Addio, Alabama

Forget the Middle East and Europe. Let’s consider something truly controversial. Ohio State is poised to destroy Alabama’s recruiting dynasty:

The state of Ohio is particularly strong in the 2016, with 14 players currently ranked as at least 4-star prospects. And while the national prospects who have already committed to or have shown strong interest in the Buckeyes is certainly encouraging for Meyer, it’s not just the talent working in Ohio State’s favor.

As it currently stands, the Buckeyes are slated to lose 13 scholarship players to graduation at the end of next season. Between transfers and what looks like several underclassmen who have a chance to declare early for the 2016 NFL draft, that number could very well double, and it’s not out of the realm of possibility to think Ohio State could have close to 30 scholarships available in its 2016 class.

Factor in a 2015 schedule that sets up to keep the Buckeyes’ infomercial playing until at least late-November, and it becomes clear that Alabama’s five-year run of top-ranked recruiting classes is suddenly in danger. Meyer managed to defeat Nick Saban on the field in last season’s Sugar Bowl, and he’s well on his way to picking up another win over his rival next February.

Can you… can you hear the chants? B1G! B1G!

Go to Israel. Now.

I’ve been saying it for a while, but Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu is beating the drum even more strongly:

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday urged European Jews to move to Israel after a Jewish man was killed in an attack outside Copenhagen’s main synagogue.

“Israel is your home. We are preparing and calling for the absorption of mass immigration from Europe,” Netanyahu said in a statement, repeating a similar call after attacks by jihadists in Paris last month when four Jews were among the dead.

The cabinet later on Sunday submitted a plan to encourage the absorption
of Jews from France, Belgium and Ukraine, and would discuss immigration
from other European countries at a later date. 

Jews are neither Europeans nor Christians, neither are they Muslims, so they need to get the hell out of the way and stay safely out of the way of the coming wars. Too many of them have caused too much damage to themselves, to Europe, and to the USA by idiotically encouraging third world immigration in a foolish attempt to protect themselves against Christians who never had any intention of harming them.

Sam Huntington’s long-foreseen Clash of Civilizations (PDF) is approaching. Those who are opposed to Christian civilization are going to lose again; even the European seculars and pagans are beginning to understand the importance of Christian civilization. I’ve read one of his book and Netanyahu is a good student of not only history in general, but military history in particular, and he understands that if Europe’s Jews continue to stupidly stand in the way of Europeans defending their civilization against the Muslim onslaught, they’re going to be wiped out again.

That, incidentally, is why France’s prime minister is desperately arguing against the Israeli prime minister’s appeal to Europe’s Jews. Not because he loves Jews more than Netanyahu, but because he is cynically using them as a means of keeping the nationalist leadership that will replace him at bay.

Israel should no more stand in the way of Europe defending herself against Islamic expansion than Europe should interfere with Israel defending herself Islamic aggression. It appears that Netanyahu, for one, understands that strong Christian nations in Europe are considerably better for Israel than a Muslim-conquered Europe.

At the moment, I am editing a book by a brilliant Israeli military historian that will be available later this month to newsletter subscribers. And in thinking about how Man’s strategic thinking has developed, it is becoming increasingly evident that the modern militaries presently lack the theoretical means to grasp how events are taking shape or what to do with them. Forget the bromide about how generals are always fighting the last war, right now, the politicians and their military advisors are mostly caught up in entirely fictional theater based on a geopolitical structure that has very little relation to either the current reality or the global wars of the future.

Mailvox: dealing with anklebiters

BT was wondering how one best deals with them:

After conversing with a certain individual at length, and realizing only belatedly that they are most likely just another anklebiter, I’ve come to some hypotheses:

Anklebiters are:

  • 0 to +1 SD intellect
  • Mildly autistic at the least, which leads them to overestimate their own intellect.
  • Far more hurt by a mix of dialectic and rhetoric rather than pure rhetoric (they innately believe themselves above it) or pure dialectic (they’ll just retreat to appeals of authority).

For efficacy in pain, the mix of dialectic and rhetoric will probably depend on the level of autism in particular.

The only thing I haven’t figured out in this theory is the best way to handle said anklebiters.  Ignoring them certainly works, as they’re just self-styled intellectual tough-guys walking around with a chip on their shoulders.  It certainly seems to serve to frustrate their efforts on that end.  But anklebiters can look like an expert to the average stranger, and indeed seems to spend their time trying to convince everyone around them that they are an expert, so it may serve in everyone’s best interest to nip that problem in the bud.  How, I do not know.  Domestication training, using dialectic/rhetoric mixes as the stick?

