Daneistocracy in Europe

The abject surrender of the Greek government demonstrates the growing irrelevance of democracy, not only in Europe, but across the West:

Less than a week after they triumphantly gave international creditors a bloody nose by rejecting a harsh austerity plan, angry and bewildered Greeks are left wondering how they now find themselves swallowing an even worse deal.

In a nationwide referendum just last Sunday, nearly 62 per cent of voters rejected an austerity deal that had been offered by the European Commission, International Monetary Fund and European Central Bank.

There were scenes of wild jubilation across the country.

In Athens’ Syntagma Square, the Greek answer to Trafalgar Square, thousands of joyous ‘No’ voters hugged and kissed each other, waved Greece’s national flag and swigged cans of beer.

“It was an expression of the will of the people,” Manos Agelidis, 27, a biomedical engineering PhD student, told The Telegraph as he celebrated with friends.

Fast forward just a few days, however, and Alexis Tsipras, the prime minister, did the unthinkable.

On Thursday, with a deadline imposed by the creditors looming, he buckled.

His radical Left-wing Syriza government, which came to power in January on the unrealistic promise of putting an end to austerity and the country’s six-year long economic nightmare, put forward a plan that promises spending cuts of €12 billion in return for a third international bail-out, this time worth €53.5 billion (£38.4bn).

The European Union is not only post-democratic, it is openly and avowedly anti-democratic. It has continued to override the expressed will of the Irish, French, British, Italian, and Greek people by putting pressure on the elected representatives to subvert the will of the people.

This is why direct democracy is the only form of democracy that may still be considered viable. The idea of representative democracy is that the limits it places on democracy will be in the long term interests of the nation, but the way it has easily been subverted in the interests of the financial powers demonstrates that representative democracy is actually more susceptible to corruption and subversion than direct democracy.

Mob rule has its own flaws, but it is certainly to be preferred to creditor rule, or daneistocracy. And that is what representative democracy now amounts to, as the elected representatives of countries such as Greece agree to give up their national sovereignty just to keep the credit money spigot flowing.

Zerohedge add that the Eurozone is no longer a voluntary union:

Despite the euphoria in global equity markets, The FT’s Wolfgang Munchau – once one of the keenest euro enthusiasts – warns regime change is coming in Europe. The actions of the creditors has “destroyed the eurozone as we know it and demolished the idea of a monetary union as a step towards a democratic political union,” Munchau exclaims, fearing they have “demoted the eurozone into a toxic fixed exchange-rate system, with a shared single currency, run in the interests of Germany, held together by the threat of absolute destitution for those who challenge the prevailing order.” He concludes rather ominously, “we will soon be asking ourselves whether this new eurozone, in which the strong push around the weak, can be sustainable.”

Of math and the SJW

In which McRapey totally pwns the math:

Vox Day (@voxday)
The @torbooks boycott has reduced @scalzi’s Bookscan sales by 68%! http://t.co/kYXVBeBBo7 #SadPuppies

John Scalzi ‏@scalzi
1. A detractor trying to show his “boycott” of Tor was working claimed a 68% drop in my Lock In sales since the boycott, citing Bookscan…

2. His only problem is that he read the data backwards. Literally backwards. My booksales went UP in that time, not down.

3. And people wonder why I occasionally say I wish I had a better class
of detractor. Even being able to math would be an improvement!

4. (To be clear, the week-to-week number movement have nothing to do
with boycotts or anything else. They’re the usual sales up and downs.)

5. Those curious can see discussion of it here:
http://file770.com/?p=23709 . Note the first comment, which catches the
math error.

You know, I haven’t been caught out this badly since I observed that Kim Stanley Robinson was, on the basis of the picture on his web site, a remarkably ugly bearded woman. If nothing else, you’d think the exclamation point on a single tweet would have given it away, but apparently anything short of a “LOL”, a smiley face emoji, and a (jk) will be lost on these masters of the social arts.

