SJWs disemploying people

Those who whine and cry about my responding to SJWs who place fake attack reviews on Amazon, among other things, like to pretend that I engage in unprovoked offensive tactics rather than in defensive deterrents.

But as we know, SJWs always lie. Consider this recent tweet of SJW Margaret Cho:

Margaret Cho @margeretcho
http://racistsgettingfired.tumblr.com  is a great resource on what to do with racists on here.

The site, RacistsGettingFired, even maintains a list of people who have lost their jobs as a result of their actions, such as this woman.

SJWs always cry out in pain as they strike you. And the main reason they fear me now is because I pay no attention whatsoever to their cries of innocence and self-justification and being off-limits despite their aggressive tactics. They know, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that they cannot take a shot at me, my allies, my friends, or my supporters without taking a hit or three in return. Because we are disciplined, because we tell the truth, and because we only respond to their attacks by utilizing tactics they have themselves introduced, we are beating them at the moral level of cultural war.

It’s very simple. They act, I observe, I decide on the reprisal, and the VFM go into action. I know a lot of the VFM are feeling restless and underutilized, but the fact is that of the six successful actions in which they have engaged over the last two months, I have only required the participation of about eight percent of them. The goal is to achieve the objective, not to make a noise. When the objective is to make a noise, trust me, I’ll let you know.

The fact is that SJWs are out to disqualify, discredit, and disemploy everyone who does not share their dedication to social justice ideals. Everyone. Liberals. Insufficiently dedicated leftists. Conservatives. Cuckservatives. Cross them, even inadvertently, and they will attempt to destroy you, your career, and your family.

A Minneapolis City Council member is drawing criticism for what some see as an effort to publicly shame constituents who objected to her involvement in Wednesday’s Black Lives Matter rally at the Mall of America and the airport. Council Member Alondra Cano, who represents the Ninth Ward, has been accused of “doxing” — posting personal information about people who criticized her for supporting the Black Lives Matter events — on Twitter.

Those protests shut down movement in and out of the Megamall and also interfered with airport traffic; she’s a City Councilwoman and she’s doxxing those who take the controversial position of preferring the international airport and the state’s largest retail outlet remain open for business.

That is the reality. So, the only question is, are you going to submit or are you going to resist?

In the spirit of the season

George R.R. Martin spares a few kind words for the Sad Puppies:

In the spirit of the season, I am going to say something nice about the Sad Puppies. Last year’s Puppygate was an ugly affair. I am not going to rehash it here. My views are all on record, my original blog posts still up for anyone who wants to go back and read them. The last thing I want… the last thing anyone who truly loves science fiction, fantasy, and fandom would want… would be to have to go through the whole thing again in 2016. Whatever your view of how the Hugo Awards turned out at Sasquan, I think we can all agree that we would like MidAmericon II’s awards to be more joyful, less rancorous, less controversial.

And maybe… just maybe… we’ll get our wish. Call me naive. Call me an innocent. Call me too trusting by half, too nice a guy to see how things really are… but, really, I am starting to have some hope. All over the internet, people are already talking about the Hugo Awards, making recommendations, discussing the work… the WORK, the things we love, the stuff that unites us instead of the stuff that divides us. I’ve been trying to do my part, here on my Not A Blog, and will continue to do so. Over at FILE 770, similar discussions are taking place. And on many other websites, blogs, and bulletin boards as well… including Sad Puppies 4.

Yes, the Sad Puppies are doing it again. ((No big secret, that was announced even before worldcon)). Discussions of possible nominations in all Hugo categories can be found on their SP4 site here: http://sadpuppies4.org/sp4-recommendations-pages-and-faq/ Go check it out. You can even join in. So far as I can tell, you don’t need to be a Puppy to recommend.

As of a few minutes ago, there were 159 ‘thoughts’ in the Best Novel section, which suggests a healthy level of participation. And, I am pleased to say, almost all of what follows seems to be honest and enthusiastic discussion of the work. I am seeing very little name-calling compared to what we saw in Sad Puppies 3, a dearth of references to CHORFS and ASPs and Puppy-kickers and that perennial favorite, SJWs. I am not seeing any “nominate this, it will make their heads explode” posts that we saw so often last year.

