The sound of SJW silence

Breitbart Tech observably notes the mysterious silence in the technology media concerning the explosive claims of feminists “taking runs” at OSS project leaders and Linus Torvalds being targeted for disqualification by the Ada Initiative:

Discontent at the behaviour of feminists in tech has already been spreading in the open source community thanks to the feminist-led introduction of controversial codes of conduct for developers on some open source projects. But these new claims elevate feminists in tech from the controversial to the potentially criminal.

The claims of Raymond’s source could also provide an explanation for why so many tech diversity activists, such as the innovation expert Vivek Wadhwa, and the Puerto Rican software developer Roberto Rosario, have been mercilessly set upon by tech feminists.

If feminists are trying to frame software developers for sexual assault, it would be important for them to occupy the chief positions in the “diversity movement” to ensure the incidents were followed by sufficient outrage across the movement. Prominent diversity activists who are not subscribed so such nefarious methods could therefore present a problem.

Despite widespread discussion in the industry of the explosive claims on Raymond’s blog, and the stature of Raymond within software development, other tech news outlets – normally champing at the bit to report on diversity issues – have so far been curiously silent on this story. Breitbart Tech is, thus far, the exception.

What’s happening should not be surprising, as the attempts of SJWs to destroy technology through social justice convergence is the entire objective of the “diversity in tech” movement. It’s not about improving technology at all, it is about forcing a white male stronghold into the same sort of submission to which other industries have been subjected.

This is exactly what action to seize the cultural high ground looks like. We just haven’t seen it before up close and personal because it happened elsewhere.

Reject “diversity in tech”. Reject “girls who code”. Reject every single initiative being put forth by the SJWs, no matter how innocuous they sound, because every single one of them has an insidious and destructive purpose.

Ranger School coverup

The Army is attempting to bury the evidence that it relaxed standards in order to permit women to graduate from Ranger School:

Congressman Russell contacted the Secretary of the Army on September 15, 2015, and requested the Ranger School records for Captain Kristen Griest and First Lieutenant Shaye Haver.

The Secretary of the Army stalled Russell for nine days and then asked for an extension to obtain documents readily available.

The Army waited another two weeks to tell Russell the documents had been shredded.

The Army refuses to tell anyone what the school’s policy is for the storage and destruction of Ranger School records.

The Army refuses to tell the media why they shredded Griest’s and Haver’s records.

The Army refuses to tell the media what they are doing with the third female graduate, Major Lisa Jaster’s records.

The Army wants us to doubt that journalist Susan Keating’s Ranger School sources are real because they are anonymous.

The Army wants us to believe that if Susan Keating’s sources were real they would come forward, when in fact, they are frightened of retribution. Considering the Obama administration’s treatment of whistleblowers, these fears are more than justified.

I very much doubt anyone is even remotely surprised by this. But consider the silver lining: given the way in which recent administrations appear to regard American citizens as the enemy, there are worse things than social justice convergence debilitating the U.S. military.

Destroying the evidence won’t do the Army any good. Everyone knows that the standards were dumbed-down and that the women who “passed” the course are frauds and an insult to all real Rangers, past and present. Want to argue otherwise? Fine, show the records.

Two courses, two prices

My partners are about ready to take over the responsibility for the Game Dev course; the animated ad is done, and they’re getting their web site and order processing updated, so if you want to take advantage of the $150 price for the 20-hour course, this is your final opportunity. The price will go up to $199 next week.

However, even if you’re interested, you may want to hear about an even better offer, especially if you’re interested in entrepreneurship. My partners, as it happens, are going to be offering a Business Startup course of their own; one of them ran Red Herring in Europe and Asia for years before striking out on his own and he is one of the best-connected people in the fields of technology and technology-funding walking the planet. From Skype to Google, you name it, he knows the people who started them and first funded them.

I’ve learned a tremendous amount from him over the years, and managed to convince him that there are many people who would benefit from tapping into the knowledge and experience he has picked up over the years. His course will probably run 90 minutes per session rather than two hours, but it will be in the same basic format and will feature even bigger names than my course will. It will also be priced at $199 per seat and will begin sometime in Q1 2016.

Anyhow, I’ve already made reserved seats in the Game Dev course available for free to the Brainstorm Annual members. After our last closed event, a number of the Brainstormers indicated that they would like to attend the Business Startup course, so I spoke with my partner and he agreed that all Annual Brainstorm members will be permitted to attend his course for free as well. The one difference is that while Annual seats can be given to friends and family for the Game Dev course, only the actual Annual member will be permitted to attend the Business Startup course.

