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June Brainstorm

If you’re a member, check your email for the registration information. We’ll be meeting tomorrow night at 7 PM EST. Author Nick Cole will be the guest, as we will be talking about some SIGNIFICANT new developments in the publishing world, how they relate to Castalia House and independent publishing, and how we plan to respond to them. I’ll also be providing an update on the progress of Big Fork.

This is the monthly Members Only event. And speaking of email and Castalia House, those who are New Release subscribers should check your email tomorrow morning.

If you’re not a member of Brainstorm and you want to take part as well as support the open events, information on how to join is on the left sidebar. It is not cheap, but the general consensus appears to be that it is well worth it.

Gamma stalker fail

Camestros Fellatrix is still butthurt over being depantsed in the midst of his attempt to pose as a master of Aristotelian rhetoric that he’s been commenting almost nonstop about me ever since. (shakes head) Gammas are nothing if not predictable. Anyhow, it’s more than a little amusing to see him try to figure out how he can try to figure out how to produce a justification for calling me stupid while simultaneously undermining the significance of IQ:

In Vox Day’s case, his claim is this: the difference in IQ score between man-who-made-Vox-grumpy (MWMVG) and Vox is >50 IQ score points. If we assume the MWMVG is at least in the average range (90-109) Vox is claiming an IQ score of >140 and possibly >159. Note that the upper end of just ‘average’ IQ has Vox claiming to be pretty much at the limit of meaningful IQ scores on the most generous reading of IQ and even at the lower end well above the boundary which most reputable IQ test stop bothering to classify (around 130 IQ points). An informed (and presumably smart) person shouldn’t make a claim any more precise than ‘greater than 130’ – beyond that the figure as some sort of intrinsic property of a person that would be consistent across multiple methods of quantification doesn’t make sense EVEN ASSUMING IQ MAKES MUCH SENSE ANYWAY.

Put let’s take that figure of 130. Let’s say Vox is taking a more grounded view of his own IQ and is seeing himself as 130. A 50 point difference would put the MWMVG at an IQ of below 80. For comparison, an IQ of below 70 is used diagnostically as evidence of intellectual disability. An IQ of 80 to 70 is likely to represent somebody who would struggle with school and many cognitive tasks (assuming the score was representative). Which would be an odd thing for Vox to claim – after he is attempting to write a point-by-point rebuttal of what the MWMVG and struggling to do so, claiming that he is struggling to counter an argument from a person with an IQ lower than 80 would be tantamount to claiming he really doesn’t know what he is talking about.

Aaron doesn’t make me grumpy in the slightest. I find his determination, shared by a few similarly stupid File 770 headcases, to stake his reputation on my being wrong every single time in all circumstances, to be downright funny. It is always a pleasure to see one’s expectations met so reliably.

Especially considering how his fixation led him to publicly conclude that LEEEROY JENKINS was the greatest battlefield commander in military history.

Anyhow, Cammy has unnecessarily occupied himself with trying to assess “a more grounded view” of my IQ, in that its lower limit is a matter of public record. I was a member of Mensa, so obviously my IQ is above 132. More importantly, I was also a National Merit Finalist prior to the 1993 renorming of the PSAT, so it is equally apparent that my IQ must also be above 140. Therefore, the minimum estimated IQ for Aaron is 90, which is in the average range, and may actually be considered a little generous in light of the obvious silliness of his expressed position on tactical matters.

And then, of course, there is the perhaps-not-entirely-irrelevant fact that I already posted it.

We have now reached the point at which you should feel free to:

  • Explain why you reject IQ as a metric for intelligence. Preferably at length and with personal anecdotes.
  • Lecture us on the 34 different types of intelligence, as well as which ones are best.
  • Tell us how you were out partying the night before the SAT and you were totally hungover when you took it and besides you don’t care.
  • Brag about your 800 IQ.
  • Inform us of your Bachelor’s Degree in Philosophy of Language from the University of Chicago. The University of Chicago!
It’s totally going to fool everyone. I guarantee it. No one will ever be able to ascertain your true motivations. We’ve never seen or heard anyone do anything like it before.
Anyhow, this is nothing more than Vox’s First Law in action: Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from insanity.

