Advice for the would-be blogger

Mike Cernovich offers it:

People didn’t start blogs to win fame or fortune. People wrote because they thought they had something to say, and it was fun.

Or people started blogging in hopes of getting a book deal. Before self-publishing, people actually sat around waiting to be discovered! Or they’d pitch book ideas to publishing houses, which are staffed by 22-year-old Women’s Studies majors.

Now everyone wants to write for one hour a day and earn millions.

When you write for fame or fortune, it shows in your writing. Every post has the, “Please pay attention to me and buy my stuff and hire me” tone to it.

It’s a hard tone to explain, although Aristotle wrote about ethos in Rhetoric.

I write because it’s fun. Even though it’s how I learn my living, this website is the time of my life.

There’s not a day where I have anything approaching writer’s block. How could I? This is a blast!

Blogging was a conversation.

No one ripped off each other’s articles. Not giving attribution – called a “hat tip” – to someone was seen as unethical and would lead to ostracizing.

If someone wrote something interesting, you’d quote what he said, add your comments, and join the conversation.

Today people steal concepts and re-write entire articles.

Shorter version: write because you enjoy the process and because you actually have something different to say. Don’t do it for the attention. Don’t do it for the money. Don’t do it because you like what you perceive as the lifestyle. Don’t do it because you like the image. Especially don’t do it because you think it is some sort of get-rich-quick scheme. It’s not. It’s the exact opposite due to the supply-and-demand curve; there are more people who want to write and are able to publish than ever before, combined with fewer people who read and buy books than there have been in decades. Writing is a hobby, not a profession, a career, or a business.

If you don’t have anything to say that isn’t already being said, don’t bother. If you’re just looking to express yourself, that’s what Pinterest and Twitter are for. If you’re just looking for attention, Tumblr and Facebook will suffice.

But if you do have something to say, why should you listen to Mike? Because of what he has done by himself, without the benefit of a mainstream publisher pushing his books into the distribution channel or striking marketing deals with various booksellers. What he has done is not at all common. The average U.S. nonfiction book is now selling less than 250 copies per year. Less than 5 percent of books sell more than 5,000 copies. He is an extreme outlier.

Gorilla Mindset has sold 15,164 copies. I sell on average 70 copies per day.

Essays on Embracing Masculinity has sold 1,500 copies. I sell on average 8 copies per day.

Juice Power has sold 1,500 or so copies. Juice Power sells a copy or so a day.

Last Man Standing will outsell Gorilla Mindset, and comes out in early 2016.
I would be remiss if I failed to mention that Castalia House will have the privilege of publishing Last Man Standing.


An invitation

A few folks have said that they felt the economic chapter was the weakest part of the book, which I find absolutely fascinating as I have yet to hear anyone even begin to present the first glimmerings of a case against the key concepts in it beyond the usual “free movement of labor is not free trade”, which is observably false.

So, this is an invitation to anyone that wants to take me on; critique the chapter and I’ll post it here and respond to it. Declare your intentions in the comments, and if several of you are interested, you can even join forces and work on it together.

Bring it on. As a former free trader, I would very much like to be proved wrong.


Fun with cucks

It’s always amusing to run into the King of the Cucks, Nick Searcy, who waves his adopted black son as if he was a bloody flag rather than the get-out-of-racism free totem that is, apparently, the poor kid’s great purpose in life as far as Mr. Searcy is concerned.

“I actually do things in the real world.” – Nick Searcy, actor. 
Now that is funny!
Apparently cuckservatives, like SJWs, are prone to projection. Meanwhile, after accusing me of being “hateful, mean-spirited, and foul-mouthed”, Searcy directed this at another critic.
Yes, Nick $earcy! ‏@yesnicksearcy
Your chickenshit unwillingness to tweet your racism under your real name is also a factor, fuckhead.
The man has the emotional continence of a teenage girl who just found out her favorite boy band broke up. What I found even more amusing, though, was that our make-believe tough guy is actually tweeting at me from behind a block!
You are blocked from following @yesnicksearcy and viewing @yesnicksearcy’s Tweets. 

He even tried to justify it.

Yes, Nick $earcy! ‏@yesnicksearcy
I’m tweeting ABOUT you so that I don’t have to look at your repetitive racist bullshit, Coxday. Call Twitter, pussy. @voxday

Yes, I’m sure I’ll get right on it. Then I’ll cry harassment and start a Patreon account. But tonight’s pièce de résistance was this:

Yes, Nick $earcy! ‏@yesnicksearcy
I’ve made a fortune as an entertainer, 296 follower nonentity loser. You’ll NEVER be that clever. @Nosajio @voxday

Yeah, so, about that….
It would have been funnier, of course, if Einstein, rather than Machiavelli, had been third instead of fifth. And I was wrong. The pièce de résistance was when he went running to tell Larry on me.

Yes, Nick $earcy! ‏@yesnicksearcy
Wonder if @monsterhunter45 knows what a piece of shit @voxday is. 


NFL Week 14

Well, I’m in the playoffs by point difference, but with Mark Ingram out and on IR, and my opponent having had a good Thursday night, it could be tight. This is the weekly NFL open thread.