Johnny Con’s attempted derision of his nameless detractor’s inability to do math is amusing because there is no mathematical error involved. There is absolutely no indication of not “being able to math”. And he would appear to have failed to realize that I was mocking Jason Sanford for a) pretending that an obviously irrelevant snapshot of data was relevant, b) listing the dates in the reverse of the usual order, and c) proceeding to reach a backwards conclusion. See, unlike Scalzi, I don’t assume the other side is completely retarded; I find it impossible to imagine that Sanford is genuinely dumb enough to believe that the data he cited is meaningful in any way, shape, or form.

SJWs like Scalzi are so easy. All you need to to do make them jump is offer them a “mistake” they can attack in order to disqualify you and show how totally smart and superior they are. As Scalzi demonstrates, they will ignore literally everything that is relevant to the argument at hand in their desperate eagerness to strike their pseudo-superior poses.

Sanford wrote: “Lock In by John Scalzi (hardcover) 65 copies on 7/05, 39 on 6/28, 74 on 6/21, 63 on 6/14, 46 on 6/7, 54 on 5/31, 21 on 5/24.” The chart, on the other hand, begins with May 24th and ends with July 5th, with the data running in the more conventional left to right manner, which made his reversal obvious even for those who don’t know how to read dates in the American manner. There is no math error; 21/65 = 0.32, which would indicate a 68 percent decline; more importantly, as Mike Glyer correctly notes, the dates Sanford cites to “prove” the ineffectiveness of the boycott are invalid because he cites data from three successive weeks before the boycott began.

When I aggregated the sales for these 10 books from the week of June 21, the latest unaffected by the boycott (announced on June 19), and the sales from the week of July 5 (the latest reported by Sanford), that gave me 1,740 vs. 1,667 books. Therefore, the July 5 sales of these 10 books were 95.8% of what they were before immediately before the boycott.

In fact, Scalzi’s Bookscan sales have observably declined since the boycott began: from 74 the week of June 21 to 65 the week of July 5. That is a 12.2 percent decline. Clearly, if we are to take Mr. Sanford’s numbers seriously, the Tor boycott has been effective.

Of course, what will likely be of considerably more concern to Tor Books than the effectiveness or lack of effectiveness of the boycott is the fact that the writer for whom they blew off 523 new writers is selling as few as 21 copies of his “best-selling” hardcover per week.

Remember the First Law of SJW: SJWs always lie.

RIP Iwata-san

“On my business card, I am a corporate president. In my mind, I am
a game developer. But in my heart, I am a gamer.”
– Satoru Iwata, 1959-2015

GGinParis’s salute to #GamerGate

It was inspiring to meet GamerGaters from several different countries and to discover how determined all of them were. It was both a privilege and a pleasure to be able to meet everyone there. I think these meetups are important because they help reinvigorate those who are getting discouraged and inspire those who are thinking about getting involved but haven’t made the leap yet.

SJWs rewrite the Reddit narrative

It’s Silicon Valley 2, Ellen Pao 0: Fighter of Sexism Is Out at Reddit

Ellen Pao became a hero to many when she took on the entrenched male-dominated culture of Silicon Valley. But sentiment is a fickle thing. Late Friday she fell victim to a crowd demanding her ouster as chief executive of the popular social media site Reddit.

Ms. Pao’s abrupt downfall in the face of a torrent of sexist and racist comments, many of them on Reddit itself, is quite likely to renew charges that bullying, harassment and cruel behavior are out of control on the web — and that Silicon Valley’s well-publicized problem with gender and ethnic diversity in its work force persists….

More than 213,000 people signed a petition demanding Ms. Pao’s resignation. After her departure was announced, Reddit users celebrated in an over-the-top fashion. “Rejoice internet brethren,” wrote one. “The great evil has been slain.”

Why are the SJWs at the New York Times lining up behind Ellen Pao and trying to rewrite the narrative? For the same reason the media lies about GamerGate and lies about the Puppies. They are terrified at the resistance being shown by the broad spectrum anti-SJW movement. As I told GGinParis last night, without #GamerGate there is no Rabid Puppies. Without #GamerGate, Ellen Pao is still running Reddit into the ground.

And the SJWs are right to be terrified. They are not only meeting resistance now, but they are being actively pushed back from territory they’d previously claimed. This is only the beginning; eventually we will drive them entirely out of the various industries and being identified as an SJW will be as totally unacceptable to most people as being a Nazi, a Communist, or a KKK member.

