Another response to Anita Sarkeesian

Sam Roberts of Reaxxion carefully considers Anita Sarkeesian’s list of recommendations to “make games less shitty for women”. This was #3 on his list of eloquent, well-reasoned, and above all, illustrative responses:

Have female characters of various body types

My response: No.

The temptation is always to say that Ms. Sarkeesian misrepresents the
gaming industry, that there are actually plenty of female-friendly
games, or that characters like the ones above are “strong women”, whom
feminists should love.  This is the wrong answer.  By making this
argument, you’re implicitly agreeing with Sarkeesian and her like that
games need to be feminist-friendly; you’re just disagreeing on how
feminist-friendly they are right now.  And once you’ve agreed with her
there, you’ve given her the power to dictate what is and isn’t allowed.
 After all, who’s going to know better about what games are
SJW-friendly—you, or a women’s studies major?

The only response is this: If you don’t like games with big-boobed girls, don’t play them.

There is nothing to discuss. I speak only for myself, but my opinion happens to be shared by nearly ever game designer and game developer in the industry, regardless of whether they are Left, Right, or somewhere in the middle. We make the games we want to make. We play the games we want to play. If Anita Sarkeesian, or anyone else, wants to see different games made, then she is welcome to make her own. We’re not going to do it.

Frankly, these ladies all look a bit beefy to me. Where are all the slender, snake-hipped girls with cheekbones you can shave with and BMIs of 17? Surely this is the rankest misogyny by bearded, round-bellied patriarchs!

Christianity’s killers

I was not surprised there has been an amount of pushback against the idea that a Christian should do anything except sit on his ass and prayerfully expect that God will take care of everything in due time. Now, this is not to denigrate the power of prayer, which is vital and can absolutely be efficacious, but rather the idea that it is God’s will for us to always refrain from any action of any kind that might bruise the feelings of anyone, especially an enemy.

There is an intrinsic conflict between the moderates and the extremists of any movement or organization. The moderates are inward-focused, conservative, defensive, and believe that public relations is the ultimate determinant of victory or defeat. The extremists are outward-focused, creative, offensive, and believe that material conditions are the ultimate determinant of victory or defeat. These two rival perspectives tend to hold true regardless of whatever the issue might be, from politics and cultural war to sports and business affairs.

Christianity merely compounds this intrinsic conflict, it does not create it. And it is not, as some might have it, a mere intellectual difference of opinion, which is why discussing the different perspectives and attempting to come to some compromise seldom works. Consider what Maj. Dick Winters, of Band of Brothers fame, wrote about Easy Company in Beyond Band of Brothers:

On reflection, we were highly charged; we knew what to do; and we conducted ourselves as part of a well-oiled machine. Because we were so intimate with each other, I knew the strengths of each of my troopers. It was not accidental that I had selected my best men, Compton, Guarnere, and Malarkey in one group, Lipton and Ranney in the other. These men comprised Easy Company’s “killers,” soldiers who instinctively understood the intricacies of battle. In both training and combat, a leader senses who his killers are. I merely put them in a position where I could utilize their talents most effectively. Many other soldiers thought they were killers and wanted to prove it.

In reality, however, your killers are few and far between. Nor is it always possible to determine who your killers are by the results of a single engagement. In combat, a commander hopes that nonkillers will learn by their association with those soldiers who instinctively wage war without restraint and without regard to their personal safety. The problem, of course, lies in the fact that casualties are highest among your killers, hence the need to return them to the front as soon as possible in the hope that other “killers” emerge.

In other words, the dynamic between actors and non-actors is entirely normal and the latter always outnumber the former. Keep in mind that the men of Easy Company were aggressive, competitive, highly-trained young men who belonged to the absolute elite of the US military. And even there, the “killers are few and far between”. In war, physical or metaphorical, there are very few who are capable of instinctively waging it “without restraint and without regard to their personal safety”. And one important difference between actual war and cultural war is that in the case of the latter, many of the nonkillers spend a fair amount of their time sniping at the killers on their own side rather than at the other side.

Imagine how effective Easy Company would have been if instead of being expected to follow the killers’ example, its nonkillers dedicated themselves to explaining at length that instead of flanking the German gun position on D-Day and killing the German gunners, they should all prove themselves to be better than the Germans by being nice to them. And then, when the killers ignored them and began the flank attack, instead of laying down covering fire, the nonkillers started shooting at the killers. Does anyone seriously think this would be a successful way to wage war?

