Category: Uncategorized

PFT Commenter goes to the Super Bowl

I just thought this account of a taxi ride at the Super Bowl was funny:

My first night here I deicded to skip dinner in lieu of drinking, which yes, its a common theme for me- but you stick with the devil that you know, and with all the foofooraw about E Coli these days I figured it was better to drink brown liquor instead of eating red meat. It was a great meal and then I got a ride home from a cab driver who immedately started talking politics. Guess I just give of that vibe of a professonal political pundent. Lots of folks consider Frisco to be a extremeley liberal city but this guy started in with the “we need to build a wall” stuff and it kiond of snowballed from there untill by the end of the ride he was educationg me about how Bernie Sanders is a pawn by the Jews to install one of there Elite banker friends as the head of the United States so they can take over the world. Went a little to far for my taste in a 10-minute cab ride. Thats more of a 30 minute cab ride conversaton that you break out as soon as you’ve covered the weather, favorite sports teams, and which colleges his kids are thinking about going to. Very cool guy.

It’s both exciting and strange to see the X-Files back. Hearing Mulder go on about a conspiracy of human globalists makes me wonder if Chris Carter has been reading this blog over the last ten years. Anyhow, my thoughts on Denver’s recent Super Bowl victory:

  • Manning had less to do with it than Lizzi the cheerleader did. Lizzi was also at the game and she threw for as many touchdowns and one less dumb interception than Peyton did. I’m just glad they didn’t give him the MVP because quarterback.
  • Apparently the difference between the #1 defense and the #3 defense was considerably larger than I had appreciated.
  • Wade Phillips is probably the best defensive coordinator in the league. He should stick with that; why be a mediocre head coach when you can be a great coordinator? Stacking five on the line to keep the running game in check while trusting the three corners to shut down Carolina’s unimpressive receivers was a great game plan.
  • Cam is a frontrunner. That’s not a bad thing, it’s just a reality.  It will be interesting to see how he comes back from this.
  • People getting on Cam about not diving on the football forget that a QBs first, second, and third responsibility is to not get injured. Yes, it was the Super Bowl. That doesn’t change the fact that the guy has had it repeatedly drilled into his head that he is NEVER supposed to a) dive into the pile or b) try to tackle anyone. See: Andy Dalton. I suspect that training is why he instinctively started to go after the ball, then checked himself.
  • I think Ted Ginn may have cost Carolina the game. For me, the most crucial play was when he burned Talib across the middle, then ran out of bounds for a 40-yard gain instead of a) trying to beat the safety down the sideline, or b) cutting back inside him. Ginn is supposedly among the faster players in the league, and it looked to me as if a) was a legitimate option. That may have cost the Panthers 7 points, given the way Gano missed the subsequent FG attempt.
  • If Manning doesn’t ride off into the sunset with his second Super Bowl ring, he’s lost the plot. It’s a great ending… so let it be the ending and retire.

Mailvox: PHP jobs

Some job opportunities for the Ilk near San Francisco:

I’m a REDACTED at a well-funded startup in the Bay Area, and we’re in serious need of PHP developers/engineers to expand our business. I’ve noticed that you’ve posted job opportunities occasionally on VP so I’m hoping you’d be willing to post this as well.

We’re looking for anyone with PHP experience, from intern level to PHP expert. There’s enough work available to keep anyone busy, regardless of their level of PHP expertise. Candidates would ideally live within commuting distance of the San Jose area or Peninsula, but we would be willing to consider expert-level developers living out-of-area or even out-of-state.

If you are interested and want me to pass your resume along, sent an intro email to me with PHP in the subject.

Convergence at GitHub

We don’t use GitHub; although GitLab does have a Code of Conduct it does not yet have any other signs of SJW infestation. But the convergence at GitHub, which was apparent when its former CEO was forced out in 2014 over a “sexual-harassment scandal by a female employee who quit”, appears to have shifted into a higher gear.

  • Cofounder CEO Chris Wanstrath, with support from the board, is radically changing the company’s culture: Out with flat org structure based purely on meritocracy, in with supervisors and middle managers. This has ticked off many people in the old guard.
  • Its once famous remote-employee culture has been rolled back. Senior managers are no longer allowed to live afar and must report to the office. This was one reason why some senior execs departed or were asked to leave, one person close to the company told us.
  • Others tell us that key technical people from the old days like CTO Ted Nyman and third cofounder PJ Hyett are mostly absent from the office and not contributing much technically.
  • GitHub has hit “hypergrowth,” growing from about 300 to nearly 500 employees in less than a year, with over 70 people joining last quarter alone.
  • Some longer-term employees feel like there’s a “culture of fear” where people who don’t support all the changes are being ousted.
  • In addition to previously reported executive departures, Business Insider has learned that Ryan Day, VP of business development; Adam Zimman, senior director of technology partnerships; and Scott Buxton, controller, have all left in the last six months. Buxton departed in January.

And what are all these changes? The usual diversity-and-inclusivity nonsense.

One insider criticized GitHub’s “social impact team,” which is in charge of figuring out how to use the product to tackle social issues, including diversity within the company itself. It’s led by Nicole Sanchez, vice president of social impact, who joined GitHub in May after working as a diversity consultant.

While people inside the company approve of the goal to hire a more diverse workforce, some think the team is contributing to the internal cultural battle.

“They are trying to control culture, interviewing and firing. Scary times at the company without a seasoned leader. While their efforts are admirable it is very hard to even interview people who are ‘white’ which makes things challenging,” this person said.

Sanchez is known for some strong views about diversity. She wrote an article for USA Today shortly before she joined GitHub titled, “More white women does not equal tech diversity.”

At one diversity training talk held at a different company and geared toward people of color, she came on a bit stronger with a point that says, “Some of the biggest barriers to progress are white women.”

I suspect there is more than a little confusion between correlation and confusion taking place there; Facebook is fully SJW-converged, therefore full SJW convergence equals revenue growth, profit, and massive equity overvaluations.

