Yet another example of why racial and national separatism is inevitable is provided in living color:
Maryland Republican Gov. Larry Hogan has declared a state of emergency and has put the state’s National Guard “on alert” after a day of rioting, looting and violence targeting police in Baltimore. The violence broke out just hours after the funeral for Freddie Gray, the 25-year-old Baltimore man who died in police custody April 19, a week after he was arrested on a West Baltimore street and dragged into the back of a police wagon. Police said Mr. Gray died of severe injuries to his spine and are still investigating the circumstances behind his death…. With demonstrators threatening to take the protests to the city’s prosperous downtown area, Major League Baseball officials announced the cancellation of a planned game between the Baltimore Orioles and the Chicago White Sox.
Well, there is nothing like spirited public protest to revive the flagging spirits of democracy in America. Meanwhile, we are reliably informed by one DeShawn that his boy DRAYQUAN, of the Baltimore Loot Crew, IS GOIN OUT TO POP SUM PIGS.
He seems nice. No doubt after he dies in a hail of bullets after pointing that pig-shooter at the police or some National Guardsmen, we will learn all about how he wanted to go to college, how he liked to arrange flowers, and that he was really just a sweet ickle boy who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Is it a parody? Perhaps. That’s the problem. How can you possibly tell anymore?
Van Creveld’s Equality is one of Castalia’s most absorbing releases, if you’re interested in history anyway—past history, not the historical destiny of your marching-drum ideology—the sort of history that’s not only full of holes where the victors and the monks wrote over chunks of the evidence, but the sort of history that, as far as we can tell, indeed has been repeating itself rather drearily.
As van Creveld says in his preface, the histories of our other two unattainable ideals, liberty and justice, have been written before—or, rather, attempted; there’s too much to read on all three of these subjects for one guy to do it at a go. But van Creveld does his best to describe all our tragic, failed attempts at equality. When we’ve bothered to make an attempt, that is.
Van Creveld also dwells on one of my all-time favorite tear-jerkers: the tragic failure of the classical fifth-century democracy at Athens. This was history’s most famous attempt at “one man, one vote on every issue,” and the resulting polis served as the cradle of the greatest explosion of civilized thought and art in our history. The glory lasted all of about a generation and a half, during which time the Athenian mob destroyed themselves by repeatedly voting to attack their neighbors at Sparta.
The Spartan attempt at equality, by the way, is more thoroughly given its due by van Creveld than I’ve seen in any other historical text. He also includes fresh perspectives on the interesting mishmash that was feudalism (a derogatory name invented by snooty post-feudalists); Locke vs. Rousseau vs. Montesquieu; the fitful, failed, and often bloody attempts of Hellenic city-states to achieve equality after Alexander; the ironically “vicious inequalities” of communism; the ever-miserable war of the sexes; and the medieval revolt of the French jacquerie. The book is as rich in historical detail and perspective as it is thick with bitter disappointment.
Over and over again, van Creveld is forced toward the same conclusion: there are hardly ever two individuals who are equal, much less entire social classes. And as lovely as it may be to enjoy citizenship (if you can get it) in a relatively egalitarian city-state, it’s only a matter of time before your polis gets swallowed up by the greater driving power—a power which may actually be the result of greater inequality and therefore organization—of a nearby empire. Take, for instance, the way the squabbling Greek city-states were swallowed by the burgeoning Macedonians’ power-lust. Alexander the Great actually managed to co-opt the Greek cultural prestige while stripping the Greeks of their political sovereignty and moving on to bulldoze the Middle East.
Oh, and capitalism never helped much. It may have used the traders and urban islands—which, clinging to the margins of feudalism, added a dash of meritocracy to the stupid-son mix—to get its momentum going. But then, says van Creveld, “The shift towards capitalism and absolutism did not mean that inequality grew less pronounced. On the contrary, the growing power of the modern state, which in many ways was based on a firm partnership between the kings and their nobilities, caused it to be accentuated even more.”
Read the whole thing there. As for the book itself, EQUALITY: THE IMPOSSIBLE QUEST is available at Amazon and at Castalia House. And speaking of Castalia House, you won’t want to miss Jeffro’s interview with Thomas Mays, US Navy Commander and author of A SWORD INTO DARKNESS:
Jeffro: I have to hand it to you… I was utterly riveted by the scene from your A Sword Into Darkness when they used those fancy missiles of yours on an asteroid for target practice. It’s never crossed my mind that such a thing could be a problem in the first place, much less that a real spaceship would have all manner of ancillary problems to deal with in the process. How did you come up with all of that?
