Word is that AD is back. Frankly, I’d prefer he’d stay out for the rest of the season and get completely healthy, but as this might be his last one in purple, it will be nice to see him play.
Category: Uncategorized
Reader poll
Just out of curiosity, which do you want to read first?
- A Sea of Skulls, the final edition
- SJWs Always Double Down
- Alt-Right Revolution
- The Collapsing Empire
Don’t get too excited about any one particular option. You know me. I could end up doing something else entirely.
On a completely unrelated note, the daily average pageviews at Infogalactic have nearly doubled since October and are now rivaling this blog. I’m looking forward to it leaving VP in the very distant dust in the near future. For all that the SJWs would like it to be, Infogalactic has never been about me or my politics. I just want a better dynamic knowledge core for everyone.
The hate-filled echo chamber
It’s fascinating, is it not, how the media and the SJWs – but I repeat myself – try to simultaneously dismiss the Alt-Tech alternatives as hate-filled echo chambers of racism and conspiracy theories while simultaneously celebrating the banishment of everyone who doesn’t submit to the Narrative enforced by the SJW thought police on Big Social Media. Of course, if they could successfully connect consequences to actions, they wouldn’t be SJWs.
A Guardian rabbit cautiously ventures, undercover, into the terrible dark abyss of GAB:
In the wake of Donald Trump’s presidential victory, it was said that Twitter had helped swing the election for the property developer, reality TV star and insatiable tweeter. But some of his more high-profile supporters on the so-called “alt-right” who have had their Twitter accounts suspended are abandoning the platform in favour of a new social network called Gab.
The self-styled cult iconoclast Milo Yiannopoulos of Breitbart has apparently joined the likes of Trump attack-dog Ann Coulter and the excitable Alex Jones of Infowars in signing up with Gab. There is even a parody RealPresidentTrump account that for a short while presented itself – all too convincingly – as the real thing.
And recently the white nationalist leader Richard B Spencer went so far as to claim that Twitter had sent “execution squads across the alt-right” to purge users with far-right views. He predicted that Gab would be “the place where we go next”.
The brainchild of its 25-year-old Christian conservative founder, Andrew Torba, Gab promises to guarantee free speech, no matter how offensive. It is currently in the early “beta” stage of development and there is an extensive waiting list to join. When I applied, wanting to take a look at the site, I was told there were more than 400,000 applicants in front of me, and was advised that it could take a week before I was allowed on.
Instead I used the login of a colleague in America and spent 48 hours in a strange world of Trump worship, white nationalism, racism, conspiracy theory, gun idolatry and crass humour, all of it delivered with the righteous conviction of total certainty. The effect is a little like viewing the world through a circus mirror while being constantly told that this is what reality looks like….
Twitter and Facebook are commercial enterprises that advertise themselves as neutral places of communication, which inevitably brings complications. Some of the fake news that Facebook promoted during the election is thought to have helped the Trump campaign. And Twitter, which has been used to circulate Holocaust denial and other scandalous nonsense, is slowly coming round to a more interventionist monitoring of content.
They’re like bossy little children who can’t bear to be left alone.
“We don’t want you here! Go away! You are banished from our tree house!”
“Um, okay. Later.” (goes and builds own tree house)
“Hey, hey, hey, can we come in? Why won’t you let us in?” (secretly climbs tree) “Hey, hey, you’re not doing it right! This tree house sucks! Why can’t we play here? I know, let’s vote on some new rules about what everyone can do!”
Never think, for one single moment, that SJWs won’t invade Gab, Infogalactic, and every other successful Alt-Tech site and attempt to take them over. It won’t work, of course, but don’t think they will simply leave them alone.
They also appear to have conveniently forgotten, already, that it is the circus mirror people who are in possession of the reliable predictive model. As Aristotle wrote, some people simply cannot be educated by mere information.
Pointless pressure
There has been considerable sturm und drang about the Electoral College, mostly because the media is grasping at any straw that won’t leave them cast out of influence for the next eight years:
In two days, members of the Electoral College will cast their historic votes for the next president of the United States. In the meantime, they are under siege. The nation’s 538 presidential electors have been thrust into the political foreground like never before in American history. In the aftermath of a uniquely polarizing presidential contest, the once-anonymous electors are squarely in the spotlight, targeted by death threats, harassing phone calls and reams of hate mail. One Texas Republican elector said he’s been bombarded with more than 200,000 emails.
“I never can imagine harassing people like this. It’s just f—– up,” said Jim Rhoades, a Republican elector from Michigan who runs a home inspection service. “I’ve lost a bunch of business.”
In recent decades, the Electoral College had become such a reliable rubber stamp of Election Day results that it was viewed as an afterthought.
