Nature beats nurture

Genetic science is not only destroying the last 50 years of educational policy, but social policy in general. The fact that up to 65 percent of the difference in academic results are genetic also explains why the post-1965 and post-1986 waves of immigration are destined to reduce the USA to Second World status:

Genes influence academic ability across all subjects, latest study shows 

The researchers analysed genetic data and GCSE scores from 12,500 twins, about half of whom were identical. Results in all subjects, including maths, science, art and humanities, were highly heritable, with genes explaining a bigger proportion of the differences between children (54-65%) than environmental factors, such as school and family combined (14-21%), which were shared by the twins.

Comparing the outcomes for identical twins with fraternal twins allows scientists to investigate the extent to which genetics influence a person’s life. Identical twins share 100% of their genes, whereas fraternal twins share on average only half of the genes that differ between people.

So if genetics were a significant factor governing GCSE results, the differences between fraternal twins’ performances would be expected to be consistently greater than those between identical twins – and this is what the scientists saw.

When the scientists factored in IQ scores, they found that intelligence appeared to account for slightly less than half of the genetic component, suggesting that other heritable traits – curiosity, determination and memory, perhaps – play a significant role.

Kaili Rimfeld, who led the study and is also at King’s College London, said: “There’s a general academic achievement factor. Children who do well in one subject tend to better in another subject and that is largely for genetic reasons.”

Plomin said that while talking about genetics and education was no longer the taboo that it was twenty years ago, education professionals were slow to adapt teaching methods in the face of new scientific findings. “It’s a problem with evidence,” he said. “Thirty years ago medicine wasn’t particularly evidence-based. I think education is fundamentally not based on evidence. What programme has been rolled out that has been based on evidence?

The “Blank Slate” theory is dead. It was never anything but political philosophy and science killed it. Every nominal justification for human equality is being gradually eliminated, one by one, as scientists revisit hypotheses that have long been passed off as pseudoscientific facts.

I suspect that what we are seeing here is not unrelated to yesterday’s “cuckservative” kerfluffle, which is only going to get bigger now that Milo is working on a story. Remember, the Ciceronian political cycle predicts aristocracy will follow mob rule that has collapsed into dictatorship, and the anti-equalitarian backlash is going to have the benefit of a much stronger scientific foundation than historical justifications for the rule by the best.

I suspect that those equalitarians who claim to believe that a meritocracy is the best of all possible systems are going to rapidly change their tune once it becomes apparent that material merit is predominantly genetic in origin. Because in a post-Christian world of scientific rational materialism, there is no way that a meritocratic approach will not eventually lead to Eugenics 2.0.

The irony is that it is the equalitarians and anti-racists who will likely cling to the concept of race. Now that genetics gives us far more precise metrics, the new eugenicists won’t have to pay any attention to race at all in order to achieve their desired results. And they can claim, quite truthfully, that their policies are race- and color-blind. For example, if variants of the MAO-A, DAT1, and DRD2 genes are deemed to be unsuitable for an occupation, those possessing the unwanted genetic markers can be banned with absolutely no reference to race at all.

Fun with #WrongFamily

From what I understand, Nick Searcy is actually a good guy whose conservative heart is generally in the right place. However, someone should probably let him know that I’m really not the right guy with whom to play the “I adopted a black child and therefore cannot be criticized” game. I have to admit, this is the most fun I’ve had on Twitter in a long time.

Yes, Nick $earcy! ‏@yesnicksearcy
Do VOX & @Cernovich applaud the overt racism behind #cuckservative? Xtra hate for adoption!

Vox Day ‏@voxday
I certainly endorse use of the term to deride conservative pro-immigrationists destroying America.

Yes, Nick $earcy! ‏@yesnicksearcy
I’m not pro illegal immigration. I hosted a doc about it. But you are anti-transracial adoption?

Vox Day ‏@voxday
The adoption angle strikes me as an irrelevant rhetorical sideshow from both sides.

Yes, Nick $earcy! ‏@yesnicksearcy
Maybe you could spread the word among your fellow #cuckroaches. My transracial family offends them.

Vox Day ‏@voxday
The word isn’t “transracial”, Nick, it’s “multiracial”. Adopting kids doesn’t make you black.

Yes, Nick $earcy! ‏@yesnicksearcy
Wrong as usual, anonymous internet dickweed. The term is “transracial.” Eat it.

Vox Day ‏@voxday
Nick, adopting kids doesn’t make you black. And stop hiding behind them. It’s pathetic.