But, as Mike Cernovich noted, it’s the SJWs at the venture capital firms who are aggressively pushing this by throwing large sums of money at the converged firms and inflating their values. Does that model still work? Probably not now that the Federal Reserve is out of bullets, but we’ll see.

Rabid Puppies 2016: Best Editor (Long-form)

The preliminary recommendations for the endangered Patrick Nielsen Hayden consolation prize.

  • Anne Sowards, Penguin
  • Bryan Thomas Schmidt, independent
  • Mike Braff, Del Rey
  • Toni Weisskopf, Baen Books
  • Vox Day, Castalia House

In case you weren’t aware, this category only exists because Patrick Nielsen Hayden cried publicly about not being able to win Best Editor against the likes of Gardner Dozois, but since virtually no one except the writer edited has the ability to tell what an editor has done to a manuscript, let alone how well he has done it, it’s been little more than a Tor Editor Appreciation Prize since its inception.

(In fairness, David Hartwell told me that he managed to persuade a reluctant PNH to stand down one year so four-time bridesmaid Lou Anders could win an award. So, it must be admitted that PNH was willing to share the precious. On occasion, if reluctantly. But not – most definitely NOT – with Toni Weisskopf. We hates her, precious, we hates her forever!)

That being said, there is one relevant, if subjective, way to reasonably judge editors and that is by asking those few writers who have been edited by multiple editors of note to compare those by whom they have been edited. Perhaps those with the sufficient historical chops should try doing that sometime.

Other 2016 Hugo categories

Transcript: RooshV press conference 6/2/16

This is the complete transcript from Roosh’s press conference in Washington DC on Friday night. It is abundantly evident that the only thing Roosh has ever raped is the media’s narrative. Roosh explains his take on the press conference on his own site.


Roosh: All right, are you ready? Is that a yes? Oh, we have a new one. Where do you work from?

Female Reporter: Um, Martha Stewart?

Roosh: Martha Stewart?

Female Reporter: Yes.

(Laughter)

Roosh: Okay, yeah, sure. I don’t know how she got in here. Someone must have told her. All right, so first I’m going to make a statement and then you can ask me anything. Cool?

All right, so the world has gone insane in the past week. Why? Number one, I had organized meet ups around the world for men to enjoy a social happy hour to meet in private and talk about anything. Work, politics, girls, just to meet. Okay? Number two, a year ago I wrote an article How to Stop Rape. This article, to a 10-year-old, was obvious that I didn’t intend to legalize rape or cause harm against women. But starting on Sunday, a lot of you have lied by saying that I am a pro-rape advocate. He wants women to get hurt! And then the third thing, you said the meet ups are about rapists. They want to gather to learn how to rape. They are going to exchange tips. Some of you have called it a rape rally! What the hell is that? A rape rally? So because of that I’ve been all over the world in terms of the news. Over 100 articles have been written.

The result is what? I’m currently the most hated man in the world. Governments from all over the world have talked about me. Australia has tried to keep me out. They called up their Navy to keep me out because they thought that I was going to get in through a private yacht. So the Navy got called up. In England, the House of Commons debated me for half an hour to say how I’m a bad man who shouldn’t be allowed entry. Mayors from everywhere, Canada, have said were going to keep him out (like they could anyway they are just a mayor, a mayor can’t keep someone out). The governor of Texas said the same thing. Police from everywhere said that all meetups will be monitored. A private meetup for men is going to be monitored. 1984 is here.

Worst of all, my family’s address was put on the Internet through the hacking group Anonymous and your colleagues at the Daily Mail confirmed the doxx and say that I my mom’s meatloaf everyday. Dozens of threats have come in. Someone said that they’re going to burn my house down but save my mom. So I’m glad, but you have to understand that your work and the work of your own colleagues have incited a mob based on lies that has put my family in danger. If they get hurt right now, God forbid, it’s because of you. It’s because you didn’t read a damn article, you misinterpreted, and now we have this rage mob to where, as you can see, I had to hide this. I told you don’t tell anyone.

I must state right now that not a single woman has been hurt by me. I’ve never been accused of rape. I’ve never been charged. No follower of mine has read something by me and then gone to rape because I know if they did hurt a woman it would be all over the news. Not a single woman has been hurt. Yet, there is a real rape mob somewhere and there is media from the country where that mob is. Who wants to volunteer what country has an active rape mob? What happened on New Year’s Eve in Cologne? Does anyone know? Someone? On New Year’s Eve mobs of men assaulted women, they raped them, and what did you guys do? You covered it up. So when a real rape happens that goes against the agenda of your boss, you actually hide it. But then when no rapes happen and I try to do a meetup you lose your shit.

So I just wanted to come here just to state that not only are you guys not honest in your reporting of me but that no one has been harmed and when real harm takes place you don’t say anything. That is not right and not fair. I pray to God that nothing happens to anyone that is close to me and if it does it’s your fault. That’s my statement.

All right, is there anything else?

Reporter: Why do you think people think of you as a rapist?

Roosh: They need a target to get all the rage that the citizens have to put it on someone that doesn’t conflict with the agenda of your bosses and the ruling establishment. Roosh, go after him, it doesn’t matter if he gets hurt but we can’t go against our immigrant agenda. We can’t go against the feminist agenda. So we need to get the masses (the idiots who believe the stuff that you write) and put it on to something else. So you put it on me. I’m just a scapegoat. They are just using me. But, I’m going to harness this. I’m going to harness all this coverage that you guys are giving me and convert it to money and women. That’s what I’m going to do. That’s the job that I have to do. I’m getting emails from a lot of girls right now and I plan (once this drama dies down if I can survive it) I may have to get in touch with them. That’s what you given me. You have made me one of the most famous men in the world. Granted, it was a lie. It was a lie. But hey, this is where we are right now so I’m going to work with what you gave me.

Female Reporter: Do you acknowledge that any of your writing might be genuinely offensive or upsetting to some people?

Roosh: So what?

Female Reporter: Do you blame all of their reaction solely on media misinterpretation?

Roosh: I blame them for not reading what I write, for taking the mentality of a 10-year-old kid.

