Why listen to TED Talks?

When you can be exposed to the ideas they’ll be discussing years in advance by reading my columns and this blog.

“How do we make sense of today’s political divisions? In a wide-ranging conversation full of insight, historian Yuval Harari places our current turmoil in a broader context, against the ongoing disruption of our technology, climate, media — even our notion of what humanity is for. This is the first of a series of TED Dialogues, seeking a thoughtful response to escalating political divisiveness. Make time (just over an hour) for this fascinating discussion between Harari and TED curator Chris Anderson.”

“I think the basic thing that happened is we have lost our story. Humans think in stories and we try to make sense of the world by telling stories,” the historian said. “And for the last few decades we had a very simple and very attractive story about what was happening in the world. And the story said that the economy is being globalized, politics is being liberalized, and the combination of the two will create paradise on earth. And we just need to keep globalizing the economy and liberalizing the political system, and everything will be wonderful.”

“2016 is when a very large segment of the Western world stopped believing in this story,” he said. “For good or bad reason it doesn’t matter, people stopped believing the story, and when you don’t have a story it is hard to understand what is happening.”

“The old 20th century political model of left vs. right is now basically irrelevant and the real divide today is between global and national, global or local. All over the world this is not the main struggle.”

Such amazing insight, such as the idea that global government might be more akin to China than Denmark! How very fascinating! I’ve never paid any attention to TED for just this reason; it’s third-rate pop intellectualism marketed to pseudo-intellectuals to make them feel smart. The amazing thing is that it has taken them this long to begin suspecting that Fukuyama might have been wrong. And they still haven’t figured out that Huntington, and Powell, and Wallace et al were right.

Out of curiosity, I did a search on “globalism” in my latest book, the first volume in the trilogy of my collected columns, and this was the first one that came up.

From The Collected Columns Vol. I, Innocence & Intellect, 2001-2005


One world… one big, bloody problem
February 4, 2002

It’s not hard to understand why globalism is so persistently seductive to people of genuinely good intent. Long a staple of hack science fiction writers and the producers of Saturday-morning cartoons, the notion of one central and benevolent government for all humanity appears like a light shining in the darkness of a world that is still wracked by warfare, terrorism, famine and disease despite the past century’s incredible advances in technology.

Of course, it was pointed out several thousand years ago that the road to Hell is paved with good intentions.

In fact, if humanity’s past record is a reasonable guide, globalism may represent the single deadliest threat to mankind in our long, murderous history. The Economist has reported that in the last century, more people died at the hands of their own governments than in all the wars and civil wars combined—170 million deaths vs. 37 million. However, the implications of this fact for global governance have not often been considered.

Supporters of globalism are optimistic that under the aegis of a single government, the world will experience peace, one way or another. But even if we put aside the questionable notion of an enforced peace, which the Balkan conflict demonstrated is merely a matter of putting off today’s violence for tomorrow, it must be understood that an end to war is not synonymous with an end to violence and bloodshed.

Just as soldiers going into battle for the first time tend to think in terms of what they will do to the enemy instead of what the enemy will do to them, globalists envision one-world governance as an efficient means of imposing their views on others. This is why political activists of nearly every stripe tend to embrace globalist institutions even if they oppose a specific aspect of globalism. Thus the radical environmentalist who protests the World Economic Forum nevertheless supports the Kyoto Treaty on global warming.

But there is no guarantee that a one-world government will respect the laws, customs, and institutions of the traditional freedom-loving West. Indeed, the institutions which are most deeply enmeshed in the globalist movement show strong signs that it will instead imitate the autocratic habits of its intellectual predecessors. For example, the U.N.’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights states in Article 29, section 3, that:

These rights and freedoms may in no case be exercised contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.

Jawohl, Reichsfuhrer Annan! Consider also the possibility that a coalition of Arab and African states might take control of the global government in the same way they’ve been able to exert undue influence over the U.N. General Assembly. Then everyone could enjoy the religious freedom enjoyed by Jews and Christians living in Saudi Arabia and the Sudan .

