The diversity camp crumbles

Anyone who has studied the history of racially and culturally diverse societies knew this was inevitable:

A complaint Friday alleged that Harvard University discriminates
against Asian-American applicants by setting a higher bar for admissions
than that faced by other groups.

The complaint, filed by a
coalition of 64 organizations, says the university has set quotas to
keep the numbers of Asian-American students significantly lower than the
quality of their applications merits. It cites third-party academic
research on the SAT exam showing that Asian-Americans have to score on
average about 140 points higher than white students, 270 points higher
than Hispanic students and 450 points higher than African-American
students to equal their chances of gaining admission to Harvard. The
exam is scored on a 2400-point scale.

The complaint was filed with the U.S. Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights.

“Many
studies have indicated that Harvard University has been engaged in
systemic and continuous discrimination against Asian-Americans during
its very subjective ‘Holistic’ college admissions process,” the
complaint alleges. The coalition is seeking a federal
investigation and is requesting Harvard “immediately cease and desist
from using stereotypes, racial biases and other discriminatory means in
evaluating Asian-American applicants.”

This action is particularly significant for its symbolism; Harvard is the throne of American left-liberalism. But the nominally ideological alliance of minorities against the white majority was only going to last as long as the minorities felt they benefited more from that alliance than from flexing their muscle in their own direct interests. Based on what we’re seeing from the Asians in the political world, they are all but done with their “liberal” alliance with blacks, Jews, and Hispanics.

It won’t surprise me if Asians magically become more “conservative” in the next decade as they switch to a Yellow-White (Blue) alliance against the White (Red)-Black-Brown alliance. Politics in the USA and in the UK are becoming less about ideology and more about the straightforward racial power struggles that have historically characterized most diverse societies.

And yes, I use the Red-Blue colors in their original form; Red being the appropriate color for those of the more socialist inclinations.

The SJWs review the shortlist

Not that the outcomes were ever in any doubt, but it’s always interesting to see what justifications the SJWs produce for their DISQUALIFY. Here are a few commenting at File 770:

Hampus Eckerman on May 19, 2015 at 9:04 am said:

Just finished the Related Works. Not satisfied again.

Wisdoms from my Internet was mostly a collection of tweets. Some were funny, some were well thought out, others were boring and a few were… well, lets say they catered to people with another political taste than me. Ranting about “SJWs” is not the way to get votes from me. Anyhow, who wants to read that amount of tweets? Nah, this is a no award.

Why Science is Never Settled was the standard article about the scientific methods, one of hundreds, just not as well done as many others. No award again.

Wright is as horrible as usual in his Transhuman and Subhuman:

“The female spirit is wise rather than cunning, deep in understanding rather than adroit in deductive logic, gentle and supportive rather than boastful and self-aggrandizing.”

“Contrariwise, when women in the kitchen or the nursery use the name of the Lord in vain, and the children they are nursing and teaching hear them, the vulgarity has the negative effect of deadening the emotions of the youngsters and making them vulgar and indifferent to vulgarity.”

“Also a woman who is crude inspires contempt, because she has contempt for God and man. The difference is that a woman who loses her native delicacy and modesty does not become an object of fear and respect, but an object of contempt and loathing, because the aura of sanctity women naturally inspire in men is tossed away.”
And so on. Bollocks I say.

Hot Equations might be very interesting for a weapons nerd or for someone who loves reading about exactly how weapons work. Sorry to say, I’m not that person.

Which leaves Letters from Gardner which was just damned weird. A mix of a guys memoire, writing tips and then stories. As I had never heard of him before, the memoire part was kind of boring. The writing tips weren’t anchored in anything. Stories in the mix of this just felt strange. So, nah.

And thats it. No award I guess.

clif on May 20, 2015 at 9:39 am said:

so I’ve read all I’m going to read of the short stories … preliminary voting …

1. Totaled
2. A Single Samurai
3. No Award
4. Turncoat
5. On a Spiritual Plain
6. The Parliament of Beasts and Birds

Nate Harada on May 20, 2015 at 7:27 am said:

I will confess that I No Awarded four full categories and I’m pretty >_< about it. I *wanted* to like “A Single Samurai.” I did, really! But, well, yeah. No. But it was good of Baen to include the entire anthology in which it appeared.