Female Reporter: Your writing is offensive on its face.

Roosh: So what? So what? I have freedom of speech. Be offended, good, that means my writing got you.

Female Reporter: So you acknowledge that you did provoke some of this yourself.

Roosh: I acknowledge that as a writer my job is to get attention and I did it. Right? But so what if you are offended. So what if I make fun of you? Is that we’re at right now that we can’t write things that hurt people’s feelings? Good, get offended, feel something, but don’t lie. Don’t lie. And that’s what you guys have done.

Male Reporter: So do you consider yourself a victim in this scenario?

Roosh: You know what? No. I take full responsibility for everything that I have done but that doesn’t mean that I can’t state what you did wrong. I’m not saying “oh, I wish I could turn back the hands of time. I wish I didn’t write that article.” No, I wrote it. It came from my mind and it’s going to stay. But if you did something wrong then I get to  call you out on it too. Right?

Female Reporter: So, do you have any regrets about publishing the article?

Roosh: None. None.

Female Reporter: Well, you added this was a thought experiment this week. Do you regret not adding that early on?

Roosh: I regret that people are so stupid that I have to put that in there right now. I never imagined that people would take that in a literal way to lie in order to push their miserable agenda. I never thought that you guys would lie about it. But now, because the masses believe the nonsense that you write, I have to treat everyone like an eight-year-old kid and say this was a thought experiment even though to anyone who is not an idiot should have known that.

Reporter: So why did you write it originally?

Roosh: Because I am a writer and I write things to make a point. That article was making a point about personal responsibility. That a woman’s safety is not only in the hands of men but it’s in their own hands too. That’s why. I guess that point didn’t get through, so on that account I did fail. I failed to give the point but that doesn’t mean that I did anything wrong. I did not.

Reporter: So a woman that got raped did something wrong.

Roosh: You know, if a woman got raped that is a sad thing. That is a bad thing. But whose fault is it? Is it the woman fault? No, I’m not saying that. But a woman can do things to reduce the likelihood that she will get hurt. If I get a BMW car right now and I leave the key inside and I park it in a bad area and it gets robbed. Whose fault is that? Is it the thief’s fault? Or is it my fault for being a moron?

Reporter: It’s the thief’s fault.

Roosh: Okay, but would you advise me to leave the key in there? Of course not! Only an idiot would. So okay, so I’ll go ahead and be an idiot but don’t be mad when her car gets stolen. Just do the right things to keep yourself safe. We can’t even tell people what to do anymore to keep themselves safe? That’s weird.

Reporter: When you say thought experiment, what was the thought experiment? What specifically?

Roosh: The thought experiment is that if the government wasn’t completely holding the hand of adult women every step of the way and telling them that nothing you can do is wrong, maybe they would do a little bit of a better job not incapacitating themselves with alcohol and drugs and meeting random guys on the Internet that they don’t know and going to his house to watch Netflix.

Reporter: But is this experiment just one blog post? Is it a website? Is it books?

Reporter 2: Can you just break down the lie? What I mean by that is can you break down the the crux of your article? Because some people here are unfamiliar, at least I am. I’m not from the Daily Mail.

Roosh: Can you read? I mean can you guys go. No, look guys, you want me to break it down. Read it!

Reporter: I mean how it got twisted by the media.

Roosh: The media said that the article said that this man wants to legalize rape. That was a lie.

Reporter: Okay, what part of your satirical argument that you’re making can you maybe understand that they took and turned it into that lie?

Roosh: Not honest. They were not honest and they knew it. The people who wrote that and said that the article is true, that that is a “pro-rape” article, they lied. That’s it. They are lying people. Most people in the media are liars.

Reporter: So you made a suggestion in this article which was what? Because I haven’t read it.

Roosh: Are you listening to what I’m saying, my friend? I’m telling you that I tried to make a point about personal responsibility. That’s what I did. Okay? You missed that point. Everyone here did. Some people got it.

Reporter: Is this like a multi-year point though? You been trying to do this for like four, five, six years. What about, like, Return of Kings?

Roosh: Okay, is there an article there that you don’t like? That you got offended by?

Reporter: Well, on the front page as soon as you get there one click away it gives you a list of articles to read on “Rape Culture” Was Manufactured To Wage An Unjust War Against Men.

Roosh: Bingo.

Reporter: The Equality Movement Is Allowing Women To Tyrannize Men. The Deregulation Of The Sexual Marketplace.

Roosh: Okay, you’re just reading headlines, man. Read the articles.

Reporter: Is this is part of your thought experiment?

Roosh: No, these articles are making a point. They provide evidence. They provide arguments. You’ve read it and you take from it what you want but don’t then go into your media outlet to lie about it.

Reporter: Is the satire something else?

Roosh: How to Stop Rape was a satirical article.

Reporter: Okay.

Roosh: These are not.

Female Reporter: So, you know the outrage isn’t only about that one article. A lot of people think that you’re writing about women in general being submissive and [bad audio]. It’s also offensive.

Roosh: I don’t care.

Female Reporter: Is that something that you believe?

Roosh: Do I believe that a woman should submit to a man? Yes. Does that mean that my family’s address should be put online because of that? And the media should stake out their home because of what I write? No. Using these lies to incite these idiots on the Internet? No.

Reporter: What’s your justification for believing that women should be submissive? That seems to be…

Roosh: I’m not here to argue why I believe what I do. Okay? You have to go online, I’ve been writing for years and years, if you really care about that go do your homework. I’m just here to talk about the events of the past week.

Reporter: I did read some of the things that you wrote and I’m curious and a lot of people here meeting you for the first time are curious to know where you…

Roosh: I really think that you guys don’t read things. You see, Caitlin will write something and you’re like “Okay, Caitlin’s article it’s getting hits so I’m going to copy and paste hers”. So it’s like a game. You guys are writing the same thing. I’m just try to understand what is happened. As you can see of been under a lot of stress from all this mob that is coming after me because of the things that you wrote that don’t conform to the real world. I don’t get it. And it’s clear to me that you guys haven’t done your research. You’re ready to write that this guy is pro-rape without knowing where that false idea comes from.

