Parabon’s Snapshot Forensic system is said to be able to accurately predict genetic ancestry, eye colour, hair colour, skin colour, freckling, and face shape in individuals from any ethnic background.
Each prediction is presented with a ‘measure of confidence’.
As an example, the test can say a person has green eyes with 61 per cent confidence, green or blue with 79 per cent confidence, and that they definitely don’t have brown eyes, with 99 per cent confidence.
Based on ancestry, and other markers, the test also creates a likely facial shape. From all of this information, it builds a computer generated e-fit.
Science is gradually obliterating the secular myths, one by one. My expectation is that most of the “racist pseudo-science” that was supposedly falsified (and which in most cases was simply declared out of bounds by equalitarian anti-scientists), are going to come back in vogue with a vengeance and on a sound scientific basis.
These are the final hours to register for Sad Puppies 3: The Ensaddening. January 31 is the last day to register as a supporting member of WorldCon. Here is why you might want to consider doing so even if the idea of spending $40 to poke a sharp stick in the collective eyes of the SJWs who are doing their level best to destroy the science fiction and fantasy literature you love for the next two years isn’t enough in its own right.
Hugo Awards are worth around $13,000 to an SJW, according to one Kameron Hurley. For a fraction of one percent of that, you can deny multiple SJWs their ability to commit Pink SF and force them to spend their time delivering pizzas instead. (Have no fear, the awards are worth absolutely nothing to us in financial terms, because the gatekeepers who value them for marketing purposes won’t publish even national bestselling authors of the Right; they are far more driven by intersectional equalitarian ideology than by evil capitalist business sense.)
Short of wiping their hard drives and deleting their current manuscripts, there is literally nothing you can do that upsets the SJWs more than putting the sort of right-wing writer they have spent two decades working very hard to suppress in the limelight that they seek for themselves.
The more obvious our numbers, the more it encourages the moderate elements at the major publishers to rein in the left-wing inmates who have taken over the SF/F asylum. The Toad of Tor is no longer at Tor and it is unlikely that her dismissal would have taken place without the fact that people were finally standing up to her crude bullying, causing her to double-down and attract the attention of higher-ups at the publisher. Tor’s German owners don’t give a damn about politics or the imperative of strong female characters and they’re only beginning to understand how the SJWs running their subsidiaries have let them down.
It’s very good value for the money. Last year, the $20 spent on a supporting membership got you the complete Wheel of Time series, the complete Grimnoire Chronicles, and sundry other works as well. Granted, it also got you a fair amount of Pink sludge, but no one is going to make you download it. The more of you that register, the more likely it is that there will be great stuff that you want to read as part of the Hugo Packet.
Sarah Hoyt says: “I suggest we kick them while they’re down and make them fight for the awards and prestige they crave. Also, that we point at them and make duck noises.”
We have the momentum. Last year, the Dread Ilk showed up in respectable force without me doing anything more than putting up a single post with a modified version of Sad Puppies 2. This year, we’re locked, loaded, and ready to be all that we can be. Trust me on that. About which more soon….
A supporting membership is $40 and gives you the right to participate this year and next year, as well as receive the material in the Hugo Packets both years. So heed the words of Wendell, our fine spokesmanatee, and end puppy-related sadness now!
Note to the Dread Ilk already on board: keep your powder dry. Registration is all that is necessary or desirable right now. The next step is in process.
With California gripped by a measles outbreak, Dr. Charles Goodman posted a clear notice in his waiting room and on Facebook: His practice will no longer see children whose parents won’t get them vaccinated.
“Parents who choose not to give measles shots, they’re not just putting their kids at risk, but they’re also putting other kids at risk – especially kids in my waiting room,” the Los Angeles pediatrician said.
It’s a sentiment echoed by a small number of doctors who in recent years have “fired” patients who continue to believe debunked research linking vaccines to autism. They hope the strategy will lead parents to change their minds; if that fails, they hope it will at least reduce the risk to other children in the office.