Guild Carver ‏@Guildcarver
Stop trying vox the facts are against you. Definition.

Vox Day ‏@voxday
Transracial would be if Nick said his family was Chinese. Do try to keep up.

Guild Carver ‏@Guildcarver
nick & family is white. Adopted son that is black. Transracial dickbag.

Vox Day ‏@voxday
Godfrey Elfwick is transracial. Rachel Dolazel is transracial. I am multiracial.

Guild Carver ‏@Guildcarver
you’re nothing more than a dumbass who is ignoring facts to make a bullshit point for 15 minutes in the spotlight.

Vox Day ‏@voxday
Stop with the transracist hate. #WrongSkin is real! Evidence.

Vox Day ‏@voxday
Perhaps we should set aside “transracial” and “multiracial” and go with #WrongFamily? Everyone agree with that?

Yes, Nick $earcy! ‏@yesnicksearcy
I’m sure all of your fellow #cuckroaches would love the term #wrongfamily.

Vox Day ‏@voxday
Cool, I’m glad we’re agreed. I will join you in your fight against transfamilialphobia. #WrongFamily. 

The thing is, once you realize someone doesn’t merit being taken seriously, you may as well amuse yourself at their expense. You can probably figure out the exact point at which I reached that conclusion. And their other merits notwithstanding, anyone who wants to take a serious debate about mass immigration and transform it into a posturing sideshow about their get-out-of-racism-free token is not an individual with whom one can have a serious discussion, at least on that subject.

I found it particularly amusing that Mr. Searchy managed to transform the offense he took at one hashtag into another one he likes even less. And I have a brilliant #WrongFamily graphic meme in mind for the very important fight against transfamilialphobia.

The Greek drama is far from over

Now there are stories about two alternative angles explored by the Greek government before they finally submitted to the Eurotroika:

In short, Varoufakis claims Tsipras had pre-approved the creation of secret accounts for every tax filer (which, knowing Greece, might have left Varoufakis short on accounts for quite a few citizens). Greeks would be made aware of the accounts’ existence in the event the banking system ceased to function altogether, and Athens would effectively facilitate payments through the new system in defiance of the EMU. Clearly, this would not have been well received by Brussels – especially the bit about hacking their software – but ultimately, because the new system would be entirely controlled by Varoufakis’ finance ministry, it could be converted to the drachma immediately.

Kathimerini goes on the quote Varoufakis as saying that German FinMin Wolfgang Schaeuble intended to use Grexit as leverage to force France into supporting a system that ceded fiscal decision making to Brussels (which would of course mean giving Berlin more say over EMU countries’ finances):

    “Schaeuble has a plan. The way he described it to me is very simple. He believes that the eurozone is not sustainable as it is. He believes there has to be some fiscal transfers, some degree of political union. He believes that for that political union to work without federation, without the legitimacy that a properly elected federal parliament can render, can bestow upon an executive, it will have to be done in a very disciplinary way. And he said explicitly to me that a Grexit is going to equip him with sufficient bargaining, sufficient terrorising power in order to impose upon the French that which Paris has been resisting. And what is that? A degree of transfer of budget making powers from Paris to Brussels.”

The new revelations raise serious concerns for Alexis Tsipras. The deep divisions within Syriza are by now well publicized, but reports of covert plans to establish parallel banking systems using tax filers’ IDs and the idea that elements within the ruling party plotted to seize billions in currency reserves and take control of the central bank have left some lawmakers demanding answers.

There is always considerably more to these things than meets the eye. But it is interesting, is it not, that a national referendum is so completely irrelevant to the events nominally happening around it? Why, it’s almost as if we’re living in a post-democratic age!

The one thing everyone seems to have in common is that no one wants to bite the bullet and deal with the economic realities. Debt that can’t be repaid will be defaulted. Everything else follows from that.

Media as weapon

We’ve certainly seen this with both #GamerGate and Sad Puppies. But given how resorting to it has failed against us, I very much doubt it will work against Google.

If you talk to the reporters who work for various big media companies, they insist that they have true editorial independence from the business side of their companies. They insist that the news coverage isn’t designed to reflect the business interests of their owners. Of course, most people have always suspected this was bullshit — and you could see evidence of this in things like the fact that the big TV networks refused to cover the SOPA protests. But — until now — there’s never necessarily been a smoking gun with evidence of how such business interests influences the editorial side.

