La Paglia on societal suicide

Camille Paglia is interviewed in The Wall Street Journal:

‘What you’re seeing is how a civilization commits suicide,” says
Camille Paglia.
This self-described “notorious Amazon feminist” isn’t telling
anyone to Lean In or asking Why Women Still Can’t Have It All. No, her
indictment may be as surprising as it is wide-ranging: The military is
out of fashion, Americans undervalue manual labor, schools neuter male
students, opinion makers deny the biological differences between men and
women, and sexiness is dead….

I ask if she really sees a connection between society’s attempts to paper over the biological distinction between men and women and the collapse of Western civilization. She starts by pointing to the diminished status of military service. “The entire elite class now, in finance, in politics and so on, none of them have military service—hardly anyone, there are a few. But there is no prestige attached to it anymore. That is a recipe for disaster,” she says. “These people don’t think in military ways, so there’s this illusion out there that people are basically nice, people are basically kind, if we’re just nice and benevolent to everyone they’ll be nice too. They literally don’t have any sense of evil or criminality.”

The results, she says, can be seen in everything from the dysfunction in Washington (where politicians “lack practical skills of analysis and construction”) to what women wear. “So many women don’t realize how vulnerable they are by what they’re doing on the street,” she says, referring to women who wear sexy clothes.

When she has made this point in the past, Ms. Paglia—who dresses in androgynous jackets and slacks—has been told that she believes “women are at fault for their own victimization.” Nonsense, she says. “I believe that every person, male and female, needs to be in a protective mode at all times of alertness to potential danger. The world is full of potential attacks, potential disasters.” She calls it “street-smart feminism.”

Ms. Paglia argues that the softening of modern American society begins as early as kindergarten.

It’s easy to dismiss the likes of Karl Denninger and me. But when intelligent, successful, mainstream people as diverse as Camille Paglia, Marc Faber, and X are all observing almost exactly the same thing, and when arrogant world-healers such as Alan Greenspan, Ben Bernanke, and Paul Krugman are beginning to openly admit that their models don’t work and they don’t know what the hell is happening anymore, it may be time to start listening to the canaries who have been screaming their pretty little yellow heads off.

As for the triumph of feminism, let me be the first to point out that there are now a whole host of men who are “who would admit that he believes women are less capable”. We will not only admit it, we will openly proclaim it. And that host is growing literally every day as awareness of Game continues to spread throughout the male population.

Equality is dead. Multiculturalism is dead. Feminism is dying. And if we’re very, very lucky, civilization won’t be completely devastated in their catastrophic death throes over the next two decades.


Mailvox: dissecting dialectic

ST asks for criticism concerning his attack on a utilitarian argument in defense of punishing Christians who fail to support gay marriage.

I am debating a “Humian Utilitarian” with the moniker Eric The Red (ETR) over at Doug Wilson’s place. I post there as timothy. Two men there, Katecho and Dan have done the grunt work of identifying the materialism of ETR and I consider him debunked, but ETR is an evasive little bastard.

I would like for him to hang himself with his Utilitarian positions. I am not pleased with my work on this and am asking your help or criticism.

ETR’s position is that human happiness is maximized (pick your flavor of Utilitarianism measurement here–average or greatest–it doesn’t matter which) by celebrating gay marriage. Since a Christian  baker’s refusal to bake a wedding cake for a couple of gay perverts detracts from that happiness, it is right to punish the Christians.

I am going to adopt the Utilitarian viewpoint in my  argument as it is ETR’s viewpoint.

ETR likes to change the subject quite a bit when things get tight, so here is his latest example missive where I think an opening lies:

“Perhaps someone can answer my earlier question:  In light of Uganda, how isn’t is the basest and more repulsive hypocrisy for Christians to  complain about having to bake a cake? Take a look at what your fellow religionists have done to gays over the years; you sure have a low tolerance for what you consider persecution in light of your own abuse of gays over the years.”

Since it is topical, I am focusing on the Ugandan law he mentions and ignoring the other accusations for now.

The text of the Ugandan law is here.

Clause 3 specifies the penalty for the horror of an HIV-positive man buggering a child. It is on this clause that I am building my argument (this decision may be a mistake, but I am rolling with it for now).