Why, then, does anyone imagine that the same tactical approach will succeed in cultural war? If the moderates will not at the very least provide covering fire for the extremists, they are useless. And to the extent that they open their cowardly mouths to criticize, correct, and concern-troll the only people on their side who are taking action, they are worse than useless.

As for the Christians, let us reflect upon the Biblical example that many “nonkillers” like to cite, Matthew 26:51

With
that, one of Jesus’ companions reached for his sword, drew it out and
struck the servant of the high priest, cutting off his ear. “Put your sword back in its place,” Jesus said to him, “for all who draw the sword will die by the sword.
Do you think I cannot call on my Father, and he will at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels? But how then would the Scriptures be fulfilled that say it must happen in this way?”

There is a great deal of significant information here, particularly the situation-specific aspects of the command, but with regards to the present subject, the most important point is this: Jesus knowingly chose a hot-tempered “killer” as one of his closest companions and the rock upon which he would build the Church. Like David, beloved of God, and Paul, the great evangelist, it is the “killers” whom God has historically preferred and chosen to utilize. I do not think the moderates and nonkillers who sit back and snipe in the comfortable confidence that they are doing God’s will by sitting on their plump posteriors and doing nothing that will offend anyone should be so confident that God’s Will is in line with their own.

Keep in mind that the incident is also recounted in John 18:10

Then Simon Peter, who had a sword, drew it and struck the high priest’s servant, cutting off his right ear. (The servant’s name was Malchus.) Jesus commanded Peter, “Put your sword away! Shall I not drink the cup the Father has given me?”

Clearly the relevant point is not the non-use of swords, but the non-use of a particular sword in a particular situation. As to “dying by the sword”, what of it? That doesn’t mean that one’s actions that put one at risk of it are necessarily wrong. It’s merely a factual warning. Recall what Winters pointed out: “The problem, of course, lies in the fact that casualties are highest among your killers.” Winters also wrote about the guilt he sometimes felt at reunions, as he was reminded that there were about half as many survivors of 1st platoon as there were from Easy Company’s 2nd and 3rd platoons due to the heavier casualties they took. But consider why he leaned upon them so heavily:

With thirty-five men, a platoon of Easy Company had routed two German companies of about 300 men. American casualties (including those from Fox Company) were one dead, twenty-two wounded. German casualties were fifty killed, eleven captured, about 100 wounded.

It should not be a surprise that looking into it reveals that the platoon responsible was Easy Company’s 1st platoon. Dying by the sword is not a sin. It is, in many cases, a sacrifice.

Most damning of all, I think, is the observable hypocrisy of many moderates, who flagrantly violate their own advice. They are very often more than happy to insult their nominal allies and attack their own side’s extremists with the very names they refuse to call the enemy.

Pink SF’s 2015 business plan

The pinkshirts have revealed their clever plan to deal with technology, reader disinterest, and Blue SF cutting into their increasingly declining sales:

The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) has reportedly paid University of Oregon “poet” Amanda Powell to translate a 2005 science fiction novel promoting “a straightforwardly queer approach to sexuality.” Powell, whose poetry has appeared in the anthology This Assignment Is So Gay: LGBTIQ Poets on Teaching, reportedly was given a $12,500 federal grant to reword the book by Uriel Quesada, El gato de sí mismo aka Cat on His Own Behalf, from Spanish into English. (The novel is currently holding down an Amazon Best Sellers Rank of #6,737,114)

On a scale of 1 to 100, my level of surprise is about minus 20. Lefties ALWAYS eventually turn to the government for handouts. They have no choice, they’re parasites. They are the Grasshopper People. Without forced consumption, bait-and-switches, begging, or funding from industry and government, they can’t survive because no one actually wants to buy what they’re selling.

CPAC results

25.7            Sen. Rand Paul
21.4            Gov. Scott Walker
11.5            Sen. Ted Cruz
11.4            Dr. Ben Carson
8.3             Former Gov. Jeb Bush
4.3             Former Sen. Rick Santorum
3.7             Sen. Marco Rubio
3.5             Donald Trump
3.0             Carly Fiorina
2.8             Gov. Chris Christie
1.1             Former Gov. Rick Perry

One the one hand, it’s clear that conservatives have no patience for another “electable” moderate who will lose the general election. On the other hand, 11.4 percent for an anti-gun token black candidate indicates that a lot of them are still more concerned about being called racists than they are about winning elections.