Everybody else is racist!

A cuckservative clucks an oft-heard theme:

 The norm throughout history has been that different peoples are different, and that one people would either replace another peoples culture, or even replace them outright genetically.  That is the default, and a default which is still the norm in this day and age throughout most of the world.  The great exception to this is the exceptionalism the embodies America.

Ours is a civic heritage that transcends ethnicity and is not restricted by geographic extent.  And because that is so ingrained into the very essence of America, that there is a revulsion against the global and historical default to define a people by blood or land.

And so, the not-so-great hullabaloo of the “cuckservative” flap reared its head.  The vast majority of conservatives, including the veritable Ace of Spades, the veritable Stacy McCain, Erick Erickson, the folks over at HotAir, and especially SooperMexican (who was subject to rac­ist insults), have outted the White supremacists who are pushing the term — though the term has had its defenders….

These groups and individuals who used “cuckservative” to rage against racial marginalization are defaulting to the tribal norm that has held back humanity throughout the world and throughout history.  It is a rejection of American Exceptionalism, just as much as the Progressivism is a rejection of the same.

But it is true that destroying Western Civilization and America more specifically is a goal of the Progressive Left in order to create a “blank slate” upon which they may paint their deluded pseudo-utopias.  Sweden is but one international example, but this drive towards eliminating White people eliminated in a “soft genocide” does exist and there are indeed those who would love to do exactly what many of the “anti-racism” crowd most fear.

In conclusion: Would you prefer an America with the physical characteristics and beliefs of Thomas Sowell, or an America with the physical characteristics and beliefs of the Swedish Prime Minister?

First, this is more of our friend Sarah’s ridiculous “born American in Portugal” nonsense. It isn’t historical, it isn’t true, and it isn’t intellectually honest. It’s just lofty, but nonsensical rhetoric meant to convince through evading one’s logical circuits by appealing directly to one’s emotions. The American civic heritage does not “transcend ethnicity”, as I, or any other American Indian, can tell you. And it is restricted by geographic extent. The Chinese, the Portuguese, the Swedes, and the British are not Americans.

Second, a people are defined primarily by their blood, secondarily by their land, tertially by their religion. There are no other definitions. America is not a Proposition Nation, which is easily provable as no one has ever lost their American status for failing to abide by whatever these mythical propositions might be, or granted American status on the sole basis of claiming to accept those propositions.

If you still claim that America is a Proposition Nation despite it having been conclusively proven that it was not and never was, you are worse than ignorant. You are either in denial or you are a deceiver.

Third, the Alt-Right does reject American Exceptionalism. There is nothing exceptional about America except its superior founding stock and its geographic advantages, both of which are now significantly reduced. Indeed, in light of how rapidly America squandered its unique post-WWII military and economic superiority, one can quite reasonably argue that it is the least exceptional empire since the Austro-Hungarian.

Fourth, I would absolutely prefer an America with the physical characteristics and beliefs of the Swedish Prime Minister to those of Thomas Sowell, especially after the Sweden Democrats take power. This is for three reasons:

  1. Genetic Reversion to the Mean.
  2. The MAOA-2R gene.
  3. Based on my personal interactions with him, Dr. Sowell is neither as smart nor is he as intellectually honest as most conservatives wish to believe.

Fifth, an absolute priority of not being racist is neither a functional ideology nor a sound foundation for public policy. Regardless of one’s personal perspective, the historical reality is that racism is far closer to being the solution than it is to being the problem.

The decline of entrepreneurship in America

The media is beginning to notice that there are fewer and fewer startups in the USA every year:

If you look at what’s happened in big cities around the U.S. in recent years, it’s easy to think we’re living in Startup Nation. Thanks to the plummeting cost and increased availability of digital tools, as well as greater access to early-stage funding, we’ve seen what the Economist has called a “Cambrian moment,” with digital startups “bubbling up in an astonishing variety of services and products.” The number of companies in Silicon Valley that got seed funding from investors, for instance, more than doubled between 2007 and 2012. Venture capital funding in the U.S. over the last five years has totaled a remarkable $238 billion, and 200 companies today are so-called unicorns, privately valued at more than a billion dollars each.