Thomas Mays: You mean in terms of “It’s not like Star Wars, where the target blows up and that’s it?” Well, It’s a question of weapon effects. If you’re going to vaporize something, you have to have a mechanism that can contain the target long enough to apply sufficient energy to break down every molecular bond it has. That’s . . . a LOT of energy and actually very difficult to do. Even with antimatter, the target and the antimatter would tend to blow one another away from contact after only a few micrograms exploded. Aside from my engine (which is a handwavium 1g reaction drive with no reaction mass requirement, used so the story stays exciting (it moves at the speed of plot!)), most of the tech is within the realm of reason.
For the most bang for my buck, I wanted nukes. But nukes don’t work the same way exo-atmospheric. They burn and vaporize up close, and only produce a real blast effect if they blow up inside something. And if you do that, you’re going to have a lot of debris. How do you handle that? Use a different weapon that can reach out and touch someone. So I thought, LASER! But no. Lasers don’t zap things. They burn and vaporize, and they take time and focus. So that means I need big mirrors or lenses, and still the focal length will be relatively small. Lasers weapons are shorter range devices. Kind of like CIWS.
So, I went to my old standby: electromagnetic railguns, which I worked on for my Master’s Degree in Applied Physics. Figure out the proper shell velocity, then figure out your ammo for various effects. Everything in that scene derives from first principles. But I did have a lot of help and reference material from the Atomic Rockets website by Winchell Chung. That helped with a lot of the book’s technical details.
Coeur d‘Alene, Idaho, city officials have laid down the law to Christian pastors within their community, telling them bluntly via an ordinance that if they refuse to marry homosexuals, they will face jail time and fines.
The dictate comes on the heels of a legal battle with Donald and Evelyn Knapp, ordained ministers who own the Hitching Post wedding chapel in the city, but who oppose gay marriage, The Daily Caller reported. A federal judge recently ruled that the state’s ban on gay marriage was unconstitutional, while the city of Coeur d‘Alene has an ordinance that prevents discrimination based on sexual preference….
“Many have denied that pastors would ever be forced to perform ceremonies that are completely at odds with their faith, but that’s what is happening here — and it’s happened this quickly,” Mr. Tedersco said, The Daily Caller reported.
At this point, it is fairly obvious that revolution time is coming. All the moderates who said we just had to go along to get along were wrong all along, of course. Never listen to moderates. They’re just cowardly idiots who will do or say anything rather than stand up for what they say they believe in.
Both sides are standing their ground as a lawsuit filed against the city of Coeur d’Alene by the Hitching Post continues through U.S. District Court.
Lawyers with the Alliance Defending Freedom, a Christian rights legal advocacy organization, filed the suit in October on behalf of Hitching Post owners Don and Evelyn Knapp. The civil rights lawsuit claims the Knapps are being forced to violate their religious beliefs and perform same-sex marriages because of the city’s anti-discrimination ordinance.
“The whole problem is that prior to the case being filed, the city was saying the distinction between covered and not-covered was whether or not a business was a nonprofit or for-profit. But after we filed, they changed that statement,” Jeremy Tedesco, ADF senior legal counsel, said. “This ordinance has criminal penalties and jail time if you violate it and because of that, the city needs to have clear guidelines for people like the Knapps who are trying to figure out if they’re exempt.”
Just after announcing his resignation as U.S. attorney general, Eric Holder has accepted a top job with Wall Street finance giant JPMorgan Chase.
Starting in early November, Holder will serve as JPMorgan Chase’s chief compliance officer, where his responsibilities will include lobbying Congress on the company’s behalf and ensuring it “gets the best deal possible” from any new proposed financial regulations. Holder will also fetch morning coffee and breakfast orders for CEO Jamie Dimon and board members.
For his efforts, Holder will earn an annual salary of $77 million plus bonuses for a job well done.
At this point, I think the federal government should go back to the spoils system. It would be considerably less corrupt.