But with many Democrats desperate to block the all-but-certain ascension of Donald Trump to the White House, this long-neglected body has been gripped by turmoil, and its members have been subjected to pleas to upend centuries of tradition by casting their votes for someone other than the president-elect.
There have been ad campaigns targeting electors and op-eds assailing their role. One Democratic member of Congress has called to delay the vote for president while an investigation of Russian involvement in the election is underway. Two others have pleaded with electors to consider Russia’s role when deciding how to vote. Progressive groups are preparing protests across the country at sites where electors will meet to cast their ballots. Personal contact information for many electors has been posted publicly — and it’s been used to bury them with massive email campaigns.
None of it signifies anything. I’ll be very surprised if more than two electors actually prove faithless, and it’s as likely to be a Clinton elector as a Trump one. Trump’s popularity has risen considerably since his election, his post-election moves have been distinctly presidential to the point of overshadowing the actual president, and the electors will have noticed that just like everyone else.
Dealing with defamation
Melania Trump files suit in Maryland:
The original complaint filed in Maryland Circuit Court focused on an Aug. 19 Daily Mail article entitled, “Naked photoshoots, and troubling questions about visas that won’t go away: The VERY racy past of Donald Trump’s Slovenian wife.”
“The statements of fact in the Daily Mail Article are false. Plaintiff did legitimate and legal modeling work for legitimate business entities and did not work for any ‘gentleman’s club’ or ‘escort’ agencies. Plaintiff was not a sex worker, escort or prostitute in any way, shape or form, nor did she ever have a composite or presentation card for the sex business,” the lawsuit said.
“Plaintiff did not come to the United States until 1996. Thus, Plaintiff did not, and could not have participated in a photo shoot in the United States or met her current husband in the United States prior to that time,” the lawsuit also said.
So, she’s considerably more of a public figure than I am, the accusation is less harmful, and she doesn’t even have multiple examples of documentary evidence of malice on the part of the accused demonstrated over an extended period of time.
And yet, the Daily Mail is likely going to try to settle.
Meanwhile, keep in mind the owner of Amazing Stories attitude toward lawsuits before you defend his right to engage to defend defamatory practices:
I don’t want to become an industry that threatens to sue everyone improperly using the name, but I also have a duty to my licensing partners to preserve and protect it. Right now I am spending what little free cash I have on IP attorneys. The research they are doing will determine who we go after and how; we’re still trying to decide whether to get settlements from “little guys” first, or go after a big kahuna first. The latter is potentially more attractive for a variety of reasons – publicity, the potential winnings (some have already been informed of their infringement and have chosen to ignore that notice, which means they could be up for treble damages) and the possibility of making things better for many others who find themselves in similar circumstances; going after little guys first is usually done to help build a case against the larger guys, but it usually involves a lot of what some might call “intimidation” and I’m not that comfortable with that. But in the end the attorneys are going to tell me what our best course will be and we’ll pursue it.
Steve Davidson was obviously quite comfortable with engaging in lawfare when he thought it suited him. And he already knows he has a little problem on his hands here.
anyone having access to good information to defamation and anti-nazi laws in EU countries, please get in touch with me
It’s rather depressing to learn that a guy whose wife was diagnosed with cancer in April prefers to spend his time and financial resources on defamation rather than on her, but, as the Austrians say, all value is subjective. What is wrong with these people?
Anyhow, it would certainly be amusing to end up in possession of the Amazing Stories trademark as a result of all this. We’ve already been reviewing an example of case law with $235k in damages for defamation alone in New Hampshire, an award that was appealed and upheld. Considering that I am an editor and publisher of leading Jewish and Israeli authors, including two books coming out in the next four months, it should be readily apparent that Mr. Davidson’s publication of Ms Meadow’s defamatory claim was both wanton and malicious.
Interestingly enough, one of those authors is even considered a world expert on fascism, having written one of the foremost academic treatments of it.
Right now, the bulk of Experimenter’s budget is being spent on intellectual property attorneys.
No worries, we can fix that.
Pages you will never see on Wikipedia
From the Pages You Will Never See On Wikipedia category:
The bright side of narcissism
Anonymous Conservative reviews The Nine Laws by Ivan Throne:
I recently finished The Nine Laws by Ivan Throne of DarkTriadMan.com, the new Castalia House release. The book is basically like A Book of Five Rings, or perhaps more so, the Art of War, a little more organized and spread broadly to cover the way of approaching life in its entirety. It is also infused with Ninjutsu lessons in mindset, philosophy, and strategy which the author has acquired in his study of that art. That is all overlaid on an analysis of the Dark Triad Traits, and the specific advantages which aspects of those traits can contribute to success in endeavors, if used properly. In short, I think it is among the best mindset/strategy books out there, and I expect that there will be a lot of copies of Art of War and Five Rings throughout the world finding a bold new title sharing their space on the bookshelves of the world….