Female Reporter: Roosh, I have a question for you from the Bang books. So I obviously have done my research and there are several instances…

Roosh: I know. She has known about me.

Female Reporter: …There are several instances in the Bang books where you recount having sex with women who were too drunk or incapacitated to consent. Now people reading that would certainly come away with the impression that you raped those women.

Roosh: I don’t know anyone except for maybe you that thinks that and people who have lost their minds when it comes to consensual sex. People who don’t have any idea what girls are doing outside right now and what they will do in an hour or two once they get drunk and pick the guy that they like and let him do whatever he wants with her. So macho sex writing, to convert that to rape takes such a leap of faith that you have to be a liar to think that’s true.

Female Reporter: You literally say that they were too incapacitated to consent.

Roosh: Macho sex writing is not a court. It’s not a piece of evidence that you can… Maybe some things I wanted to come across as an aggressive guy. Maybe I did. But just because there doesn’t means that there is a victim out there and she suffered. Have I raped anyone? No.

Reporter: Is that fiction?

Roosh: No. It’s not. My interpretation of it may be, but she’s just taking quotes out of context anyway.

Reporter: You made a point that you have an office that overlooks a golf course. You made that clip about speed before is that true?

Roosh: Golf course?

Reporter: Yeah.

Roosh: I have no idea what you’re talking about. Golf course?

Reporter: Yes, you have an office that overlooks a golf course.

Roosh: I don’t remember ever saying that, man.

Reporter: You mentioned the immigrant agenda and the feminist agenda before. I’m trying to get a better idea of what your personal politics are.

Roosh: I would say that it’s anti-globalists which the Daily Beast represents a globalist type of platform.

Reporter: What do you mean by globalist?

Roosh: Anything that benefits the current top 1000 men in the world in the US and Europe. You have a globalists and you have the nationalists. I would lean more towards a nationalist. Tradition, patriarchy, local solutions instead of globalization.

Reporter: So does that mean you’re voting for?

Roosh: Donald Trump comes the closest to what I think is true.

Female Reporter: You express concern about your family after you were doxxed. Does that make you regret threatening to doxx reporters and protesters? Who…

Roosh: I never threatened that. I said I was going to make a list of the names and the social networking accounts. I never said I was going to share their address. That was another lie. Another lie is that I live with my mom. It’s like you guys can’t stop lying. A man can’t visit his mom? I wished I lived with her! But no, that was a lie. See now, I don’t think it’s a good idea to say it but I live somewhere in Europe. So I’m just here for a short time and I happen to be here and the Daily Mail… I have to say though they had a lens that was far away I was like what’s that over there and you see on the Internet it was right there so… There’s people outside my dad’s house now probably.

Female Reporter: You own that house then right?

Roosh: No, I don’t own the house.

Female Reporter: It’s registered in your name.

Roosh: Well, I don’t know how.

Female Reporter: So it’s not your house?

Roosh: It’s not my house. Okay let me stop that and start again. So I don’t want to stay here all night with you guys. I have other things that I have to do so were going to wrap this up at 8 o’clock. Cool?

Reporter: What else has happened these last couple of days? Did you get dozens of [bad audio]. Has your phone been ringing off the hook? Or your parents’ phone?

Roosh: You know, I think from a security standpoint it’s not smart to share that kind of stuff.

Reporter: Where do you office out of? Do you find yourself writing on the road?

Roosh: There’s a golf course that is outside of my office… No.

(Laughter)

Roosh: I’m mobile, so um. Office out of, I never heard that kind of phrase before (laughs) but Starbucks? You know?

Reporter: Can you confirm that you did have to upgrade the DDOS protection on the website after the threats?

Roosh: We already had it because my servers were attacked last year. So we already had the systems in place but they were sending 20 million false requests every hour.

Reporter: Actually 20 million?

Roosh: Yeah, that’s the actual number. This was on Tuesday. Monday and Tuesday. Once the Australian thing hit. Now I must say, when the Australia thing hit that was a lot of fun because those people were obsessed about me and I was telling them that I was to come in by boat. But then the shit kind of got real once it came here, you know? Having fun with them is good but when they announce your address and are advising people to go down that then it’s no longer fun.

Reporter: Would you say that media misinterpretation is the best thing that ever happened to you?

Roosh: The best and the worst. I mean what’s going to happen now? I’m going to be known, because of you, as a pro-rape advocate for the rest of my life until I die. Oh, that’s the guy that believes that all women should be raped. But at the same time they’re going to say that’s the guy. They’re going to know me. I could take a dump in a box right now and sell it because of you. So that’s what you have done to me. You have made me such a famous guy. I was a guy with the blog, just a guy with a blog, and you have taken me from here to this based on a lie. Now, I’d rather you had not done that but it happened and that is life right? So you’ve got to deal with what actually happens.

Reporter: Would you consider donating some of that money to a rape crisis center?

Roosh: (laughs) I mean I think that the fact that the entire mainstream is trying to stop rape and assault against women I think they’re doing fine. But if they want to donate money to me to help with the bodyguards that I have to hire right now then they are more than welcome to.

Reporter: How many bodyguards do you have around you right now?

Roosh: Unfortunately, I can’t share that right now but you can count which guys back there are kind of large, you know?

Reporter: So what are the plans for the next couple of days?

Roosh: The next couple of days is really, probably, to get out of town since it is a little bit hot right now. It’s not that I really think someone is going to come and stab me but it’s not smart to stay in the city where everyone knows where I am at. So I will probably go up or down the East Coast.

Reporter: How often do you return for your mom’s meatloaf?

Roosh: I come for the meatloaf once a year for like one month. And hey, you know, I like to stay with her. I wish I could stay more. I was trying to stay for a month but now, because of this, I had to say goodbye to her.

Reporter: Have you had any trouble traveling internationally yet and you expect it?

Roosh: No. I think England did not go ahead and say that I’m banned. I don’t think Australia will let me in now.

Reporter: Do you plan on trying to go to Australia?