Instead, people are recommending books. A very wide range of books. Sure, new works by familiar Puppy favorites like Larry Correia, Mike Williamson, and John C. Wright are being recommended (no surprise there)… but so are works by Neal Stephenson, James S.A. Corey, Naomi Novik, Victor Milan, Terry Pratchett, S.M. Stirling, Ian Tregillis, Ernie Cline, Elizabeth Bear, Gene Wolfe, Michael Moorcock, Orson Scott Card, Greg Bear, Kate Elliott, and many others… including the latest Marko Kloos, and… wonder of wonder… novels from N.K. Jemisin and Anne Leckie!

There are some really good names on that list. Some really good books. (And many I have not read yet, but will look up now). And there’s an amazing range of literary styles, subgenres, and… yes… political and religious views. And all this is to the good.

Is it a Christmas miracle? Has Mr. Martin’s heart grown three sizes? It is an inspiration, is it not?

For my part, I will certainly pledge that when the time comes to make the recommendations for Rabid Puppies 2, there will not be a single reference to CHORFS and ASPS, to Puppykickers, or even to SJWs. There will be no negativity nor will any nominations be urged for the purposes of inspiring rapid cranial expansion; any head-exploding that happens to take place in response to the RP2 recommendations will be entirely unintended on my part.

I trust that all of the responses to those recommendations, by Mr. Martin and others, will be similarly restrained.

When Man forgets his Creator

He forgets how to create. Once you read this, you will know why John C. Wright’s review of Star Wars: The Force Awakens was the only one I was actually interested in reading. One should not read this being wary of spoilers, but rather of having one’s ability to mindlessly enjoy the cultural detritus of Western decline irretrievably hampered. As always, Mr. Wright cuts to the chase by stating an obvious fact that has nevertheless escaped most of the movie’s critics and fans alike:

How can this movie both at once be a really enjoyable return to a beloved childhood favorite, and be a bland and dull, and in places offensively stupid and politically correct, piece of trash?

Because it is a remake, not a sequel.

Oh, I know that technically it is a sequel, allegedly taking place decades after the close of TEDDY BEARS OF THE JEDI, but the story follows the same plotline, except that the roles of Han, Luke and Leia are all played by Junkyard Girl, since she is the cynical rogue, the innocent novice, and the girl with the McGuffin needing rescue all at once. Except she escapes on her own. The rollerball robot is not as cute and sassy as R2D2, because he is not given as much to do, and the Exhenchman and the Ace Pilot don’t actually do all that much.

There is a way cool scene when the X-wings come screaming across the lake to the rescue. The hollow star-eating weapon-planet with forests and snowy mountains and atmosphere above its hull was a convincingly impressive weapon, but, again, there was no moment where the impressiveness was played up, no moment when someone whispered, that’s no moon…

So it is a fairly good remake as remakes go, and it does what it sets out to do, and recapture some, or almost some, of the energy, cleverness, craft, excitement and innocence of the original.

So why is this not the review I wanted to write, with me dancing jigs on the steeple, painted with woad with bells on my toes, yodeling for joy? Because the jerkwads of Hollywood had to take a favorite movie and crap it up with political correctness. Because this film is critic-proof. No matter how bad it is, everyone and his brother will go see it.

And the political correctness is subtle. It has to be subtle, because if the poison tasted of poison, the victim would spit it out: so it is sugar coated to go down easy. Do you think controlling the myths and dreams of a generation has no effect on the generation? Story tellers are the secret legislators of mankind.

The scene where Luke tosses his lightsaber away rather than using it in righteous wrath to smite the evil Emperor may have only been a scene in a kid’s space opera flick: but the majority of the American public regards exactly that same maneuver, preemptive self-disarmament,  as the only moral and right thing to do in the face of the appalling evils of our present war, a war they dare not admit exist, lest they feel a split second of anger, and like a lightswitch being flipped, turn entirely evil themselves. That is what they think will happen if we fight back. If you smite a Sith, you become a Sith.

Why can’t the modern Leftist tell a decent story? Even when he is copying a good and healthy-minded original scene by scene in a paint-by-numbers fashion, it turns out sick-minded.

The answer is ultimately where all ultimate answers reside, in the deep places of the soul.

When we forget God, we forget how to tell tales. I submit that when a man forgets his Creator, he forgets how to create.