The Logical structure I have in mind is a simple Conjunctive

P dot Q
where both P and Q have to be true.
If one is false then the conjunctive is false and the argument fails.
Here is the truth table.
P Q  P dot Q
T T   T
T F   F
F T   F
F F   F

Argument P

  1. A Utilitarian desires the greatest “good” for the greatest number of people.
  2. Without children, there are no people for whom to maximize the greatest good, therefore, the good of the greatest number of people warrants the protection of children.
  3. Clause 3 of the Ugandan law specifically penalizes homosexuals in the case of HIV positive men having sex with children. Thereby increasing the greater good.
  4. Clause 3 of the Ugandan law is valid under Utilitarian principles.
  5. The Utilitarian principle of maximizing the greater good requires stigmatizing homosexual behavior

Argument Q

  1. A Utilitarian desires the greatest “good” for the greatest number of people.
  2. Homosexual marriage increases the greater good. (defined as happines, if I remember the thread correctly)
  3. Actions that increase human happiness are to be encouraged.
  4. Actions that decrease human happiness are to be penalized.
  5. Christians who refuse to bake a wedding cake for homosexuals are at odds with Utilitarian principles
  6. Under Utilitarian principles it is a good to punish those who punish homosexual behavior.

Either P is True or Q is True.
Both cannot be true.
P and Q state the same thing
therefore the Utilitarian argument fails.

My take is that this is overkill. Some will recall that one of the first questions I ask myself in dealing with an interlocutor is whether or not he is intellectually honest. Since ST describes ETR as “an evasive little bastard”, we can safely assume that he is not. And since he is presenting a utilitarian argument in favor of a statistically insignificant minority, we can also observe that he isn’t particularly intelligent either.

Where ST went wrong was in permitting ETR to beg the question. ETR asserted, apropos of nothing, that “human happiness is maximized by
celebrating gay marriage”. I would have attacked that point and demonstrated his argument to be based upon a false foundation rather than taking the much more complicated approach ST adopted.

Also, Argument P is legitimate, but somewhat convoluted. Steps 2 and and 5 are weaker than they could be. If I were to rewrite Argument P, it would be as follows:

Argument P2

  1. A Utilitarian desires the greatest “good” for the greatest number of people.
  2. Actions that increase human happiness are to be encouraged.
  3. It observably makes the majority of Ugandans happy to see homosexuality criminalized.
  4. Under Utilitarian principles it is a good to criminalize homosexual behavior.

This accomplishes the same result and in a much more straightforward action. Better yet, it forces ETR to go back and defend the question that had been successfully begged if he is going to object to it. Of course, the entire argument is stupid on its face; Utilitarianism is nothing more than the democratic fallacy and has been known to be bankrupt for more than a century. The fact is that ETR is not going to be convinced of anything or stop presenting his dialectically false arguments simply because they have been shown to be false and philosophically outdated. His objectives are entirely rhetorical and akin to that of Pajama Boy, which is “to make the opponents feel terrible about themselves”. Now, recall that in most cases, the opponent’s objective is based on his own vulnerabilities. And that points the way to effective victory.

Because the Left is usually limited to the rhetorical level, it is useful to take a two-step approach of first dialectically crushing the opponent’s pseudo-dialectical argument, then to rhetorically rub his intellectual inferiority in his face along with any other obvious psychological weaknesses. (This, by the way, is why the Left is so reliably inept when they attack me; they seldom bother to try to understand their enemy.) However, since the dialectic aspect is only relevant in that it lays the foundation for the subsequent rhetorical assault, it is best to keep it as simple and easy to follow as possible.


Kids and the classics

Perhaps one day I will write a book entitled Why I Play the Classics. But Calvino aside, one plays classic games for much the same reason that one reads classic books. From Slashdot:

An article at The Verge got me thinking. Parents and those of you who plan to become parents: will you introduce your kids to the games you played when you were younger? Those of us who grew up playing Pong, Space Invaders, and Pac-Man have had a chance to see gaming software evolve into the enormously complex and graphically realistic beast it is today. I’ve begun to understand why my grandparents tried to get me to watch old movies. I’m also curious how you folks plan to teach your kids about computers and software in general.

I find it pretty simple. If you begin playing older boardgames with them when they are young, they begin to develop an appreciation for games as a general concept rather than viewing them as something that primarily exists on a screen. I started playing War at Sea with Ender when he was six; this year he was delighted to get a 36 year-old copy of Victory in the Pacific for Christmas.

Ender likes playing modern shooters and sports games, but he also enjoys older games through the use of DosBox.  Right now, he’s particularly into Wizardry and before that he was playing Fantasy General after we were both checking out the recently released Fantasy Kommander from Matrix. He recognizes that graphics do not make the game, which unfortunately is more than I can say for a lot of people in the industry.

Not that graphics aren’t important in the symbolic sense. In fact, some of us were having a discussion on the subject just last night, which leads to a question for the gamers in our midst. Can a blue heart represent morale? If that is too easily confused with the red cross that represents health, then what is a better symbol for morale?