The call of the cuck

A review of Cuckservative anticipates, correctly, I suspect, that it is Christians who will find it most difficult to give up their extra-Biblical Good Samaritanism:

The chapter on Christianity and cuckservatism is perhaps the most devastating in the book, and will be the most difficult pill to swallow for those at whom it is aimed. Your ordinary political cuckservative is, at some level, aware of his own pusillanimity and bad faith. Christian cuckservatives are, generally speaking, much more naive, good-hearted and truly well intentioned. For them, looking in the mirror that Vox Day and Red Eagle hold up will be extremely difficult. I would not be surprised if the loudest condemnations of this book come from Christian cuckservatives. Ordinary political conservatives reading this book may reproach themselves for their former credulousness and lack of good judgment, but they may more easily and readily be won over to the worldview that Vox and Red Eagle advocate since they can place the blame on the leaders of the movement. The Christian will have to go through a complete paradigm shift over his basic understanding of his own religion before he will be capable of making that same leap.

I’ve seen this repeatedly in Churchians. Their religion consists of equating “love” with “being nice”. It puts a premium on whatever makes them feel good emotionally; they are essentially emotional hedonists rather than physical ones.

Churchians can no more accept the concept of a God who is intolerant, or a Savior who does not save everyone (except, perhaps, for the intolerant), any more than an inveterate deviant can accept the concept of a God who considers sexual deviance to be abomination. It is not an accident that they are so easily subverted by the wolves in sheep’s clothing, who use the intolerance intrinsic in the concept of a fallen state of Man requiring salvation to deny the Cross, deny the Resurrection, deny Hell, and finally, deny Jesus Christ of Nazareth.


More questions wanted

We’ve got over 1,500 questions for the trivia game, but I would like at least another 1,000 and we’re particularly short of a) classic arcade games and b) early console games, including Atari 2600, Intellivision, and Colecovision.

Please send them in .xls or .ods format in the following format:

[difficulty][question number][question][answer][multiple choice options][correct multiple choice answer]

For example:

[easy][1][On which planet is the game set?][Chiron][1=Hermes;2=Vesta;3=Chiron;4=Eunomia][3]

[easy][2][How many factions were added in Alien Crossfire?][7][1=5;2=6;3=7;4=8][3]

And so forth, where each set of brackets [] indicates a spreadsheet cell.
We need 10 questions per game, 4 Easy, 3 Medium, 2 Hard, 1 Expert. Easy
questions should be obvious; anyone who has played the game should be able to get
them right. No trick questions!

Please also provide the following information, either in the spreadsheet or in the email to which it is attached:

Game name
Platform(s)
Genre: (action, adventure, strategy, rpg, sim)
Decade: (1980, 1990, 2000, 2010)
Year
Developer
Publisher
Designer name (if known)
Your name (for the credits)

If you know an old school game well, send in the questions!


Mailvox: we are all Spartacus

An anonymous reader shares his experience with SJW attacks:

I’ve just finished reading your book “SJWs Always Lie” (great book, thanks for that!). Like you, I was following GG from when it was still #burgersandfries.

Even though I’m no longer a gamer (I was a pretty hardcore gamer a decade ago, but work got in the way), pretty soon I recognised the importance of what was happening (overt censorship on 4chan of all places!) and found myself switching from observing to supporting the movement on IRC and the image boards, as well as funding & helping 8chan cope with the influx of users that were jumping the 4chan ship.

Eventually I resumed using my Twitter account as the action moved there.

Since I’ve never had a problem standing by my opinions I’ve always used my own name on the Internet. And it’s not hard to find where I live from a simple search on my name, so I’ve never had to worry about doxxing.

This changed when [a major SJW went after him] and eventually it became apparent to me that the best course of action would be to discontinue using twitter under my own name and not respond at all to whatever the charge was. Luckily this all blew over in a few weeks…. I absolutely hate that I had to back down. I feel strongly I shouldn’t have had to back down. Anyway, now I’m as “unfragile” as one could get: independently wealthy, no care for reputation & ready to kick some SJW ass.

PR-hungry SJWs are setting up one scam “anti-abuse” “support” organisation after another, with the clear purpose of getting to people in a fragile and/or vulnerable state of mind to indoctrinate them into the cult of SJ. One telltale sign of this is that they invariably start by isolating their “clients” from any pre-existing support structure.

I was thinking it might be a good idea to counter by setting up a support organisation for SJW targets. A real anti-abuse organisation.

If we can get to targets with practical and legal advice (Cernovich maybe?) before they shoot themselves in the foot by publicly apologising or even resigning we could severely limit the impact these attacks have. This could easily be structured 1:1 on the strategies in your book.

And with a big enough, partly or mostly anonymous, support network of sympathetic employers we could perhaps even get people new (possibly even better) jobs in the event they’re still fired. That would completely take away any “power” these offendotrons have and effectively declaw and defang our common enemy.

I’d be willing to fund & support such an endeavour if we can get a critical mass of allies together. I’m terrible at PR though, but I figured you may be up for it.