Katya on May 20, 2015 at 4:54 am said:

@Happy Turtle I’ve read
most of 3 categories (Short Fiction, Novel, Graphic Story). In one of
those categories, only two of the works are strong enough that I would
have finished reading them if I came across them in a magazine. While
both are OK, neither has strong enough writing or storytelling or
characterization to be ‘award’ level writing. I’ve read short stories
published this year that are much, much stronger than both of those
works. I don’t feel it is right to give a prestigious award to works
that are middle-of-the-pack. To me, it devalues the award.

nickpheas on May 20, 2015 at 1:08 am said:

OK, reads Hugo Packet. One Bright Star To Guide Me By.

Is there an in story reason why Wright seems to use Sally and Sarah to describe one of his characters, or just did he forget what he called her?

rob_matic on May 20, 2015 at 1:58 am said:

He may be using Sally as a diminutive of Sarah, although I can imagine it reading oddly if both are being used.

Peace Is My Middle Name on May 20, 2015 at 2:07 am said:
Given Wright’s stated attitudes towards women, I find it utterly unsurprising that he cannot even remember the name of his own character.



SocialInjusticeWorrier on May 20, 2015 at 4:43 am said:

I don’t
think switching between Sally and Sarah is a problem, so long as the
author has a good reason for doing it. I could see O. Henry, for
example, using the shift in names very effectively to make a point about
how different someone is/appears in a formal setting (as Sarah) as
opposed to their normal life (as Sally). What I don’t see is John C
Wright having any such purpose in his narrative, which argues for
incompetence or carelessness.

 GSLamb on May 19, 2015 at 7:18 pm said:

Had a few days convalescence (and a few more ahead), so I thought it a fine time to catch up on my Hugo reading.

Thanks
to a very good local library, I have been reading most of the Best
Novel nominees on the traditional Ent-corpse editions. “Skin Game” was
everything I thought it would be – no more, no less. “Three Body
Problem” was either over my head or not something to read on medication
(I will revisit next month). Even though I had not read the first novel,
I enjoyed “Ancillary Sword”. It wasn’t until the end when I realized
that not every “She” was female (again, medication).

With renewed access to my laptop, I started greedily digesting the Hugo packet.

Oy.

The
worst thing about the packet is that I have to wait until they release
the list of what would have made the Hugo ballot sans-slate so that I
can read those works.

Having read that one story by John C.
Wright (do not bother me with quibbles – they are all the same story*)
five times was, admittedly, rough work. Luckily I had left the Graphic
Story for afterwards. I nearly ruptured something reading “Rat Queens”.

Now, this might all sound very convincing were it not for the sort of works they were awarding in recent years. Or if you weren’t able to see for yourself what “Rat Queens” is like. No, there can be no compromise, as those who were formerly neutral are coming to understand.

Will on May 19, 2015 at 4:43 pm said:

Until now, until tonight, I thought they were full of BS. Utter BS. But you make their case better than they do. Congratulations.

Will on May 19, 2015 at 4:49 pm said:

You couldn’t be helping Vox more if he was paying you.

And where would we be without SJWs to not only explain what is good and acceptable science fiction versus what is bad and unacceptable science fiction, but also our own principles.  After all, they obviously understand us so very well.

Bruce Baugh on May 20, 2015 at 8:26 am said:

Nate’s monologue reminds me of the thing that really chafes me about a lot of noisy, disruptive modern conservatives: how much time the rest of us end up explaining their own principles to them.



Aaron on May 20, 2015 at 5:30 am said:

The Puppies have already lost. Even if one of their authors wins a Hugo, the Puppies lose, because what none of the Puppies seem to understand is the award doesn’t confer the prestige you all so clearly crave. The prestige has to come first, or the award will be seen as tainted and undeserved. Every Puppy campaign has been an admission on the part of the organizers that the works they are touting are too weak to get nominated on their own merits. Every Puppy campaign is an admission that the Puppy touted authors are simply too lousy at their profession to earn recognition for their actual work. Every Puppy campaign is itself a loss for the Puppies.