From The Year’s Best Science Fiction to Thieves World, I have always been a fan of anthologies. I find it interesting to read the work of various authors as they address similar topics; in some ways, appearances in anthologies allows the reader to better distinguish the true masters from the journeymen, the stunt writers, the formulaists, and the one-trick ponies. It’s also intriguing to see the difference between authors who are adept with the short form and novelists who really need more textual space within which to work. And of all the anthologies I ever read in my youth, my absolute favorite was THERE WILL BE WAR, created by none other than the science fiction great Dr. Jerry Pournelle himself.
To me, Jerry Pournelle was a near-mythic name that appeared on the shelves of B. Dalton’s like an omnipresent demigod. I enjoyed his non-fiction essays even more than most of the fiction for which he was most famous, and looking back, he probably had as significant an impact on my intellectual development as Milton Friedman, Joseph Schumpeter, or Camille Paglia, not only as a writer, but as an editor. When I first read the first volume of THERE WILL BE WAR, with the unforgettable cover of a white-helmeted spotter calling in orbital artillery, I was deeply impressed by the way in which the essays informed the short stories as well as how the short stories tended to bring the essay subjects to life and make them more relevant to the reader.
And the names! Gordon R. Dickson. Philip K. Dick. Arthur C. Clarke. Poul Anderson. Joel Rosenberg. Robert Silverberg. Joe Haldeman. Niven and Pournelle. What was most impressive, however, was the way in which even the stories by the biggest names were occasionally trumped by then-unfamiliar names like Orson Scott Card, Edward P. Hughes, and above all, William F. Wu. THERE WILL BE WAR ran from 1982 to 1990, and finally came to an end around the same time as the Soviet Union, which had often served as a primary topic in the nine-volume series. It seemed apropos, after all. The Berlin Wall had fallen, an end to history had been reached, the long-warring nations of Europe were heading for monetary union, and, everyone assumed, peaceful political union as well, and many presumed that an end to war as we knew it was in sight as well. There would be no more war.
Being, as readers here know, somewhat of a pessimist when it comes to such utopian claims, reviving THERE WILL BE WAR was one of my first ideas when Castalia House was founded. I contacted Dr. Pournelle about it, but although he generally favored the idea, we never really got around to discussing it very seriously. I went with Plan B and created RIDING THE RED HORSE with LTC Tom Kratman instead. But I still wanted Dr. Pournelle to be involved, as I considered RED HORSE to be the spiritual successor of THERE WILL BE WAR. Upon being asked for a contribution, Dr. Pournelle graciously permitted me to include two of his pieces, a well-known short story set in the CoDominium universecalled “His Truth Goes Marching On” and an article on wargame design that I found to be particularly interesting. Tom also obtained a contribution from John Carr, the associate editor on several volumes of THERE WILL BE WAR, including the first one. RIDING THE RED HORSE was published last December and it has been very well received. Five months after its release, it is still one of the top ten bestsellers in Military Strategy and more than one reviewer has even referred to it as a virtual “tenth volume” of THERE WILL BE WAR.
But the most significant response came from Dr. Pournelle, as after looking over the new anthology, he asked me if Castalia House might be interested in republishing his own out-of-print anthology series. I allowed that, yes, perhaps Castalia might have some modest interest in considering a discussion of the possibility, immediately put it on top of our priority list, and after a few months of hard work from the ad hoc THERE WILL BE WAR team, I am very, very, very pleased to be able to announce not only the republishing of THERE WILL BE WAR Volumes I and II, but also the revival of the THERE WILL BE WAR anthology series with an actual Volume X, edited by Jerry Pournelle, as well. Volume I and Volume II of THERE WILL BE WAR are now available in ebook at Amazon and Castalia House for $4.99 each, and as the following reviewer of Volume I noted, despite being 33 years old, they have a lot to offer the younger generations who never had a chance to read them before. It was very rewarding to read the first review of Volume I from a reader too young to have encountered the original paperbacks.
This book is astonishing. A collection of short military science-fiction and essays put together in the early 80s by Jerry Pournelle, the book is older than I am and yet somehow manages to avoid seeming dated at all. The book was extremely well-regarded when it came out, and spawned a nine volume series, but for years has languished in semi-obscurity. How good is it? It’s got the original “Ender’s Game” novella by Orson Scott Card, and that’s not even the best story in the book!