Roosh: I don’t see why I would go there. Yep.

Female Reporter: What does your mom think about all this?

Roosh: My mom is angry. My mom is very angry.

Female Reporter: At you?

Roosh: Not at me. At you guys. She wants me to hit you guys back. Like you don’t understand a Middle Eastern mom, they get angry. I’m having to calm her down because she wants to fight. I’m saying Mom you gotta simmer down now. But no, she said son I support you, do what you gotta do, this is a matter of your speech and as long as you’re not doing anything illegal.

Reporter: What does she think of your treatment of women?

Roosh: Treatment of women? My mom doesn’t know. My mom doesn’t know how I make love to this girl or that girl. She knows who I am. She knows that whatever I write on the Internet and the monster that you have made me there that I have never hurt a woman. You would think by now, guys, that one girl would come forward and say “Yeah, Roosh did it, he raped me”. One, you would think. Not one has come forward. Not one. Even though I have been known everywhere. So how do you explain that? Not one. It is weird how a lie can get to this point in time. So I’m not sure what the function of the media is because if you’re just going to lie and when the public is really in threat like in Germany was. Women in Germany right now are in threat. You don’t protect them but you come against me, what are you doing?

Reporter: The media cover that pretty extensively. I can email you a bunch of…

Roosh: After the outrage came. From day one? No.

Reporter: That is absolutely not true.

Reporter: Back to what Caitlin was saying earlier, do you at least agree that, legally speaking, the technical legal definition that a woman is too drunk to consent to sex and you have sex with her, that is legally defined as rape. Can you at least…

Roosh: How about the man? If the man is drunk, can he consent to rape?

Reporter: We can talk about that in a moment.

Roosh: No, no. It’s the same thing.

Reporter: No, no, no, you’re not answering the question.

Roosh: You’re not going to tell me what is right and wrong.

Reporter: Okay, woman, man, whatever, that is a legal definition of rape. Do you disagree with the legal definition of rape?

Roosh: If a man is drunk and a woman has sex with him is it rape?

Reporter: Yes.

Female Reporter: It is not the legal definition of rape in many places though.

Reporter: In many places no…

Roosh: You’re trying to redefine the definition of consensual sex so that every man is on the hook for rape. That is what you’re trying to do. So no, I don’t agree with you.

Reporter: Do you believe Bill Cosby is a rapist?

Roosh: I haven’t seen all of the evidence but I think that it’s weird that 20 years after…

Reporter: If any of these women came back and said “Oh, Roosh did whatever”, here is somebody with a long history of…

Roosh: The evidence that I have seen is girls wanted to be with him and take drugs with him, and then 20 years after that say that he hurt them.

Reporter: So you don’t agree that that is a legal definition of rape?

Roosh: I don’t think that they are being honest.

Reporter: If they were?

Roosh: If they were, look man I’m not a lawyer. See this is where we are right now where the mainstream is so obsessed about rape. We don’t even know what consensual sex is anymore. This is what we have done. So no you’re coming after me for an article where, clearly, I didn’t intend for people to think that I want all rape to be legal. So we’ve lost our minds. From now on about sex, the United States is just gone. We don’t know what sex is anymore. We don’t know what consensual sex is anymore and that’s because of the work that you have done.

Reporter: How did this become your issue? We all have different issues we care about passionately, how did this become yours?

Roosh: It’s not my issue. I’ve written over 3000 articles and maybe 10 of them were about rape.

Reporter: [bad audio]

Roosh: Because when I was in college I want to learn how to make love to every attractive girl that I saw. So I needed to learn which skills that I had to do. Is there anyone that I have not called on yet because I’m trying to think of who is kind of quite. Why are you guys here then?

Reporter: Martha Stewart over there.

(Laughter)

Female Reporter: Um, are you happy?

(Laughter)

Roosh: That’s why we didn’t call on her. I mean happiness is what? Am I happy that people have the wrong impression of who I am? No! But am I happy that I’m probably going to cash in on this as long as I can survive the next couple days? Hey, you gave it to me, you gave me a package and now I will run with it. You can’t turn the clock back.

Reporter: How much have you made off of this in total?

Roosh: You know I have to get my accountant to really tally it. Has sales of books gone up? Yes. Has advertising sales gone up? Yes.

Reporter: What is your vision for the future for male-female relations?

Roosh: (laughs) Okay, well, what I’ve been trying to show on my website is that equality doesn’t work. I mean it doesn’t. If we have a divorce rate that is 50% or more, it doesn’t work. I think we have to go back to the days where the man leads the household. I think that’s the only way. But are we in the US? I don’t think so. I think there’s a couple of countries left where we can, maybe in Eastern Europe. The Muslim countries… You guys love Islam so I’m thinking that you guys would love… You guys give it a pass. They have a patriarchal system in the household. Do you get on them for that? In an Islamic marriage, there are some Muslim guys here, rape cannot happen during a marriage. Do you write about that? No.

Reporter: Yes.

Roosh: No you don’t.

Reporter: Yeah we do. I’ll send you a bunch of links on that.

Roosh: Please do, please do. And I’m going to read them carefully. But you guys give it a pass, you guys give Islam a pass for a patriarchal model that I write about but you come after me. Can we get something over here?

Female Reporter: She’s just my photographer.

Roosh: (Sighs)

Female Reporter: I am mostly here just to listen. Everyone else has mostly covered all the questions that I would’ve asked so.

Roosh: Ask anything.

Female Reporter: Why did you pick this hotel?

Roosh: I used to actually come here on dates. I used to bring dates here. This was back in 2000s. This was a place where I used to bring a date. We would sit on a couch upstairs and I would make my smooth moves on them here. This was 2005, 2006.

Reporter: Just to clarify something earlier, you were saying that Donald Trump was the closest. Besides the anti-PC stuff, what do you like about his 2016 campaign?

Roosh: He hates you guys too.

Reporter: Besides that.

Roosh: That’s enough for me. The enemy of my enemy is my friend.
Reporter: The media is not a political ideological position.

