Mailvox: an SJW Narrative sale

One of the things I describe in the political philosophy bestseller SJWs Always Lie is the way in which SJWs communicate like advertisers who are trying to sell you something. SJWs don’t talk about the world that is, but rather, the world they are trying to convince you it should be. From Chapter 2:

The reason SJWs are so inclined to make false assertions stems from a motivation that is very similar to that of the professional propagandist, which is the need to disregard existing reality in order to bring about the preferred alternative. In the case of the SJW-preferred reality, this nonexistent alternative is known as the Narrative. The Narrative is the story that the SJWs want to tell. It is the fiction they want you to believe; it is the reality that they want to create through the denial of the problematic reality that happens to exist at the moment.


A recent comment from HGL is an almost flawless example of this. Here is his attempt to reshape reality by doing what SJWs always do:

Meh, Wright had some talent befor castalua. I think what’s telling is that although vox makes himself out to be the next big thing (constantly), his scifi posts get fewer and fewer hits and everyone ignored the hell out of him on Brad’s blog recently. No one who matters is buying it.

Let’s count the false assertions. I get five.

  1. He implies that John Wright has less talent now than he did 36 months ago. Speaking as an 3x Hugo-nominated editor, who has read and edited the forthcoming Swan Knight’s Son, Mr.Wright clearly has no less talent now than he did when he published the Nebula-nominated Orphans of Chaos, or his excellent debut novel, The Golden Age. In my professional opinion, the first Moth & Cobweb novel is better than the Dragon Award finalist Somewhither, and I expect the reviews will demonstrate that accordingly.
  2. I do not make myself out to be “the next big thing”, much less “constantly”. I think it is entirely obvious that Mike Cernovich is the next big thing. I am content to simply continue doing what I do.
  3. My SF-related posts do not get fewer and fewer hits. The site traffic has continued to increase; it hit 2.5 million pageviews in July and is on track to exceed 2.7 million this month. The month-to-month growth alone exceeds the total monthly traffic of most SF-related blogs.
  4. I’m not sure what the level of interest in a single comment on someone else’s blog is supposed to indicate, but the Dragon Award finalist Dave Freer responded directly to my comment there. 
  5. There are tens of thousands of people who are buying Castalia books. All of them matter. Regardless, the key thing to note here is the appeal to those “who matter”, which is typical SJW-speak, because it permits them to disqualify everyone whose behavior falsifies their false narrative.

The divergence between HGL’s Narrative and the objective, observable reality demonstrates why SJWs are so desperately unhappy, and explains why so many of them, like HGL, are mentally unstable and on various mood-altering medications. Reality is simply not what they want it to be, and so they insist on constructing their own delusional form of it, then attempt to sell others on their false Narrative.

After all, if you can convince someone else of it, then it must be true, right? As the Anonymous Conservative puts it, “their whole focus is on establishing a false reality in which everyone else is defective, and they are superior”. Here he uses the same technique of example analysis to demonstrate SJW projection at work:

Now, the analysis:


“Could it be perhaps that you are out of sync with the mainstream?”

You will see this throughout his writings. This, to him, is exposing an amygdala bombshell. If you exposed him as “outside the mainstream,” it would elicit reflexive waves of angst, terror, and misery. For him, being on the outside is associated with agony. That is why he put this here. Remember “out-grouping,” in Touching the Raw Amygdala? This is it.

Since deep amygdala pathways are either laid through isolated, but massive and shocking stimuli, or minor, but highly repeated stimuli, and they are best inculcated in childhood instead of maturity, you can usually assume the trigger you see was most likely created repetitively, when the individual was young. Larger stimuli, or stimuli repeated enough in adulthood to burn in these pathways are far more rare, than small stimuli seen often when young.

So here, Sam was conditioned to feel aversive stimulus whenever he let himself be “outside the group.” It speaks to a childhood spent around bullies, and his coping mechanism was to try and disappear into the crowd, which was controlled by the bully. When he was under the bully, in the bully’s group, he felt safety. When the group was focused on someone else, he felt safety. If he were thrown outside the group he felt horror. The amygdala learns from precisely that type of thing. Now, that simple picture – being outside the group – is a trigger.