If you’re a younger reader, odds are you’ve never even heard of half of these writers. And they’re all good. The stories are diverse, with everything from post-apocalyptic shootouts to huge sci-fi space battles. Sometimes the heroes win, and sometimes they don’t. But every time I found myself rooting for them.
But the real prize of the book is the non-fiction essays, which give a window into how scary the world was back when the Soviet Union was still a threat. One of the essays, ‘The Soviet Strategic Threat From Space”, discusses the end of the world in a cold, scientific manner that’s more chilling than any fiction could ever be.
“There Will Be War” introduced me to a ton of great new authors, and entire series that I had no clue even existed. For someone who’s just getting into science fiction, it’s a wonderful starting point. For veterans, it’s a way to revisit some of the old greats.
I will post later today at Castalia House about some of my favorites from these first two volumes, but I can assure you that if you enjoyed RIDING THE RED HORSE in any way, shape, or form, you will be find Volume I and Volume II of THERE WILL BE WAR to be very well worth reading. I very highly recommend both volumes.
Will these be released in print versions as well? Yes, in two-volume case laminated omnibus hardcovers. The first will probably appear in the July-August timeframe.
When will the next volumes be released? We expect to release Volumes III and IV in company with the VI+VII hardcover.
Does this mean the end of RIDING THE RED HORSE? No. RIDING THE RED HORSE Vol. 2 will focus on entirely new fiction. THERE WILL BE WAR Vol. X will consist primarily of Dr. Pournelle’s selections from the best and most significant military fiction published between 1990 and 2015.
Who did the covers? Jartstar and Chris came up with the title layout and a new artist, Lars, did the updated 3D images that are homages to the original painted covers. He’ll be doing the entire series.
Can we review the books on Amazon if we bought them from Castalia or read them previously? By all means, please do.
Puff the Magic Dragon was talking very brave until it was suggested that he debate me himself.
Go ahead and debate Vox yourself, puff. If he’s the soft target you think he is, you should really be able to make him look foolish.
Debate what? What are his actual positions? That’s what this is all about. He puffs himself up into a controversial figure on the internet and when someone calls him out on it, you find out it was all smoke and mirrors. Is that supposed to be impressive? These issues aren’t as cut and dried as you people seem to think they are, and apparently neither does Vox. You guys have bought into the persona as much as those “rabbits” have.
Now, since Puff admitted that he is insufficiently knowledgeable to debate me on an economic subject, we will avoid economics despite it being one of my specialties. So, here are five actual positions that I offer Puff the Magic Dragon to debate me on. If he runs like Myers, Martin, Scalzi, and others, we will all know the value of his opinion.
That One Bright Start to Guide Them is a great book and The Wasp Factory is a dreadful one. Oh, wait, sorry, I agreed to debate that with Phil Sandifier on a left-wing SF podcast. Let’s start over.
That there are a series of continental-scale wars on the medium-term horizon that will be vicious, unconventional, and are likely to result in severe racial and national separatism.
That John Scalzi is a fraud.
That “The American Tolkien” is not a credible title for George R.R. Martin.
That “marital rape” is a logical, historical, and legal contradiction in terms.
That all modern human beings are not genetically equal.
That seems like a nice broad range of subjects from which to choose. I thought it was interesting to learn that for some people, the Pakman interview was informative in helping them understand my problem communicating with people:
For the record, Vox was correct about the common law. He did seem caught off guard about the fact that rape, even within marriage, is against the law in most states if not all. Pakman tried to use this as a “GOTCHA!” moment, and Vox looked confused, even though his point was not invalidated and his argument was still correct. The average person would come across thinking Vox was wrong, though.
This was actually the first time I really made sense of how Vox’s mind works. As an earlier commenter said, Vox is so far ahead that it seems to stump him that someone isn’t making the same logical jumps as quickly as he does — having to explain every step is very annoying.
It’s not always annoying (although it often is) but it is usually confusing. This is especially true when I am dealing with someone new because I have no idea at what point their ability to follow the train of logic is going to fail without warning. I was very confused when Pakman brought up US law in a bizarre attempt to rebut my reference to the historical Common Law. That’s rather like pointing out that the US lost in Vietnam to rebut a claim that the US invaded Normandy in World War II.
