing

In the post-ideological age, a nominal affiliation with ideas does not serve as an accurate indication of genuine loyalties. Republican elder Bob Dole reveals that the debate commission is 100 percent anti-Trump despite half of them being Republicans:

The Commission on Presidential Debates is supposedly bipartisan w/ an equal number of Rs and Ds. I know all of the Republicans and most are friends of mine.  I am concerned that none of them support @realDonaldTrump. A biased Debate Commission is unfair.

You are living in a post-ideological age. Understand this. Accept this. It is time to stop thinking in terms of Left and Right, of Liberal and Conservative, of Democrat and Republican, and think in terms of identity instead.

“In multiracial societies, you don’t vote in accordance with your economic interests and social interests, you vote in accordance with race and religion.” 

—Lee Kuan Yew