#GamerGate: the last redoubt

Nero has some important observations that those in other communities attacked by the SJW Left should take to heart:

In all of the distracting, hysterical, evidence-free and unfair allegations of misogyny and bigotry hurled at supporters of GamerGate, the consumer revolt that continues to surface outrageous misconduct in the video games press, something is being forgotten.

GamerGate is remarkable—and attracts the interest of people like me—because it represents perhaps the first time in the last decade or more that a significant incursion has been made in the culture wars against guilt-mongerers, nannies, authoritarians and far-Left agitators.

Industry after industry has toppled over, putting up no more of a fight than, say, France in 1940. Publishing, journalism, TV… all lie supine beneath the crowing, cackling, censorious battle-axes, male and female, of the third-wave feminist and social justice causes.

But not gamers. Lovers of video games, on seeing their colleagues unfairly hounded as misogynists, on watching journalists credulously reporting scandalous sexual assault claims just because a person was perceived to be “right-wing” and on seeing the games they love attacked and their very identities denied and ridiculed, have said: no. This will not stand.

The key, as he points out is here: “Because hard-core gaming is overwhelmingly male—don’t
believe cherry-picked statistics that tell you women now make up 50 per
cent of gamers; they don’t, in any meaningful sense—and
because those men are often of a stubborn, obsessive, hyper-competitive
and systematic bent, it has produced an army finally capable of
launching offensives against the censors—using the censors’ own tactics, such as advertiser boycotts, against them.”

Keep in mind the Four Fs of Victory. Fight, Follow, or get the F— out of the way. And if you’re a concern moderate who has “concerns” or is “worried” or thinks one tactic or another might be “counterproductive”, shut the F— up. 


As history clearly shows, you’re the one who is counterproductive.

Truth in Anti-GamerGate

It’s admittedly hard to find. But we finally managed to locate some after correcting for a few modest exaggerations and untruths, shall we say. Meet Fuchsian Stains, the oft-open mouthpiece of Anti-GamerGate.

And this exchange is why you ALWAYS ignore the ever deeply concerned Concern Trolls.

George Feher ‏@BRC1134
Why the fat shaming? Bad enough they shame mental and neural health issues. Shouldn’t you be better than them? 

Vox Day ‏@voxday
Click on the link. It should be self-explanatory.

George Feher ‏@BRC1134
I understand parody, but I think this will be used against gamergate and other things that don’t need sjw crap.

Vox Day ‏@voxday
Don’t focus inward, target outward. There are no GG thought police.

Bloody moderates. Always concern-trolling, always thought-policing, always preferring to shoot at their own side than the other one. I think I’ve finally figured it out their counterproductive tendencies, however. Moderates tend to be gammas, so they don’t want to take on the enemy directly because they’re conflict-avoidant and after all, the enemy might shoot back.

So, they suddenly become “strategists” and experts in coming up with ways to prevent anyone from actually doing anything. It’s freaking hilarious to see a few of them “strategizing” together because they inevitably produce a consensus that is not only less effective than literally everything they’ve been criticizing, but is usually unrelated to the original objective. “We should be better than them” is their battle cry. They love to show that they are “better” than the other side by preemptively surrendering and refusing to fight back. Which, of course, is why they reliably lose.

Now, I should point out this isn’t always the case. Brad Torgersen may be the cuddly Bleeding Heart Care Bear of the Evil Legion of Evil, but he’s as steady under critical fire as The Mountain That Writes, and if he lacks my quasi-sociopathic immunity to social pressure, he is nevertheless remarkably calm about it. One thing I’ve learned about Mormons in the last two years is that they are remarkably unflappable.

Shots across the bow

Zerohedge notes that China appears to be taking sides in the Ukraine conflict and doing so in support of Russia:

Speaking in very clear and explicit language, something diplomats are
not used to doing, the Chinese ambassador said the “nature and root
cause” of the crisis was the “game” between Russia and Western powers,
including the United States and the European Union.

He said external intervention by different powers accelerated the crisis and warned that Moscow would feel it was being treated unfairly if the West did not change its approach.

“The West should abandon the zero-sum mentality, and take the real
security concerns of Russia into consideration,” Qu was quoted as
saying.

His comments were an unusually public show of understanding from China for the Russian position. China
and Russia see eye-to-eye on many international diplomatic issues but
Beijing has generally not been so willing to back Russia over Ukraine.