Where does one even go with that? Try to give him a basic primer on the historical basis for US law? Tell him that he’s an ignorant MPAI member and leave it at that? The best thing would have been to point out that his reference to US law was irrelevant and to observe that the post to which he referred was written in response to an Indian court upholding section 375 of the Indian Penal Code, except I didn’t recall that at the time because I had no idea I was going to be asked about a short three-paragraph blog post from over a year ago.
Rhetorically speaking, I suppose the best thing to do if I’m concerned about my self-image is to say “so what” and unmask the fact that he can’t follow the train of thought. But I try to be a polite guest. Perhaps I will need to rethink that policy if the host is an ambush artist; virtually none of the interviews I’d given in the past attempted to play gotcha without giving me fair warning about what the subjects would be beforehand.
I highlighted the irrelevance of his appeal to US law by reminding him that I don’t live in the USA. Which I have no doubt sounded like a non sequitur to many, only the non sequitur was Pakman’s. But I can’t help it if a lot of people didn’t understand that, because I can’t simultaneously fill in the gaps in their knowledge and defend myself against a dishonest, time-limited ambush at the same time.
David Futrelle’s jumping on my failure to properly articulate my statement on what I believe #GamerGate to be is a good example of why the written word is reliably more powerful in the medium- and long-term than the visual medium:
Yesterday, I wrote about Vox Day’s extravagantly evasive — yet highly revealing — interview with David Pakman. But the interview also featured a few striking moments of candor. One of these came when Day — a sometime gave developer as well as the biggest asshole in Sci Fi — offered his answer to the question: “What is Gamergate really about?”
Suggesting that the issue of “corruption in game journalism” was little more than “the spark that set the whole thing off,” Day declared that
what Gamergate is fundamentally about is the right of people to design, develop and play games that they want to design, develop and play without being criticized for it.
Which is an. er, interesting perspective, as there is in fact no “right” to be immune from criticism.
If you write a book, if you make a movie, if you post a comment on the internet — you should be ready for it to be criticized. Because that’s how free speech works. That’s how art works. And that’s how ideas work.
It’s too bad David Pakman didn’t jump on that or I would have corrected myself. But Futrelle is absolutely right for once. I shouldn’t have phrased it that way. It was a mistake. What I should have said, and what I believe, was this:
What GamerGate is fundamentally about is the right of people to design, develop and play games that they want to design, develop and play.
Period. Although I will add that it would certainly be nice if we could simply design, develop, and play games without being harassed in the process. Now, as is normal for the average SJW, Futrelle hasn’t really thought this through beyond the chance to momentarily try to portray me as being anti-free speech. (DISQUALIFY!) It’s not a cheap shot, given the quote I handed him, but it is a silly one, because I have twelve years of evidence demonstrating that I am fairly extreme on the pro-free speech side, whereas Futrelle is considerably less staunch in that regard.
Of course, they will keep saying “you said it” and “no takebacks”, or as PopeHat rather absurdly tried to insist, “you can retcon all you like”. But that would only convince people if I had no previous statements on free speech, not to mention one of the more lightest moderating policies of any popular blog.
And it’s very easy for us to turn this particular line of attack around on them. In response, I asked Futrelle the following question:
A question for you re your two articles. Do you support the right of gamers to tell women they should not develop games?
What’s the lesson? No, not the one about women, the one about SJWs:
John Scalzi @scalzi I’m not the Anti-Beale. I’m merely the person who Beale so very desperately wishes he had the career of.
Deirdre Saoirse Moen @deirdresm Which is why his Alexa rank is < 1000 milliScalzis.
Notorious E.G.G. @silvermink Though, I have to say, his Alexa rank is much closer to that number than my faith in humanity can handle sometimes.
John Scalzi @scalzi Trust me, if his Alexa score ever gets above mine, he’ll trumpet it to the heavens.
Deirdre Saoirse Moen @deirdresm It wasn’t until I looked at the puppy Alexa rankings that I understood why RP was more successful than SP. Sigh.
Notorious E.G.G. @silvermink People actually listen to Mr. Beale, mindboggling as I find that.
John Scalzi @scalzi Yeah, but they’re assholes.
Notorious E.G.G. @silvermink A bit of a saving grace, it’s true.