The tough-love approach – which comes amid the nation’s second-biggest measles outbreak in at least 15 years, with at least 98 cases reported since last month – raises questions about doctors’ ethical responsibilities.
Any doctor who attempts to force a treatment on a patient against the will of the patient or an underage patient’s parents should lose his medical license. It is absolutely unethical for a medical professional to behave in this outrageous manner, and those who stupidly think that this would be a great idea should stop and think about the obvious consequences for a few seconds.
Measles is not a major health risk to anyone; statistically speaking it is considerably lower down the risk chain than obesity, smoking, homosexuality and even gun ownership. If the “tough love” approach is deemed to be permissible, then doctors will be able to use any of those factors to cull patients from their list, and given the way in which Medicare now influences how they are compensated, there are entire patient classes that they would love to be able to stop serving. The sword always cuts both ways.
The very minor risk to other children in the office is easily managed; a doctor can have “unvaccinated” days in which those children who are not vaccinated according to the presently recommended schedule are seen. (Which in reality is almost everyone; I know very few parents who have managed to stick to the complete schedule, not even the strongly pro-vaccination ones.) Furthermore, some children cannot be vaccinated because they, or their siblings, have had sufficiently negative reactions to their first vaccinations. Are they going to be barred from all medical treatment simply because one specific treatment is harmful to them?
Before you leap to any conclusions or assume that this is personal, let me remind you that you have absolutely no idea what vaccinations my children have or do not have. My argument against this unethical and dangerous policy has absolutely nothing to do with my preference for limited and delayed vaccine schedules; even the most rabid pro-vaccine supporter should be capable of seeing the inherent danger in it.
I picked Belichick and Brady to beat Seattle in the Super Bowl before the playoffs started. I’m not changing that prediction now barring Brady being ill at gametime; this is their last hurrah, they know it, they’ve got a healthy Gronk, and Belichick has had two weeks to prepare. That being said, I really like Richard Sherman, as for all his flash and attitude, he is far more a hard-working team player than many a fan and media favorite.
I was lucky to be drafted by Pete and John, who assembled around me one of the most talented and diverse defensive backfields in football. More than I want individual success, I want to be remembered as part of the Legion of Boom, which is why all of us are on the cover of Sports Illustrated magazine this week. In football, unlike various other sports, it takes a total team effort to be successful.
I can’t perform at this level without Kam Chancellor, the lion of the Legion, the guy who once picked off Peyton Manning by ducking to make it appear as though he couldn’t leap for the ball. He’s also the guy we go to with our problems, who doles out advice about a lot of issues that arise outside of football.
I can’t perform at this level without Earl Thomas—The Example—who can show you how to do the right thing better than he can explain it. When everybody else is joking, he’s locked in, a reminder of what we’re here for.
I can’t perform at this level without Byron Maxwell, our chill guy, oblivious to the pressure. I remember him joking around with Carroll in our rookie camp, saying that if he was allowed to play nickel he’d choke out the slot receiver. Carroll relented and Maxwell delivered, only to get injured in camp. Now he’s the corner on the other side, and his consistently high level of play makes QBs’ decisions very difficult.
I can’t perform at this level without Jeremy Lane, the scrappy guy from Tyler, Texas. Competition brings out the dog in him; just look at what he’s done to the Packers’ Randall Cobb.
He’s also entirely sound on Roger Goodell. One thing I always pay attention to with regards to public figures is how they are regarded by those closest to them. The men who tend to have the strongest characters are those whose friends and colleagues are loyal and stand by them even when the heat is on. The fact that Sherman, the most famous and outspoken member of the Legion of Boom, doesn’t pretend to be the top dog but instead defers to Chancellor as the leader, helps explain why a collection of fairly low draft picks – one first-rounder, two fifth-rounders, and two sixth-rounders – evolved into the most fearsome defensive secondary of all time.
It’s strange how many people involved in team sports insist on focusing exclusively on individual talents when the evidence clearly indicates that how well you operate as part of a unit is more important for ultimate team success than your individual talents. I suspect it may not be an accident that at least two of the Legion of Boom members, including its leader, are devout Christians. And although Sherman doesn’t come right out and say it, I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that the original plan had been to put him on the cover alone.