Earlier this month, we noted that the Hollywood studios were all resisting subpoenas from Google concerning their super cozy relationship with Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood, whose highly questionable “investigation” of Google appeared to actually be run by the MPAA and the studios themselves. The entire “investigation” seemed to clearly be an attempt to mislead the public into believing that it was somehow illegal for Google’s search engine to find stuff that people didn’t like online. A court has already ruled that Hood pretty clearly acted in bad faith to deprive Google of its First Amendment rights. As the case has continued, Google has sought much more detail on just how much of the investigation was run by the MPAA and the studios — and Hollywood has vigorously resisted, claiming that they really had nothing to do with all of this, which was a laughable assertion.

However, in a filing on Thursday, Google revealed one of the few emails that they have been able to get access to so far, and it’s stunning. It’s an email between the MPAA and two of Jim Hood’s top lawyers in the Mississippi AG’s office, discussing the big plan to “hurt” Google. Beyond influencing other Attorneys General (using misleading fake “setups” of searches for “bad” material) and paying for fake anti-Google research, the lawyers from Hood’s office flat out admit that they’re expecting the MPAA and the major studios to have its media arms run a coordinated propaganda campaign of bogus anti-Google stories:

    Media: We want to make sure that the media is at the NAAG meeting. We propose working with MPAA (Vans), Comcast, and NewsCorp (Bill Guidera) to see about working with a PR firm to create an attack on Google (and others who are resisting AG efforts to address online piracy). This PR firm can be funded through a nonprofit dedicated to IP issues. The “live buys” should be available for the media to see, followed by a segment the next day on the Today Show (David green can help with this). After the Today Show segment, you want to have a large investor of Google (George can help us determine that) come forward and say that Google needs to change its behavior/demand reform. Next, you want NewsCorp to develop and place an editorial in the WSJ emphasizing that Google’s stock will lose value in the face of a sustained attack by AGs and noting some of the possible causes of action we have developed.

In other words, Jim Hood and the MPAA were out and out planning a coordinated media attack on Google using the editorial properties that supposedly claim to have editorial independence from the business side.

I don’t know anyone who still takes the media at face value. If you do, you’re obviously either a) not very bright, or, b) not paying attention.

Why cuckservatives cry

The recent hashtag fireworks between the pro-immigration and anti-immigration right appears to be the second step of a long-awaited political battle that I have expected for more than a decade now. For years, conservatives afraid of being called racist have stupidly attempted to finesse the immigration issue, claiming that “it’s not the immigration, it’s the illegality” while loudly declaring their support for LEGAL immigration to balance their opposition to ILLEGAL immigration. But the distinction was always meaningless; the behavior of the individual immigrant and the cumulative effects of mass immigration have historically had nothing to do with the legality or illegality of the act of immigration. The intra-Right conflict we’re seeing now is in part the result of the Obama Administration punching right through that ridiculous position by simply legalizing larger-scale immigration than before. This is the second step of the battle; the first step was the publication of Ann Coulter’s Adios America, which marked the first time a major American conservative media figure besides Pat Buchanan had the courage to finally come out and admit that the real problem with immigration is a) the quality of the immigrants, and b) the quantity of the immigrants.

I am an immigrant myself; my children are second-generation immigrants. Keep in mind that to the extent you consider us to be more-or-less normal Americans, that is precisely how all of the first- and second-generation Mexicans, Chinese, Somalis, and Nigerians living in America are still more-or-less normal Mexicans, Chinese, Somalis, and Nigerians. The only difference is that we’ve been here longer, we’re more integrated, and we speak the language. Potete domandare Giuseppe cosi. Geographical translocation is not magic. Move enough Mexicans into California, you don’t make them Californians, you turn California into Mexico. I’ve seen the same thing over here on a smaller scale in British expat colonies where people who have lived in Italy for 15 years don’t speak more than 10 words of Italian, still drink tea instead of espresso and can’t cook worth a damn. Being there doesn’t feel like Italy, it feels like being in England, and more properly English than Londonistan is these days.

I should probably mention that if you’re going to try to disqualify me as an anti-Mexican racist simply because I observe the indisputable truth, my response is simple: va fanculo, my great-grandfather rode with Villa, fought with Villa, and barely escaped Villa’s assassins. The truth is the truth regardless of the genetic heritage of the individual observing it.