Paris in 48 hours

But first, TT reports on RPinDC:

About 30 Sad and Rabid Puppies met up in Ballston Virginia last night.  John Wright and his wife Jagi were in attendance and in the center of some interesting conversations.  Several ilk were there, including Salt, Mick-On-Everything, Cargo Squid, Rantor, and the banned Dr Torch.  From the Sad side, discussions about Larry’s, Brad’s and Kratman’s works could be heard.  All in all a good meet up. 

I’m not sure anyone who attended IlkMoot is conscious yet, so any reports on that will be forthcoming.

As for GGinParis, Spacebunny and I arrived on Friday afternoon, visited the Eiffel Tower, then found a small, but very good Chinese restaurant, Shan Gout, in the 12th Arrondissment, just around the corner from two game stores. The next day, we visited the Arc de Triomphe, decided the French were protesting a bit much with regards to WWII, and roamed about before meeting up with Mike Cernovich and the charming @ShaunaGee for a high-protein dinner at Gourmet Gourmand, a wine shop with a single table which is not only excellent and highly recommended, but turned out to be absolutely hilarious.

Remy, who owns the place and is a true Philosophe of Food, actually slapped Mike’s hand away from the Spanish version of bruschetta at one point because the flavors had not yet had time to set, and then proceeded to declaim, “Now, we have the food. What does it mean?” Remy is awesome and so was the meat, the cheese, and the wine. He also insisted that we try the Serrano jambon before digging into the Pata Negra in order that those new to the ultimate in cured pig could properly appreciate the latter. Shauna must have duly appreciated it, because no sooner was the plate placed in front of her than I blinked and it disappeared.

We were just down the block from Le Killy Jen, so we strolled over and met the security detail we’d arranged for in light of what happened in DC. Milo was fashionably late and showed up with Allum, who clearly isn’t paid enough and will one day write a series of books about the Rabelaisian horrors he has witnessed. About 40 people showed up for GGinParis, including #0053 and Giuseppe Filotto, who presented me with an Item of Cultural Heritage that would probably have gotten me arrested had the gendarmarie been paying closer attention. #53 graciously presented us with GG and Rabid Puppies buttons; I took the former and Milo promptly claimed the other. You can see both of them in the picture of SB and Milo below. The French newspaper Le Monde also sent a reporter, who interviewed a number of GGers and finally concluded that it was very hard to explain #GamerGate in French political terms, although he admitted that “true revolutionaries dedicated to Liberté in the spirit of Voltaire” was something that the French could understand. He didn’t seem to quite be able to connect this with his observation that some of us “had said things that are illegal to say in France”.

Afterwards, Mike and Shauna and Milo and Allum and #53 and Spacebunny and I closed down a bar in the Place du Tertre over a rather good bottle of Malveaux, then wound up at La Chat Noir until 4 AM. Among other things, this small-hours spree inspired the following comments:

“Where ARE we?”

“Why does that woman keep taking off her clothes?”

“Whatever happened to Allum?”

“Does anyone have a phone that actually works in France?”

Mike Cernovich, to the kid who threw up in the cab: “It happens.”

Nefarious plots were plotted, dark alliances were solidified, unspeakable concoctions were consumed, plush raccoons were posed with, new friends were made, and a fabtastic time was had by all.

Paging Mr. Lind

The Pentagon has no idea what to do about 4GW:

The Pentagon is increasingly concerned about how to combat “hybrid warfare,” the combination of stealth invasion, local proxy forces and international propaganda that Russia used to annex Crimea and destabilize eastern Ukraine, U.S. officials said.

Army Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, on Thursday released the 2015 National Military Strategy, in which he cited Russia’s actions in Ukraine and said “hybrid conflicts” will persist well into the future.

This kind of warfare transcends traditional notions of one military confronting another by incorporating conventional and unconventional forces, information warfare such as propaganda, as well as economic measures to undermine an enemy, according to Frank Hoffman, a professor at the National Defense University.

“The critique was, and still is, that America’s view of war is overly simplified,” he said. “We think of things in black-and-white terms.”

I suppose I’ll have to send Gen. Dempsey a copy of The 4GW Handbook when we publish it in September.