It is rather remarkable, when you think about it. Abrams is no different than Brooks is no different than Scalzi. They are not only “creators” who cannot create, they are parasites who, regardless of their technical skills, cannot even successfully execute a paint-by-the-numbers imitation. Like a colorblind painter, their moral blindness renders them fundamentally incapable of utilizing a full moral palette.

This is, I think, the best realistic outcome for Star Wars fans, and one that is pretty close to what I assumed would be the case. Abrams is a technically competent remaker, and he was never likely to resist the conventional SJWisms. Better a competent and mildly poisonous remake than an incompetent or virulently poisonous one, but all the same, it is a remake, not a genuinely new story.

For that, you’ll have to turn to the Expanded Universe, or, later next year, to an entirely different science fiction universe entitled Faraway Wars: Embers of Empire.

Merry Christmas….

No submission

No king but Jesus. John C. Wright reminds Christians who they serve and celebrate this Christmas Eve:

The time for submission is past.

Christians have been slandered, libeled, demeaned, and buffaloed by a very small and very patient group of Leftwing zealots who have somehow convinced the world that there is no place for us in the this world: no place for our nativity scenes at Christmas, no place for Christian marriage, no place for the Ten Commandment in our courthouse decorations, no place for historical accuracy, reality or truth in our lives, and no prayers in our schools.

Enough is enough. We outnumber them. It is time to drive them from our midst, and return our civilization to being civilized.

Let us be Christendom again.

A Merry Christmas Eve to you all. The night is dark and we find ourselves in a time of war. And yet, we remain joyful and thankful.

I love Christmas Eve, the midnight masses, the candlelight services, the cheerful Christmas greetings, and the certain knowledge that all around the world, the vast network of believers reaches into every darkness and shadow.

But whether the season’s greeting is said openly with a smile or whispered surreptitiously under threat of death and torture, the Christmas message of hope in a fallen world remains the same.

The graveyard of empires strikes again

How, exactly, is this failure to win in Afghanistan even remotely surprising, considering the past failures of the British and Soviet empires there?

Taliban outlast 14 years of U.S. combat in Afghanistan

The sudden killings of six American service members on a foot patrol by a suicide bomber this week is a graphic message back home that the Taliban are durable, able to launch a number of coordinated attacks in recent months across Afghanistan 14 years after the U.S. invasion.

A Pentagon report calls the security situation “fragile” and writes of the Taliban’s “resilience throughout the second half of the year.”

Perhaps they are unaware of our superior technology? Or perhaps we simply aren’t trying hard enough. Here is the thing. If you can’t win in nearly four times the amount of time it took to force both Japan and Nazi Germany to surrender, you can’t win, period.

So stop already. Declare victory if you must, even if no one will believe it. But stop!

You don’t say

Chaos Horizon provides additional evidence of how the SF-SJWs guide their bloc vote:

A few weeks ago, the 2015 Tor.com Reviewers’ Choice list came out. Over the past several years, this has been an important list to track for several reasons. First, it gathers recommendations from 11 Tor.com critics, making it a collated list of its own. Second, it has been fairly well synced up to the Hugos and Nebulas, at least before the campaigning of last year. In 2013, they recommended Ann Leckie’s Ancillary Justice three times; it swept the Hugo and Nebula. Last year, Goblin Emperor was recommended 3 times; it scores Hugo and Nebula noms and that could very well have won the Hugo if not for the Puppies.

Tor Books has been an award-chasing publisher for decades. That fact that the Puppies have risen up to stop them from dominating the awards every year is why they changed the rules with E Pluribus Hugo. Patrick Nielsen Hayden and his little coterie calculated that as long as they can guarantee themselves a single nomination per category, they can muster enough muscle to win at the final round.

What Puppykickers quite willfully fail to understand is that in 2015, the Puppies, even the Rabid Puppies, engaged in less bloc-voting, in percentage terms, in 2015 than the SJWs did. In the past, the Tor-led SJWs didn’t need to publish public lists because it was all a whisper campaign among a few dozen people; you could see references to it in every “I haven’t read X yet, but I’m voting for it because I hear….” statement. You could also see the Nebula logrolling take place in the SFWA NAR every year, until it was hidden from the public; to Cat Rambo’s credit, she has apparently made public what, if I recall correctly, John Scalzi was responsible for hiding.