Giving up on civilized standards

Even if you are a blank slatist who subscribes to a purely cultural theory of African dyscivicism, how is a retreat from imposing civilized standards on disruptive young vibrants going to improve either their behavior or their odds in life?

Board members of California’s Oakland Unified School District unanimously voted on Wednesday to cease suspending students for what they call “willful defiance.” Those behaviors can include swearing/yelling at teachers, refusing direct orders, texting, and storming out of class, to name a few.

The reason? Concern that too many black students are being suspended for willful defiance.

One sophomore student, Dan’enicole Williams, told the San Francisco Gate, “They never take time out, if someone is sleeping in class, to ask what’s wrong. They may be acting that way because they didn’t eat the night before.”

“We’re getting pushed out of schools,” she added. “They don’t care about us.”

Along with suspensions, the new policy will also include bans on expulsions and transfers of students to other schools for multiple infractions.

This is not a society that is going to survive three more generations intact. I mean, anyone can be wrong about what the future will bring, but I simply don’t see any credible scenario where this sort of absolute lunacy doesn’t have considerable knock-on effects.

These optimistically misnamed “students” don’t want to be there and there is observably no purpose in them being there since they’re not even going to be held to minimal standards of behavior, so what is the point of denying their free will while simultaneously degrading the educational experience of all the other children?

Ah yes, preserving the narrative. The narrative must be preserved at absolutely all costs, or else Hitler will holocaust the Jews again. If I was a poor black single mother hoping that my child would somehow improve his lot by obtaining an education, I’d be up in arms about this nonsense.

Men don’t matter to SJWs

Nero observes the uneven and sexist reaction to acts of violence in A GAME OF THRONES:

    D&D are trash bags go back to the sewerage where you belong
    — ziggy (@foxfeuer) May 18, 2015

    D&D are so gross I hope they burn in hell.
    — stevebucky asun (@mybaabyblue) May 18, 2015

    I AM FUCKING FURIOUS I WANT D&D TO DIE THOSE PIECES OF SHIT
    — JUSTICE FOR SANSA (@sansaslady) May 18, 2015

“D&D” refers to the show’s creators, Daniel Benioff and Daniel Weiss.

If any other group were caught making tweets like this, they would probably be labelled a hate group. But that can’t happen to feminists, so publications like Vox instead blamed the show’s creators for “provoking the ire of the internet”. It’s hardly surprising, of course. These are the same people who had nothing to say about #killallmen.

This isn’t the first time that violence against female characters in Game of Thrones has attracted attention. The first was over the graphic murder of a prostitute by the sadistic King Joffrey. Then people were upset when Robb Stark’s pregnant wife was stabbed in the belly. Robb himself was impaled with a sword before his corpse was decapitated and paraded around with a wolf’s head stuck on his neck, but no one minded so much about that.

But the latest outrage has surpassed all the others, with odious, risible “geek feminist” blog The Mary Sue announcing that they would no longer promote the series.

    Here’s our new policy re: @GameOfThrones. http://t.co/OkqrSawZaI #GameOfThrones

    — The Mary Sue (@TheMarySue) May 19, 2015

If these aggrieved Tumblrinas took a minute to think, they might figure out why violence against female characters seems so shocking: it’s because on-screen violence against men is so common that it doesn’t surprise us, and that in turn makes on-screen violence against women stand out.

It’s no different in games. Remember all the protests against GTA because you COULD kill prostitutes in a game where you MUST kill copious men in a broad variety of ways just in order to play. Meanwhile, an SJW-approved version of A GAME OF THRONES is suggested:

Daenerys Targaryean withdraws from marrying Khal Drogo after realizing she’s a strong independent Khaleesi that don’t need no Dothraki. Daenrys still takes the dragon eggs that were a wedding gift. As she never burns though the eggs never hatch.