Jonathan Bergeron now that’s a burn
John Scalzi @scalzi It’s not the Alexa award. It’s that the RPs appealed more to people happy to shit all over other people.
Deirdre Saoirse Moen @deirdresm I figured as much (and said so in response to a comment).
Marty @hugbug94 VDBEALE doesn’t have the writing chops to be in your league.
John Scalzi @scalzi Thanks, although I would not that for commercial success, writing chops are not always required.
Current Alexa Ranks
Scalzi Global: 84,147 Scalzi USA: 18,628
VP Global: 84,187 VP USA: 17,599
Now, Alexa is a ridiculous measure, as it is based on links rather than the more straightforward metric of traffic. At present, VP alone has about 3x Scalzi’s Google pageview traffic, and VP+AG has about 4x the traffic. If history is any guide, we should see the first 2 million-pageview month in August; this month is on course for 1.9 million+ combined.
But, as is our wont, let us count the lies:
I very desperately wish I had John Scalzi’s career. I’m a lead game designer, a lead editor, and a minor author. He’s a very successful midlist author who is making some headway in television and failed as a game writer. My blogs surpass his by a factor of four and are nearly double his all-time peak. My Twitter Impression/follower ratio is considerably higher (355 to 125), and despite having only one-fifth the Impressions and one-seventeenth the followers, I expect my Impressions will pass up his within 18 months.
I will trumpet to the heavens if my Alexa score ever passes his. It did, months ago. I didn’t. That’s VP alone, by the way, VP+AG is far beyond his, as AG alone is around 105k Global.
People who read here are assholes. Actually, according to the demographics, you’re much wealthier and better-educated than the norm. And considering how lightly I moderate, I think it’s self-evident that most people here are more civil than average as well. You’re certainly less vulgar than Scalzi’s commenters, for the most part. I like you, anyhow. Obviously, he doesn’t.
RPs appealed more to people happy to shit all over other people. Considering how the SJWs have treated the 2015 nominees, this is certainly false when compared to them. But compared to Sad Puppies, that’s probably true. It’s an unfair and misleading exaggeration, but not a lie.
VDBEALE doesn’t have the writing chops to be in Scalzi’s league. Actually, I’d put us both right in the same league. We’re both mediocre, albeit for very different reasons. My Style has no melody, no flare. It is plodding and pedestrian whereas Scalzi’s Style is light and breezy. Scalzi can’t do characters and they all speak in one snarky voice: his own. My characters are diverse and distinct, albeit limited to the upper half of the male spectrum. I think Story comes out fairly equal, although he directly rips off the greats whereas I merely borrow here and there, Concept is also fairly even, his clever stunts versus my worldbuilding.
The Honey Badgers were kicked out of Calgary Expo, apparently for the thoughtcrime of supporting GamerGate by selling GG t-shirts. Here is another chance to strike back at the SJWs:
The Honey Badger Brigade is now seeking legal advice to hold the Calgary Expo staff accountable for their acts of abuse and discrimination against us. We have made attempts in the past week to diffuse the situation by attempting to contact Mr. Kelly Dowd, owner of the Calgary Expo. We have received no response.
On April 17th 2015, the Honey Badger Brigade was forcibly evicted and our booth ordered removed, despite our operating well within the rules of the Expo and it’s policies of conduct. We were not given a chance to dispute the alleged complaints. The organization violated its own stated policy in the process and has released conflicting claims regarding its reasons for our removal.
Those claims indicate that we were removed due to our Men’s Rights Activism and unpopular view of modern feminism. Therefore it is our belief that the actions taken by the Calgary Expo staff were of a political nature and contravene the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, in particular freedom of conscience, freedom of thought and freedom of association.
If so, this eviction was based in discrimination, an act that has defamed and abused us. While we would prefer to settle this outside of a courtroom, we are prepared to take every legal action needed to ensure that ourselves and other future exhibitors will be treated equally, and without such a denial of their fundamental human rights.
All funds submitted to this fundraiser will be used for legal costs and costs directly related to our ejection from the Calgary Comics and Entertainment Expo. We will be keeping track of expenses and providing expense reports as we’re able.