As noted above, China has long been very cautious not to be drawn
into the struggle between Russia and the West over Ukraine’s future, not
wanting to alienate a key ally. And yet, something changed overnight,
with this very clear language, warning some could say, that China will
no longer tolerate Pax Americana, and even the mere assumption of a
unipolar western world, let alone the reality.
Qu’s comments take place just as talks between the United States and its European allies over harsher sanctions against Moscow.

On Monday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov accused
Western powers of trying to dominate and impose their ideology on the
rest of world. The United States and European delegations slammed Moscow
for supporting rebels in eastern Ukraine.

Qu said Washington’s involvement in Ukraine could “become a distraction in its foreign policy”.

And then, Qu’s slap in the face of Obama: “The United States
is unwilling to see its presence in any part of the world being
weakened, but the fact is its resources are limited, and it will be to
some extent hard work to sustain its influence in external affairs.“

Very soon after which a prominent critic of Putin was shot dead in a blatant hit that doesn’t resemble the usual Russian method of dealing with their critics. Of course, trying to determine whether it is a Russian act, a CIA act meant to look like a Russian act, or a Russian act meant to look like a CIA act, is futile. But it does look as if we’re back at near-Cold War levels of hostility between the USA and Russia.

The key difference this time, in my opinion, is that the Russian people will be considerably more united against the USA and its Western allies under a Russian nationalist like Putin than they ever were under the Soviets. If the American strategists are failing to take this into account, their efforts are likely to end in disaster.

Of deceit and discourse

Chris Gerrib made a demonstrably incorrect statement yesterday. He also implied that he had read the entire book, pointing out that he had bought it and talking about details from the first chapter. I called him on his statement and asked him a simple, straightforward yes/no question that would have indicated it to be not only false, but disingenuous and knowingly false.

You made a false and disingenuous claim about what “this SJW shit” is. Do
you admit that “this SJW shit” is what “gleefully subverts gender
roles” and “the subversion of the dominant white male paradigm”? Yes or no?

Instead of answering the question as per the clearly posted rules of the blog, Chris then went on to post NINE additional comments evading it. I gave him three opportunities to answer, and when he would not do so, I informed him that he would not be posting any more further comments here until he answered the question. This was his not-entirely-unexpected response:

Vox- I’m done talking to you. If you don’t want me to comment here, get
me banned. Otherwise, fuck off. If you think that’s conflict
avoidance, whatever. Why I should give a damn about the opinion of a
one-name wonder is beyond me.

He is done talking to me. He is done talking to everyone here, now that he is banned and spammed. Furthermore, I note that Chris Gerrib is a liar, a deceiver, an intellectual coward, and a near-textbook example of an insecure, passive-aggressive, conflict-avoidant gamma male, who turns evasive and runs away rather than even take the risk of being publicly forced to admit that he was wrong.

What was fascinating about his behavior yesterday is that at Alpha Game, we have been discussing precisely this pattern of behavior of men who belong to this socio-sexual demographic for the last two weeks, and helping various gammas try to break the pattern. Gerrib’s behavior fit it to a T; it was so predictable that several of us were discussing it before he even finished the customary Gamma routine. As one observer said, it was like watching a textbook example in action.

Notice the various elements of the socio-sexual hierarchy at work:

  • Alpha: doesn’t mind straightforward conflict, will not tolerate disrespect, is comfortable with direct and physical conflict. The political is not personal.
  • Gamma: can’t tolerate disagreement or criticism, bitchy, cowardly, puts himself in situations he is not equipped to handle. The political is personal, the technical is personal, everything is personal. Runs from direct confrontation.

 Here are a few of the typical Gamma behaviors identified by an ex-Gamma that were obvious throughout the comments.

  • In the past year you can’t recall a single serious online discussion you were wrong about anything.
  • In the past two years you can’t recall one discussion with any friends or family in which you were wrong about anything.
  • When finally shown you are wrong about something it is devastating,
    you remember it for months or years, avoid that place or people, and
    consider your time there a failure as a person.
  • You routinely lie about small, personal, matters knowing you can get away with it.
  • You think width of knowledge is more important than depth of knowledge.
  • If you start to lose at any game you find a way to quit if you can
    and hope to save face by degrading the game or the other players.
  • If someone defeats you at a game or competition you can’t look them in the eye afterwards and try to avoid them if possible. 