Table 1: Correlation Between Top 6 (and Ties) of the 2014 Nebula Suggested Reading List and the Eventual 2014 Nebula Nominees

Novel: 4 out of 6, 67.7%
Novella: 6 out of 6, 100%
Novelette: 5 out of 6, 83.3%
Short Story: 6 out of 7, 85.7%

Total: 21/25, 84%

The Tor.com Reviewers’ Choice has reinforced, and to a certain extent supplanted, the Tor whispering campaign; based on the way in which reviewers tend to chase the crowd, we can anticipate that the novels the SJWs will be pushing for the award season include:

Uprooted by Naomi Novik (Del Rey)
Ancillary Mercy by Anne Leckie (Orbit)
Karen Memory by Elizabeth Bear (Tor)
The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin (Orbit)

It’s all women, as one would expect, but surprisingly light on Tor-published books. One would assume the fifth book would be The Dark Forest, the sequel to The Three Body Problem, but there is very, very little SJW buzz about it. Perhaps the SJWs finally figured out that Cixin Liu is a man. Or perhaps it is perceived to have been tainted by the Puppies playing kingmaker last year. Who knows? These are not rational people.

We now also know why John Scalzi very publicly counted himself out in 2015; unlike last year, he is aware that neither Tor nor the SJWs are pushing his latest mediocrity for any awards. No doubt he’s waiting for EPH, when Tor can again guarantee him a spot to make up for his declining popular support.

Now let’s go and see what the top novels are in the 2015 SFWA Suggested Reading List. And note that I did not see these until AFTER reaching my conclusions based on the Tor.com reviewers’ choices.

21     Uprooted     Novik, Naomi     Del Rey
17     The Grace of Kings     Liu, Ken     Saga Press 
16     Karen Memory     Bear, Elizabeth     Tor Books
15     Updraft     Wilde, Fran     Tor Books   
14     The Traitor Baru Cormorant   Dickinson, Seth  Tor Books
12     Ancillary Mercy     Leckie, Ann     Orbit
11     The Fifth Season     Jemisin, N. K.     Orbit   

Interesting, is it not? All four novels identified are there. After looking into the three previously unmentioned novels, I think it’s likely that Seth Dickenson’s debut novel will turn out to be the book that Tor is pushing in 2015. They badly need a new star now that Scalzi is running out of steam and they lost the HALO books; based on this review, Dickenson certainly appears to understand the Tor Game: “While I enjoyed The Traitor Baru Cormorant, and will read the second
book in the series when it arrives, I felt at times I was being giving a
sociology lecture by someone steeped in women’s and LBGT studies and
political economy.”

Seth Dickinson, we are told, “is the author of THE TRAITOR BARU CORMORANT and more than
a dozen short stories. During his time in the social sciences, he
worked on cocoa farming in Ghana, political rumor control, and
simulations built to study racial bias in police shootings. He wrote
much of the lore and flavor for Bungie Studios’ smash hit DESTINY. If he
were an animal, he would be a cockatoo.”

Yeah, about that… “Destiny’s initial release was met with a chorus of ‘meh’.  It
wasn’t a bad game, but it was hampered by a damp squib of a main
storyline.”

In any event, Mr. Dickenson sounds like an ideal standard bearer for Tor Books for the next few years. Regardless, I won’t be reading The Traitor Baru Cormorant, because BOYCOTT TOR BOOKS.

The true lesson of Star Wars

Markku helpfully summarizes the Star Wars Saga:

The plot so far:
-Empire builds a Death Star
-Empire builds a bigger Death Star
And now… Wait for it…
-Empire builds EVEN bigger Death Star

And
the movie knows how silly this is. When the rebels hear, they basically
go “Oh come on, not this shit again? *sigh* Ooooh-kay. Where’s the
shield generators? There. Where’s the weak spot? There. Ok, guys, let’s
go blow this up.

Now, it’s really nice that the movie is
forthright about how much the central plot element sucks, but I wonder
if the alternative occurred to anyone, to make it NOT suck and not have
to apologize for it.

That’s the real weakness of the movie.

The third one burned down, fell over, then sank into the swamp. But the fourth one will stay up! And that’s the true lesson of Star Wars, kids, just keep building bigger and better Death Stars until one finally survives the arduous construction and beta testing process and you rule the galaxy.