Fire local, hire global

Okay, that’s not entirely fair. But it does raise some serious questions when Microsoft is simultaneously a) laying off 7 percent of its workforce while b) lobbying hard for more H1B visas to permit it to import more foreign workers.

Up to 7,800 people will be laid off globally, the company announced Wednesday morning. Most of the jobs are within its smartphone hardware business. Microsoft (MSFT, Tech30) had 118,600 employees as of March 30, with about 60,000 of those workers in the United States. The cuts represents about 7% of its staff.

This is Nadella’s second major restructuring. He announced 18,000 layoffs in Nokia’s devices and services business last year, following Microsoft (MSFT, Tech30)’s acquisition of the handset maker.

Of course, I don’t think anyone is even remotely surprised that the Nokia acquisition didn’t work out well.

The built-in bias of Wikipedia

I’ve commented before on how the editors at Wikipedia doggedly turn every article about a left-leaning public figure into a defense case, while every one about a right-wing figure is prosecutorial in nature:

Neil Tyson, a prominent popularizer of science (he even has his own television show) was recently found to have repeatedly fabricated multiple quotes over several years. The fabrications were not a one-off thing. They were deliberate and calculated, crafted with one goal in mind: to elevate Tyson, and by extension his audience, at the expense of know-nothing, knuckle-dragging nutjobs who hate science. Tyson targeted journalists, members of Congress, even former President George W. Bush. And what was their crime? They were guilty of rejecting science, according to Tyson.

There’s only one problem. None of the straw man quotes that Tyson uses to tear them down are real….

After I published my piece about Neil Tyson’s fabrication of the George W. Bush quote, several users edited Neil Tyson’s wiki page
to include details of the quote fabrication controversy. The
fact-loving, evidence-weighing, ever-objective editors of the online
encyclopedia did not appreciate the inclusion of the evidence of Tyson’s
fabrication. Not at all.

According to a review of the edit history of Tyson’s page,
one long-time Wikipedia editor deleted an entire pending section
summarizing the issue of Tyson’s fabricated quotes. Another editor
attempted to insert a brief mention of Tyson’s fabrication of the George
W. Bush quote. That mention was also deleted. When it was reinserted,
it was deleted yet again by an editor who describes himself as a childless progressive and an apostle of Daily Kos (h/t @kerpen).

Literally every single mention of Tyson’s history of fabricating quotes has been removed from Tyson’s Wikipedia page.

Meanwhile, the Wikipedia page about me contains more about NK Jemisin and John Scalzi than it does about a professional career that has been covered everywhere from the New York Times to Computer Gaming World, casts doubt on my heritage, and reduces my entire personal life to two of the four languages I speak. I mean, at the very least, you’d think they’d mention that I speak English, that my blog is the most highly trafficked one in science fiction and fantasy, or my son is the youngest male author ever published.

But, of course, anything that might reflect well on me, or poorly on Tyson, is something that the Wikipedia editors are determined to excise. And that’s why you should never take anything you read on Wikipedia as anything but a starting point.

Guess what? You’re fired

In which a reader reacts to bad news:

Today, tomorrow, next year. No matter when it happens, if it ever happens, hearing these words will inspire many things in men across the socio-sexual spectrum.

I know, because I got to hear them recently. And it sucks.

Suddenly your world is upside down, and for many of us, all that confidence you worked so hard to build feels as if it will evaporate before your eyes. Now what?

At the very least, it can happen to any of us, and even Vox has had the rug pulled out from under him during projects. I suspect even the highest-ranked men take a blow when this happens. So instead of bitching and crying about my situation, I’m sharing my general observations and what I’m doing. Take it for what you will, and I hope it helps if you ever find yourself in the same place.

Walking Away

From the moment I heard the words, the first thing I knew I had to realize was that the decision has been made. No amount of excusing or emotional-pleading would change anything (I’m looking at you gammas). It was beyond my control; their house, their rules. I decided to skip wasting any more time with people who weren’t furthering my goals.

Now, you may feel angry or sad or embarrassed or humiliated as you clean out your desk, and it’s fine to privately acknowledge those initial feelings (you’d be surprised how even a fairly confident man will feel them, I know I did). But it’s important to accept where you’re at now, so you can get back up on your feet.