The Israeli military historian Martin van Creveld has a brilliant essay on the martial implications of immigration that will be published in Volume 2 of Riding the Red Horse, which I am now beginning to assemble. And the remarkable thing is that he reaches a disturbingly similar conclusion to Heartiste’s well-known aphorism, Diversity + Proximity = War, only one that is even stronger. One reason the world is in the process of descending into war all over the globe is due to the unprecedented mass movement of peoples – as Umberto Eco pointed out more than a decade ago, to call it “immigration” is fundamentally a misnomer – and the sheer scale of these mass movements makes war inevitable.

Remember, the entry of the Nazis into Austria was arguably more legal than the actions of the Obama administration with regards to immigration. The Nazis even let the immigrated invaded Austrians vote on it in a national referendum, which is something neither the Democrats and the Republican #cuckservatives would permit the American people. But the end result of the Anschluss was no different than the Nazi’s subsequent illegal immigration into invasion of Czechoslovakia, Nazi rule.

I think Mike Cernovich’s definition of #cuckservative is probably the most useful one. If you are in any way an advocate for those who intend to rape and pillage you and yours, you are a #cuckservative. I also think that what we’re seeing is a generational divide. People my age and older tend to view things from a perspective of a permanent white majority. So, they tend to view everything from a view of racial noblesse oblige. They believe America’s success can be shared with the New Americans without that success being destroyed.

The younger generation of white Americans know better. They know they are just another racial group among many, larger, more divided, advantaged in some ways, disadvantaged in others, and with a target tattooed on their chests due to their historical “privilege”. Those inclined to buy into the rainbow mythology become SJWs or submissive moderates, those who are not don’t buy into any of it, including the various aspects of “melting pot” theology in which their conservative elders still foolishly believe. They know that what their elders still think to be theoretically achievable is impossible, because unlike their elders, they didn’t grow up with diversity being a theoretical objective to be celebrated, but a terrible reality to be suffered.

The most ridiculous thing about #cuckservatism is that it’s an inherently losing strategy. If your primary political objective is to avoid being called racist, you will lose. And then you will be called racist anyhow.

Mailvox: “we’re waiting for ISIS”

Shimshon asks about the Middle East:

i think i mentioned before. i heard word from someone who knows. the region north and west of amman, and all along the syrian border is thick with refugees. have you seen some of the pics? there’s around 600k i think. around 10% of the native population. my understanding is that king hussein is pretty terrified of the powderkeg in his midst.

Powderkeg barely begins to describe it. The refugee situation is even worse than that. I had lunch with a Lebanese Christian last week, who was visiting while on vacation. Apparently there are over a million refugees there now. I asked what the Maronites were doing and he said “we are waiting for ISIS.”

That sounded rather fatalistic, so I asked him if they would fight or if they would simply submit like the Assyrians and the Yazidi did. He smiled and said “We have always had to fight to stay alive. The difference is, this time many of those we used to fight against will be fighting with us.” It’s perhaps worth remembering that they were winning the Lebanese civil war when Syria entered and forced a settlement.

What the US and Israel should do is materially support Assad and the Alawites, the Jordanians, and the Lebanese Christians without getting involved in the fighting, and at the same time, clean house at home. Instead, they appear to be playing the same stupid game they did in Afghanistan, where they create a weaponized puppet who rapidly grows beyond their control. Too many parties appear to be too caught up in their historical concerns, such as the Turks with the Kurds, or their grand strategic vision, such as the Israelis with Iran, to focus on the actual danger at hand.

Sure, the Islamic State is no danger to Israel or the USA now, so they think they can use it to settle old scores. But just as the anti-Soviet mujahideen eventually transformed into the Taliban, Daesh is in the process of developing into a more serious and formidable force.

The Iran agreement, and the fact that Turkey, Israel, and the USA are all cooperating to hit Daesh in Syria may indicate that they’re finally beginning to rethink their previous perspectives. The one thing that is certain is that Syria is far less dangerous with Assad in control than Daesh.

PSA: the Ctrl-X-Close fix

I’ve had to look this up twice in the last three months, so I figure others have probably run into this problem on occasion.

For the past couple of months I have been coping with an incredibly frustrating problem. My files in the File Open dialog box mysteriously started appearing in order of the “Last Modified” date, instead of in alphabetical order….

Here’s what you do: go into Windows Explorer and open a folder such as My Documents. Now choose View|Details. Along the top of the file listing area, you see Name, Type, Size, Modified. If you click any one of these, it will change how your files are sorted in the list.