Sansa cuts her long red hair short and dyes it rainbow colours. Starts a social media raven campaign for the awareness of how tough the daughters of Lords have it. Spends the rest of her time telling peasant boys to check their privilege.

I’ve previously pointed out how the basic story of A GAME OF THRONES isn’t even possible if the author had been properly feminist, and how a single change to a single character in A Song of Ice and Fire
would have eviscerated the entire series and eliminated the
greater part of its plot.  Consider the consequences of changing Cersei
Lannister from an oppressed woman used as a dynastic piece by her father
to a strong and independent warrior woman of the sort that is presently
ubiquitous in third-generation fantasy, science fiction, and paranormal
fiction.

  1. Cersei doesn’t marry Robert Baratheon.  She’s strong and independent like her twin, not a royal brood mare!
  2. House Lannister’s ambitions are reduced from establishing a royal line to finding a wife for Tyrion.
  3. Cersei’s children are not bastards.  Robert’s heirs have black hair.
  4. Jon Arryn isn’t murdered to keep a nonexistent secret.  Ned Stark isn’t named to replace him.
  5. Robert doesn’t have a hunting accident arranged by the Lannisters, who don’t dominate the court and will not benefit from his fall.
  6. Robert’s heirs being legitimate, Stannis and Renly Baratheon remain loyal.
  7. The Starks never come south and never revolt against King’s
    Landing.  Theon Greyjoy goes home to the Ironborn and never returns to
    Winterfell.  Jon Snow still goes to the Wall, but Arya remains home and
    learns to become a lady, not an assassin, whether she wants to or not.

So, what was a war of five kings that spans five continents abruptly
becomes a minor debate over whether Robert Baratheon’s black-haired son
and heir marries Sansa Stark, a princess of Dorne, or Danerys
Targaryen.

Delenda est

I couldn’t help but smile yesterday when the gentleman at File 770 mentioned that he had asked several pro-Puppies what they wanted and they answered “SJW delenda est.” That was beautiful. It touched me to such an extent that a single tear trickled down my cheek beneath the iron mask. And speaking of tears, this cri de coeur by Zoe Quinn about her unemployed and now-unhireable boyfriend is a good summary of what we want to see repeated over and over by SJWs in science fiction in the future:

How has the industry responded to his loyalty? Dubbing him a hiring risk. Too hot to touch. Heaven forbid some teenagers spam them with meme-laden emails. SmegmaDan’s blog said Alex hated gamers, better not hire him it could be risky.

Elephants afraid of mice.

God could you imagine how much worse it’d be if he was a marginalized person? Look at what happened to The Mighty No 9’s Dina Abou Karam? Look at her google search.

When you combine this with all of the other barriers marginalized people face, combined with how they are targeted for mob hatred at an exceptionally higher rate, it has a chilling effect on speaking out. There are countless marginalized people I’ve spoken to in the industry who are too afraid to support their friends in even the most lukewarm ways because they don’t want their employers to retaliate. There are so many women and people of color that have expressed private support alongside an apology for their fear of making it public because they have to keep their search results clean for a potential studio’s HR department.

You know that’s done to people like us on purpose, right? That running away at the first sign of smoke without fire is a tactic used against targets of online mobs CONSTANTLY? That they abuse SEO as a tool of social warfare? That the only power this carries is the kind major companies give to them by not bothering to see if it’s smoke without fire?

What if someone like Alex wants to go independent (leaving aside the question of if indies even hire producers for a second)? I cast a long shadow. He gets fucked over not just once from the industry’s general fear, but twice because his story has been looked over or lumped in with mine because he wasn’t “loud enough” about his own trouble. Not only does he get targeted because of being with me, but people look past his suffering, sacrifice, his work, and efforts to rebuild. People thoughtlessly treat him as an appendage. It’s infuriating. Look at some of the articles written about Crash Override. Look how often he’s missing or thought of simply as “a boyfriend” and not the cofounder he is. Look at how people attribute his work to me.  The man works his face off, gets results, and still gets screwed out of some of the credit.