To be clear, the book is not advocating for the dark triads traits broadly. As an example, it encourages the aspects of narcissism which lead to success – the belief in self, the grand visions it produces, the fearlessly plunging into endeavors as if failure is impossible. Those are all traits of the narcissist which explain why you see so many narcissists attain high positions in life. They expect success, and plunge into ridiculous endeavors as if it is to be expected.
But not all narcissists succeed, and those who fail due to their malady fail badly. He examines why this is, and concludes correctly, in my opinion, that the reason is delusion. Narcissists, just as their malady drives them forward relentlessly, and fearlessly, also suffer from a detachment from reality which leads them to misjudge their abilities and expect success to just happen. He encourages you to develop the former traits of plunging forward fearlessly into grand visions, while maintaining a grasp of reality and an ability to see where failure may arise so you may enjoy the benefits of the narcissist’s grandiose vision, without the detriments of being unable to effectively plot courses.
Similarly, sociopaths enjoy freedom from the moral rules which constrain others. But their ignorance of them is reflex, and uncontrolled. That leads them to stumble as often as they ascend. He encourages a recognition of the fact that there are no rules, but tempers it with a recognition that ignorance of the rules may have consequences, and thus you must always be on the lookout for them.
Because the book is so deep, I cannot say how it will change your life. I’d need to post that review in a few years. But I can say there is a ton of wisdom in the book, and it is solid.
This is an important review, because AC is the foremost observer of narcissism, sociopathy, and deranged minds in general on the Internet. The Nine Laws has been a surprisingly good seller for Castalia, and should easily break the 10,000-lifetime sales mark that serves as the unofficial “successful book” line in the mainstream publishing world now that the average U.S. nonfiction book is now selling less than 250 copies per year.
It may sound counterproductive to look to deranged minds for success strategies, but the fact of the matter is that those strategies are so effective that they allow even the delusional and the brain-damaged to succeed despite themselves. Therefore, it makes sense that a healthy mind utilizing the positive aspects of those strategies while rejecting the negative ones should be able to generate even more success for itself.
The fox guarding the chicken coop
Facebook is arguably the very worst organization to lead the charge against “fake news” than any organization not called “The Onion”, as Techdirt concluded long before Mark Zuckerberg’s latest George Soros-funded crusade:
Facebook is generally seen as a key multiplier in this false force of non-news, which is probably what led the social media giant to declare war on fake news sites a year or so back. So how’d that go? Well, the results as analyzed over at Buzzfeed seems to suggest that Facebook has either lost this war it declared or is losing it badly enough that it might as well give it up.
To gauge Facebook’s progress in its fight, BuzzFeed News examined data across thousands of posts published to the fake news sites’ Facebook pages, and found decidedly mixed results. While average engagements (likes + shares + comments) per post fell from 972.7 in January 2015 to 434.78 in December 2015, they jumped to 827.8 in January 2016 and a whopping 1,304.7 in February.
Some of the posts on the fake news sites’ pages went extremely viral many months after Facebook announced its crackdown. In August, for instance, an Empire News story reporting that Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev sustained serious injuries in prison received more than 240,000 likes, 43,000 shares, and 28,000 comments on its Facebook page. The incident was pure fiction, but still spread like wildfire on the platform. An even less believable September post about a fatal gang war sparked by the “Blood” moon was shared over 22,000 times from the Facebook page of Huzlers, another fake news site.So, how did this war go so wrong for Facebook? Well, to start, it relied heavily on user-submitted notifications that a link or site was a fake news site. Sounds great, as aggregating feedback has worked quite well in other arenas. For this, however, it was doomed from the start. The purpose of fake news sites is, after all, to fool people, and fooled people are obviously not reporting the links as fake. Even when a reader manages to determine eventually that a link was a fake news post at a later time, perhaps after sharing it and having comments proving it false, how many of those people then take steps to report the link? Not enough, clearly, as the fake news scourge marches on.
Another layer of the problem appears to be the faith and trust the general public puts into some famous people they are following, who have also been fooled with startling regularity. Take D.L. Hughley, for example. The comedian, whose page is liked by more than 1.7 million people, showed up twice in the Huzlers logs. One fictitious Huzlers story he posted, about Magic Johnson donating blood, garnered more than 10,000 shares from his page. Hughley, who did not respond to BuzzFeed News’ request for comment, also shared four National Report links in 2015.Radio stations also frequently post fake news. The Florida-based 93XFM was one of a number of radio stations BuzzFeed News discovered sharing Huzlers posts in 2015. Asked about one April post linking to a Huzlers story about a woman smoking PCP and chewing off her boyfriend’s penis, a 93XFM DJ named Sadie explained that fact-checking Facebook posts isn’t exactly a high priority.