And if the Seahawks do knock off one of the two best pairings of coach and quarterback in NFL history, that will be further testimony to the sum being greater than the whole of the parts. I can honestly say that aside from the original Purple People Eaters and the Buddy Ryan Bears, I haven’t enjoyed watching a defense more than Seattle’s over the last two years. I wasn’t the only one who decided the Super Bowl was over after seeing this hit by Chancellor. Watch the battle between him and Gronkowski for an early clue on how the game will turn out.
Here’s a brilliant idea for an anthology: collect essays about the changing face of war and war technology, then alternate them with short stories and novel excerpts from the cutting edge of military-focused sci-fi and fantasy.
Riding the Red Horse, edited by fantasy star Vox Day and Army Ranger vet Tom Kratman for Castalia House, is a tailor-made compromise for those time-pressed souls who find the consumption of unalloyed fiction to be too useless a practice in which to indulge. It’s also a treat for sci-fi readers who retain an interest in the world around them—and the two groups’ overlap is large enough to make it a very good idea indeed.
Every tale or essay is fronted by an editor’s introduction, placed conveniently before each piece rather than in some tedious index or intro; they perk up the reader’s ears for the key factual and speculative themes of the collection.
Essays are fully half the mix, with the fiction serving as not only pleasure reading but as exercises in imagining how the technological and population changes the essayists describe might play out in the future. The tone is set early on by William S. Lind’s discussion of the four generations of modern war strategy, in “Understanding 4th Generation War.”
Lind’s unsettling conclusion is that the U.S. military is stuck in the second-generation mindset used by the French in World War I, while our adversaries—particularly those who aren’t based in a state, i.e. the jihad—have moved on to an updated version of pre-nation-state warfare, where neither the battlefield nor the combatants are clearly defined. Lind writes:
We have no magic solutions to offer, only some thoughts. We recognized from the outset that the whole task might be hopeless; state militaries might not be able to come to grips with Fourth Generation enemies no matter what they do. …
“Wherever people go, conflict seems to follow, and one always prefers to be on the winning side—so we might as well be ready for the physics problems we’ll encounter if the conflicts move into outer space.”
His essay is preceded by a dramatic fictional illustration of the unpredictability of the near future of war, albeit a state-based one: Eric S. Raymond’s “Sucker Punch,” a near-future military tale in which an American attempt to stop a Chinese invasion of Taiwan is rendered both impossible and unnecessary by the gruesome new weapons both sides have in store for each other.
The American pilots’ disorientation is so stark as to be almost darkly humorous:
“Hey. What are those flashes from the tin cans?”
Blazer: “Cool off. We’re stealthed, and radar’s clear. They’ve got nothing in the air that can hit us at angels twenty.”
Blazer’s plane disintegrated less than three seconds later.
This is what future sci-fi is going to look like, this collection predicts: as nervous as its past, with future-tech tactical guesses mixed into the drama. (Although if you prefer your sci-fi laced with humor, the winner in the anthology is longtime Navy fleet veteran Thomas Mays’ “Within This Horizon”—with Rzasa’s solo contribution, “Turncoat,” as an oddly touching runner-up.)
This focus on military realism doesn’t surprise me in a Vox Day-branded anthology. What makes A Throne of Bones, the fantasy series that gave Day his name, outstanding is the weakness of his magician characters—which makes his military generals work harder, which is more interesting to read than the standard Robert Jordan-type fantasy plot wherein Rand Al-Thor points at your army and it disappears. The authors in this anthology are reclaiming the same logic for sci-fi; instead of seeing the limitations of physics as an inconvenience to be juked around, they turn them into the driving power of their story lines.
The stories and essays talk back to each other in this manner constantly; regardless of whether their predictions will be accurate—my own military and technological knowledge is too poor to place any bets—they result in a conversation so entertaining and stimulating that the reader feels most privileged to listen in, especially for an entry fee of five dollars.