Does that sound familiar? It does to me. I’ve fucking been there myself. It sounds like what USUALLY happens when I work with any men on a project. If you’re a marginalized person at all, you KNOW this feeling of frustration, of being whitewashed, of seeing your work being downplayed.

It’s not just Alex either. I’ve watched people who have been targets keep their heads down to try to keep themselves safe, just to have people all collectively forget what has happened to them. They’re stuck in a no-win position because speaking out means more hurt gets hurled their way, and more of their privacy is lost, but the cost of staying silent is that it seems that the world forgets about what happened to you at all. You’re left to wonder why people weren’t standing up for you like that, and if they cared about your suffering at all.

And since people with the power and reach need to speak up when those without are being hurt. Since I have been given the privlege to have this platform, I can’t just watch this, I have to speak up: THIS INDUSTRY IS CREATING A RISK OF SPEAKING OUT BY CALLING THOSE WHO SPEAK OUT A RISK.

We are bleeding assets to this industry, to this medium, at an alarming pace because of this risk aversion and shortsightedness. I would be dead or totally lost if not for Alex and the other folks who have been targeted by GamerGate and quietly faded away because it got to be too much. To see so many of them treated as footnotes is heartbreaking. To see my partner who has endured all of the hell I have and more treated as a fashion accessory and not the fully fledged and fucking impressive human being he is insults both of us and the things we have built *together*. For a risk adverse industry to treat him and other activists like lepers because a teenager might go “ur game sux” shows some pretty fucked up priorities.

The #GamerGate response has been worthy of the Vile Faceless Minions themselves: “Schadenfreudelicious!” One thing we’ll be discussing at Brainstorm tonight is how to bring successful #GamerGate tactics into science fiction, as Zoe Quinn points to one obvious possibility. It’s readily apparent that Tor Books doesn’t care in the slightest that PNH calls himself a racist or that John Scalzi launches vulgar attacks on everyone to the right of Hilary Clinton who crosses his path. But then, Tor Books is not their ultimate employer….

The employer stood behind us. They saw the horde for what it was. But
it didn’t stop there. Studios he never worked at got brigaded. Then his
employer’s employer got brigaded, and upped the pressure. One of the
things that makes mob harassment so insidious is how it attacks from
every possible angle, and some you didn’t even think of. All it takes in
any system is one point of failure, one person to make the wrong
decision, one person to not understand what’s going on, one person to be
a coward.

The SJWs have been playing this game of DISQUALIFY for a long time. They love to hurl the threat “you’ll never work in this industry again” at their enemies; Charles Stross, to his eternal credit, even warned me about it ten years ago. So it’s tremendously rewarding to see an SJW literally crying over the tactic being successfully brought to bear against them.

The secret of #GamerGate’s amazing success is emails, sent out on a daily basis in a series of coordinated campaigns against specified targets. Few corporations can resist a steady barrage of emails; as Quinn herself points out, it only takes one person somewhere in the system to crack and the target will be cut loose. And given the poor sales and financial performance of the science fiction publishing houses in recent years, it is unlikely that their corporate masters are likely to continue to tolerate actions and behavior which have quite observably turned a statistically significant percentage of the science fiction-buying public against them.

Zoe Quinn claims “20 accounts owned by 3 guys” have been sufficient to DISQUALIFY her boyfriend from industry employment. There are 364 Vile Faceless Minions. There are another 200+ Dread Ilk, plus an unknown quantity of Ilk, Rabid Puppies, and #GamerGate sympathizers. Even if we assume that Ms Quinn is lying (she is an SJW after all), I expect we can accomplish more than most of us might think if we were to follow #GamerGate’s lead in this regard. And in case you’re feeling sorry for the unemployable SJW lowlife, do keep this in mind.

|



SJWs only get sick of culture wars when they start losing. Until then it’s “Full Speed Ahead!” and “Remember the Misogyny!” 
– Daddy Warpig

Brainstorm May

We have 92 participants for the first Brainstorm (which will be at 7:30 PM Eastern regardless of what it says on the invite), and the event is now closed. The invitations for tomorrow will be going out within the hour; Dr. Greg Anderson will be serving as the sole panelist for this particular session. We THINK we’ve figured out a way to make it more organized, with Markku running the show as I focus on the topics at hand, but we’ll see how it goes. Please keep in mind that we’re new to the system and it won’t be surprising if it’s less than entirely smooth.