If you’re a member of the Dread Ilk, Rabid Puppies, or #GamerGate, I’d encourage you to start a little coffee fund. Nothing much, maybe save your change or devote $5 per month to support the little causes such as these that are going to continue to arise. If we all do that, and judiciously apply this financial ammunition, the force multiplication of doing it at the same time at critical junctures can have a disproportionate impact.
I’m not going to bring up every little thing, but if one seems particularly useful or hits in a critical area, I will bring it to your attention. The Honey Badgers are significant because they are being attacked primarily to prevent the GamerGate virus from spreading into other potentially anti-SJW women’s groups.
Remember, the SJWs always focus their ire and their fire at the weak links and the inroads. That’s why they put pressure on the likes of Annie Bellet, not Steve Rzasa or Tom Kratman, to withdraw from the Hugo shortlist. If we can continue to knock them back at those points of resistance, they’ll crumble much more rapidly than they will from steady, constant pressure.
What applies to one field often applies to many. I thought this excerpt from Martin van Creveld’s Technology and War was interesting both in its own right and as it applies to the cultural war:
In practice, the difference between war and the deadliest games practiced by men consists precisely of the fact that, in war, the element of pure unbridled force is always present. Like a bolt of lightning coming out of a clear sky, it threatens to crash through the network of rules. Historically speaking, there have been many places and times when war began to resemble a game. Whenever this happened, there were people aplenty who chose to interpret the phenomenon as a sign that civilization was advancing, that eternal peace was possible, perhaps even that the millenium was about to arrive. On each of those occasions, however, sooner or later somebody came along who did not operate on the same code. Brandishing his sharp sword he tore apart the delicate fabric, revealing war for what it really was.
Nemesis, when it came, took different forms. The Hellenistic states, which had dominated the eastern Mediterranean, were laid low by the Romans who, to quote Polybius, were singularly inclined to use force (bia) in order to solve any problem. The jousts and other military games being played at the courts of France and Burgundy were rudely disrupted by Swiss pikemen and Spanish arquebusiers coming from “barbaric” countries on the fringe of civilization, nations that had never been properly feudalized. The European ancien régime was brought to an end when the French Revolution mobilized huge hordes of men and, unable to train them in the good old rules, hurled them forward at the enemy in formations that contemporaries regarded as crude but very effective. As might be expected, those who survived these eruptions often engaged in a spirited debate as to whether they involved progress or a reversion to barbarism. Though a disinterested historian writing long after the event might point out that they most probably represented both, this was scant consolation to the victims at the time.
To read the signs, our age also displays these symptoms. Partly because of the nuclear threat, partly because of the modern fascination with advanced technology per se, and partly for deeply rooted socio-ideological reasons, weapons are being turned into toys and conventional war into an elaborate, but fundamentally pointless, game. While games can be nice while they last, in our age too there is a real danger that they will be upset by barbarians who, refusing to abide by the rules, pick up the playing-board and use it to smash the opponent’s head. Let him who has ears to listen, listen: the call Lucifer ante portas already reverberates, and new forms of warfare are threatening to put an end to our delicate civilization.
It’s not an accident that there are similarities between the 4GW we are seeing throughout the Middle East and the 4GW we are seeing in the form of GamerGate. Both are reactions to overwhelming and irresistible centralized power; ISIS/DAESH could no more stand up to the US military in conventional battle than the average game player could influence the game media or the average SF novelist could expect to hit the New York Times bestseller list and be end-capped at Barnes & Noble without the support of a major New York publisher.
But technology and decentralization has allowed the Fourth Generation forces to bypass the conventional strong points. ISIS can coordinate global strikes from deep cover operatives anywhere in the world; a power not even the Emperor of Rome or the Queen of the British Empire possessed. A single gamer like Pew Die Pie has a bigger following than any game journalist. And, well, you already know about the Hugo Awards and the New York Times bestseller list has been rendered moot by Amazon’s.
This is a time of change, in both military and societal terms. As is usually the case, the change will NOT take the form that is expected by those who control the conventional forces, indeed, on the basis of past transitions, we can safely predict that those who have been most dependent upon the conventional models are the most likely to find themselves on the wrong side of techno-historical progress.
Well, there is nothing like spirited public protest to revive the flagging spirits of democracy in America. Meanwhile, we are reliably informed by one DeShawn that his boy DRAYQUAN, of the Baltimore Loot Crew, IS GOIN OUT TO POP SUM PIGS.
