#Arkhaven INFOGALACTIC #Castalia House
It is indeed a mystery:
Charlie Nash @MrNashington
Not all “conservatives” are affected by Twitter’s new search result censorship, with Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief Ben Shapiro, the National Review’s David French, the Resurgent’s Erick Erickson, and Glenn Beck remaining unaffected…
It’s almost as if the Left wants to keep the cucks around and viable. After all, if they don’t have any Fake Opposition around, they might look like… fascists?
Derek Smart was right all along:
YEAH, NO MORE REFUNDS. EVER.
I am just going to jump right into this one, no preamble, no foreplay, nothing. If you put money into Star Citizen, and you didn’t apply for or get a refund before end of 2017 – congrats you’re now a statistic in a long con scam. The End.I saw this coming a mile away, over three years ago in 2015. And, like my other warnings, I issued a Red Alert about the implications. Some people listened, got a refund, and got out. Others were riding the wave of the project’s popularity due to repeated lies from Chris Roberts’ camp, and so just kept on giving them money. Hey, it’s their money – and we don’t care.
It’s now 2018, and all what I warned about has all come to pass. CIG has now gone on the record that, as I had accurately predicted, their TOS changes over the years were designed to rip backers off. Here are two official statements recently issued to Motherboard/Vice , Kotaku , Ars Technica , PC Gamer and others.
“Our Terms of Service provides refunds for 14 days after each pledge is made, but company policy is to refund anyone who has second thoughts for up to 30 days after their pledge, no questions asked,”
– CIG“The Terms of Service are not retroactive, but a huge majority of Mr. Lord’s pledges came after the TOS was changed to specify arbitration, and those pledges are under that TOS,” the rep wrote. “His pledges with new money on top of his earlier pledges required him to accept the new Terms of Service.”
– CIGLet me preface everything that comes next with these irrefutable FACTS:
- Star Citizen was NEVER billed as an Early Access game. Not even once.
- In Oct 2012 Chris Roberts asked for, and raised $2M via initial Kickstarter crowd-funding. He promised to release both multiplayer (Star Citizen) and single-player (Squadron 42) by Nov 2014.
- By Aug 2013, when the first hangar module was released, they had raised $16.7M.
- By Nov 2014, the month he promised it would release, after increasing the game’s scope significantly, they had raised $65M.
- Contrary to what some backers try to promote, there was NEVER a vote of consensus to increase the scope of the game. That scope creep came when Chris Roberts himself created additional stretch goals after the initial Kickstarter goal was met. And then he kept on doing it by making various feature promises, new ship JPEG sales etc.
Right. So now lets discuss why this backer lawsuit and his subsequent court loss is so significant now more than ever. I have covered the fiasco in three Twitter threads since news of this backer’s lawsuit broke. But first, a bit of history for context.
Now, I’m not happy about this. Chris Roberts is one of my design heroes. Wing Commander, the Secret Missions, and Wing Commander II are some of the games I played most heavily throughout the entire course of my life. But I had my doubts early on too, so much so that I did not pursue a potential opportunity to work on the AI design for what were then the wingmen in a proposed Wing Commander reboot.
And, you will note, I did not back Star Citizen even though I very nearly did so on three separate occasions. The problem that I always had with the project was what set off Derek’s radar in the first place: I don’t see how he can actually build this thing. Because I’m pretty sure I couldn’t.
That’s the thing about game designers. We’re genuinely not jealous of those who have done better than we have. We admire the great ones. We try to learn from them, to understand them, to fully comprehend their designs. I get Akalabeth. I get Wing Commander. I get Doom. I get Fantasy General. I get Puzzle Quest. I get Fortnite, even though I despise everything for which it stands. But I still don’t get how Star Citizen was ever supposed to function.
Arkhaven is happy to announce that Alt-Hero #2: Rebel’s Cell is now available in print at the Arkhaven Direct bookstore for $2.99. This is the limited-run gold logo edition.
We are also pleased to announce that the gold logo edition of Alt-Hero #1: Crackdown has sold out and is no longer available. However, if you are a gold logo edition owner who would like to pick up a regular logo edition, they are now available at Arkhaven Direct.
It is possible that Amazon still has a few gold logo editions in stock, but the print run for the first issue gold logos has been shut down with just over 2,400 copies printed and sold.