Now here’s the part that made Windows save this sorting information everywhere. Hold down the Ctrl key and click the X in the upper right-hand corner of the Window to close it.

It works. The crazy thing about this is that Microsoft barely lets you do anything without asking for confirmation. Do you REALLY want to quit? Are you sure? Do you REALLY want to save over that file? Are you sure? But if you happen to hit a key while you’re doing something else, well, OBVIOUSLY that is something that can never happen by accident and CLEARLY there is no reason to confirm this obscure, but universal settings change that will fundamentally alter how you interact with every file in every folder every time you want to open one.

Over the years, I have learned that assuming Apple is evil and Microsoft is stupid is a remarkably reliable metric in dealing with their operating systems.

It’s not a new problem

Politics took the prize a long time ago and the Puppies are a response to the politicization of science fiction. Compare and contrast the latest Hugo mewling by The Guardian with Mike Glyer’s count of conservative Hugo-winners:

The Hugo awards will be the losers if politics takes the prize

The controversy stirred up by science fiction’s ‘Sad Puppies’ means there will be no winners at this year’s Hugo awards

The latest furore to consume SF fandom will reach a conclusion on Friday, when voting for the Hugo awards – arguably one of the genre’s most prestigious accolades – closes. Spats around the awards are nothing new. The nominations are chosen by fans, and every year authors are accused of campaigning to get their names on the list. This year a gang of rightwing authors known as the “Sad Puppies” have taken campaigning to a whole new level. Calling on their fans to stack the nomination slate with candidates who share their political agenda, their main beef is that they believe too many genre awards go to lefty, ideological fiction, and not enough to more “swashbuckling” books. Authors and fans on both sides of the divide have written endless blogs about the controversy, big names including George RR Martin have weighed in against the Puppies, and the story has been picked up by the mainstream press.

It raises the question: who should nominate works for awards anyway? A select jury (a la the Man Booker or Clarke) or the fans who actually buy the books? Clearly there should be enough room – and integrity – for both. Yet this year’s Clarke award shortlist was almost universally praised, while, in contrast, the Hugo nominations were met with derision and incredulity (for example, so-called “rabid puppy” Vox Day, who has called women’s rights “a disease to be eradicated”, is up for two awards). You might say that this is democracy at work – the fans have spoken! – and that would be all well and good, but, tellingly, two authors recommended by the Sad Puppies have already pulled their work from the nominations, saying that they want their writing to be judged on merit and not on their assumed political affiliations. It goes without saying that all books, whatever their authors’ political stance, should be judged on whether they’re any good or not; but with some factions suggesting fans vote “No Award” on categories that they believe have been hijacked, and the Puppies urging their stormtroopers to stick to their guns, the whole thing has slipped into farce. And this is a great pity. The Hugos have always been a popularity contest, a showcase of SF fandoms’ favourite fiction, and skewing the lists for political point-scoring makes a mockery of them. Whether the Sad Puppies win the day or not, it’s the awards’ legacy that will suffer, along with the future work that would have benefited from their now damaged prestige. That’s what is truly sad.

19 of the 266 Hugo Awards that have been given out since 1996 have gone to political conservatives. And the legacy of the awards has already suffered, because they have been regularly given out to inferior work for at least the last 15 years. When Patrick Nielsen Hayden, Charles Stross, and John Scalzi have more Hugo nominations in far fewer years of professionally writing and editing than Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein, and Arthur C. Clarke, it is patently obvious that something is seriously wrong.

Meanwhile, women have won 65.7 Hugos in the same time. And keep in mind that conservatives outnumber liberals by a factor of 1.6 in the USA, which means that conservatives are underrepresented by a factor of 11.3, versus women being underrepresented by a factor of 2.

Now, if the SJWs in SF are to be believed, this is evidence that sexism is a serious problem but
there is absolutely no evidence of left wing ideological bias. They keep
repeating this despite the fact that the anti-right wing bias in
science fiction is observably 5.6 times worse than the purported sexism
about which they so often complain.

Of course, SJWs always lie.