Any ASLers who answer “boxcars” will be summarily shot.


The troll’s new target

It seems that Mr. Marston, aka Yama, Clampps, Arachnothera, Will le Fey, and a plethora of other pseudonyms, has now taken to vandalizing the Quantum Mortis Wikia in his copious spare time.

18:49, December 25, 2013

Welcome to the Quantum Mortis Wiki

Nobody’s ever going to read this piece of shit.

Thanks to Wikipedia, I’m accustomed to everyone in my private life knowing what I do online. The trolls, however, are not, and I’ve learned they really don’t like the people in their daily lives learning about their online activities. So, as promised, I’m gradually going to bring every banned troll’s online activity into his real life. Each time a troll shows his head after being banned, I will disclose one more piece of personal information about them.

As you can see from his IP address, 72.93.116.138, Andrew Marston lives in Marshfield, Massachusetts. He works at a wildlife center, which is why he uses bird names for so many of his trolling identities.


Dumber than the GOP

It’s really remarkable when you can find a modern political party anywhere in the world more tone-deaf than the Republican Party. But there is one in the United Kingdom:

Nick Clegg is to launch an ‘aggressive’ defence of the European Union in a direct challenge to the rise of the UK Independence Party. The Liberal Democrat leader will use his New Year message next week to pitch his party as the only one ‘fully committed’ to Britain remaining in the EU. He will argue that with a tide of Eurosceptism engulfing the Tories and Labour wavering about even promising a referendum, only the Lib Dems will make the case as the ‘party of in’.

The Liberal Democrats have long been a joke. And while Clegg is a confirmed Europhile, this strategy strikes me as so stupid that it must be a purely cynical grab for cash from the European Commission. It won’t win the Lib Dems any votes, but it will guarantee Clegg a handsome payday and a cushy post-political retirement.

It tends to remind one of the squatty demon in Spawn, watching the teenage devil-worshippers and lamenting the way in which their followers tended to be morons.


Suboptimal rhetoric

In which America is less than entirely astonished to learn that Pajama Boy is a self-described gay-loving “liberal f—“ with no morals, a predilection for attacking others, and a superiority complex:

Ethan Krupp, the little man who played “Pajama Boy” in a widely mocked Obamacare ad, once characterized himself as a “liberal f—.”

Krupp, an Organizing for Action (OFA) content writer who became the face of progressive America while wearing a onesie pajama suit, also remarked that gays “are all liberal f—-” and criticized a “conservative gay prick” on his now-deleted WordPress blog, entitled “Not Being Creative.”

“I am a Liberal F—,” Krupp wrote in one post. “A Liberal F— is not a Democrat, but rather someone who combines political data and theory, extreme leftist views and sarcasm to win any argument while make the opponents feel terrible about themselves. I won every argument but one.”

Sure you did, Pajama Boy. Sure you did. Notice that his approach is entirely rhetorical. The reference to sarcasm and feelings make it clear that he’s not even remotely interested in proper dialectic per se. One hallmark of this sort of individual is that he always thinks he wins an argument because his combination of self-delusion and total lack of regard for objective truth means that he can easily self-define the result of ANY argument as a win.

I seem to recall someone else describing a similarly “successful” rhetorical approach to debate:

“The more I argued with them, the better I came to know their dialectic. First they counted on the stupidity of their adversary, and then, when there was no other way out, they themselves simply played stupid. If all this didn’t help, they pretended not to understand, or, if challenged, they changed the subject in a hurry, quoted platitudes which, if you accepted them, they immediately related to entirely different matters, and then, if again attacked, gave ground and pretended not to know exactly what you were talking about. Whenever you tried to attack one of these apostles, your hand closed on a jelly-like slime which divided up and poured through your fingers, but in the next moment collected again. But if you really struck one of these fellows so telling a blow that, observed by the audience, he couldn’t help but agree, and if you believed that this had taken you at least one step forward, your amazement was great the next day. The Jew had not the slightest recollection of the day before, he rattled off his same old nonsense as though nothing at all had happened, and, if indignantly challenged, affected amazement; he couldn’t remember a thing, except that he had proved the correctness of his assertions the previous day.

“Sometimes I stood there thunderstruck.


“I didn’t know what to be more amazed at: the agility of their tongues or their virtuosity at lying.


“Gradually I began to hate them.”

If the consequences of your self-declared victorious approach to intellectual disputation is to make formerly indifferent people hate and despise you, then perhaps it is time to consider an entirely different rhetorical approach.