Unfortunately, that’s far from the worst possibility. Two of the governments responsible for the worst civilian massacres in history, Russia and China, boasting 62 million and 37 million murders, respectively, hold permanent seats on the U.N. Security Council. And for those who argue that Russia isn’t the same government as the Soviet Union, I have only one thing to say: If they’re not, then what is Russia doing on the Security Council?

Even in medieval times, intelligent people understood that the fact that one king was a wise and benevolent ruler didn’t mean the next one wouldn’t be a complete psychopath. For those of you without historical reference, I’m talking about a situation like the one depicted in the movie “Gladiator,” wherein Emperor Marcus Aurelius was succeeded by his son Commodus. The peril of central power is why America’s founding fathers decided to ditch the whole concept and did their best to break it up, scattering it as far and as wide throughout the land as possible.

Regardless of how global governance is implemented, it is sure to attract every evil, power-seeking individual and organization like pedophiles to a public schoolyard. The intrigues and conspiracies will make Byzantium’s internecine power struggles look like a student-council debate by comparison. Every would-be Hitler, Lenin, Mao and Mugabe will be converging on a single institution, and the most ruthless of them will be the winner.

The National Socialists had a saying that still sounds ominous now, 50 years later. “Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Fuhrer!” One world, one government may not sound so scary yet, but it should. Because one thing is certain. Totalitarian government doesn’t improve with size.

SOMEWHITHER now in audio!

The 2016 Dragon Award-winner for Best Science Fiction Novel, Somewhither is the first part of A Tale of the Unwithering Realm, a new science-fantasy series from science-fiction master John C. Wright. It is an adventure, it is a romance, and it is a coming-of-age story of a young man who is not a man, in a world that is only one among many. It is a tale of a greater and darker evil with longer reach than anything he could imagine, of despair without bounds, of pain beyond measure, and of the faith required to surmount all three. It is a story of inexorable destiny written in the stars and the stubborn courage that is required to defy it.

Ilya Muromets is a big, ugly, motherless boy who does not look like anyone else in his Oregon town. His father is often absent on mysterious Church missionary work that involves silver bullets, sacred lances, and black helicopters. Ilya works as a janitor for Professor Achitophel Dreadful of the Cryptozoological Museum of Scientific Curiosities, and he has a hopeless crush on the Professor’s daughter, Penelope, who pays him little attention and appears to be under the impression that his name is Marmoset.

One night, when Professor Dreadful escapes from the asylum to which he has been temporarily committed, he sends a warning to Ilya that not only is his Many Worlds theory correct, but those many worlds are dominated by an unthinkably powerful enemy determined to destroy anyone who opens the Moebius Ring between the worlds. And, as it happens, prior to his involuntary absence, the Professor left his transdimensional equipment in the basement of the Museum plugged-in and running….

So it is that Ilya, as he has secretly dreamed, is called upon to save the mad scientist’s beautiful daughter. With his squirrel gun, his grandfather’s sword, and his father’s crucifix, Ilya races to save the girl, and, incidentally, the world.

Narrated by Jon Mollison, Somewhither, The Unwithering Realm, Book One is 22 hours and 9 minutes long.

Mailvox: on balkanization

An informative email from someone who witnessed the most recent Balkan wars from the front row:

I am writing you because whenever somebody talks about war in Yugoslavia or I hear balkanization, I think people misuse the term. So I would like to tell my view on the subject. I am a Croat, and I was a teenager during the war.

Balkan and balkanization as a term is specific of its geography where there are lots of small valleys, and a history of Ottoman rule, which together produced clannish behavior in Balkans. Croatia has roughly third of the country that can be considered balkanized and Bosnia and Hercegovina is epitome of the term. Thus war in Croatia was regular army vs clans in valleys, and war in Bosnia was clans free for all. Clans were excellent in defending their valleys (knowledge of the terrain and faith in fellow clansmen) against other clansmen. Croatian regulars which started with no weapons, when armed easily defeated clan-people in full frontal attack over wide front. Bosnia was a mess where Croats owned half of the land (17% of people) and were supplied from Croatia, Serbs (31%) had the most guns but little land and Muslims had 43% of the people and lived in cities and near a river bordering Serbia. Since you cannot hold occupied territory without removing original inhabitants, Serbs cleared Croats from north of the Bosnia and Muslims from the river bordering Serbia and populate those areas with Serbs who fled from Croatia.