One thing I am pleased to announce is that although the system software does not have an audience chat feature, we’ve installed one on our own server so attendees can chat directly with one another in a second window. Instructions will be provided along with the invites.

And since there isn’t much to discuss in this regard, here is an email from #21, a Rabid Puppy asking for the chance to discuss the Hugo-nominated works now that the Hugo Packet has been released.

I request a post in which to discuss the Hugo Award finalists, now that the packets are out. That is to say, I just read some of them and I really, really need to vent.

I am kind. Vent away.

King Log or King Stork?

The only question is who will be king? Chris Hensley usefully summarizes the core issue underlying the conflict in science fiction at File 770:

It is helpful to understand the context in which the Puppies were started. There has been a debate going on for a number of years at this point, predating the Puppies and one which they are involved in like or not, about what, and who, we actually should accept and tolerate within the community. There has been a growing sentiment that maybe not everybody should be welcomed with open arms, maybe some people should be excluded.

I could spin it to sound more palatable, but it is a grave and terrible thing and as someone who supports sometimes excluding people for their actions it would be dishonest for me to do so. Fandom has had a tradition of not excluding anybody for any reason, including some pretty horrendous behavior up to and including sexual harassment and assault. This has finally come back to bite the community in the posterior, as well it should. A lot of this push back has been from the left-leaning end of fandom, and good for them, which has flavored both the community’s response and the reaction to that response. A lot of this is working how the details of what is, and is not, acceptable in what spaces.

One of the most heated debates, and the one the Puppies tapped into, is when speech should be excluded and when people can be excluded for their speech. The community traditionally leaned towards “never”, but the consensus has moved on that.

The moment that the SJWs in the science fiction community decided they could exclude individuals from it (and whether the SFWA expulsion was technically real or not is irrelevant in this regard), that meant the open community concept was dead. The principle was established. Now we can exclude Eskimos, people with big noses, people with little noses, people who look funny, or people who smell bad; in short, we can openly exclude anyone we have the power and the desire to exclude.

There is no longer free speech in science fiction. There is no longer freedom of expression or thought. It is now a simple ideological power game and we are ready to play that game with extreme prejudice. There is no need for discourse. There is no need for dialogue, for compromise, or negotiations. There is nothing to discuss.

They laid out the new rules. They laid out the new consensus. We not only accept them, we’re going to use make far more ruthless use of them than they ever imagined. Once we were content to let the twisted little moral freaks do and think and say what they wanted, but now they have claimed the right to tell US what to do and think and say we’re not going to tolerate them anymore. We are the sons of the Crusades and the daughters of the Inquisitions. This is a game we know how to win.

Remember, they didn’t exclude rapists. They didn’t exclude child molesters. They didn’t exclude Communists. They didn’t exclude monsters. They only excluded those with whom they ideologically disagreed. CMM observed:

I was reading the discussion from a 1960s fanzine which contained the discussion of whether Worldcon should ban the man who later became her husband (and still later died in prison after being convicted of child molestation).

In their attempts to keep up their ideal that everyone is welcome in fandom, the fans doing the discussing go to amazing lengths to deny that the guy is a problem and as they do so they reveal behavior they and people known to them have personally witnessed that made my hair stand on end, including groping the children of mutual friends in front of the friends and other guests at their house.

Remember, the science fiction community was absolutely fine with open child molesting. They still defend and honor child molesters and the sexually aberrant, even as they mock and exclude their ideological opponents. That is the sickness of the community over which the Evil Legion of Evil will methodically march. And speaking of the long march, now that the Hugo Packets are out, I should have my Totally Personal List Of Merest Voting Inclinations That Absolutely No One, Not Even The Vilest of Minions, Has To Follow To The Letter ready in about two weeks. I trust that description should suffice to keep everyone who has been whining about slates and bloc votes satisfied.