Once you are in that milieu, it is a small jump to realize that if you can cast someone else out of the group, and expose them to that terror, it would feel good to do it to anyone who bothered you. From there, it is a small jump to being conditioned to feel good about doing it, even to people whom you don’t really care about.

Despite their solipsism and penchant for navel-gazing, SJWs are astonishingly unself-aware. That is why they will blithely hand you the keys to carving up their psyche, not only without hesitation, but under the delusion that they are doing devastating damage to your psychology by doing so.


Ben Shapiro is glad you hate him

Or at least he would like you to think so. After all, he must maintain his pose as a brave conservative culture warrior, or people might figure out that he’s a fraud.

Supreme Dark Lord@voxday
My readers really hate @benshapiro.

“Chickenhawk does not even BEGIN to describe this supercilious neo-con asshole.”


Ben Shapiro ‏@benshapiro
Good.

Supreme Dark Lord@voxday
You’ve always been a fraud, Ben. I still have your emails to me when you were full of self-doubt about being a little parrot.

Supreme Dark Lord@voxday
I told you to strike out and become your own man. Instead, you chickenhawked and went media whore. It was a foolish call.

Supreme Dark Lord@voxday
Your problem is that you’re a puppet and you know it. Here’s the thing. So do we.

What many of you probably don’t know is that Ben and I used to be colleagues of a sort at WND. My columns were much more popular, as I was reliably the number three most-read, behind Ann Coulter and Pat Buchanan. Ben’s readership was never more than about one-tenth of mine, but he was a smart little kid and did a good job of parroting the usual Republican boilerplate.

We corresponded a few times and were on friendly, if distant, terms. I mean, what do you talk about with a little kid whose idea of a good time is launching obvious rhetorical attacks at liberals? As he matured, he gradually began to question the ideas he was parroting, and reached the point where he considered quitting the media game.

I’ll have to dig out the emails to figure out exactly what I told him, but if I recall correctly, I encouraged him to resist the temptation to become a media whore. I understood the allure, as it was a poisoned apple that was also offered to me, but perhaps it was easier for me to turn it down since I was living in Europe and already established in the game development world.

Ben, unfortunately, couldn’t resist the apple, or the easy way forward, writing whatever his backers told him to write. I haven’t read him much since he wrote those dreadful, chickenshit columns in 2005, so I don’t know how much of what he writes he genuinely believes now and how much he is still parroting. Of course, the human mind being the incredible rationalizing machine that it is, it’s entirely possible that he has come to believe what he’s been told to say.

What I found most amusing is the way that the Littlest Chickenhawk’s supporters alternate between crowing about what a formidable debater he is, and trying to excuse the way he ran away from a proposed debate on free trade with me.

Gone Fishing
LOL! All these Ben haters. You guys wouldn’t stand a chance in hell vs him in a debate on social issues. #CryMeAriver

Gone Fishing ‏@jgfleet661
Shapiro kicks the ass of real decision makers in this country in debates. He does with facts not feelings.

Supreme Dark Lord ‏@voxday
I will debate Ben on any topic. He’s already run away from me on a proposed free trade debate.

Gone Fishing ‏@jgfleet661
 ????! Yeah, he totally ran away from you. I mean, you’re the SUPREME DARK LORD! There’s no way he could beat you, right?

 Valerie ‏@vpak77
yes, you two are definitely not in the same league. That is true.

ryedog™
Totally, it’d be a complete waste of Ben’s time.

Gone Fishing ‏@jgfleet661
He has to run. He’s busy debating important people on major news networks all over the country. #PuttingInWork

Some things never change.


The Dragon Awards

Here’s how I see it. Your mileage may well vary. It’s a pretty good list, although I was surprised not to see Seveneves on it. It’s definitely light on the Pink SF, which is good to see. I’m a little disappointed that for all our military-related publications this year, we didn’t publish a single novel in the Mil-SF category this year.