Two main things influenced Balkans: geography and Ottoman rule. Geography is very important because most of the Balkans consists of small valleys trapped by high mountains. Ottoman ruled over most of Balkans for some 300 years. Ottoman reach can be roughly correlated with Hajal line. This had consequences on characteristics of its people. Geography and Ottoman rule made people clannish, i.e. most important allegiance was to 5-20 thousands people who live in the valley. Funny enough these people referred to each other as “zemljaci”, derivative of “zemlja” which means both country and soil. Up until WWII there was not a lot of movement between areas so these characteristics were preserved.

After WWII Yugoslavia embraced a toned down form of socialism and government companies and government itself grew at accelerated pace. Clannish behavior demands that if somebody of the clan gets any managerial position he is required to employ its “zemljaci” foremost. Since this was going on for some 40 years most of the people in the police, military, and other government positions were from the other side of the Hajal line. The problem was clearly evident in Croatia because roughly the third of Croatia is east of Hajal line and most of those people were Serbs (in numbers Serbs were 12% in Croatia and majority in the areas east of Hajal line). It was no wonder that Serbs participated in police and government disproportionally to their population. When socialism fell these Serbs rightly thought that if Croatia gained independence their share in government will be reduced to their population share. Sprinkle a little incentive from Milošević and support from Yugoslav army and you have a recipe for a war.

War in Croatia was vastly different than war in Bosnia. Croatia was a functioning, Catholic, almost western country albeit without any armament (one year before the fall of socialism, Croatian government gave up its weapons to Yugoslav army, as opposed to Slovenia whose socialist leaders were not traitors). Serbs were 12% of population but in defendable valleys with ample weapons and ammunition. It took several years for Croatia to rearm itself and take over Serb-controlled areas. In the final battle, evacuation corridors were established so all Serbs that felt the need to flee can leave. Proportion of Serbs in Croatia went down from 12% to 5%. After siege of Vukovar and Dubrovnik the end result was never in question, only question was will reintegration be peacefully or not.

Siege of Dubrovnik is excellent example of the war. It was a turning point in the war after which Serbs never won another battle. The crucial battle was battle for Srđ, which was a battle for a Napoleon fort overlooking Dubrovnik. Numbers are interesting: there were 880 people defending Dubrovnik (some 50 000 civilians), forces in siege had 30 000 people and 100 tanks (hard terrain meant the tanks were of no use, and most of the soldiers were forced recruits). Actual battle for the fort started on Dec 6, 1991. 600 people and two tanks were stationed to attack the fort, but only 40 soldiers of the Yugoslav army special forces were directly involved in fighting. 42 people defended the fort. After a lot of artillery on the fort, two groups advanced to the fort. The advancing tanks were quickly neutralized, but after some fighting fort was overrun, defenders were out of bullets so a broken arrow order was given. After artillery died down defenders started to sing patriotic songs so attackers were in disarray, several wounded, without knowing who shot the mortar on them. Attack was broken and attackers retreated. Fort was resupplied by carrying ammo up the 600m hill on foot and the battle was over at sunset.

War in Bosnia was different because, especially in the beginning, there were not a lot of official armies and usually there were no established frontline but each valley established paramilitary and defended itself. This is very consistent with clan theory and defenders were very efficient in defending their valleys, because they knew the terrain, they trusted their flanks, and if they did not defend they would be slaughtered like in Srebrenica valley. When it was evident that the war in Croatia was over USA gave a go-ahead to defeat Srbs in Bosnia as well, but then stopped the attack after Croatian army swept some 40km of territory in one day, fearing flight of all Serbs from Bosnia.