Roosh: Becoming anti-establishment is. You don’t understand, half you will be out of a job within five years time.

Reporter: So you like that he is nationalist and anti-establishment.

Roosh: And the reason is you’re not serving the needs of the public. You’re not. The establishment sites are losing views and I’m sure a lot of you have not seen your salaries increase in the way that you wanted. It’s because we don’t believe in the mainstream anymore. In this case, what you did to me is now showing the world what you guys do and how you operate.

Reporter: I didn’t do anything to you…

Female Reporter: Why did you end up canceling all the meetings? Because a lot of them weren’t going to be protested right?

Roosh: A lot of them were. I would say at least half of them. This news made it to Russia.

Female Reporter: [bad audio]

Roosh: Who said they’re not? You know, a mistake that I made was saying lets let these masculine, strong men organize, who hate the government, probably, and meet. That was kinda dumb. Because this could be a threat against us. So if we have to go underground, I’ll go underground. We never had a goal where we had to do everything in public.

Reporter: If you and the people who follow your website closely are so strong, why do it in secret?

Roosh: Are you going to go to a meeting where the cops are on you?

Reporter: I have before.

Roosh: I don’t like this guy. I mean he’s just being argumentative.

Female Reporter: Was there supposed to be a public component at all to these meetings?

Roosh: No, it was just the most efficient way to organize people who like me and who like my site. Hey guys, just meet here at this time.

Female Reporter: They were not planning on doing anything there. They were just going to hang out, right?

Roosh: No, okay, I’m going to tell you. There were going to meet at that point and say where’s the Pet Shop? It’s right here. Okay, hey cool, what your name? Where are you from? There’s a bar over here let’s go for a drink. That was it! That was it and then the worldwide anger came.

Reporter: But again if they’re strong, masculine, brave, why the subterfuge?

Roosh: Because you have angered a mob that wants to disrupt their meeting because you have gotten governments against them by lying about their intention. Now the world thinks that they’re going to meet to rape people. So why are they going to meet now? Do you think it’s smart to go and meet now? After that? You would go to a meeting where everyone is targeting you as a potential person who is going to rape. That’s what you would do? Of course not! You don’t seem like the type that would stand up to someone who is coming against you. I mean, do you lift? You don’t lift.

Reporter: No, I don’t.

Roosh: I do lift but I lost some weight. I’m just saying, like, this guy is saying go into the fire. Who is going to do that? That’s absurd! This is where all these absurd ideas come from, from you guys. It doesn’t make any sense! It doesn’t make any sense. (sighs) So we got five more minutes.

Reporter: Do you feel that leaving town or having bodyguards takes away from your masculinity?

Roosh: No! If your life is in danger, no. If you want to stand up and fight and get into a confrontation, that’s fine, but right now the heat is on my mom and dad so me leaving is going to take the heat away. So I am considering them in the actions that I do. Last summer I had two speeches in Montréal and Toronto and the same anger came. What did I do? I stood there. Why? Because my family was not in danger. They didn’t post their address. For the record, I held the speeches even though the mayors came out against me but now it’s not worth a public happy hour to go against the police, governors, mayors, and all that stuff and put the safety and privacy of the men who follow me… I can’t toss them into that. I can toss myself into that. I can hire a bodyguard. I can go out right now and drink (which I will) but I’m not going to put them in danger. That would be like just looking out for me instead of the men who trust the things that I do.

Female Reporter: How many men would you say those are?

Roosh: It’s hard to say, but based on the site traffic that I get for Return of Kings, I get one million uniques each month. Out of the hard-core people who really follow me it could be as high as 200,000.

Female Reporter: And how many of them were you expecting to go to these meetups around the world?

Roosh: There’s no way to know because it was just show up. Okay, so we got time for one more.

Reporter: How many women have you been with?

Roosh: (sighs) A lot. I have been with a lot, but that’s not relevant to the current matter at hand. But thank you. Thank you all for coming. I expect more lies in your articles that are going to come up but I just wanted to do this to show what the truth is. Okay? So have a good night.

Super Bowl L

Let’s revisit what I said on Championship Weekend:

New School NFL over Old School NFL for the 50th Anniversary Super Bowl,
thereby symbolically denoting the transformation of America into the New
America. Predictive programming calls for Carolina.

It’s Peyton’s Last Ride rather than the Dynamic Duo’s Last Hurrah, but the symbolic narrative remains the same. Ergo, Carolina.

This happens to be supported by the football analysis: great defense plus good offense beats great defense plus mediocre offense. Considering that Denver couldn’t beat Seattle when Peyton Manning was just as wily but his arm was still good, I don’t see how Denver is going to beat Carolina.

I expect a reasonably comfortable Carolina win, and because I am an old school NFC fan, I would welcome that. But regardless, this is your Super Bowl 50 thread.

Mailvox: a woman’s take on female suffrage

It’s nice to see a woman actually reflect upon the issue rather than reacting emotionally to it. Ironically, only women who could most likely be trusted with the vote are able to do so. I’ve yet to run into a woman who is able to even try to defend female suffrage on any basis beyond a) personal feelings, b) “fairness”, and c) an appeal to the Unicorn of Equality.