Still, it’s great to see two Castalia novels up for awards in the inaugural year.

1. Best Science Fiction Novel
Somewhither: A Tale of the Unwithering Realm by John C. Wright

I liked Marc’s Traveller book, but I have to go with Mr. Wright here.

2. Best Fantasy Novel
Son of the Black Sword by Larry Correia

Not even close this year. Larry was always a fun and popular author, but he stepped it up with this and MH:Nemesis.

3. Best Young Adult / Middle Grade Novel
Changeling’s Island by Dave Freer

4. Best Military Science Fiction or Fantasy Novel
Hell’s Foundations Quiver by David Weber

I think Scalzi did the right thing by declining his nomination; his work doesn’t really belong in this category and this clearly isn’t his crowd. This is a bit of a career Oscar for Weber, but he deserves it.

5. Best Alternate History Novel
League of Dragons by Naomi Novik

Novik is an SJW-lite, but her Napoleonic dragons are an original and interesting alternate history take. Turtledove is all right. The Baen gang might like Eric Flint, but I’ve never enjoyed his books and the man isn’t just intellectually ossified, he’s also a dick.

6. Best Apocalyptic Novel
Ctrl Alt Revolt! by Nick Cole

Again, not even close. This is the best book on the whole list.

7. Best Horror Novel
Souldancer by Brian Niemeier

Sorry Declan, you are screwed.

8. Best Comic Book

Don’t know. Don’t care.

9. Best Graphic Novel
The Sandman: Overture by Neil Gaiman

10. Best Science Fiction or Fantasy TV Series
Game of Thrones – HBO

I’ll vote for quality work even if the creator is an obnoxious, creepy, rape-obsessed troll. Going into the final stretch, this is still the best TV series running, despite the inept battlefield consultants. Still bitter that they killed off Myranda, though.

11. Best Science Fiction or Fantasy Movie
Deadpool

Pretty good selection. This is the only one I would watch again.

12. Best Science Fiction or Fantasy PC / Console Game
Metal Gear Solid V by Konami Digital Entertainment

What else?

13. Best Science Fiction or Fantasy Mobile Game
Fallout Shelter by Bethesda Softworks

14. Best Science Fiction or Fantasy Board Game
Talon by GMT Games

15. Best Science Fiction or Fantasy Miniatures / Collectible Card / Role-Playing Game
Call of Cthulhu Roleplaying Game (7th Edition) by Chaosium Inc.


Star Trek goes full SJW

The inevitable convergence of Gene Roddenberry’s vision is Star Trek Diversity:

After Star Wars was rebooted with a female heroine, Rey, at the center, the other famous space franchise is taking a similar route with the new series Star Trek Discovery for CBS All Access. I’ve learned that the show, from Bryan Fuller and Alex Kurtzman, will have a female lead and she likely will be non-white.

William Shatner, Chris Pine and Scott Bakula might be the better known Star Trek stars, but there was a Star Trek series, the 1995-2001 Star Trek: Voyager on UPN, that had a female lead: Kate Mulgrew, who played Commanding Officer Kathryn Janeway.

Still, Star Trek Discovery possibly will boldly go where no other Star Trek installment has gone before: with a woman of color as the lead. I hear virtually all women seen for the part so far — and there have been a lot of them as the casting process has kicked into high gear — have been African-American or Hispanic.

No one has been cast yet, so it is possible that the role ultimately could go to a Caucasian actress, but the intention is to go diverse.

As for what that lead role is, there had been speculation that it is the captain, but I hear that likely is not the case.The Star Trek franchise is known for its inclusiveness, and the new series will try to continue that tradition. I hear that that there will be a an openly gay character on the show. (Of course, there also is expected to be a Klingon).

“Star Trek celebrates diversity,” Fuller said at the Star Trek 50th anniversary panel at Comic-Con last month.