Key takeaways: The number of soldiers in active fighting was low on any side. Clans are best in defending their territory but ineffective in attack. If you occupy a territory you cannot hold it unless people originally there leave or die. Trust that your flanks won’t desert their position is crucial, which would mean that homogeneous nation is essential for a successful recruit army, especially for defense.

We can draw a parallel with western Europe where ghettos can be equated to valleys and people in ghettos show similar characteristics to clansmen. Croatian victory shows the path, coordinated attack on all valleys at once and established corridors for retreat of the civilians.

The path of truth

An observation on Gab

voxday is fiercely loyal to people. But there is something else. He has an almost uncanny ability to sense who is seeking the path of righteousness, even if it is not superficially apparent from their behavior. Roosh has taken a far more spiritual path of late. Milo clearly wants to change.
Samuel Nock

There is really nothing uncanny about it. Most people tend to look at others where they were, and judge them by things they have done in the past, even in the distant past. That is why the Left constantly digs through long-forgotten personal histories in seeking to discredit people; to them, you will forever be whatever the worst interpretation of the worst thing you have ever done or said is. That this is patently absurd, of course, is irrelevant to them. They care nothing for the truth, they only seek to destroy. They are little satans, accusers in service to the Great Accuser.

But they are not alone. Petty people always insist on trying to force people into the box of their past. They cannot conceive of change, of personal growth, or personal improvement, and they hate it when others make them feel as if their understanding of the world is incorrect. They will never stop trying to remind even the most successful, most transformed individual of his less impressive past.

Fewer people look at others where they are. And fewer still look at the trend line formed by what a man was to who he is now, thereby providing a glimpse of what he may one day become. The man I am today is very different than the arrogant young man with a record contract whose primary interests were girls, music, and video games. The writer I am today is very different than the author of Rebel Moon and the generic, obvious-twist-at-the-end short story that was rejected by Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine.

The individuals I appreciate most are those who seek after the truth, even when they find it uncomfortable or personally distasteful. I am far more comfortable with the seekers than with those who are convinced that they have arrived at the final one true understanding of God, Man, the universe, and everything, whether it is the Catholic Church, the Bible, or Science that provides them with the basis for their baseless confidence.

I prefer those who know they see as though through a glass, darkly, probably because they are the only people who are not hopelessly self-deluded who also possess the courage to reject the despair of the nihilist.

Not everyone who walks the hard and narrow path of truth is, or will become, a Christian, but it is a path that eventually leads to Jesus Christ all the same.

The threat to free speech

While Milogate has dominated the news, the flamboyant ex-Breitbart editor is far from the only observer concerned about the future of free speech across the West. Military historian and Castalia House author Martin van Creveld has observed as much as well:

Freedom of speech is in trouble—and the only ones who do not know it are those who will soon find out. The idea of free speech is a recent one. It first emerged during the eighteenth century when Voltaire, the great French writer, said that while he might not agree with someone’s ideas he would fight to the utmost to protect that person’s right to express them. Like Assange and Snowden Voltaire paid the penalty, spending time in jail for his pains. Later, to prevent a recurrence, he went to live at Frenay, just a few hundred yards from Geneva. There he had a team or horses ready to carry him across the border should the need arise. Good for him.

To return to modern times, this is not the place to trace the stages by which freedom of speech was hemmed in in any detail. Looking back, it all started during the second half of the 1960s when it was forbidden to say, or think, or believe, that first blacks, then women, then gays, then transgender people, might in some ways be different from others. As time went on this prohibition came to be known as political correctness. Like an inkstain it spread, covering more and more domains and polluting them. This has now been carried to the point where anything that may offend anyone in some way is banned—with the result that, as Alan Bloom in The Closing of the American Mind has shown, in many fields it has become almost impossible to say anything at all.