Mailvox: starting out in SF

CR asks for some advice concerning science fiction:

Hey man… so I’ve never been a fan of science fiction involving elves and dragons and all that so I’ve never given a science fiction book a try. The only scifi movies I’ve watched are the ones that could conceivably be true at some point, such as Oblivion, Europa Report, Moon, etc…

You’re probably one of the most intelligent people I know of and you certainly seem to be a fan of this genre… since I have some free time on my hands over the holidays, can you recommend a starter list of sci fi books? That whole Quantum Mortis series looks interesting… what’s the correct order to read them in?

With regards to Quantum Mortis, I recommend reading A Man Disrupted first, then Gravity Kills. As for elves, dragons, and science fiction, I should first point out that elves and dragons are typically indicative of fantasy, whereas rocket ships, scientist progagonists, space empires, and future technologies are indicative of science fiction.

The distinction is an important one, even if all the major science fiction organizations and awards refuse to recognize it. The fact is that Fifty Shades of Grey is every bit as legitimately science fiction as A Game of Thrones; it is certainly pure fantasy.

In answer to the question, this would be my SF starter list, listed in order of recommended reading.

  1. Nightfall (short story) by Isaac Asimov
  2. Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card
  3. Tunnel in the Sky by Robert Heinlein
  4. Flowers for Algernon (short story) by Daniel Keys
  5. Foundation by Isaac Asimov
  6. Inherit the Stars by James P. Hogan
  7. Neuromancer by William Gibson
  8. Dune by Frank Herbert
  9. A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller
  10. Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny

If you can read through the first five books on the list and find yourself to be largely indifferent, then science fiction is simply not for you. Upon re-reading three of the best-regarded SF series, however, I have to conclude that it may actually be the underrated Giants trilogy by James P. Hogan that is the height of science fiction achievement to date, combining as it does physics, evolution, creation mythology, and the great secular dream of a united Man take his first steps out into the wider universe.

It was fascinating to discover how much better I liked Dune Messiah and Children of Dune as an adult. They’re not epic like Dune was; Herbert literally turns the usual “show, don’t tell” mantra on its head by refusing to show anything at all of Muad’Dib’s jihad. But I think some of the two books’ subtleties are lost on a teenager, as well as the full scope of Herbert’s incisive commentary on failure and human tragedy.


Rights roundup

No More Backing Down

Have you noticed something has changed recently in the way the
political Right now responds to public criticism and personal attacks?
It used to be that when faced with charges of racism, bigotry, or even
being insufficiently polite to the Left, right wingers who found
themselves in the media cross hairs fell all over themselves
apologizing, denying their previous statements, and rejecting their
previously held beliefs.

Not that this cowardly behavior often saved their jobs or their
reputations, and yet one public figure after another persisted in
responding to criticism by cringing and assuming the fetal position.

Not anymore.

Shots in the Culture War

There could hardly be two men more different in appearance than Phil
Robertson and Ethan Krupp. Phil is a bearded Louisiana backwoodsman, a
self-made millionaire, a former collegiate quarterback talented enough
to keep Terry Bradshaw on the bench, and an outspoken Christian. Ethan
Krupp is a bespectacled Jewish man-boy, an Organizing For Action
political activist who stars as the effete, onesie-wearing, hot
chocolate-sipping douche in the latest Obama ad debacle.


This time it isn’t different

The astonishing story of a thrice-failed Spanish bank:

Consider the story of Bankia.

Bankia was formed by merging seven bankrupt regional Spanish banks in 2010. The new bank was funded by Spain’s Government rescue fund… which received “preference shares” in return for over €4 billion (from taxpayers). These preference shares were shares that a) yielded 7.75% and b) would get paid before ordinary investors if Bankia failed again.

So right away, the Spanish Government was taking taxpayer money to give itself preferential treatment over ordinary investors. Indeed, those investors who owned shares in the seven banks that merged to form Bankia lost their shirts. They were wiped out and lost everything.

Bankia was then taken public in 2011. Spanish investment bankers convinced the Spanish public that the bank was a fantastic investment. Over 98% of the shares were sold to Spanish investors.

One year later, Bankia was bankrupt again, and required the single largest bailout in Spain’s history: €19 billion. Spain took over the bank and Bankia shares were frozen on the market (meaning you couldn’t sell them if you wanted to). When the bailout took place, Bankia shareholders were all but wiped out, forced to take huge losses as part of the deal. The vast majority of them were individual investors (the bank currently faces a lawsuit for over 140,000 claims of mis-selling shares).

So that’s two wipeouts in as many years.

The bank was taken public a year a second time later in May 2013. Once again Bankia shares promptly collapsed, losing 80% of their value in a matter of days. And once again, it was ordinary investors who got destroyed. Indeed, things were so awful that a police officer stabbed a Bankia banker who sold him over €300,000 worth of shares (the banker had convinced him it was a great investment).