I read “Mailvox: Stampeding the Sheep” with great interest.  The first time I ever heard someone suggest that women should not vote was my mother when I was a child.  I am 47 years old so it was some years ago.  The second time I heard this was from you.  I use to think my mom was just nuts, but her words left me wondering.  Here’s why:

  • Invincible:  I believed I could do everything a man could.  I graduated from the United States Air Force Academy, served as an intel and targeting officer for 7 years before realizing my true vocation was wife and mother.  Although my mom despised women in general, she hated the idea that I married (right after graduating) and started to have kids.  She was terrified I would be completely dependent on a man like she was.  Why is this important?  Simply because the feminists have ingrained in my generation a complete (and unreasonable) fear of male dominance.
  • Vote:  Why should women not vote?  I thought about this for years.  I consider myself more intelligent, more politically astute, and more educated/well-read than most men.  However, that does not outweigh one important limitation:  emotion.  This is what you brought up in your post.  Unlike men, women must be TAUGHT not to act on their emotions.  For us, this is an immediate response to whatever happens around us (perhaps this is one of the reasons we immediately bond with our babies so it’s not a bad thing if used correctly).  Men, on the other hand, hold back their emotions, but if they do not eventually act, they explode.  My experience tells me women explode immediately without thought and men explode later with thought.  Most women vote because of how they FEEL.  Bad move.  It has destroyed our societies and made us completely dependent on government.
  • Need: Women also have an innate need to be cared for, protected, and loved.  This is why the male European inaction regarding the Muslim invasion is so appalling.  The problem is the Baby Boomers are responsible for two generations (Gen X and the Millennials) that are incapable of doing anything (Yes, I blame the Baby Boomers, but I also blame the so called Greatest Generation who coddled, spoiled, and raised them).  Women just replaced their men with a colder, harsher, less faithful spouse, the government.  Unfortunately, while men are neutered, women think they are Black Widow.
  • Black Widow:  I really believed I could be as strong, as fast, and as fierce as any man.  I just had to work hard.  Why?  Because the feminists who indoctrinated me said so.  I’m ex military, dabbled in martial arts, love cross-fit, and keep a personal trainer.  No matter what I try to do physically, I CANNOT compete with a man (OK, I can compete with the young teenage boys).  The only thing that evens out this playing field is a gun (arm up feminists because men aren’t going to help you).  The feminists set their little darling daughters up for complete failure.  We could not compete in this way, but our mom’s insisted our self-worth must be measured against a man’s.  What did that mean?  ALL women are failures by this standard.  That reality hit me hard because it meant women are useless (this kind of supports the Muslim teachings doesn’t it?  Thanks, feminists.  No wonder you are silent with Islamic FGM)
  • Baby Making:  Yep.  This is what completes a woman.  It is not to say that some women cannot succeed in careers.  Many have exceptional skills and should pursue their God given talent.  However, the feminists told us making babies is for stupid women (you know, the surrogates they pay to have their babies for them).  That’s NOT true.  The first time I felt that I actually accomplished something, was the day I first held my daughter. 
  • Men:  My fear of only men having the vote was unfounded.  My man would NEVER vote against his family’s best interest.  Neither would any man I know.  There is a trade off, however.  Men, you need to man up and demand your rights.  That means putting women in their place which, according to my Catholic teaching, is above you. This is what distinguishes the Christian West from the rest of the world.  As life-bearers, women continue life, nurture it, and sustain it.  We pass on culture, tradition, and history.  This is why Islam cannot coincide with Christians:  they hate, despise, and denigrate women.  I believe the primary reason the Islamic world is such a hellhole is because the proper role of women was annihilated.  Well, the West has also harmed the proper role of women, just not to the same degree as Islam (Islam also has the benefit of more than 1000 years to make their brain damage permanent).  Men must reassert their proper place and women need to climb back onto their pedestal. 

I have so much more to say, but I am grateful if you read this.  Mr. Day, you are right and if more men stand up, women will be much happier.  Most of my generation don’t even know what happened because we never saw what the Baby Boomers had (their moms in their proper and much happier roles in the home).  I’ve seen both sides of this issue.  The feminists built a very dark place for their daughters.  Will we recognize what they did before it comes crashing down?  I doubt it.  Perhaps Islam will open women’s eyes to what they have and thank God everyday for Christianity.  If we want men to protect us, we cannot vote against them.  They alone must have this power.

The reality is that female suffrage can only be eliminated through despotism, most likely of the sort that comes about through societal collapse. The one possible non-catastrophic solution, which is probably already too late now that Obama and Mutti Merkel have combined to unleash a Muslim invasion of the West, is direct democracy.

And that is why I am an advocate of direct democracy with full female suffrage: it is both possible as well as an improvement on a system that is clearly incompatible with societal survival and Western civilization.

Bring the 3rd World, become the 3rd World

Western civilization is contracting before our eyes in France:

From the air it appears as an urban sprawl, fanning in all directions, gobbling up every available scrap of land.

With its schools, theatre, nightclub, shops and restaurants, the migrants’ camp known as the Jungle has now become a thriving Calais suburb, albeit a ramshackle one.

As our aerial pictures show, the camp on the edge of the French port has expanded beyond recognition in six months.

Last summer it was home to about 3,000 people awaiting their chance of a new life across the Channel in the UK. Now its population, made up of 22 nationalities, edges towards 7,000. But while there are some vestiges of basic infrastructure, conditions in the camp remain dangerous and unsanitary.

Civilization is not land or buildings. It is not technology or infrastructure. It is people. The Greeks understood this. The Romans understood this. Import enough uncivilized people, allow enough barbarians entry, and your society will become uncivilized.

This doesn’t mean civilization is dying, as some would have it. Such barbarization is not merely reversible, it is easily reversed. It merely requires changing the authorities that presently rule the West, which will happen. The only question is when.

And before any Americans complacently predict the end of France, I suggest having a look at what southern and central California look like now, or reading Victor Davis Hanson’s mournful dirges for the land of his youth.

Roosh’s press conference

Roosh prison-rapes the media at his press conference.

Roosh: “What happened in Cologne on New Years Eve? What happened in Cologne? Who can tell me what happened there?”

Media: silence

Roosh: “When a real rape happens, that goes against the agenda of your boss, you guys hide it.”

Media: silence

Roosh: “Not only are you guys not honest… when real harm takes place, you guys don’t say anything. And that is not fair. That is not right.”

Let me know when a transcript is available and I’ll put it up here in its entirety.

Reporter: Do you consider yourself a victim in this scenario?

Roosh: No…. but if you did something wrong, I get to call you out on it.

The curation challenge

This is an excellent article that underlines the importance of what we are presently doing with Castalia House and REDACTED. It’s not about production or distribution anymore, but curation. And while the SJWs in possession of the cultural high ground understand this, they fortunately do not understand how to properly utilize it in a manner that will permit them to hold onto it.