In other Alt-Hero news, MAGNATE has provided an update on DevGame regarding the current state of the RPG development and the results of its most recent playtest. And here’s a random thought: how about an Alt-Hero replacement for the now-defunct City of Heroes? For reasons I can’t share now, that’s a LOT more potentially viable than you would probably imagine.
Jordan Peterson is definitely peculiar, but he is only opaque to those who can’t follow him. Which includes, necessarily, the entirety of his fan base:
Peterson’s definition of God is a sprawling, book-length collection of abstractions, some of which are grounded in narratives about the human condition, while others are mere descriptions of psychological and temporal realities (“…the future to which we make sacrifices”). In other words, it’s a definition that’s so elastic and subjective as to be almost meaningless. As Harris put it, “That’s not how most people most of the time are using the word, and there’s something misleading about that.”
To which Peterson responded, “I never made the claim that what I’m talking about is like what other people are talking about.” That’s true, and he often says he doesn’t define ‘belief’ or ‘God’ in the same way as anyone else. Even when he’s asked a more specific question—about, say, his belief (or lack thereof) in the divinity of Christ—he says the answer depends on the interviewer’s definitions of ‘Christ’ and ‘divine.’ But Peterson still uses words like ‘divine’ all the time. He’s happy to describe consciousness as divine, which he considers to be an “axiomatic statement.” He’s more than willing to tell you “magical things happen as the logos manifests itself” before announcing his firm belief that the logos is divine, too. But only if, by ‘divine,’ you mean “Of ultimate transcendent value.”
But then, what does Peterson mean by ‘transcendent’? Or ‘value’? And what will he mean by all the words he uses to answer those questions? Communication becomes extremely difficult if we allow ourselves repeatedly to be drawn into a labyrinth of semantic distinctions. That is precisely why there has to be some fundamental agreement about what words actually mean at the beginning of any conversation. This is something Peterson can be particularly bad at doing, when the mood takes him—just listen to his excruciating two-hour conversation with Harris that never managed to get past the disputed meaning of the word ‘truth.’
As I call it, bafflegarble. It’s nonsense that baffles the insufficiently comprehending.
When it comes to telling us where our morality comes from, Peterson’s equivocal, opaque language suddenly falls away and he leaves us in no doubt about what he’s trying to say. He’s making yet another simplistic, monocausal argument that ignores all the elements of our philosophical and cultural tradition that contradict it.
So what about the rationalist critiques of religion written by Enlightenment atheists like Hume and Spinoza? Or the withering attacks on Christianity by Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine? What about all the aspects of our Christian heritage that Peterson doesn’t emphasize, like the virulent anti-Semitism that infected the Third Reich, the scriptural warrants for slavery and genocide, and the savage religious wars that preceded the Enlightenment? Why has moral progress so often required our civilization to renounce the dogmas and dictates of the Judeo-Christian tradition Peterson reveres?
Peterson knows he doesn’t have to answer these questions because, despite all his declarations to the contrary, he isn’t bound by this tradition. In one breath, he tells the audience they live in a society that would collapse without the immovable foundation of Judeo-Christian values. In the next, he reminds them that his God is a modern God, unsullied by the barbarism of ancient texts and unencumbered by the immense weight of history. There’s just one problem: Jordan Peterson’s God is nobody else’s God.
Of course not. Because the Judeo-Christian tradition he reveres does not exist and Jordan Peterson couldn’t believe he is the messiah who will save humanity from destruction by war if he believed in either a) the Christian god or b) any other god that humanity has ever worshiped throughout history. Forget him not being a Christian, he’s not even a noble pagan.
John Scalzi finally realizes that the science fiction community has passed him by.
John Scalzi@scalzi
Just saw my WorldCon schedule.Single panel and a kaffeeklatsch.
Huh.
They don’t respect Asimov, Clarke, and Heinlein anymore. They’re certainly not going to take long to forget about a mediocre, middle-aged white male.
UPDATE: If you can’t win, pretend not to have been playing the game.
John Scalzi@scalzi
It’s a trend. Also, after noting last night I’d be happy to give up my panel slot, this morning I went ahead and withdrew from programming entirely, to open up slots for folks previously excluded from programming, including other Hugo finalists.
Such magnanimity! It almost brings a single tear to my eye.