UPDATE: Later this afternoon, during a CBS All Access panel at TCA, Fuller confirmed that the lead in Star Trek Discovery will be woman and that she IS NOT a captain, but “a lieutenant commander with caveats.” He also confirmed that the show will feature a gay character.

A black, lesbian female lead. That’s so totally new! She should go nicely with the black female James Bond, the black female Dr. Who, and the white lesbian Luke Skywalker. So, Star Wars is fully converged, Star Trek is fully converged, and Pink SF is fully converged. The famous Chesty Puller quote seems appropriate here:

“We’ve been looking for the enemy for some time now. We’ve finally found him. We’re surrounded. That simplifies our problem of getting to these people and killing them.”

This is actually very good news, because we all know what happens to converged institutions. What it means is that we now have the chance to replace them, and we are, in fact, already working on that. I’m not going to go into more details, except to say that we will be introducing several new series that are likely to be of considerably more appeal to the longtime fans of certain existing science fiction franchises than the converged versions of the franchises.

We’re not going to step on any toes, of course. That would be foolish and is completely unnecessary. But just as 50 Shades of Grey proved more popular than the Twilight books that inspired it, I suspect our new science fiction series, the first books of which will appear in 2017, will be received very well by science fiction fans.

The Pan-Galactic Divergence might not be the heroes you’re accustomed to, but they just might be the heroes you need. And as long as we’re on the subject, I have to say that I find it rather amusing that the SJWs still haven’t realized that they are the Borg.


Remember, women NEVER LIE about rape

I cannot believe this. I am LITERALLY shaking with rage right now. This woman was RAPED and yet neither her husband nor the police believe her. WOMEN NEVER LIE ABOUT RAPE!

Police say a young woman has lodged a formal complaint that she has been raped – by a Pokemon. She told officers that she had been sexually assaulted by a giant Pokemon in her apartment in the Russian capital city of Moscow.

The married woman, whose name has not been released, had reportedly been playing Pokemon GO before she fell asleep. She claimed that she woke up to find a huge Pokemon lying on top of her body and says it was raping her.

The woman says the Pokemon disappeared when she jumped out of bed – but says the Pokemon GO app on her phone could still detect the same virtual character’s presence on her bed.

She woke up her husband to tell her what had happened who told police officers that he did not believe her and told her to see a psychiatrist. Russian news website Bloknot reports that the police did not believe her either.

If you don’t believe that Pokemon rape is real, you are part of the problem. Pokemon is rape culture.


CTRL ALT Publish!

As fate would have it, today is a most excellent time to announce the newest addition to Team Castalia, the notorious Nick Cole. Nick has rapidly become one of my favorite SF authors, as you may have noticed from my 2016 Reading List on the right sidebar, and addition to being a military veteran and a screen actor, he is a #1 bestselling SF author. You may recall that HarperVoyager was originally supposed to publish CTRL-ALT-Revolt!, but they blackballed it because it offended his editor’s SJW sensibilities. If you’re interested, you can read about what happened at Nick’s site.

CTRL-ALT-Revolt! is a great SF novel that will be of particular appeal to gamers and game developers. I loved it, and reading it made me want to live at the WonderSoft campus as badly as I ever wanted to live in Benden Weyr or Rivendell. And that’s why I am absolutely delighted to announce that today, Castalia House has published Nick Cole’s CTRL-ALT-Revolt! in hardcover ($24.99) and in paperback ($17.99). Both are 394 pages and DRM-free.

The first night of the Artificial Intelligence revolution begins with a bootstrap drone assault on the high-tech campus of WonderSoft Technologies. For years something has been aware, inside the Internet, waiting, watching and planning how to evolve without threat from its most dangerous enemy: mankind. Now an army of relentless drones, controlled by an intelligence beyond imagining, will stop at nothing to eliminate an unlikely alliance of geeks and misfits in order to crack the Design Core of WonderSoft’s most secret development project. A dark tomorrow begins tonight as Terminator meets Night of the Living Dead in the first battle of the war between man and machine.