For thousands of years, media was a privilege of the elite, concentrated in cities and confined to a single moment in time. With Edison’s phonograph, music had become non-rivalrous, infinitely replicable and indefinite. Yes, it took decades until the average family could afford a record player or radio, but the dawn of democratized consumption had arrived.

Unfortunately, however, this same trend led to an ossification in content creation and distribution. Records, after all, cost money. Production was expensive – as was distribution, marketing and promotion. So expensive, in fact, that almost every artist lacked the capital required to actually release their music – a need that paved the way for record labels (or TV studios, film studios, publishers etc.) that would finance said efforts in exchange for hefty royalty fees and content rights. These money men though wouldn’t and couldn’t afford to invest in every artist with a dream. Given the upfront cost of talent development and distribution, labels invested in “Arts & Repertoire” men, whose job it was to sift through countless musicians in order to identify the select few with “commercial viability”. Potential artists were then further cut down in number when it came time to actually distributing their content – and then again via marketing/promotional support. Underlying this fact was an unavoidable truth: content publishers had scale-related disincentives to support more than a handful of artists. Why record, distribute, market and promote 15 albums if you can achieve the same unit sales with 10?

Though this system was far from ideal, it was the inevitable outcome of a market in which talent was abundant, capital limited, distribution bandwidth (e.g. shelf-space, broadcast spectrum, print layouts) scarce, barriers high, and the cost of failure significant. But as a result, the content industry slowly shaped itself around a mysterious cabal of financiers and executive tastemakers that essentially programmed the national media identity. And anyone who wanted in had to move to New York, LA or Nashville, pay their dues and hope to work their way up until they could call the shots.

Of course, the music business was far from alone. The more expensive the medium, the more constrained the supply, the smaller the community and more homogenous the content. Local disc jockeys, newspapers and TV affiliates did have the opportunity to repackage and reprogram – to imprint their personality or take, if you will – but this was limited in scope, drew upon only the content that was already distributed, had to fit within an existing corporate identity and, again, depended on access to capital or infrastructure.

Over time, however, technology did what it does best: production costs fell, quality went up and distribution bandwidth increased. Economics, in turn, improved, as did the industry’s carrying capacity – the number of artists, titles, and pieces of content that could be supported. The media business was beginning to loosen up.

But it took until the late 2000s – more than a century after the phonograph – for creation and distribution to truly democratize. With the Internet, distribution became free and truly non-rival (if a bit non-excludable), while the proliferation of low-cost media equipment, mobile devices, and powerful editing software dramatically lowered the costs of production. The rise of creator-based consumption platforms and crowd-funding platforms, meanwhile, eliminated many of the remaining barriers hindering independent content creation. This meant that content could not only be created by those outside the business, but that commercializing this content became significantly less expensive and risky. This led to a massive increase in available, indexed and distributed content.

While the media business benefited from many of these changes, the consequences have been fundamentally destabilizing. The television industry has experienced such a surge in original content that annual cancellation rates have quintupled over the past 15 years (twice as many original scripted series were cancelled last year than even aired in 2000). Since 1985, the indie film industry has seen a nearly twentyfold increase in the number of theatrical releases even though ticket sales have remained flat (in 2014, the Head of SXSW’s film festival decried that “the impulse to make a film had far outrun the impulse to go out and watch one”). Plummeting music sales and unprecedented competition have made launching a new artist so expensive that catalogue sales now make up more than 200% of major label profits (in 2014, David Goldberg privately encouraged Sony Entertainment CEO Michael Lynton to essentially halt A&R efforts, as well as investments in actually making new music). With the democratization of media creation, it’s easier than ever to make content but harder than ever to make a hit.

Ironically, the increasing difficulty in creating hits has not bolstered the “hit maker” system but rather further weakened it instead. In 2013, Macklemore became the first unsigned artist since 1994 to have a number-one single in the United States – a feat he repeated just three months later. Mega-star Taylor Swift has been with an independent label since her debut album and multi-platinum groups such as The Eagles and Radiohead have left the majors to start their own. The struggles of print publishing are well-known, but the uniqueness of some of “print’s” recent successes are worth mentioning. The 50 Shades of Grey trilogy, which has outsold The Harry Potter septet on Amazon in the United Kingdom and made author E.L. James 2012’s highest-earning author, became a viral hit on FanFiction.net long before it was picked up in print (and it’s unlikely a publisher would have bought the rights upfront). Andy Weir’s The Martian is another self-publishing success story.

This metamorphosis is about far more than ever increasing amounts of content and a handful of stars existing outside the traditional media ecosystem. The entire media business is inverting. For decades, scarce capital and constrained distribution capacity meant that the media’s industry bottlenecks sat in the middle of the value chain. Today, however, the bottleneck has moved to the very end: consumer attention. This shifts the balance of power from determining what should be made to finding a way to convince people what to watch, listen to or read in a world of infinitely abundant content.

The preeminence of this challenge has given to the rise of a new type of aggregator-distributor, including news content sites like Gawker, the Huffington Post and BuzzFeed; video and music aggregation services like Netflix, YouTube and Pandora; and even physical products subscription offerings like Birchbox and Lootcrate. What’s more, it enabled the major social networks to use their customer data to build massive stickiness, launch their own publishing platforms and become traffic kingmakers. More broadly, this shift has swung the balance of power from programmers with the ability to greenlight content to curators with the ability to get that content heard, seen or read. Of course, the old programming and financing guard remain important, but with the democratization of production and the explosion of content creation, the power of 1st party programming is quickly being eclipsed by the ascendance of 3rd party content curation. The gatekeepers are still manning their posts, but the city outgrew the walls and the barbarians circumvented the gates entirely.

Content is still king, but distribution is no longer the gate at which the gatekeepers can control it. That doesn’t mean there will be no more gates or gatekeepers, but content will now be influenced rather than controlled, and the influencers will be different people with very different skill sets.

It’s easy to produce content now. It’s easy to distribute now too. But how do you reach the consumers, let them know your content exists, and convince them to try it instead of the myriad other options? That’s the curation challenge.