THE PRICE OF A DRINK is the fourth issue in the RIGHT HO, JEEVES series, which tells of the travails of the inimitable Bertie Wooster, summoned from the comforts of #3A Berkley Mansions, London to Brinkley Manor by his imperious Aunt Dahlia.
In this issue, Gussie Fink-Nottle has summoned up the courage required to address the collected youth of Market Snodsbury, but it is a liquid courage. Not only that, but he has summoned up entirely too much of it, with hilarious and humiliating consequences for everyone involved.
Adapted from the classic Wodehouse novel by comics legend Chuck Dixon and drawn by SAVAGE SWORD OF CONAN illustrator Gary Kwapisz, THE PRICE OF A DRINK is issue #4 of 6 in the RIGHT HO, JEEVES series.
And on a not-entirely-unconnected note, it appears that our competitors are experiencing difficulties and declining sales, which, of course, cannot possibly be connected to their convergence.
Comic book publishers are facing a growing crisis: Flagging interest from readers and competition from digital entertainment are dragging down sales. Hoping to reverse the trend, publishers are creating their own digital platforms to directly connect with readers and encourage more engagement from fans.
The goal is to reach readers who may not live near a comic book shop but want to keep up with the Avengers and the Justice League. Experts say the direct-to-consumer model also helps compete with streaming services like Netflix and Amazon’s Prime Video.
“They all look at Netflix and say, ‘Why do I need an intermediary?’” said Milton Griepp, the chief executive of ICv2, an online magazine that covers the industry. “That’s where this battle is being fought.”
Smaller comic book publishers are testing their own direct-to-consumer platforms. Image Comics, the publisher of popular titles like The Walking Dead and Saga, started a direct-to-consumer platform in 2015 to sell comic book subscriptions and apparel.
Of course, Arkhaven Comics already has a direct-to-consumer platform. The latest addition is the gold-logo print edition of Alt-Hero #2: Rebel’s Cell.
No matter how converged the institutions become, God can always renew the human heart and rebuild new ones. A reader writes of attending Mass this weekend.
I have recently made small efforts to attending the Mass again after a long layoff. I found a parish here in my Florida diocese that happens to administer the pre-Vatican Latin Mass after attending one for the first time on Easter in Germany. Talk about a night and day difference between services.
Anyways, to the point… I was floored when the celebrating priest stepped up to give his Homily and focused on this particular Mass’ Introit prayer, an excerpt from Psalm 53: “the Lord is the protector of my soul; turn back the evils of mine enemies, and cut them off in Thy truth.” He spoke frankly about the… unsuitability of this exhortation for Godly vengeance for the modern sensibilities of the Church and related it to the recent revelations of an American cardinal who has been in the news for abusing seminarians for years, and yet continuing to rise in the Church hierarchy.
To hammer it home even more, the priest spoke of how – at least in the States – the Conference of Catholic Bishops has put zero tolerance rules in place that effectively deflect blame away from themselves down to the priests and parishioners in cases where abuses are brought to light, saving their own asses while offering up those of the flocks they ought be tending to. He even uttered those three magic words – Social Justice Warrior – and excoriated them from the pulpit for separating Christian charity from their works while putting all of their efforts into grandstanding and focusing on the worldly aspects of said works (i.e. politics) This is a far cry from a mass I attended some months ago where the Celebrant was urging us all to call our representatives and cry a river over the Dreamer babies amongst us because – well, because.
This Sunday’s priest said, specifically, “If you open your eyes, and begin to pay attention, and learn what to look for, you will not like what you see.
“And many Christians must be prepared – and yet will not be – to learn just how deep the darkness runs.”
I was brought immediately back to a Darkstream you recently posted, speaking on the depths of depravity of the power brokers in our world and in our institutions, and how few people are truly prepared for the revelations to come about said institutions. God Bless this guy for having some balls to speak truth to power when it seems like all of Christendom has been castrated.
The darkness runs deep. But it does not run deep enough to escape the light of Truth or the sword of Justice. Even the noble pagans knew this.
When you close your doors, and make darkness within, remember never to say that you are alone, for you are not alone; nay, God is within, and your genius is within. And what need have they of light to see what you are doing?
– Epictetus
Be free. Be fearless. And when the Day of Deus Vult arrives, be ferocious.
I seem to recall a warning concerning those who call good “evil” and evil “good”:
Sarah Silverman Retweeted
Selma Blair@SelmaBlair
Jul 21Marvel: RE-HIRE JAMES GUNN – Sign the Petition! Because if people are punished despite changing, then what does that teach people about owning mistakes and evolving? This man is one of the good ones.