So, if you were giving any thought to signing up for Brainstorm and you’re interested in entrepreneurship, this is one more reason to give it a shot. In addition to the two courses worth a combined $400, you’ll also be able to attend the closed Brainstorm events, such as the upcoming one on November 14th with Mike Cernovich, where we’ll be discussing the current state of the publishing industry and how one can best take advantage of its vicissitudes.

And, of course, I will be looking to continue to add value to a Brainstorm membership as time goes on. Stickwick has gone a little overboard in her proposed presentation on dark matter, as it has transmogrified into a book that Castalia will be publishing next year, so that planned event will be delayed until the spring. On the plus side, however, we will be providing the book to all the members in order to facilitate both a meaningful discussion and informed questions.

In largely unrelated news, Castalia has launched Wargame Wednesdays today, kicking off with a review of a set of military history books by Donald Featherstone  that I desperately need to get my hands on:

Even though the scope of the series precludes in-depth historical background as a young student I found the series useful as a beginning reference for various papers and as a gamer I appreciated the emphasis on playing an army using the tactics and dealing with the limitations faced by the historical commanders or in Donald Featherstone’s own words from the first volume’s introduction: “Each section details the technique and styles of fighting of the various nations and armies and offers suggestions how this can best be simulated on a table-top battlefield.” He goes on to explain that war gamers take great care in researching their armies, paint them as accurately as possible to create the most reasonable simulation then it “…all falls down at one critical point – unable to move under their own volition, the small model soldiers are strategically and tactically directed by the war gamer himself, who maneuvers his armies with a military hindsight denied to their real-life commanders of long ago.” The figures on the table top may be dressed as Romans and Greeks but they are played using tactics “that would have done credit to Wellington in the Peninsula, Jackson in the Shenandoah Valley or Montgomery in Libya”. Featherstone then gives the example of a gamer choosing to collect and fight a Roman army against Britons or Gauls and after reading the relevant sections would “…know that they will advance in a certain formation, that they will hurl their pila and then come to close quarters with the gladius. After a simulated 15 minutes of fighting, they will be withdrawn and a fresh century or cohort thrown in to take their place.” On the other hand their enemies “…will fight in a desperate and ferocious fashion rather resembling the headlong charges of the Dervishes in the Sudan towards the end of the 19th century”.

Each volume is slightly different in its methodology ways, whereas the first volume covers each army separately the second volume groups the subject matter into wars, while the third volume is organized by campaigns from the French Revolution to Waterloo, though the final chapters cover the War with America, 1812-1815, the U.S. – Mexican War of 1846-1848, the Crimean War and ends with the War of Austria with France and Piedmont in 1859.

SJW “rights” are anti-rights

The city of Houston rejects a politically correct “anti-bias” measure:

A yearlong battle over gay and transgender rights that turned into a costly, ugly war of words between this city’s lesbian mayor and social conservatives ended Tuesday as voters repealed an anti-discrimination ordinance that had attracted attention from the White House, sports figures and Hollywood celebrities.

The City Council passed the measure in May, but it was in limbo after opponents succeeded, following a lengthy court fight, in putting the matter to a referendum.

Supporters said the ordinance was similar to those approved in 200 other cities and prohibited bias in housing, employment, city contracting and business services for 15 protected classes, including race, age, sexual orientation and gender identity. Opponents said the measure would allow men claiming to be women to enter women’s bathrooms and inflict harm, and that simple message — “No Men in Women’s Bathrooms” — was plastered on signs and emphasized in television and radio ads, turning the debate from one about equal rights to one about protecting women and girls from sexual predators.

The cat is out of the bag. Voters now understand that these seemingly innocuous ordinances will be used against them by the sexual freakshows and political activists. What are called “anti-discrimination” measures are violations of the Constitutional right to free association. The entire concept of “civil rights” has proven to be a complete disaster; the worst predictions of the segregationists proved to be optimistic.

Not that the SJWs are giving up any time soon. Notice something very strange about this “news” report. Where are the results of the referendum? It’s like a sports report on the World Series that says the Mets lost, but doesn’t tell you what the score was.

From this, we can surmise that the SJWs lost badly.  And yes, as it happens, that’s precisely what happened as the SJW measure was voted down 61-39.


Houston’s controversial equal rights ordinance failed by a wide margin
Tuesday, with voters opting to repeal the law that offered broad
non-discrimination protections, according to incomplete and unofficial
returns.

A second front in the OSS invasion

ESR warns that SJWs aren’t merely using weaponized codes of conduct to try to take over open source software projects these days.

I received a disturbing warning today from a source I trust. The short version is: if you are any kind of open-source leader or senior figure who is male, do not be alone with any female, ever, at a technical conference. Try to avoid even being alone, ever, because there is a chance that a “women in tech” advocacy group is going to try to collect your scalp.

IRC conversation, portions redacted to protect my informant, follows.