Let me give you just one example of what I mean. Years ago, at my alma mater in Jerusalem, I taught a course on military history. The class consisted of foreign, mostly American, students. At one point I used the germ Gook. No sooner had the word left my mouth than a student rose and, accused me of racism. I did my best to explain that, by deliberately using the term, I did not mean to imply that, in my view, the Vietnamese were in any way inferior. To the contrary, I meant to express my admiration for them for having defeated the Americans who did think so. To no avail, of course.

And so it goes. When the Internet first appeared on the scene I, along with a great many other people, assumed that any attempt to limit freedom of speech had now been definitely defeated. Instead, the opposite is beginning to happen. Techniques such as “data mining” made their appearance, allowing anything anyone said about anything to be instantly monitored and recorded, forever. All over Europe, the thought police is in the process of being established. Sometimes it is corporations such as Facebook which, on pain of government intervention, are told to “clean up” their act by suppressing all kinds of speech or, at the very least, marking it as “offensive,” “untrue,” and “fake.” In others it is the governments themselves that take the bit between their teeth.

When people as diverse as Roosh, Milo, and MvC are speaking out about the danger to free speech, you can be certain that it is a serious problem. And, of course, this threat is only one aspect of the larger, existential threat to Western civilization itself.

On a related note, a visual guide to how social justice warriors coopt organizations and communities.

The return of Walt Ames

Just to take a break from all the political drama, Peter Grant offers an excerpt from his forthcoming Western, the sequel to Brings the Lightning:

Walt was interrupted as the batwing doors slammed back, and a big, burly man stalked through them. His gait was unsteady, as if he’d already had more than a few drinks and was feeling their effects. He was dark-haired, with a big, bushy beard. His grubby, stained checkered shirt was tucked into black trousers that fell to mud-stained boots. A revolver was holstered at his right side, balanced by a long-bladed knife on his left. He was followed by what looked like a younger version of himself, dressed and armed in the same style, also not very steady on his feet.
    Rosa hissed in anger, and started forward. The men at the bar looked around, then backed hurriedly away from the new arrivals as the bartender lowered his hands out of sight behind it.
    Walt pushed back his chair, and murmured to Isom, “Stand by for trouble.”
    “Got it.” Isom gently moved his chair back as well, to give himself room to move.
    Rosa stepped in front of the burly man, arms akimbo, fists clenched. “I told you not to come back here, Señor Furlong!”
    “Aw, shaddup, Rosa!” the man slurred, trying to focus his drink-sodden eyes on her. “I gotta wait here in town for a reply to a telegraph message, an’ I want someone to keep me warm ’till then. Here – I’ll pay.” He fumbled in his pocket.
    Rosa exploded with rage. “You hurt my girl last time! She couldn’t work for two weeks! No more of them for you! You get out of here, and take your son with you!”
    “Aw, you’re cute when you’re angry. Maybe I’ll take you tonight instead!” Bart’s hand shot out and grabbed her right breast, squeezing. Rosa’s eyes bugged out and she yelled in pain, pulling back, trying to free herself.
    The bartender lifted his hands above the bar. They were holding a sawn-off double-barreled shotgun. He began to swing it into line, but Walt was faster. He threw himself forward, drawing his right-hand revolver, lifting it, then chopping down with vicious force, clubbing Bart over the head with the butt of the gun. The man collapsed as if he’d been pole-axed.
    Isom was right behind him. As the younger man staggered unsteadily, reaching for his holstered revolver, the teamster grabbed his shoulder, spun him around, and launched a haymaker that came around with all the weight of his body behind it. It landed on the side of the man’s jaw with an audible crunching sound. His victim flew sideways, crashing into the wall with an impact that shook the room. He hung there limply for a moment, then toppled forward to land face-down on the floor.
    “Thank you, señor,” Rosa said, rubbing her breast absently, her eyes on the revolver in Walt’s hand. “You are very fast with that.”
    “I get by,” Walt said shortly, holstering the gun and looking round at Isom. “I heard something break – not your hand, I hope?”
    “Naw,” the other replied, massaging his knuckles with his left hand. “I think it was his jaw.”