Reliable in what regard?

Jonathan Haidt considers whether an entirely biased social science is capable of reliability:

Truth is a process, not just an end-state. The Righteous Mind was about the obstacles to that process — confirmation bias, motivated reasoning, tribalism, and the worship of sacred values. Given the many ways that our moral psychology warps our reasoning, it’s a wonder we’ve gotten as far as we have, as a species. That’s what’s so brilliant about science: it is a way of putting people together so that they challenge each other and cancel out each others’ confirmation biases and tribal commitments. The truth emerges from the interaction of flawed individuals.

But something alarming has happened to the academy since the 1990s: it has been transformed from an institution that leans to the left, which is not a big problem, into an institution that is entirely on the left, which is a very big problem.

Nowadays there are NO conservatives or libertarians in most academic departments in the humanities and social sciences. The academy has been so focused on attaining diversity by race and gender (which are valuable) that it has created a hostile climate for people who think differently. The American Academy has become a politically orthodox and quasi-religious institution. When everyone shares the same politics and prejudices, the disconfirmation process breaks down. Political orthodoxy is particularly dangerous for the social sciences, which grapple with so many controversial topics (such as race, racism, gender, poverty, immigration, politics, and climate science). America needs innovative and trustworthy research on all these topics, but can a social science that lacks viewpoint diversity produce reliable findings?

Based on the evidence, the answer is yes, as a social science that lacks viewpoint diversity produces findings that are reliably insane. At this point, the term “social science” has become an oxymoron akin to “military intelligence” or “new Star Wars movie”.

US military vs the CIA

To say these reports of the US military taking one side and the CIA taking the other could have explosive repercussions would be putting it mildly:

The military’s resistance dates back to the summer of 2013, when a highly classified assessment, put together by the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, then led by General Martin Dempsey, forecast that the fall of the Assad regime would lead to chaos and, potentially, to Syria’s takeover by jihadi extremists, much as was then happening in Libya. A former senior adviser to the Joint Chiefs told me that the document was an ‘all-source’ appraisal, drawing on information from signals, satellite and human intelligence, and took a dim view of the Obama administration’s insistence on continuing to finance and arm the so-called moderate rebel groups. By then, the CIA had been conspiring for more than a year with allies in the UK, Saudi Arabia and Qatar to ship guns and goods – to be used for the overthrow of Assad – from Libya, via Turkey, into Syria. The new intelligence estimate singled out Turkey as a major impediment to Obama’s Syria policy. The document showed, the adviser said, ‘that what was started as a covert US programme to arm and support the moderate rebels fighting Assad had been co-opted by Turkey, and had morphed into an across-the-board technical, arms and logistical programme for all of the opposition, including Jabhat al-Nusra and Islamic State.

Lieutenant General Michael Flynn, director of the DIA between 2012 and 2014, confirmed that his agency had sent a constant stream of classified warnings to the civilian leadership about the dire consequences of toppling Assad. The jihadists, he said, were in control of the opposition. Turkey wasn’t doing enough to stop the smuggling of foreign fighters and weapons across the border. ‘If the American public saw the intelligence we were producing daily, at the most sensitive level, they would go ballistic,’ Flynn told me. ‘We understood Isis’s long-term strategy and its campaign plans, and we also discussed the fact that Turkey was looking the other way when it came to the growth of the Islamic State inside Syria.

Our policy of arming the opposition to Assad was unsuccessful and actually having a negative impact,’ the former JCS adviser said. ‘The Joint Chiefs believed that Assad should not be replaced by fundamentalists. The administration’s policy was contradictory. They wanted Assad to go but the opposition was dominated by extremists. So who was going to replace him? To say Assad’s got to go is fine, but if you follow that through – therefore anyone is better. It’s the “anybody else is better” issue that the JCS had with Obama’s policy.’ The Joint Chiefs felt that a direct challenge to Obama’s policy would have ‘had a zero chance of success’. So in the autumn of 2013 they decided to take steps against the extremists without going through political channels, by providing US intelligence to the militaries of other nations, on the understanding that it would be passed on to the Syrian army and used against the common enemy, Jabhat al-Nusra and Islamic State.