Moira Greyland obliterates the rainbow

Given what she’s survived at the hands of the gay community already, I don’t think they’re going to intimidate her one little bit. The daughter of feminist icon Marion Zimmer Bradley and convicted child molester Walter Breen shines sunlight on the dark underbelly of homosexual culture and its obsession with molesting children:

My observation of my father and mother’s actual belief is this: since everyone is naturally gay, it is the straight establishment that makes everyone hung up and therefore limited.  Sex early will make people willing to have sex with everyone, which will bring about the utopia while eliminating homophobia and helping people become “who they really are.” It will also destroy the hated nuclear family with its paternalism, sexism, ageism (yes, for pedophiles, that is a thing) and all other “isms.”  If enough children are sexualized young enough, gayness will suddenly be “normal” and accepted by everyone, and the old fashioned notions about fidelity will vanish.  As sex is integrated as a natural part of every single relationship, the barriers between people will vanish, and the utopia will appear, as “straight culture” goes the way of the dinosaur.  As my mother used to say: “Children are brainwashed into believing they don’t want sex.”

I know, I know.  The stupidity of that particular thesis is boundless, and the actual consequence is forty-year-olds in therapy for sexual abuse, many, many suicides, and ruined lives for just about EVERYONE.  But someone needed to say it.  Will anyone hear it?

What sets gay culture apart from straight culture is the belief that early sex is good and beneficial, and the sure knowledge (don’t think for a second that they DON’T know) that the only way to produce another homosexual is to provide a boy with sexual experiences BEFORE he can be “ruined” by attraction to a girl.

If you’re OK with that, and you might not be, it is worth your consideration.  If you think I am wrong, that is your privilege, but watch out for the VAST number of stories of sexual abuse AND transgenderism that will come about from these gay “marriages.”  Already the statistics for sexual abuse of children of gays are astronomically high compared to that suffered by the children of straights.

Naturally my perspective is very uncomfortable to the liberal people I was raised with: I am “allowed” to be a victim of molestation by both parents, and “allowed” to be a victim of rather hideous violence. I am, incredibly, NOT ALLOWED to blame their homosexuality for their absolute willingness to accept all sex at all times between all people.

But that is not going to slow me down one bit. I am going to keep right on speaking out. I have been silent for entirely too long. Gay “marriage” is nothing but a way to make children over in the image of their “parents” and in ten to thirty years, the survivors will speak out.

I suspect that the eventual backlash against the rainbow fascists in the West is going to make ISIS look merciful. Remember, the historical pendulum ALWAYS swings back sooner or later. Once it becomes clear that acceptance of homosexuality necessarily requires the acceptance of widespread child molestation, there will be no mercy. There is a very good reason homosexuality was historically categorized among the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders; it is a mental disorder that typically stems from childhood abuse of one form or another.

That doesn’t mean all homosexuals are evil individuals or are inclined to molest children. What Miss Greyland is saying makes it clear that they are, in fact, innocent victims, regardless of how proud they may claim to be of their past victimization. But the fact remains that there is an intrinsic link between the childhood abuse and the mental disorder, and if you disagree, then you can take it up with Moira Greyland. Just try to tell her she doesn’t know what she’s talking about.

This also provides an obvious response to those who ask “why don’t you support gay marriage?” Because I oppose child molestation. If banning gay “marriage” will save even ONE child from being sexually abused, then it is a moral imperative.

Prior to the establishment of the federal parody of marriage, children were 10 times more likely to be molested by a parent or adult guardian if their mother was a lesbian and 3 times more often if their father was gay. As Miss Greyland predicts, imagine how that ratio is going to explode if both “parents” are gay; the math indicates it will be somewhere between 9 times and 100 times more often; given the greater access to children necessarily involved, it will probably be closer to the latter figure.

Tweaks

As you can probably tell by my use of the old Blogger template, I am not inclined to make change simply for its own sake. Few site redesigns actually improve anything; I prefer a more evolutionary approach.

With that in mind, VPIT has come up with another tweak that may, or may not, improve your VP experience. Instructions follow:

You may have noticed that the comments at Vox Popoli are now numbered sequentially.  This is useful both for remembering your stopping point in a thread and referring to individual comments when you reply.

As an additional convenience, VPIT is experimenting with a Clever Browser Trick that will convert a simple reference to the number of a previous comment into a permalink to that actual comment.  You don’t have to know any HTML to make it work; just refer to the comment number like this:

@42

This should work naturally in naturally-written text, e.g.:


Vox @137, I cannot agree that you have definitively proven that SJWs subsist solely on carrots and their toenail clippings.

Nota Bene:  Because Blogspot’s commenting system is clownishly poor in features, it is impossible to consistently number comments when some of them get spammed. That is, if comment 17 is by a troll and is sent to spam, what was previously comment 18 will become comment 17.