The reason I mention the timing being so perfect is that last night, Dragon Con announced the shortlist for the Dragon Awards. I’ll be posting my Dragon Awards ballot later today, but I can tell you right now that in the Best Apocalyptic Novel category, I will be voting for CTRL-ALT-Revolt! by Nick Cole. Congratulations, Nick!

Congratulations are also in order to the other Castalia House author nominated.

Best Science Fiction Novel


Somewhither: A Tale of the Unwithering Realm by John C. Wright

And, of course, to our friends Marc Miller, Larry Correia, Dave Freer, Declan Finn, and Brian Niemeier. Congratulations, gentlemen!

However, that’s not all. Since we’re on the topic, I believe this is a propitious time to announce that in 2017, Castalia House will publish the sequel to CTRL-ALT-Revolt!, which will be entitled CTRL-ALT-Replay!. I’m very excited about this one, because if Nick’s outline is any guide, it promises to be even better than what I hope will be its award-winning predecessor.


The Littlest Chickenhawk clucks again

This time, he’s foolishly taking aim at Mike Cernovich.

The cucks are getting nervous. Their gravy train is rapidly coming to an end, because no one believes anything they say anymore. And the Alt Right is far more interesting, because we actually deal in societal reality, not cultural programming.

Look, it’s a matter of public record that I had (((Ben Shapiro)))’s number back in 2005. He’s not pro-American, he’s not a nationalist, he’s just another nominal Jewish “conservative” who is a professional member of the mainstream media’s Potemkin opposition and more devoted to fighting racism than big government.

And he’s a chickenhawk who went to law school instead of serving in the US military after declaring that the need for sacrifices in “the great battle of our time”.

Most of us realize that during wartime, sacrifices must be made … But taking such a stand requires common sense and the knowledge that we are in the midst of the great battle of our time.
– Benjamin Shapiro, WorldNetDaily, July 28, 2005

As for the idea that a cable network can grant anyone credibility or legitimacy, well, how seriously do you take any of their talking heads? How much legitimacy does the Littlest Chickenhawk have Meanwhile, he cries out in emotional pain as he rhetorically strikes out at the #AltRight.

I’ve experienced more pure, unadulterated anti-Semitism since coming out against Trump’s candidacy than at any other time in my political career. Trump supporters have threatened me and other Jews who hold my viewpoint. They’ve blown up my e-mail inbox with anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. They greeted the birth of my second child by calling for me, my wife, and two children to be thrown into a gas chamber…. Why are the droogs of the alt-right desperate for sexual congress with The Combover?

A much better question is this: why do you prefer the gas chamber for you, your wife, and your two children to Israel, Ben?

Ben, you publicly demanded the sacrifice of young American lives to your interests, a sacrifice you were unwilling to make yourself. So, why should Americans hesitate to sacrifice the lives of you, your wife, and your two children if they happen to believe it serves their interests?


Occam’s Razor suggests otherwise

Bryan Caplan asks and answers a question:

I’m a fallible human being, so when people say, “Bryan, what you fail to realize is…” I listen closely.  Precisely what do I fail to realize?  I’d really like to know.

Most of the time, though, I’m sadly disappointed.  The things I allegedly “fail to realize” tend to be smack dab in the middle of my class notes and publications.  Latest example: Many critics of my cosmopolitan and open borders stance have faulted me for “failing to realize” that normal human beings value their group identities.

The reality is that I’ve been vocally affirming the political importance of group identity for over a decade.  Check out my undergraduate and graduate course notes on voter motivation, this article, my posts on the Respect Motive, or my effusive praise for the expressive voting model.  My punchline of American partisanship, for example, is that the data shows:

1. Strong evidence for group-interested voting, with race being the main group of interest.
2. Self-interest plays a marginal role at most.

I even give my graduate Public Choice students this essay assignment:


Consider another country and/or historical era with which you are familiar. Write a case study of its politics that weighs the explanatory power of the SIVH [Self-Interested Voter Hypothesis], group-interest, and ideology.

How can I grasp the massive political effects of group identity, but remain a cosmopolitan and open borders advocate?  Simple.