Meanwhile, though, a host of economic researchers have been telling a much bleaker story: American entrepreneurship is actually on the decline, and has been for decades. As the economists Ian Hathaway and Robert Litan documented in a 2014 Brookings Institution paper, the percentage of U.S. firms that were less than a year old fell by almost half between 1978 and 2011, declining precipitously during the recession of 2007-’09 with only a slow recovery after. According to the Commerce Department, the number of new businesses started by Americans has fallen sharply since 2000, and so too has the percentage of American workers working for companies that are less than a year old. Indeed, in 2013 Americans started fewer businesses than they did in 1980, when the country’s population was much smaller. This decline isn’t just due to the aging of the U.S. population—Americans of all ages just seem less likely to open new businesses than they once were. And, as Hathaway and Litan put it, the decline “has been documented across a broad range of sectors in the U.S. economy, even in high-tech.”

Speaking as a successful entrepreneur who left the country, who is the son of a very successful entrepreneur who is presently in prison, it’s not exactly difficult to understand why Americans are considerably less inclined and less able to start businesses than they were 36 years ago.

  1. The rapacious and criminal tax agencies. You would probably not believe the shenanigans and outright lies these agents habitually engage in if you did not see it in black-and-white documents right in front of you. Even those who think my father merited an amount of jail time for his actions are aghast when they find out what actually happened, and how absurdly egregious the behavior of the various agencies was.
  2. The increasing regulatory and reporting burden. Why go to the effort of building up a company when doing so is the equivalent of painting a big red target on your chest? As one of my entrepreneurial friends said after shutting down his company and taking a job for a big tech firm, “it’s so nice not having to deal with all that shit anymore.” In the USA, self-employment often feels more like working for the government as a paper-pusher. Just trying to get your head around why part-time external contractors who are clearly not your employees must be treated as employees for various compliance purposes is enough to give anyone a headache.
  3. The criminalization of commerce. These days, it’s more work to file the paperwork required to get paid by a big corporation than it is to do the work itself.
  4. The dumbing-down of the populace. Thanks to post-1965 immigration, Americans are 4-6 IQ points less intelligent than they were back in 1980. Less intelligent people are less inclined to start jobs.
  5. Emigration. Many of the American expats I meet around the world are highly intelligent and entrepreneurial. Few of them have any desire or intention to return to the USA. This is a fairly small group of people, but they are a statistically significant percentage of the entrepreneurial class.
  6. International competition. The Internet and semi-free trade means that one no longer needs to live in the USA to have access to its markets. So, would-be American entrepreneurs are much more likely to be beaten to the punch by foreign entrepreneurs exploiting American markets than was the case in 1980.
  7. The politicization of culture. Why start, say, a bakery, if you know you’re going to be forced to choose between being sued into oblivion and violating your conscience as well as your right to free association?
That being said, the situation isn’t much better elsewhere. The worse the global economy gets, the more desperate the various governments are for tax revenue, and the more intensely they go tax-hunting among the successful entrepreneurial class. The first country to offer legal protection and operational assistance to the international entrepreneurs being preyed on in this manner is going to do very well indeed, and do so at the expense of the other countries.

Just wait, Germany

I don’t think the German leadership has yet understood the lesson of #Brexit:

German Leadership Aghast at a Brexit It Helped Cause

Germans – especially German politicians – are waking up this morning to the Brexit reality, and their initial reactions are predictable.  Shock appears to be the overwhelming emotion, followed closely by sadness, anger, and then subdued panic.