Riding the Red Horse hasn’t been what one would call extensively reviewed in the SF press, but you know, I think we can live with that. This is just an excerpt from a fairly long and detailed review, so you’ll want to read the whole thing.
UPDATE: We were just informed that one of our authors has been nominated for the 2015 Prometheus Award. Go to the Castalia House blog to find out who it is!
The heart of the USAF’s institutional culture was Strategic Air Command (SAC). It was where the pilots that learned how to do teamwork, logistics and (nuclear) strategy. That was where officers were groomed for senior flag rank command slots.
When SAC was stood down, Tactical Air Command (TAC) took over in the form of the renamed Air Combat Command (ACC). We are talking fighter jocks, the prima donna’s, the cowboys. The anti-intellectuals who are scared to death of people smarter than they are. Look what happened after the Gulf War when ACC was in charge.
Col. John A. Warden, the architect of the Gulf War air campaign was black balled by Gen. Horner. He retired a thrice passed over Col. at the Air Command and Staff School.
Gen. Corder — the man who put together the 1980’s USAF SEAD doctrine used so well in the Gulf War — was effectively sacked by the USAF chief of Staff (CoS) for disobeying a “strong suggestion” to lie to Congress about the need to retain the F-4G Wild Weasels. (The then CoS was trying to retain more F-15C’s in the force structure.) His efforts to deploy a missile warning system** to protect USAF planes was cancelled partially in retaliation.
When Corder’s allies in Congress started making noise in 1993 about the draw down of F-4G Wild Weasel and EF-111’s, the USAF put the recently retired Corder on a special six month SEAD study to satisfy them. Then the Air Staff sat on the results for close to three years. Corder, under the legal restrictions of the Reagan era secrecy laws, was thus effectively silenced while the deed was done. The downing of Capt. O’ Grady in Bosnia was a direct result of the purging of F-4G Wild Weasel and EF-111 Spark ‘Vark’s from the USAF force structure and senior ACC staff’s willing EW incompetence.
USAF CoS Fogleman, for all his faults, recognized the lack of institutional professionalism. His support of the Air Command and Staff College, Maxwell AFB, Alb. and attempts to create a USAF doctrine codifying entity like the U.S. Army’s Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) were what was needed. Unfortunately, Fogleman could not delegate and his reforms died with his military career. The inability to delegate is a defining fault of USAF fighter pilot culture. Fogleman’s successors haven’t tried to address these core institutional issues since then. The F-22 budget wars and the real wars since 1997 have left the USAF CoS no time for anything else, assuming they were interested.
Jerry adds: The Iron Law even in the military, dammit. The purpose of warriors is to win wars. It takes one force to gain and keep air supremacy, another to support the ground army. The army can win without ground support if the other guy also has none, and we used to plan Cold War battles in which neither side had supremacy. That was tough and the obvious conclusion is that air supremacy is vital; but that does not mean that support of the ground forces is not important. If the Air Force won’t give it, take the mission away; and if USAF blocks that, abolish USAF and bring back USAAF.
There is real evidence surfacing that the Iron Law has taken over to such a degree that the bureaucrats in the USAF are literally more loyal to their bureaucracy than to the country they are sworn to serve:
The Air Force is investigating allegations that the No. 2 commander at its prestigious Air Combat Command told lower-ranking officers that talking to members of Congress about the capabilities of the A-10 attack aircraft is tantamount to treason.
The alleged comment by Maj. Gen. James Post has stirred concern in Congress about the Air Force muzzling officers in violation of their legal rights. “This is very serious, to accuse people of treason for communicating with Congress,” Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-New Hampshire, told Gen. Mark Welsh, the Air Force chief of staff, who testified Wednesday before the Senate Armed Services Committee.
Post is reported to have told Air Force officers attending a recent weapons and tactics conference in Nevada that it is their duty to support the service’s budget priorities by refraining from offering opinions inconsistent with those priorities. Air Force leaders have proposed retiring the A-10 fleet but Congress has refused, and some inside the Air Force have sided with Congress.