Ms. Blair’s petition is useful. First, it’s a nice public list of pedo-defenders. Second, as the petition itself points out, all the other Hollywood directors need to be fired.
The other thing is if you do this to Gunn you have to do it for all the other directors who have said some crappy joke sometime in their life, which is all of them, cause I doubt there’s one human on this planet who hasn’t made a shitty joke once or twice in there life.
Bounding Into Comics is covering the exposure of more Hollywood pedo-jokers active on Twitter:
After James Gunn was fired by Disney for a number of sickening tweets involving pedophilia and child rape, more celebrities’ old Tweets are being exposed which cover the same subject. Those celebrities include Sarah Silverman, who stars in Disney’s upcoming Ralph Breaks the Internet: Wreck-It-Ralph 2, Ian Michael Black, who previously starred in Reno 911, Sean Gunn, James Gunn’s brother, who stars in Guardians of the Galaxy as well as Gilmore Girls, comedian Anthony Jeselnik, and Patton Oswalt, who lends his voice to a number of animated cartoons like Justice League Action, Spider-Man, and Disney’s Big Hero 6.
Remember, /pol/ is always right.
It appears the rapid takedown of James Gunn’s career has spooked Hollywood enough that they have declared war on the chans. If Sarah Silverman is to be believed, REPERCUSSIONS WILL NEVER BE THE SAME.
I was wondering why Disney would act with such uncharacteristic alacrity in getting rid of Gunn, who has not even been accused of any actual crime, when they have shamelessly hired convicted child molesters as directors in the past. A post by Neon Revolt offers a possible explanation, as it claims the entire Hollywood mafia is in a panic, due to the way in which the sacrificial Weinstein crossburn has failed to end the multiple lines of inquiry that increasingly point towards some of its highest-ranking members in film, media, finance, and politics being guilty of unspeakable crimes.
I suspect this is why Shapiro and other fake conservatives are exposing themselves now as Gunn’s defenders, because this would be one secret that they cannot afford to permit to reach either their fans or the general public. Even the most rabid evangelical Christian Zionists who fly the flag of Israel in the church sanctuary and hold sacred the broadest interpretation of Genesis 12:3 is not going to defend a network of Satanists who corrupt, rape, and murder children just because they happen to be of Jewish descent; to the contrary, his fury is only going to be stoked by the way in which he has been methodically deceived for so long.
Of course, it’s entirely possible that Shapiro, Peterson, and other inexplicable media stars are what the chans describe as “made men” themselves.
If we know anything about the weaponized autists that make up the chans, they are not going to “stand the fuck down”. To the contrary, these threats will only energize and motivate them. And if even half of what Renegade is saying is true, then it explains the cautious way that the God-Emperor has gone about breaking the power of the shadow state, because things would almost certainly get violent and out of control very fast. But sooner or later, the flood of truth is going to break through the dam of lies.
Can confirm. All of this is true and there was a thread that was investigating twitter handles. Thousands of names came up and anons were digging deeper and deeper before the (((mods))) at cuckchan shut it down. This is full on damage control and they’re really scared after that James GUNN scandal. Obviously they didn’t want another scenario like that to happen, but in trying to censor those of us exposing the sick fucks running Pedowood they didn’t realize we had archived almost everything.
To every thing there is a season,
and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
A time to be born, a time to die;
a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
A time to kill, and a time to heal;
a time to break down, and a time to build up;
A time to weep, and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
A time to get, and a time to lose;
a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
A time to rend, and a time to sew;
a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
A time to love, and a time to hate;
A time of war, and a time of peace.
– Ecclesiastes 31:8
Now why would Sarah Silverman be up in arms about this? Oh, that’s why.
Sarah Silverman@SarahKSilverman
Hey, is it considered molestation if the child makes the first move? I’m gonna need a quick answer on this.
10:34 PM – 6 Jul 2009
I found it amusing that when I went to archive it, I got this message: This page was last archived 1 day ago. Remember, never link, always archive. The ride never ends.
So this is the competition. At least, the competition that is likely to survive the ruthless winnowing of #MeToo, #JustAJoke, #ComicsGate, #DontHitMeImAGirlNow and #PizzaGate2.
Who’s with us?