The Social Democratic Party, a partner in the governing black-red coalition, has called for an emergency session of the Bundestag today.  (One wonders what this would accomplish except perhaps to issue a statement aimed at shoring up EU solidarity in other wavering member states, or maybe just express petulance.)  Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier spoke of a “sad day for Europe and Great Britain,” while the leader of the Left faction, Sahra Wagenknecht, used the occasion to lambaste the influence of corporations and lobbyists in Brussels (a non-factor in the British vote, as far as I know).

One of the more thoughtful commentaries today is from Torsten Krauel in the right-of-center Die Welt.  Krauel asks whether German Chancellor Merkel is partially to blame for the Brexit and concludes her asylum policy almost certainly played a major role.  And indeed, the spectacle of Germany unilaterally deciding to change the face and future of the European Union by announcing Berlin had opened the doors to all comers – regardless of the wishes of or the impact this would have on other EU states – has been a powerful symbol of elite disconnect with the concerns of average Europeans and an uncomfortable reminder that Germany has come to dominate the union.  Krauel also points out Dover, the British end of the Channel Tunnel to the continent, voted 60 percent to leave.  Maybe this has something to do with the thousands of North African migrants seeking to storm the tunnel and cross to England?

While loathe to admit it, Germans at some level suspect their country’s role in the discontent in Britain.  Speaking to German friends over the past several years, it’s been difficult not to come away with the sense many view the EU as an extension of Germany policy and as a respectable outlet for German nationalism that has been suppressed since the end of World War II.  A new path to German greatness, if you will, camouflaged by warm and fuzzy words about “Europeaness” and immune to complaints of skeptics, all of whom immediately are labeled as right-wing extremists – the kiss of death in German politics.

For me, one of the takeaways from the referendum is the reminder that people care deeply about things other than pure economic interest.

Imagine how surprised the German elites will be when their own nationalists throw them out of power, and if justice is served, put them on trial for their crimes against the nation.

Quintessential cuckservatism

Rod Dreher demonstrates the effete and useless nature of modern conservatism:

The Speaker of the House of Representatives was shouted down by Democratic Congressman as he attempted to regain control of the House of Representatives. Actual US Congressmen behaving like a bunch of giddy Oberlin undergraduates.

They had better not give in. Look, on gun control matters, I am generally — generally — more sympathetic to Democrats than to Republicans. But this mob insurrection on the House floor is profoundly unsettling. I have not looked closely at the legislation, so it is entirely possible that I might support the Democratic proposal. But to attempt to get one’s way by showing utter contempt for rules of the House? No. No, no, no. Their passion does not justify their behavior.

This country is in trouble.

You know he’s serious when he resorts to no less than FOUR (4) nos. This useless, limp-wristed excuse for a purported conservative “opinion leader”, this hapless, low-testosterone shadow of a man, is more concerned about fucking etiquette, than he is about the single most important right in the Bill of Rights.

“Dear God, they’re sitting on the floor! Heavens to Betsy, whatever shall we do?”

If you want to understand the key difference between the Alt Right and the Conservative movement, all you need to do is look at Rod Dreher. If he strikes you as a strong and principled Christian man standing up for what is right and true and important, then you are most definitely a Conservative.

If he strikes you as missing the point so badly that he would have done far better to put on a dress, smear some lipstick on his face, and record a video reading from Amy Vanderbilt’s Complete Book of Etiquette, you just might be Alt Right.

Why gun control will never happen

Scott Adams explains the political impossibility of gun control in the USA:

On average, Democrats (that’s my team*) use guns for shooting the innocent. We call that crime.

On average, Republicans use guns for sporting purposes and self-defense.

If you don’t believe me, you can check the statistics on the Internet that don’t exist. At least I couldn’t find any that looked credible.

But we do know that race and poverty are correlated. And we know that poverty and crime are correlated. And we know that race and political affiliation are correlated. Therefore, my team (Clinton) is more likely to use guns to shoot innocent people, whereas the other team (Trump) is more likely to use guns for sporting and defense.

That’s a gross generalization. Obviously. Your town might be totally different.