The two points that I thought was the most telling yesterday were those that concern routinely lying and width of knowledge. From the very start, Gerrib deceitfully struck a pose of being more knowledgeable about the book than he actually was before eventually exposing his own deceit.

  1. “Well, having bought the book based on the author’s reading of the first chapter at Windycon, I read stuff like this. Chapter 1 was pretty active, ending with a shoot-out and a bad guy trying to use some kind of mind-control device.” 
  2. “if you had gotten as far as the end of chapter 1, you would have found out that the women who cause the first gunfight were both Asian.”
  3. “I have not read past chapter 1.”

This behavior makes no sense to the non-gamma male, but to prefer everyone knowing that you’re deceitful to publicly admitting that you’re wrong is the quintessence of gamma. Gammas know no honor because they reject the concept, they consider it foolish. And there is no place in the public discourse here for those who intentionally seek to deceive their fellow commenters.

This is not the first time Gerrib has behaved in this manner. S1AL noted:

That’s a truly amusing statement coming from someone incapable of admitting when he is incorrect about any fact. Really, tell me again how there were no black people in a pirate movie before 2005… or how the Declaration of Independence is the “founding” document of America. But hey, now I know it’s not just me to whom you won’t admit being wrong.

The Rules of the Blog exist for several good reasons, and one of the primary ones is to foster honest, civil, and rational discourse. Those who demonstrate that they either cannot or will not engage in such discourse will not be permitted to continue commenting here.

He lived long and prospered

Leonard Nimoy, Spock of ‘Star Trek,’ Dies at 83. Death comes for us all in time. Even half-Vulcans.

Leonard Nimoy, the sonorous, gaunt-faced actor who won a worshipful global following as Mr. Spock, the resolutely logical human-alien first officer of the Starship Enterprise in the television and movie juggernaut “Star Trek,” died on Friday morning at his home in the Bel Air section of Los Angeles. He was 83.

Why we fight

Because this is what happens when you don’t:

Karen Memery (like memory but with an e as she explains), is just such a seamstress. She is the titular narrator of Elizabeth Bear’s latest steampunk adventure, Karen Memory (with an o and not an e). A prostitute at the Hôtel Ma Cherie, a high-class bordello in Seattle Rapid City in the late 1800s, Memery is dissatisfied with her job and her johns, longing for the prairie life she gave up when her father died….

Bear also gleefully subverts gender roles in Karen Memory. Not just with Karen and Priya’s lesbian relationship. She also introduces Crispin, the gay bouncer at the Hôtel Ma Cherie, and Miss Francina, one of the seamstresses who has a select client base. As Karen puts it:

    “…the thing about Miss Francina is that Miss Francina’s got a pecker under her dress. But that ain’t nothing but God’s rude joke. She’s one of us girls every way that matters, and handy for a bouncer besides.”

So not only do we have three prominent gay characters, including the main protagonist and her love interest, but we also have a transgender character — the first I’ve run into in a 19th Century setting. And Karen’s plainspoken acceptance of Miss Francina, and those other societal outcasts who gravitate to the Hôtel Ma Cherie is probably the most refreshing part of the book.

Indeed, one of the major themes of Karen Memory seems to be the subversion of the dominant white male paradigm. Bear puts a variety of alternative lifestyles and minority role models on display, and fervently asserts that they too can be heroes in a fantasy novel. Madame Damnable in her quest for leadership of Seattle Rapid City against Bantle; the African-American Marshal Reeves, who has risen to a place of leadership despite his race (and actually Madame Damnable as well – Karen makes it clear that the powerful madame is also African-American by blood, if not by appearance); and Priya and Karen’s blossoming relationship, forbidden both as same-sex and interracial, are all examples.

Does that sounds like “loads of fun” to you? Because reading about a dissatisfied whore while being subjected to a sermon on the importance of diversity in sexual orientation, race, and transgenderism sounds about as much fun as listening to to SJWs drone on NPR about intersectionalism. I would genuinely rather read an IMF paper on the monetary policy of Zambia  or Newton’s Principia. In Latin.

Loads of fun. That’s what they want to bring to the game industry too. Loads of fun. Now, you can either submit to this SJW shit, or you can help us keep it out of games and take back science fiction. What will it be?

UPDATE: Bandai Namco sensitively responds to SJW concerns by providing new armor for female characters Ivy and Amy. Happy now?

No, apparently not.