Anklebiters are a brain-damaged form of midwit. They are almost always atheist, further pointing towards the atypical neurological profile required for that, they are usually male, and they tend to be unexpectedly poorly educated and badly read despite their observable intelligence. Most importantly, they lack the normal ability to admit failure, back up, and start over that normal individuals possess. And lacking it, they therefore lack any ability to improve their arguments or even to question any of their adopted beliefs.

That’s why anklebiters are always disappearing when trounced, only to reappear again and make the exact same arguments that have already been dismissed. The problem, as BT notes, is that this renders them immune to dialectic, and they tend to ignore pure rhetoric because they are not emotionally invested in their nonsense arguments. The more virulent form, the trolls, are sociopathic and have no meaningful human emotions to which one can appeal.

In effect, anklebiters are little more than genetically human bots, which is why there is no point in arguing with them or insulting them. They are not capable of adding anything to the discourse, so as soon as an anklebiter is identified, they are best ignored by the commenters and spammed by the moderators. There is no reason to concern oneself with how they look to the average stranger, because a) it’s not your problem, b) MPAI, and c) their own bizarre behavior will expose them sooner or later.

A guest blogger at Alpha Game has a timely post that addresses some of the issues raised here as part of his Graduating Gamma series. The most relevant quote:

This flows directly from the Gamma’s ever-present and crippling fear of being wrong somewhere and somehow. The Gamma does not understand the deep matters behind what is going on in his own beliefs, which is ironic since most Gammas vastly overestimate their knowledge and ability in most everything.

They can hear you

In space, the demons can hear you scream.  

Hyperspace Demons is a novella from our newest author, and it is one you’ll want to check out if you’re a science fiction fan. From the reviews:

Mixed in with hyperspace and spaceships is the interesting concept of “hyperspace microbes” that can possess a human mind, driving the person insane. These microbes are kept out of the spaceship by a special shield, so there shouldn’t be any problems, right? That’s where the plot pulls off some unexpected twists and turns, making for a fun read. Moeller keeps up the pace all the way to the end. Amazingly, for a novella there is much more that could be said, but I fear explaining anymore will reveal too much.

The story grabs you, and you don’t want to put it down until it is over.
Once the action begins, it builds and builds without letup until the
very end. I can’t think of any higher praise than: When I was done, I
wished it was longer, because I was enjoying it so much. 

In other Castalia House news, I’m pleased to be able to announce that we will be publishing a second book by Israeli military historian Martin van Creveld this year. In addition to Equality: The Impossible Quest, we will be publishing The Art of War: A History of Military Strategy.

Credentializing comments

No wonder the mainstream media fears comments. This may also explain why so many trolls consider themselves to be self-appointed blog police. Although I doubt they have much effect here:

Ionnis Kareklas, Darrel D. Muehling, and TJ Weber, all of Washington State University, found that the comments on a public-service announcement about vaccination affected readers’ attitudes as strongly as the P.S.A. itself did. When commenters were identified by their level of expertise with the subject (i.e. as doctors), their comments were more influential than the P.S.A.s.

Online readers may put a lot of stock in comments because they view commenters “as kind of similar to themselves,” said Mr. Weber — “they’re reading the same thing, commenting on the same thing.” And, he added, many readers, especially those who are less Internet-savvy, assume commenters “know something about the subject, because otherwise they wouldn’t be commenting on it.” The mere act of commenting, then, can confer an unearned aura of credibility.

That news may be especially disturbing to those already skeptical of comments’ overall quality. Dr. Kareklas and his team were inspired by Popular Science’s decision to get rid of the comments sections on its website; other publications, like Pacific Standard, have done the same. And Tauriq Moosa memorably wrote at The Guardian that the comments section “sits there like an ugly growth beneath articles, bloated and throbbing with vitriol.”

If only those nasty online peasants would shut up, stop interfering with the flow of propaganda, and recognize that communication is supposed to go one way!

The article appears to ignore the obvious fact that most sites permitting comments are communities of a sort, and commenters, being members of that community, are often familiar with the other commenters and therefore know how much stock to put in the credibility of another commenter. I put stock in a commenter for the same reason I put stock in a media site, which is to say, his past performance. Why wouldn’t one trust a known expert, with whom one is familiar, more than a public service announcement from an institution known to be corrupt?

It never gets old

Seriously, it just doesn’t. Hitler finds out about Brian Williams’s proclivity to, shall we say, exaggerate his experiences:

While the best line concerns Sofia Vergara and Kate Upton, I genuinely cracked up at the last one. Watch the whole thing. Williams is done after this. There is no way he can possibly come back from it; literally everything he says is going to be immediately transformed into parody.