You’ll be glad you walked away with your head up.

Don’t Panic

Let’s stop here for a moment. I cannot stress this one enough. Over the years I’ve seen several other friends get fired, and watching them panic is not only pathetic to see, it will definitely make the situation worse. If you have a woman and you’re panicking, she’ll panic x 100. Your house will be in disarray, energy will be spent dealing with that situation on top of everything else, and you will not be able to make the necessary decisions you’re about to need to make with a clear head. (Yes, there are decisions coming).

Instead of freaking out, I relaxed. Yeah, you heard that right. Relaxed. I recommend going for a long drive, going fishing or hiking, going to the track or to the gym. Not an all day affair, but wherever it is that you can be completely relaxed , enjoying what you’re doing for a bit (I recommend skipping your favorite bar though). For me, it was a long, long run at my favorite spot.

Now, I assessed the situation. Not who may have sold me out or how stupid I thought my boss was, but real assessment where you identify where you went wrong and what you may have done differently. By identifying what I could fix, if anything, I was gaining control over what was actually in my control.

Now I could move forward and move on with confidence. Time to rise up from this low point.

Initiate All Backup Plans Now

You do have backup plans, right? I cannot recommend enough that every many have a solid set of backups plans. If you don’t have any currently, you can start small by building up a little savings or by having a normal side-gig that brings in cash flow. Literally anything is better than nothing.

For me, it means shifting my energy toward other revenue-generating projects, falling back on my meager 1st-level emergency fund, and casually increasing the level of networking I do. Also, and here’s where the decision-making starts to come in, jettisoning unneeded luxuries. This isn’t to say that I’m some guy that’s always blowing through his money, but it’s time to figure out if there’s any additional fat you can trim from your budget. Downgrading cell services, assessing if you can learn to fix the wife’s car yourself, holding off a little longer on whatever you think you need to buy. Whatever it is, there’s always fat to trim, and you very well may need that extra $50 or $100 a month down the road. If you get fired, you’re going to be faced with a lot of these types of decisions in short order; best to get used to them fast.

Main point: don’t wait to deploy your multi-pronged set of back up plans. More initiatives today means more chance of success tomorrow.

Now that You’re Back Up, Hit it With Everything You Have

It might seem counter-intuitive to some men, but you’re not “fired” for all time or until you find another job. In fact, I’m already back on my feet. My situation is less than ideal, but I’m the man sitting at the table playing the hand I was dealt, and I damn well intend to play.

So what they tell you about making sure to keep your routine if you’re fired– it’s bullshit. For many men, routine means waking up at 8am, doing some stuff until 5pm, relaxing until 10pm, and then falling asleep. I’m going to tell you something far different: even if you feel like you don’t want to do anything, it’s actually the time to be doing as much as you can. If you wake up at 8am normally, start waking up at 6am. Fall asleep at your desk, every day. Yes, hit back at all hours until you’re literally falling asleep from exhaustion.

And it shouldn’t just be applying for jobs, though I can’t say enough that in this situation, you should be applying to 100s not merely a few due to fear of rejection. Hit the weights, run, read books, start new projects… write blog posts. Maximize your opportunities, and push forward with everything you have.

A Few Final Considerations

If you’re a regular guy, feelings like depression will pop up, at least the hints of them. I know I’ve had them. Like before, I recommend acknowledging them, and then refocusing. Do not dwell on them. They will do nothing to improve your situation.

On that note, I recommend drinking no more than one day a week, no matter your past habits. One day lets you blow of steam, but the last thing you want is to fall into a non-stop drink-a-thon. And for the gammas, no matter what you feel compelled to say: you are not on some fun vacation; this is not your wife’s gift to you this year, and you are not a stay-at-home dad with a wife that loves her career.

Lastly, understand that you must learn to STFU. I was lucky to know that no one cares why you were fired. Not your wife, not your buddies, not even your mom. Even close friends will likely give you funny looks if you tell them. I recommend not shying away from telling the truth if it comes up, but there’s no reason to broadcast it, and most importantly, really and truly, no one gives a damn about the details. Trying to socially peg down your old boss, as if anyone cared, reeks of desperation, and you… you’re a man with options.

Now, let’s get to it.