I am indeed. I’m still getting my head around how to tackle these various projects; the wargame one is the first one that we’ve consciously set up but there are some other independent offshoots by various Ilk that have begun taking shape. This is something that requires Brainstorm discussion, however, so I’m going to invite the emailer, and the heads of the various offshoots, to participate as panelists.

Is this something we should do before or after Christmas? Brainstorm members, share your thoughts, but do so anonymously. Due to recent attempts to target the Dread Ilk on Facebook, I want EVERYONE who comments here regularly to shift to using anonymous names and/or numbers. 

VFM can identify by their numbers. Note that I’m going to issue new numbers soon since too many of the old ones are connected to personal identities. I’ll do the same for Brainstorm. Everyone else, start using names unrelated to your personal lives and interests. It’s not a joke. There are active attempts, by SJWs and Republican politicos alike, to “map the Alt Right topology”. They are doing this because they want to identify as many of you as they can and then expose you in order to put social pressure on you, which includes disemploying you.

You’ve seen what they’ve done to me, what they are still doing to me on a daily basis. But not only do I not care about social pressure, their attempts only make me, and others like Mike Cernovich, more popular. So, they are starting to switch from the hard public targets to the softer targets of our supporters.

What we’re going to do is render those attempts useless. Note that when you are commenting with your new handle there is ZERO need to point out that X is really Y; we will recognize the thoughts and styles soon enough. But if you are not a genuinely hard target, you should be setting up alternative Twitter and Gmail accounts now, don’t kid yourself into thinking that you are more antifragile than you are. Unless you can legitimately afford to walk away from your job tomorrow due to badthink, please go to the trouble involved. Some of you are already doing this, but I want all the Dread Ilk to do so.

This will also permit the use of drive-by commenters as virtual shields, as they’ll be the only ones who are readily tracked down and most of the SJWs activities will be consumed in futile misdirection. Misdirection is always the better part of valor.

This isn’t a cultural war we’ve chosen, but it is one that the SJWs have thrust upon us. And we are all Spartacus.


How you can help

As you’ve probably noticed, I’ve added an Amazon banner ad on the right sidebar. For years, people have been telling me that I should get an affiliate program going, considering how many people have bought books there in support of me, in support of Castalia House, or as the result of a book review. I simply never got around to it, being busy with rather more hands-on priorities, but as part of my effort to better maintain focus (and some much-needed external encouragement), I finally took the time to set it up.

I’m sure you know how it works. Not only will VP get credit for direct sales of the product linked, but also for any items you go on to purchase in that session from that particular entrance into Amazon. So, start your Christmas shopping here! It doesn’t matter if you click on the banner ad or on one of the various book covers; the books under Castalia New Releases will always serve as a functional Amazon portal. Or you can click on the text link underneath them on the right: Amazon VD Page.

There have been a lot of changes in the last two years, but one thing that remains the same, and will always remain the same, is that the core blog content of multiple posts per day will remain free. Commenting will also remain as free and unmoderated as I can permit it to be without permitting the spammers, trolls, and monomaniacs to disrupt the discourse. You don’t have to support VP by utilizing the associate program in order for this to continue because it will continue as it has been regardless, but the more you do, the more we can do.


Ode to the Small Creature Who Takes Refuge in My Boot

Ode to the Small Creature Who Takes Refuge in My Boot

The winter is hard, that I know,
What with cold winds and ice and the snow.
And I do not dispute
That you should decide
To seek out my boot
And take shelter inside.

‘Tis the season of cheer
At this time of the year;
That you should keep warm, I don’t mind.
But when I am shod, I do not wish to trod
Upon items that you leave behind.


Reformers turn restrictionist

Donald Trump has a convert, and then some, in Larry Kudlow:

I’ve Changed. This Is War. Seal the Borders. Stop the Visas.

I know this is not my usual position. But this is a war. Therefore I have come to believe there should be no immigration or visa waivers until the U.S. adopts a completely new system to stop radical Islamic terrorists from entering the country. A wartime lockdown. And a big change in my thinking.

ISIS and related Islamic terrorists are already here. More are coming. We must stop them.

Until FBI director James Comey gives us the green light, I say seal the borders.

Here’s what we must do: Completely reform the vetting process for immigrants and foreign visitors. Change the screening process. Come up with a new visa-application review process. Stop this nonsense of marriage-visa fraud. And in the meantime, seal the borders. I agree with Jessica Vaughn, director of policy studies at the Center for Immigration Studies, who argued many of these points in excellent detail on the National Review website on Friday.

Again, why am I taking this hardline position? In the past, I have been an immigration reformer, not a restrictionist. But we are at war. That changes everything.

This is an expected, but delightful, development. It won’t be long before the American mainstream endorses mass repatriations. That is the best possible outcome; a widespread resurgence of peaceful nationalism that is not unlawfully resisted by an anti-democratic internationalist elite.

  1. Stop all visas, green cards, and immigration.
  2. Seal the borders. 
  3. Repatriate all illegals, criminals, dual-citizens, and nationals from Muslim countries.
  4. Debate and formulate a new immigration system that will return the US demographics to a reasonable facsimile of 1965 over time.
  5.  Implement the new system.