15:17:58 XXXXXXXXXXXX | I’m super careful about honey traps.  For a while, that’s how the Ada Initiative was trying to pre-generate outrage and collect scalps.                            
15:18:12          esr | REALLY?                                   
15:18:22          esr | That’s perverse.                          
15:18:42 XXXXXXXXXXXX | Yeah, because the upshot is, I no longer can afford to mentor women who are already in tech.
15:18:54          esr | Right.                                    
15:19:01 XXXXXXXXXXXX | I can and do mentor ones who are not in it, but are interested and able           
15:19:21 XXXXXXXXXXXX | but once one is already in…  nope
15:20:08 XXXXXXXXXXXX | The MO was to get alone with the target, and then immediately after cry “attempted sexual assault”.
15:23:27          esr | When the backlash comes it’s going to be vicious.  And women who were not part of this bullshit will suffer for it.
15:23:41 XXXXXXXXXXXX | I can only hope.                           
15:25:21          esr | Ah. On the “Pour encourager les autres” principle?  I hadn’t thought of that. Still damned unfortunate, though.
15:26:40 XXXXXXXXXXXX | Linus is never alone at any conference. This is not because he lets fame go to his head and likes having a posse around.     
15:26:54 XXXXXXXXXXXX | They have made multiple runs at him.      
15:27:29          esr | Implied warning noted.                     
15:27:34            * | XXXXXXXXXXXX nods

Interesting to see that technologists are having to adopt the same policy as Billy Graham and other Christian pastors; SJWs not only always lie, but apparently they always resort to the same tactical set as well. It’s also interesting to note that women connected to the Ada Initiative are known to have been engaging in these tactics for some time now.

In any event, you’ve been warned. I find it a little ironic that there is any concern whatsoever for the hypothesized effect on “women who were not part of this bullshit” because that’s simply not important. If they want to work in tech, they can still do so, they simply won’t have the benefit of the expected hand-holding.

At any rate, it should be apparent to even the most dubious moderate that SJWs in tech are a serious problem and they need to be rooted out.

#1 in Strategy

The level of interest in 4TH GENERATION WARFARE HANDBOOK has truly been encouraging. I have to admit, I did not expect this:

Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #904 Paid in Kindle Store
    #1 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > History > Military > Strategy  

That’s pretty incredible for the first day of preorders. We probably should have figured out this preorder thing sooner, it would appear. Although I like to think there is a certain inept charm to our “well, it’s done, so let’s whang it up there and do a blog post” approach. The least-organized book launch in the entire history of publishing doesn’t seem to have hurt SJWAL much, anyhow. And one of these days, we are going to actually get around to doing our first press release.

But since there is so much more interest in 4GW than anticipated, I thought it might be a good idea to make ON WAR: The Collected Columns of William S. Lind 2003-2009 more readily accessible to those who aren’t familiar with William S. Lind or the four generations of post-Westphalian warfare. So, we have made ON WAR available on Kindle Unlimited; if you’re on Prime or KU, you can check it out at no charge to you. And if it piques your interest, well, there is a bestseller-to-be that you may want to preorder.

And for those of you who are curious why we’re so suddenly enamored of KU, well, it works very badly for short, expensive works of the sort that independent scam artists and scam artists who are published by certain SF publishing houses who shall remain nameless were publishing, and that Amazon wished to deter. And it happens to work rather well for long, inexpensive works of the sort we publish. And by “rather well”, I mean that we actually do better with a KU copy that is read than a copy that is sold either on Amazon or Castalia. So if you really want to help us out, read one of our books on KU first, then buy it.

The First Amendment isn’t merely dead

It is outdated, irrelevant, and at this point, civilizationally destructive. John Wright explains:

The First Amendment was never anything but a cease-fire and peace treaty of a Christian v Christian civil war, which was extended, out of Christian charity and and English sense of fairplay and goodsportsmanship, to Jews and other religions.

It was never a suicide pact, never an invitation for socialists at home and soviets or Islamists abroad to overturn our system of protecting our God-given liberties.

The challenge is how to protect some semblance of free speech while strictly limiting, if not banning outright, the exercise of all non-Christian religions in Christendom. This is theoretically possible, as history demonstrates. But as events are rapidly demonstrating, in the current circumstances the latter is going to take precedence over the former.

The age of fairplay and goodsportsmanship is over. You don’t have to like it; I certainly don’t. Unfortunately, we have no choice but to accept it. And if you can’t bring yourself to do so now, don’t worry, you will soon enough.

The collaborators are frightened

The European Resistance is rising. I tend to doubt the collaborators will have to be worried about “being knocked to the ground” in the near future.

A German journalist has told of being attacked in the street after writing a column about the rise of xenophobia among right-wing extremists in his country.