There is an expanded excerpt at his site.

GabTV tonight

I’ll be on tonight at 7 PM EST, discussing Infogalactic News, and, of course, Milo’s resignation from Breitbart.

And for the record, to the best of my knowledge, he was not pushed. I don’t know about you, but I was mildly surprised to learn that he was still the Technology Editor.

Mailvox: Facebook is the enemy

This is intriguing. First Twitter, now Facebook:

Heads up — a good friend of mine just posted your Milo post on facebook when I sent it to him to his wall. We were chatting via PM about the topic and I watched on my phone as all of his messages turned into “your message has been flagged by facebook for spam.”

His account is now gone and blocked. Everything about his posts have disappeared from my timeline, he can’t get into his account.

We’re headed for all-out war.

We are. And we’re going to win. Because everything they do is built on lies. Spam indeed. This is yet another reminder of why we need to build our own platforms. And we will.

Leadership from Marine LePen

Contrast her refusal to bow to foreign demands with the cowardly behavior of the Swedish women:

French far-right National Front presidential candidate Marine Le Pen canceled a meeting on Tuesday with Lebanon’s grand mufti, its top cleric for Sunni Muslims, after refusing to wear a headscarf for the encounter.

Le Pen, among the frontrunners for the presidency, is using a two-day visit to Lebanon to bolster her foreign policy credentials nine weeks from the April 23 first round, and may be partly targeting potential Franco-Lebanese votes.

Many Lebanese fled to France, Lebanon’s former colonial power, during their country’s 1975-1990 civil war and became French citizens.

After meeting Christian President Michel Aoun – her first public handshake with a head of state – and Sunni Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri on Monday, she had been scheduled to meet the Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdul Latif Derian

He heads the Dar al-Fatwa, the top religious authority for Sunni Muslims in the multireligious country.

“I met the grand mufti of Al-Azhar,” she told reporters, referring to a visit in 2015 to Cairo’s 1,000-year-old center of Islamic learning. “The highest Sunni authority didn’t have this requirement, but it doesn’t matter.

“You can pass on my respects to the grand mufti, but I will not cover myself up,” she said.

Unlike Sweden, France will not cower. One hopes the French electorate will see the merits in this woman.

Milo press conference

MEDIA ALERT – Milo Yiannopoulos Press Conference In New York City 
Tuesday, February 21 2017 at 3pm


Milo Yiannopoulos will be making his first on-camera comments to press regarding the recent controversy over statements Milo made during Joe Rogan and Drunken Peasants podcasts. Questions will be taken following a statement.


Live stream is here.


Transcript of the full statement.




Mike Cernovich has some relevant advice:

Treat a PR crisis like a life-or-death fight.

Milo had escaped so many attacks. His Facebook response last night was inadequate. He should have been live streaming on all platforms getting his message out.

When #Pussygate happened, Trump listened to me by posting a video rather than doing press conferences. Trump waited too long, actually, and should have got ahead of the narrative.

When a PR crisis hits, treat it like a life-or-death event. Get on every available platform. Call your friends. Get on their podcasts. Do not let a narrative involving something like Nazism or pedophilia take form.


“Remember people on the way up, you’ll see them on the way down.”

Milo has done a great job at staying in touch with his base of supporters. He has a platform larger than most in traditional media. Today is a reminder why you must build your own platforms and own audience. Will Milo have a show on Fox this year? No. Will he still have a larger audience than most people in media? Yes.


Take good care of your friends as your platform grows.

As some people rise into the mainstream, they promote their friends and those who helped build them up less and less. This is a mistake, as when you hit a ceiling (see above), those are the people who are going to find energy to support you. If you don’t actively work to take care of them, they won’t find the energy needed to engage in a full-throttled defense of you.

Most people won’t have your back.

During a time of crisis, you’re mostly going to be on your own. Get used to it, don’t be bitter when people don’t defend you. Even if you’ve had the backs of others, expect them to be “too busy” in your time of need.