So, it’s not the dark and ever-dangerous Alt-Right that is to blame for fake news, but celebrities and Facebook itself. Moreover, Facebook isn’t even reliable when it comes to reporting its own internal metrics to advertisers, as it has been caught exaggerating its own traffic numbers for the FOURTH time. Or, as Facebook would prefer you see it, accidentally making mistakes that just coincidentally happened to favor its own financial interests again for the fourth straight time.
Facebook Inc. built a colossal business based on measuring something older advertising methods cannot: the granular details about people. Two months ago, the company copped to a flaw in that measurement. Then Facebook did it again. And again.
On Friday, Facebook revealed faulty metrics with Instant Articles, its mobile publishing system, the fourth disclosure of a measurement error since September. The admission sharpened calls for more independent organizations to monitor the performance of digital advertising. And some large firms that buy a lot of ads said they will more closely scrutinize their spending on the social networking giant and could shift marketing dollars elsewhere….
In September, Facebook shared its first measurement error: inflated viewership numbers for its video ads, a relatively new product. Two months later, the company disclosed additional metric errors along with new tools for third-party measurement companies, including ComScore and Nielsen, to track its system more closely.
Problems persisted. Earlier this month, a report in Marketing Land, an industry publication, spotted a discrepancy between Facebook’s internal metrics on how articles where shared and public measurements. Facebook confirmed the error. “That shouldn’t happen,” said Brian Wieser, senior analyst, Pivotal Research Group. “If anyone was concerned that Facebook’s self-audit was not sufficient enough, they just proved it.”
I don’t know why anyone is surprised that Facebook is trafficking heavily in false information on every side. Look at who runs it. Once a con artist, always a con artist. That’s been Zuckerberg’s motif from the start.
The death knell of the dinosaur media
The New York Times has entered its terminal decline:
When we moved into our new building in 2007, we saw it as a modern headquarters for a modern New York Times. We still feel that way.
But as Mark mentioned in the State of The Times last month, after a good deal of consideration, we have determined that the way that we use our headquarters building needs to evolve to better match the changes you and your colleagues have been driving across every part of the company.
The current way we have configured our office makes us slower and less collaborative. It is also, frankly, too expensive to occupy this many floors when we don’t truly need them.
We’ve made the decision to consolidate our footprint across the building to create a more dynamic, modern and open workplace, one that is better suited to the moment. We’re planning significant investments in a redesign of our existing space in order to facilitate more cross-departmental collaboration.
We expect a substantial financial benefit as well. All told, we will vacate at least eight floors, allowing us to generate significant rental income.
We have engaged Gensler, an architecture and interior design firm, to help us redesign our workplace and beginning early next year, work will begin on select floors below 14. By the end of next year, we expect to have consolidated our occupancy to that side of the building. We will keep the cafeteria and the conference rooms on 15.
We have already seen that changing office layouts can lead to good results. Some of the most creative wings of the company — the Beta team, the Graphics Department and some of our technology teams have changed their floor plans to help improve the way they work.
The coming redesign will introduce more team rooms and common spaces. And, we will do away with big corner offices, like the ones you see on the 16th and 17th floors, including, yes, the publisher and CEO’s offices. We don’t need to preserve those vestiges from a different era, so we won’t.
What a pity they employed Paul Krugman back in 2007, rather than a more astute economist who saw the 2008 financial crisis coming, who could have warned them that buying real estate was not a good idea at the time.
Anyhow, it will take a while before the NYT goes away entirely, as there is a lot of ruin in a major media institution, but it won’t be too terribly long before its debts exceed its assets.
One can always count on gamma
I’m not sure which was more predictable. The fact that the late and unlamented Wild Man would react to his abrupt exit from the premises with the usual aplomb of the gamma scorned, or the fact that his tears would go undried at the Chateau.
Lucius Somesuch
Having read your “existential ontological” scribblings at Vox Popoli, Wild Man, with all of your buttkissing “please help me to understand, Good Sir” bowing and scraping, we see what a (((cucky))) midwit trolltard you are. John Locke is dead. You’re a fucking idiot. Oh, but a liar too– saruh is that YOU?! lzolzoz .Wild Man
Lucius Fuckwad – you be so dumb …… to confuse the shiv for buttkissing. What else goes over you head buddy? Fuck ….. I bet you be owned by the women in you life. John Locke inconsequential as to western institutions? …… fuck you stupidHesiod
Wild Dude, you got your arse handed to you by Vox Day. Retreating to another blog to cry your gamma dreams of being the once and future king were unjustly robbed does you no good. It’s embarrassing, in fact.
I imagine you can guess what comes next….