The tedious Thor

It would have been vastly more entertaining had Thor come out of the closet. The Fabulous Thor! His outfit was always a little camp anyhow. Turning him into a grim transgendered feminist fighting to impose equalitarian thought control is as boring as it is offensive:

Thor a woman? It’s hard to believe the most macho, overtly masculine character in the comic canon could possibly be reimagined as a broad. But that’s almost certainly precisely the reason Thor was chosen: as a fuck-you to so-called nerdbros from the achingly progressive staff of today’s comic book establishment.

This has led to some questions from comic book fans. Questions such as: will Wonder Woman turn out to be a tranny? Is the Incredible Hulk only incredible because he endured cruel fat-shaming as a teen but didn’t let his size define him? And shouldn’t Spider-Man be a gay latino?

That last one’s not a joke, by the way: in 2011, Marvel unveiled a bisexual Spider-Man that was half-black and half-latino, called Miles Morales, to the consternation and confusion of ordinary comic book fans, as part of its Ultimate series of character reboots. We’re told “erasure,” whereby people’s pasts are scrubbed out by those in authority, is a social justice issue. Well, right now there’s erasure going in the basic, canonical biographies of some of Marvel’s most cherished superheroes.

Captain America, too, is changing: he’s becoming black. Changes like this are designed to provoke readers, and they do–not because readers are racist or sexist, but because they understand that certain characteristics are intrinsic to certain characters. James Bond and Captain America are obviously white. It is a part of their personalities. Thor is obviously a man; to suggest otherwise is daft.

What sticks in the craw of the fans I’ve spoken to about female Thor is how utterly transparent the political posturing is behind the change. There is no good literary justification for making Thor a woman, they say–and the results have been execrable. You can write intelligent satire about masculinity without making a classic masculine icon into a girl, an observation that seems to have escaped Marvel’s writers.

Of course, what all of these transformations most strongly indicate is the fact that Marvel believes women and minorities to be totally uninteresting. Not only does it highlight the fact that women and minorities can’t create their own characters, but even pro-intersectional white men can’t manage to create them in a manner that interests anyone, least of all women and minorities.

It’s exactly the same thing as a communist government taking over a capitalist society. They don’t understand how it works or why it works, they can’t create it or maintain it, but they can certainly manage to run it into the ground.

This comment from the SJWs at IGN is hilariously inapt:

“Not only do these scenes subtly acknowledge and render inert the
concerns voiced by real life detractors, but they also paint the
character in a stronger, more resilient light.”
— IGN

Subtle? The only way Marvel could have handled it any less subtly was if Thor spent the entire issue reading The Vagina Monologues with Gloria Steinhem at Wellesley.

A succinct argument

A debate on free speech in Denmark ends abruptly:

One dead in shooting at a Copenhagen cultural centre, where a meeting about freedom of speech was being held – organised by a Swedish artist who had caricatured the Prophet Muhammad. Police hunt for lone Danish-speaking gunman behind attack.

• 40-yr-old Danish man killed in shooting at cultural centre
• Three policemen reported injured
• Police hunt for lone Danish-speaking gunman
• Danish PM says attack was terrorism
• French ambassador to Denmark inside but unharmed
• Meeting about freedom of speech was being held at the time
• Gathering organised by controversial Swedish artist Lars Vilks
• Lars Vilks caricatured Prophet Muhammad in 2007

Well, I guess that is one way to reach consensus.

UPDATE: A man, aged 40, has died after masked gunmen opened fire on the
Krudttoenden cafe in Copenhagen during a meeting
entitled Art, Blasphemy and Freedom of Speech. Two people were taken
away on stretchers after the attack after the cafe
was sprayed with 200 bullets. The French ambassador, who was present at
the debate on free speech, has said it was an attempt at a Charlie
Hebdo-style attack in the Danish capital.

200 shots and one kill? It certainly sounds like jihad. By way of comparison, Anders Breivik required 121 shots to kill 77.

Design and playtesting

Ken Burnside has a very useful, and timely, piece on game development, as opposed to game design. I’m much better on the design side than the production side, so it’s very useful to be given this sort of reminder of the necessity of playtesting:

The middle 20% of the work is sending a draft of the game out to playtesters, and processing feedback. This is where explanatory diagrams are drawn and the first in-text-flow examples get written.  And rewritten.  And re-done. And re-re-done.  The back half of this 20% is taking the feedback from playtesters…most of whom don’t document everything they did to solve a problem.  Or will send you heated emails because the game blew up on them after they played it for two hours, and now their friends don’t want to touch it ever again.  This is the part where the developer feels “picked on” a bit.  Just remember:

Everyone who ever told you your game sucked, but told you what it was about it that sucked, just helped you make it better. You, as a developer, need to figure out how to resolve this issue, and you need to figure out how to differentiate between “The game sucked…” and “The game isn’t one I’m interested in.”