Mike Glyer adds:

It’s possible for people to exclude themselves from community with others they disapprove, but there seems to be no literal way of excluding anyone from fandom, which is why it has that misunderstood reputation for unlimited tolerance. I remember the time I passed Walter Breen in the aisle of a con huckster room, at first being astonished, then wondering “Should I tell someone?” Then, “Tell them what? They already know, he’s wearing membership badge.”

He’s absolutely right. It’s possible for a large group of people to exclude themselves from community with others they disapprove. All that we’re initially sorting out right now is who is on the Blue SF side and who is on the Pink SF side. Which, of course, is why many of those on the latter side are suddenly rushing to deny that there are two sides; they know theirs is much smaller. And they know we aim to misbehave.

UPDATE: This sums up our position nicely.

I did ask some pro-puppies that very question about how much they want. The answers I’ve gotten in emails have been very much along the lines of “Delenda Est”.

The Legion marches.

Credit is money

Shades of the old inflation/deflation debate. Zerohedge points out the vast imbalance between credit money and cash.

1)   The total currency (actual cash in the form of bills and coins) in the US financial system is a little over $1.36 trillion

2)   When you include digital money sitting in short-term accounts and long-term accounts then you’re talking about roughly $10 trillion in “money” in the financial system.

3)   In contrast, the money in the US stock market (equity shares in publicly traded companies) is over $20 trillion in size.

4)   The US bond market  (money that has been lent to corporations, municipal Governments, State Governments, and the Federal Government) is almost twice this at $38 trillion

5)   Total Credit Market Instruments (mortgages, collateralized debt obligations, junk bonds, commercial paper and other digitally-based “money” that is based on debt) is even larger $58.7 trillion.

6)   Unregulated over the counter derivatives traded between the big banks and corporations is north of $220 trillion

When looking over these data points, the first thing that jumps out at the viewer is that the vast bulk of “money” in the system is in the form of digital loans or credit (non-physical debt).

Put another way, actual physical money or cash (as in bills or coins you can hold in your hand) comprises less than 1% of the “money” in the financial system.

The simple facts tend to make the whole “war on cash” concept look absolutely absurd, as well as entirely obvious that it is about political control, not economic growth. The reason the central banks want to ban cash is because the credit money system is on the verge of collapse and they see it as a straw that could nevertheless cause the whole damn thing to collapse.

Which, of course, it is going to do anyhow. The map is not the territory and it will never be the territory.

SJWs eat their own

There is a wonderful scene in Garrison Keillor’s Wobegon Boy when the protagonist, a true red SJW who runs a public radio station at a private university, returns from a conference where he received an award for excellence in public broadcasting to learn that the women who report to him have turned on him and are accusing him of sexism in order to oust him from his position as the station manager. Led by his secretary, a card-carrying member of Wounded Daughters of Distant Fathers, they plant a story in the local media prior to taking their manufactured complaints about him to the university administration.

The reporter was Sandra Welles, who had called me the day after my dinner with Jean. The story was a real torpedo… It said that I had “a problem” with assertive women, being from the Midwest, and that I tried to “psychologically seduce” women in meetings and charm my way around them. I had paternalized the decision structure and made women afraid to speak up….

My heart sank. These slanders had come from people who knew me. They worked at WSJO and had come to my house and drunk my wine and eaten my Chinese spareribs…. Why would people be so angry and bitter toward me? I had built this station from the ground up and had managed it reasonably well, and what was their beef?

Their beef, of course, was that said protagonist, John Tollefson, was a white man from the Midwest who played white male classical music at the station he built and managed. Ergo, he had to go in order to make way for the station’s transformation into a vehicle for social justice and women’s issues. After his ouster has been successfully orchestrated and is all but complete, Tollefson reflects on what will happen to the station, but like a good SJW, he completely fails to learn anything from his experience.