I see no point in a separate air force anymore. It has an insulated and myopic perspective on war that is entirely backwards, it is on the verge of being technologically irrelevant, and it simply cannot deliver the results it promises. Give ground support to the Army and Marines, give air and space supremacy to the Navy, and be done with it.
A few days ago, in Probability and the Problem of Life, I pointed out that there is no need to precisely calculate probabilities that we cannot possibly know in order to reach logical conclusions about them. Contra the opinions of the misguided math fetishists, logic is the foundation of math, not the other way around, and we can reach perfectly sound logical conclusions even if we are not able to make precise mathematical determinations or quantifiy all of the various factors involved.
Throughout the course of the discussion, it soon became abundantly clear that those who defend the theory of TENS on probability grounds do not actually believe their own position. Furthermore, it is relatively easy to demonstrate that although the very low probability events to which they appeal are mathematically possible, they are so highly improbable that no sane human being can credibly feign to take seriously, as evidenced by their own daily behavior with regards to other, much more likely events.
WRF3 asked me to identify the precise point at which mathematical possibility and belief part company; I said that for me it was somewhere between 1 in 4,165 and 1 in 17,347,225. The latter are the odds of being dealt four aces twice in succession from two properly shuffled card decks; I would not view that as credibly possible and continue to play poker with a machine that dealt out such hands. The absolute outer limit for even the most credible individual is probably 1 in 72,251,192,125, which would be three such unlikely hands.
But the reality is that for the average individual, the credibility ratio is much lower. Consider the recent statistical evidence of the New England Patriots having systematically cheated by deflating the football since the 2007 season:
While speculation exists that “Deflate Gate” was a one time occurrence, data I introduced last week indicated that the phenomena MAY have been an ongoing, long standing issue for the New England Patriots. Today, that possibility looks as clear as day.
Initially, looking at weather data, I noticed the Patriots performed extremely well in the rain, much more so than they were projected. I followed that up by looking at the fumble data, which showed regardless of weather or site, the Patriots prevention of fumbles was nearly impossible. Ironically, both studies saw the same exact starting point: 2007 was the first season where things really changed for the Patriots. Something started in 2007 which is still on-going today.
I wanted to compare the New England Patriots fumble rate from 2000, when Bill Belichick first arrived in New England, to the rest of the NFL. Clearly, one thing I found in my prior research was that dome teams fumble substantially less frequently, given they play at least 8+ games out of the elements each year. To keep every team on a more level playing field, I eliminated dome teams from the analysis, grabbed only regular season games, and defined plays as pass attempts+rushes+times sacked. The below results also look only at total fumbles, not just fumbles which are lost. This brought us to the ability to capture touches per fumble.
To really confirm something was dramatically different in New England, starting in 2007 thru present, I compared the 2000-06 time period (when Bill Belichick was their head coach and they won all of their Super Bowls) to the 2007-2014 time period. The beauty of data is the results speak for themselves:
The data is jaw dropping, and this visual perfectly depicts what happened. From a more technical perspective, John Candido, a Data Scientist at ZestFinance who is a colleague of mine over at the NFLproject.com website and was also involved in the development of this research, comments: Based on the assumption that plays per fumble follow a normal distribution, you’d expect to see, according to random fluctuation, the results that the Patriots have gotten since 2007 once in 5842 instances.
Which in layman’s terms means that this result only being a coincidence, is like winning a raffle where you have a 0.0001711874 probability to win. In other words, it’s very unlikely that results this abnormal are only due to the endogenous nature of the game.
Many of the arguments giving the Patriots the benefit of the doubt are evaporating. While this data does not prove they deflated footballs starting in 2007, we know they were interested in obtaining that ability in 2006. (This is something I found out AFTER I performed the first two analyses, both of which independently found that something changed starting in 2007.)
I was skeptical when I first read the analyst’s theory, because he initially used fumbles lost rather than all fumbles; it is generally believed by football statisticians who have considered the question that fumble recoveries are random. And when fumbles rather than fumbles lost are utilized, the Patriots are considerably less of a radical outlier, although they are the only team that plays outdoors that fumbles as little as a dome team.