The worst kind of playtesters are the silent ones.  I put playtest material up on the Ad Astra Games Patreon specifically to weed out the silent playtesters.  These are the guys who download the game, and maybe skim it once, and otherwise let it sit on their hard drives.  I would much rather have playtesters tell me the game sucked than download it, decide it sucked, and never tell me so. 🙂

You will want two separate rounds of playtesting in an ideal situation – and you really want to get playtesters who don’t know the author of the game if possible; they’ll come in with things they know from knowing the designer, rather than hit the game up from scratch.  The second group of playtesters gets a draft that incorporates any feedback the first group gave you, and ideally doesn’t have any overlap with the first group.

If you have the time, you want to take any feedback from the second group, incorporate it into the draft and put it in front of the first group and see if the two different revision passes shake out any other “Oh, that’s what that means…” moments. This 20% of the work can take up most of the time.

Most technology companies are SHOCKINGLY bad at use-testing; game companies, for all it may seem that they don’t do much playtesting, are actually much better than the norm. I was amazed when I found out that in a company of over 150 people, precisely ONE person actually used the product that was the bread-and-butter of the company’s market.

Even a program as hoary and well-used as Adobe Reader occasionally shows strange signs of insufficient testing. I prefer to look at files at View/Zoom/Fit Height, but for some reason my documents were opening at 100 percent, which meant that I could see about one-third of the very high resolution images I was reviewing. I went into Preferences, found Page Display, and in it, the Zoom selections, where my options were Fit Width, Fit Visible… and Fit Page. Where is Fit Height?

Now, I’m not an idiot. I correctly guessed that Fit Page, which is NOT an option under View/Zoom, was the functional equivalent of Fit Height. But how is it possible that a program that approximately 11 hundred billion people have used still has basic inconsistencies like this? It’s not like Adobe doesn’t have the personnel to deal with this sort of thing.

Anyhow, I’m hoping to avoid as much of this problem as possible. One of the things we’ll be announcing this spring is our first miniatures game, which will also be called First Sword; it is a fantasy version of the 1977 Avalon Hill game Gladiator, only with a streamlined card-based combat system. (This may or may not be mildly revolutionary in the We the People/Hannibal sense, regardless, it’s not a common mechanic.)

I’m preparing a VASSAL module to test the system, so if you happen to be familiar with either VASSAL and Gladiator (or preferably, both), and you’re interested in helping me test it, send me an email with PLAYTEST in the subject. I’ll probably have the combat mechanic ready for testing in about two weeks; that, the campaign rules are the only elements that really require heavy testing of the miniatures game. The electronic combat management game, on the other hand, will require a bigger group of playtesters, but we’re not ready for that yet.

No God, no rights

Every now and then, the mask accidentally slips from the ghoulish face of the Left:

During a heated discussion over gay marriage, CNN morning Anchor Chris Cuomo opined that the unalienable rights endowed to all Americans do not come from God. Cuomo was debating Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore on the constitutionality of same-sex marriage. Near the end of the back-and-forth and after Moore argued that rights cannot be handed down by men, Cuomo blurted out:

“Our rights do not come from God, your honor, and you know that. They come from man… That’s your faith, that’s my faith, but that’s not our country. Our laws come from collective agreement and compromise.”

This is why the Left is so willing to abrogate and alienate what the Declaration of Independence declared to be self-evident and unalienable rights, among them being Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. They simply don’t accept that God-given rights are not laws, or that laws that do not respect those rights are illegitimate.

Worst of all, the Left fails to grasp the obvious consequences of their ill-considered actions. If the law can legitimately permit a homosexual man to force a Christian man to bake him a cake, then it can legitimately permit a white man to force a black man to pick his cotton. If the law can legitimately deem a man to be a woman, or two men to be married, it can just as legitimately deem a Jew to be subhuman or an African to be a monkey.

But the Right can certainly play the game by the new rules that have been established. Indeed, across Europe, it is beginning to do so. In America, it is beginning to recognize the need to do so. And the Right will have no mercy on the Left once it begins playing by the Left’s rules; they will cry out in appeal to the very rights they denied and alienated in vain.