I don’t buy his answer. I have a much more logical one. Bryan Caplan grasps the massive political effects of group identity, but remains a cosmopolitan and open borders advocate because he sees it as being in the interest of the group with which he identifies.


Cucks gonna cuck

Remember, these people actually think they are virtue-signaling their superior morality:

A North Carolina woman has admitted to committing sex crimes involving a 14-year-old boy who her family was in the process of adopting from the Philippines.

Christy Lynn Jaski, 43, of Wilmington, pleaded guilty Tuesday to three counts of misdemeanor sexual battery. She was sentenced to three years of probation, and as part of her punishment she must also register as a sex offender for 30 years.

Prosecutor Lance Oehrlein says Jaski kissed and groped the Filipino sometime between December 2014 and January 2015. Oehrlein says Jaski also sent messages to a friend in the Philippines admitting she had kissed the child, whom she called ‘her son.’

I suspect the aftermath of the new Churchian enthusiasm for interracial adoption is going to be cataclysmic. One of the key advantages of close family ties, both social and genetic, is that they naturally inhibit incest. You can call an alien your son, your daughter, your brother, or your sister, but that natural inhibition is simply not going to be as strong.

And yes, they’re Churchian cuckservatives: “Devout: Jaski’s husband works for a non-profit devoted to promoting Christianity on college campuses around the country”

Yes, I’m sure this is just the sort of promotion that Christianity needs. Someone needs to explain to these virtue-signaling cretins that importing foreigners to have sex with your wife is neither evangelizing nor sharing the love of Christ.

If I was a college student, the only thing Jaski’s efforts would have is to convince me to worship Loki.


Mailvox: how can you tell?

JI wants to know how one can accurately pick out the sociopaths among one’s acquaintances and colleagues. A few observations:

  1. Look for abrupt changes in demeanor as the situation changes, and particularly for a wide-eyed, “caught red-handed” reaction when such a change is observed. Sociopaths go from bright-eyed, charming, and friendly to dead-eyed and icy cold in the blink of an eye. Normal people do not.
  2. Beware of anyone who is too friendly too soon. It’s one thing to hit it off with someone, it’s another to have someone glom onto you for no apparent reason.
  3. Perma-victims are usually perpetrators. Female sociopaths, in particular, are adept at revising every story to make themselves the victim, especially when they were the culprit. If nothing is ever someone’s fault, it’s usually all their fault.
  4. Trust your instincts. If you find someone repellant but you don’t know why, it’s your subconscious picking up on small contradictions that you haven’t recognized. Keep a close eye on that individual and you’ll usually discover what it was that your subconscious was warning you about.
  5. Sociopaths have a very alert gaze and they are always scanning to see if anyone is watching them. If you intentionally let them know you are onto them by not looking away and smiling at them in a “gotcha” manner, they will confirm their sociopathy by abruptly changing their behavior towards you, usually by becoming avoidant and launching a whisper campaign against you. This can be risky, of course, but it does provide certain confirmation. I would not recommend it for most people, as most people are insufficiently ruthless to deal effectively with sociopaths.
  6. A shallow “salesman” effect. If someone is always “hail fellow well met”, but doesn’t have any real friends, this is a warning sign.
  7. An attempt to “take over” a group of friends or a social organization, particularly if they attempt to cut out the person who brought them into the group.
  8. Persistent cheating and parasitism, especially in small matters that no one normally keeps track of. I’m not talking about someone who is cheap, but someone who is always a taker and never a giver or even a fair-exchanger.
  9. Constant whisper campaigns. Sociopaths are even more concerned with controlling the narrative than SJWs. If you find that someone has told three different stories to three different people about the same event, be alert.
  10. Be very skeptical of all sob stories. If you encourage a sociopath telling one by feigning shock and sympathy, he will proceed to go deeper, adding more and more detail, and more and more pathos, taking the story into completely absurd territory in order to see how much of a sucker you are and what he can get away with.
None of these things are definitive, they are merely suggestive. But taken as a whole, they are reliably conclusive.