Once the flow of US intelligence began, Germany, Israel and Russia started passing on information about the whereabouts and intent of radical jihadist groups to the Syrian army; in return, Syria provided information about its own capabilities and intentions. There was no direct contact between the US and the Syrian military; instead, the adviser said, ‘we provided the information – including long-range analyses on Syria’s future put together by contractors or one of our war colleges – and these countries could do with it what they chose, including sharing it with Assad. We were saying to the Germans and the others: “Here’s some information that’s pretty interesting and our interest is mutual.” End of conversation.

The Joint Chiefs let it be known that in return the US would require four things: Assad must restrain Hizbullah from attacking Israel; he must renew the stalled negotiations with Israel to reach a settlement on the Golan Heights; he must agree to accept Russian and other outside military advisers; and he must commit to holding open elections after the war with a wide range of factions included.

Settle down, ladies

La, such a catfight! It’s always a bit amusing to see when a disagreement here moves to rhetorical metargument, where instead of arguing about the actual point of disputation, the argument is transformed into who can generate more feelbads in the other side.

It is readily apparent that “you’re arguing like an SJW” has become the new “that’s a logical fallacy”, pseudo-dialectic that is both rhetorical and ineptly applied. It’s not quite as irritating, of course, as SJW is a more recent and less perfectly defined term; it used to make my teeth itch to see people use “logical fallacy” as a synonym for “statement with which I disagree”.

I stomped that inept rhetorical device out by the simple tactic of always asking the individual a single question: what was the logical fallacy? Was it the Undistributed Middle? Denying the Antecedent? Ignoratio elenchi? The fact that they could neither identify nor even describe the “fallacy” they had decried usually sufficed to teach them their error in a sufficiently embarrassing way to prevent them from again resorting to the rhetorical tactic.

Now, who is “arguing like an SJW?” Neither “the new Star Wars is a great movie everyone should see” nor “the new SJW Wars sucks and I wish I hadn’t seen it” crowd has, as far as I can tell, lied. Neither side has decried the other’s right to hold its opinion, or made any attempt to shun, discredit, or disemploy the other. Neither side has attempted to claim that the other side is intrinsically immoral, racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, or bigoted.

Both sides have indulged heavily in rhetoric, but while SJWs are limited to rhetorical communication, so are most non-SJWs.

So, it’s simply not true that anyone is “arguing like an SJW”. And the fact that someone could imagine the other side doing so is not reflective of anything but the individual’s own imagination. I could imagine that JJ Abrams might one day make a movie that I want to see, but that does not indicate that he has actually done so, or that he will do so in the future.

I knew I wouldn’t bother seeing the Disney movies as soon as I learned he was the director. Mr. Abrams has had a long, distinguished, and successful career in Hollywood, during which he has not made a single movie or television show that interested or entertained me in the slightest. Considering that I saw one of his Star Trek movies when it was on TV one night, I was not surprised to learn that he has delivered what is essentially an repetitive remake of one of its predecessors. He may be a master of lens flare, what he is is not is an original story teller.

And to turn the old saying on its head, while history rhymes, it does not repeat. The absurdity of what Abrams has produced, from a story perspective, can perhaps be best understood if one applied his storytelling technique to a hypothetical remake of Lord of the Rings.

Imagine the Shire. Imagine a party, not a birthday party, but a 50th wedding anniversary for Sam and Rosie Gamgee. In the midst of the party, they disappear, and leave behind them a mysterious piece of jewelry for their daughter, Frodette Gamgee. Then, one day, a grey-bearded, dark-skinned stranger appears; it is Gandhi the black dwarf, warning Frodette that it is a shard of Morgoth Bauglir’s iron crown, in which the fallen Ainur had imbued with his immortal essence. The shard had escaped notice in the War for the Ring, but now that Sauron and the One Ring are gone, it is the key to ruling Middle Earth.

A new power, an evil power, an invisible power has risen in the East, and the King of Gondor, Aragorn’s son Sarugorn, has been acting strangely of late. Frodette must bring the iron shard to Aglarond, where the King of the Glittering Caves will know what do… but beware, the Knight Riders of the Invisible Empire are hunting for it!

Personally, the only movie review in which I am genuinely interested in is Mr. John C. Wright’s. Those who have read Transhuman and Subhuman: Essays on Science Fiction and Awful Truth
 will understand why.