Helmut Schümann, a columnist for the Berlin newspaper, Tagesspiegel, wrote on Facebook about the assault, reports The Local.

According to his account, he was attacked from behind by a group of people on Friday. One asked: “Are you Schümann for Tagesspiegel? You left-wing pig.” He was then knocked to the ground.

In a later posting, Schümann wrote that his attackers would not silence him. He would continue to “shout about them and write about them.” He added: “Physically, I’m recovering fast but mentally it is taking longer.”

Schümann had written an article the day before in which he wondered whether he could continue to call Germany his country because of the rise in xenophobia exhibited by organisations such as the anti-Islamic group Pegida and the Eurosceptic party Alternative for Germany.

Attacks on supporters of refugees have become increasingly common in Germany in recent weeks, as has violence against refugees and the places where they live.

Schümann shouldn’t have wondered whether he could continue to call Germany his country because of “the rise of xenophobia”, he should have wondered whether he could continue to call Germany his country because it is being invaded by large numbers of people who are not German.

4th Generation Warfare Handbook

Written by the author of Maneuver Warfare Handbook and an
active-duty USMC officer with experience in Iraq, 4th Generation Warfare Handbook is the doctrine for a new generation of war. Over the last 40
years, the world has gradually entered into a post-Clausewitzian state
where the wars are undeclared, the battlefields can be anywhere, the
uniforms are optional, and the combatants as well as the targets are
often “civilian”. Conventional militaries have repeatedly attempted to
utilize technology to meet the new challenges posed, but even the most
advanced technology has provided little more than meaningless short-term
victories rendered futile in months, if not weeks.


 
The inability of Western governments and militaries to come to
terms with the changing nature of modern warfare has led to failed
interventions, failed occupations, and now even failed states everywhere
from Eastern Europe to Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. And with the
recent mass movement of peoples around the world, 4th Generation Warfare
can be safely expected to appear in Western Europe and the United
States before long.


 
Drawing on their decades of experience of military strategy, military history, and
military action, the authors have distilled 4GW theory into a short,
concise, easily accessible handbook that provides the soldier, the
military analyst, and the civilian observer with a guide to
understanding and responding to the changing realities of this
challenging new form of war.

We’re handling this book launch a little differently than we have in the past. The handbook is now available in preorder for release on 23 November and will only be available from Amazon as a result. Those who preorder should hold onto your digital receipts as those who preorder will be invited to attend a special Brainstorm later this year featuring both Mr. Lind as well as the lieutenant colonel discussing the new handbook. (Registration will be limited to preorders and Annual members.) If you require an epub version, buy it from Amazon, send us the receipt AFTER the book comes out, and we will send you an epub.

This is a handbook intended for soldiers, not a book of new and expanded theory, so don’t be surprised that much of the base doctrine will be familiar to those of you who have read On War, The Four Generations of Modern War, and Victoria. What is new are some of the practical aspects and applications, particularly the focus on developing and utilizing the light infantry required to meet the challenge posed by 4GW. But given the course of recent events, there can be little doubt that 4th Generation Warfare Handbook will prove every bit as influential as Maneuver Warfare Handbook did in the 1980s.

A paperback version will be published in Q1 2016.

Peak SJW

I think David French is perhaps a little optimistic here, but it is interesting to see National Review lining up against SJWs and political correctness in light of its relatively recent purgings of various contributors for their thought crimes. Perhaps the pendulum actually is swinging back:

While it’s always dangerous to predict when any particular cultural trend peaks, I’m pegging October 31, 2015, as peak PC. When universities actually post flow charts to keep your Halloween
party from being offensive, humorlessness is redefined. When students
are so fragile that the very thought of ethnic-themed Halloween costumes
leads to much-mocked YouTube “guides,” then political correctness is
losing its punch:

If you disagree — if you think that political correctness is gaining
momentum — then consider a few facts. First, the top two candidates in
the Republican race for president of the United States attained their
front-runner status by willfully, gleefully defying political
correctness at every turn. Ben Carson shot to the top of the polls when
he did the unthinkable — told the truth about guns, about Islam, about
resistance to mass shooters, and about abortion — without flinching.
It’s old news by now that Donald Trump’s supporters love him for his
anti-PC stands.

Personally, I would like to think that the tide began to turn with the publication of SJWs Always Lie, which was published just two months before the date French pegs. But whether it has or not, it is very clear that a long march through the institutions of the West to clean them of SJW intellectual corruption is required and it is not going to be quick or easy.

And speaking of not being easy, while it’s always nice to see one’s book become a category bestseller, the fact that The Return of the Great Depression, published in 2009, is presently the #1 bestseller in the following category, is not exactly cause for celebration.

  •      #1 in Books > Business & Money > Economics > Unemployment