So it seems to me that gun control can’t be solved because Democrats are using guns to kill each other – and want it to stop – whereas Republicans are using guns to defend against Democrats. Psychologically, those are different risk profiles. And you can’t reconcile those interests, except on the margins. For example, both sides might agree that rocket launchers are a step too far. But Democrats are unlikely to talk Republicans out of gun ownership because it comes off as “Put down your gun so I can shoot you.”

It does indeed, and not only to Republicans. What gun control advocates don’t understand is that they are advocating a very violent civil war that will lead to the end of the Union. Millions of Americans all across the country will absolutely shoot anyone who attempts to disarm them, and moreover, are also willing to shoot anyone who advocated their disarming.

We all know that the government has its lists. Do you really think that gun owners don’t too? The only reason they’re not shooting gun control advocates now is because they don’t believe it to be necessary in order to keep their guns.

Do you really want to convince them otherwise?

Layouts wanted

We’re looking for 2-3 layout artists who have Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, and Acrobat and are good with tight detail work to help us get caught up on our print editions. Mac or PC is okay, but it has to be Photoshop and Acrobat proper, not any of the various alternatives. Illustrator can be replaced with a similar vector-based alternative. We’ll pay up to $100 per PB/HC pair; no design is required as we’ll provide the covers and the basic spine designs. The PB/HC will always be the same size.

We have a number of important announcements coming over the next few weeks, which means we want to increase our production capabilities. If you think you’re able and you’re interested, email me with LAYOUT in the title.

The brighter side of Pink SF

Of course, these are Democrats in general, once we limit the discussion to the SJW subset you can be certain that far more than a paltry 34.4 percent of them are suffering from depression or some other mental health issue. These people are not sane or healthy, they are quite literally sick in mind, body, and soul. Case in point: our friends at File 770.

Tasha Turner:

Any trigger warnings for Seveneves? One of the few things I still need to read to finish off my Hugo voting. I’ve had a couple things trigger my PTSD over the last couple weeks and am trying to avoiding books with of my major issues: abuse, suicide, torture, fridging, loads of graphic violence…

Paul Weimer:

RE: Fifth Season. I concur with many above. Not a happy book, and if I was in one of my down depressive cycles, definitely not the book I should be personally reading. Fortunately I read it when I was on an even keel and so was able to absorb the book’s bleak tone (Starting WITH the apocalypse, and not getting happier from there) with equanimity.

Sounds like a fun, upbeat, and totally stable group of people, doesn’t it? I may have to rethink my Hugo voting order; if N.K. Jeminsin’s Hugo-nominated The Fifth Season is inspiring SJWs to off themselves, maybe there is something to this award-winning Pink SF sewage after all!

Article 50

A number of people have been asking what comes next. Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty is the guide.

Article 50

1. Any Member State may decide to withdraw from the Union in accordance with its own constitutional requirements.

2. A Member State which decides to withdraw shall notify the European Council of its intention. In the light of the guidelines provided by the European Council, the Union shall negotiate and conclude an agreement with that State, setting out the arrangements for its withdrawal, taking account of the framework for its future relationship with the Union. That agreement shall be negotiated in accordance with Article 218(3) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. It shall be concluded on behalf of the Union by the Council, acting by a qualified majority, after obtaining the consent of the European Parliament.

3. The Treaties shall cease to apply to the State in question from the date of entry into force of the withdrawal agreement or, failing that, two years after the notification referred to in paragraph 2, unless the European Council, in agreement with the Member State concerned, unanimously decides to extend this period.

4. For the purposes of paragraphs 2 and 3, the member of the European Council or of the Council representing the withdrawing Member State shall not participate in the discussions of the European Council or Council or in decisions concerning it. 

A qualified majority shall be defined in accordance with Article 238(3)(b) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union.

5. If a State which has withdrawn from the Union asks to rejoin, its request shall be subject to the procedure referred to in Article 49.

The EU has no legal mechanism for deny withdrawal to any Member State. This does not mean they won’t try to do so, but it does mean they cannot do so in a legal manner. I expect they’ll simply try to draw it out, as the EU President has already suggested.