Which brings us to today.

Bankia remains completely bankrupt. But its executives and the Spanish Government continue to claim that things are improving and that the bank is on the up and up. Indeed, just a few weeks ago, the Wall Street Journal wrote an article titled “Investors Show Interest in Bankia.” The story featured a quote from Spain’s Finance Minister that, “… it is logical. The perception of Spain has improved and Banki has improved a lot.”

Bear in mind, this is a bank that has wiped out investors THREE times in the last THREE YEARS. So that’s three different rounds of individual investors being told that Bankia was a great investment and losing everything. Every single one of these wipeouts was preceded by both bankers and Spanish Government officials claiming that “everything had been fixed” and that Bankia was a success story.

And now the Spanish Government is trying to convince them to line up for a fourth round.

Keep this in mind when you read the reassurances that this time, the green shoots really have been spotted, that the economy is growing at more than 4 percent per quarter, and stocks are cheap at their all-time highs if you only look at them in just the right way.


The economics of Christmas

It’s not often that someone else writes a post I genuinely envy. But John Carney has put together a brilliant economic satire of various writers and their competing perspectives through the lens of Christmas: 

The Christmas equivalence theorem

By Robert Barro, Wall Street Journal
While
it’s understandable that young people across America hope that their
lives will be enriched by a sudden influx of toys and sugarplums on
December 25, it is incumbent on grown-ups to realize the truth about
this Keynesian scheme. It
has been demonstrated time and again that Christmas cannot add to the
store of toys of the nation or even a single household. Households
experiencing a surge in gifts on Christmas day compensate by withholding
gifts in the future. That is, gifts that are “spent” on Christmas are
saved during the remainder of the year. So each Christmas gift isn’t
really so much given as borrowed from the future. Sorry kids, Santa isn’t so much bringing you presents as stealing presents you would have received in the future.

Rudolph’s Ruddy Nose (Wonkish)

By Paul Krugman, New York Times
Joe
Weisenthal has a terrific take on the growth of unemployment in the
North Pole. As is well known, reindeer unemployment has surged. Yet the
Very Serious Elves who promised that sleigh austerity would rapidly
bring growth back to the Pole have learned nothing.

But
it’s not just the elves. Even economists, who should know better, go on
insisting that we need to shrink Santa’s route now despite high
reindeer unemployment. Some continue to insist that there just is a
skill mismatch in the Pole economy, so that we have no choice but to
allow the diminutive Rudolph resources go unemployed. This truly is the
dark age of North Pole economics. Imagine
for a moment that the pole suffered from an immense foggy night.
Everyone would agree in that case that we could put Rudolph’s red nose
to good use. I know it drives people crazy when I mention that a crisis
can be good for aggregate demand—but everyone who disagrees with me is
already crazy, so who cares?

The dirty secret of North Pole’s success

By Steve Sailer, isteve.blogspot.com
There
appears to be a silent rule among pundits—all of whom secretly read
me—that we not mention immigration and the North Pole in the same
sentence. The truth is that the success of Santa’s operation up there
demonstrates that the accepted orthodoxy on immigration is 100 percent
wrong. For as long as anyone can remember, there’s been zero immigration
to the North Pole—yet the economy thrives, the elves have a thriving
culture and there is very little social strife. All that is supposed to
be impossible in a monoculture.

But, of course, you’re not supposed to notice these hate-facts.

Open Borders: Why should they stop at Christmas?

By Tyler Cowen, Marginal Revolution
Every
year the American government briefly relaxes its stranglehold on our
borders to permit the entrance of Santa Claus and his team of reindeer.
If this is a good thing on Christmas, imagine how much better it would
be if we made this our year round policy? Have you ever eaten in an
Elven restaurant? The candy canes are sublime.

While
there are some who think that competition with elf workers would
impoverish American workers, there is not a lot of evidence to support
this. In fact, the toy making of the elves would likely be complimentary
to native production. What’s more, the wealth generated by elven labor
would add to economic growth.

Now that is really funny and very well done. It’s a pity he didn’t include McRapey, although I suppose it’s hard to satirize self-satire.

Santa’s Straight, White, Cis-Male Privilege
By John Scalzi, Whatever 
“I’m a jolly old elf. I’m one of those elves who likes to force myself into houses without their owner’s consent or desire. The
details of how I do this are not particularly important at the moment —
although I love when you try to make distinctions about “forced entry”
or “legitimate intrusion” because that gives me all sorts of wiggle room —
but I will tell you one of the details about why I do it: I like to eat pie.