I sat in bed, drinking water and gazing out at the snowy backyard and thinking about the radio station and Dean Baird. In a few months, WJSO would change over, from classical music to talk: the Gay-Lesbian Parenting Hour at one P.M. and the Men Dealing with Impotence Hour at one-fifteen, the Hearing Impaired Hour at one-thirty, Wounded Nephews of Distant Uncles at one forty-five, People in Grief for Former Lovers at two, the Herpes Hour at two-fifteen, People in Search of Closure at two-thirty – each with its own smug host and tiny clientele, its own style of vacuity – and should I fight this? No, I did not think so.

This seemed apt in light of the recent SJW declaration of disavowal of George R.R. Martin, who has gone from repeatedly attacking the wintery, chaotic evil of the Rabid Puppies and Vox Day to refusing to talk about the feminist attacks on him and his television show.

I am getting a flood of emails and off-topic comments on this blog about
tonight’s episode of GAME OF THRONES. It’s not unanticipated. The
comments… regardless of tone… have been deleted. I have been
saying since season one that this is not the place to debate or discuss
the TV series. Please respect that….

There has seldom been any TV series as faithful to its source material, by and large (if you doubt that, talk to the Harry Dresden fans, or readers of the Sookie Stackhouse novels, or the fans of the original WALKING DEAD comic books)… but the longer the show goes on, the bigger the butterflies become. And now we have reached the point where the beat of butterfly wings is stirring up storms, like the one presently engulfing my email.

Prose and television have different strengths, different weaknesses, different requirements.

David and Dan and Bryan and HBO are trying to make the best television series that they can.

And over here I am trying to write the best novels that I can.

And yes, more and more, they differ. Two roads diverging in the dark of the woods, I suppose… but all of us are still intending that at the end we will arrive at the same place.

In the meantime, we hope that the readers and viewers both enjoy the journey. Or journeys, as the case may be. Sometimes butterflies grow into dragons.

((I am closing comments on this post. Take your discussions to the other sites I have mentioned….)

They’re just doing the best they can, people! Translation: “Please stop hitting me! Also, please go away and leave me alone.” What a complete fucking coward! Whatever happened to all that “debate and honest dialogue” for which you were calling, George? I also enjoy his resort to the patented Sam Harris Defense, in which the ex post facto claim of having anticipated a response is considered tantamount to rebutting it.

Keep in mind that Wobegon Boy was published in 1997. SJW women turning on the white men in their midst is nothing new, and yet every Tollefson and Martin and Scalzi and Sanford and Hines believes it can’t possibly happen to them because their little SJW hearts are pure.

Hugo Packet available

HUGO NOMINEE PACKET AVAILABLE
Spokane, Washington, 18 May 2015

A digital file of many of the Hugo Award nominees is now available for members of Sasquan to download at http://sasquan.org/hugo-awards/packet_download/.
This free download is supplied by the creators and publishers of works
that are nominated for the awards. It is free to all current Supporting,
Attending and Young Adult members of Sasquan, and those who become
members before 31 July 2015. Its purpose is to allow those who are
voting on the Hugo Awards to be able to make an informed choice among
the nominated works.

All of the short fiction and graphic novels are included in their
entirety (((assuming Zombie Nation comes through!))). The packet
contains the full text of three of the novels: The Dark between the
Stars by Kevin J. Anderson, The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison, amd
The Three Body Problem by Cixin Liu. Skin Game by Jim Butcher and
Ancillary Sword by Ann Leckie are represented by extensive excerpts. One
of the five finalists in the Related Work category is represented by an
excerpt: Letters from Gardner, by Lou Antonelli. There is some material
in each of the other categories except the Dramatic Presentations, but
not everyone wanted us to include their work in this packet.

Voting on the Hugo Awards is open to all Supporting, Attending or
Young Adult members of Sasquan. More information about voting and a
ballot may be found at  http://sasquan.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/2015-Hugo-Ballot.pdf. In order to vote, you will have to enter your membership number and Hugo PIN at http://sasquan.org/hugo-awards/voting. Sasquan membership and registration information is available at https://sasquan.swoc.us/sasquan/reg.php