My first thought was that the anomaly was more a result of New England’s pass-happy offense than statistical evidence of ball deflation. However, a look at the passing statistics showed that New England was pass-happy as early as 2002, when they threw 601 passes, compared to 582 in 2014, and the fact that their plays per fumble from 07-14 increased so dramatically from 00-06 after the rule change that they requested does tend to confirm the analyst’s original suspicions.
But my point is not to take a side in the latest New England scandal, only to observe that for the professional statistician, observation of a successful event against 1 in 5,842 odds is sufficient to indicate the results observed are probably not obtained naturally. And while this statistical evidence is not absolute proof (although it is interesting to see that the statistician’s odds are in the range I suggested should preclude belief), it is enough to indicate that the greater part of one’s efforts should be directed at discovering the precise nature and mechanism of the unnatural tampering indicated rather than on the unlikely natural explanation.
“The bottom line is, something happened in New England. It happened just before the 2007 season, and it completely changed this team.”
Which brings us back rather to my long-held position contra Mr. Sherlock Holmes: Once you have calculated the sufficiently improbable, you must reconsider your assumptions of the impossible.
I know nothing about this “Pastor Driscoll” except for what I’ve read at Dalrock’s. And I would bet considerable money that he’s a Swaggart/Bakker debacle just waiting to be uncovered and exposed:
I’ve referenced Pastor Driscoll’s sermon Men and Marriage in several recent posts. This is the sermon to watch, or better yet, read, if you wan’t to understand what I was describing in The only real man in the room. In this sermon Driscoll opens with the prayer I quoted from in Fragging Christian Headship:
Father God, I pray that our time would be pleasing to you, that it would be profitable to us, Lord God, as well. I pray for those men who are here that are cowards, they’re silent, passive, impish, worthless men, they’re making a mess of everything in their life and they’re such sweet little boys that no one ever confronts them on that. I pray for the women who enable them, who permit them to continue in falling, those who are mothers and sisters and girlfriends and wives. I pray, Lord God, for those men who are chauvinists, those who are mean, who are brash, who are rude, who are harsh, who, Lord God, think they are tough when in fact they are Satanic. God, I pray for those men that they would have the courage today to not fight with a woman, but to fight with you, to actually find their rightful place in creation, that they might receive a good rebuke so that they can become honorable rather than dishonorable sons. God, I pray for my tone, I pray for our men, and I pray for the women who are listening in. I pray, Lord God, that they would know this comes from a heart of passion, deep concern, and love. I pray, Lord God, that we would think biblically, critically, humbly, and repentantly, and that, Lord God, there would be dramatic life change by the power of the Holy Spirit in the name of Jesus, Amen.
If you read the sermon, you will see that Driscoll repeatedly makes it clear that when he uses terms like dishonorable, Satanic, cowards, passive, impish, worthless, jokes, losers, imbeciles, fools, etc. he isn’t just referring to a few “peter pan” men who don’t have jobs and/or aren’t married. He is talking about the husbands and fathers who sought out the church lead by Driscoll, the men who brought their wives and children to the sermon.
…most of you men don’t know what masculinity truly is
Driscoll defines the six types of worthless men he regularly comes across. They are all either cowards or chauvinists and bullies. And again, Driscoll is addressing this not to men outside the congregation, or even a smallish subset of the men in the congregation. He means nearly all of the men in the congregation:
Were this a women’s conference, I would not call you all idiots and imbeciles and fools, that you’re a joke, okay? But you men, this is where it needs to go. You’ve been glad-handed and buddied up and positive thinking and you’re a winner and Jesus loves you and you can do better. And I’m telling you, you’re a joke. And the real men in the room know it and they see it. And maybe there’s one woman that you fooled and she doesn’t see it because like Eve, she’s deceived.
The hallmark of a real man, a real Christian man, according to Driscoll, is looking around at the other men in the room and knowing that they are pathetic compared to you. This is of course exactly what Driscoll is doing throughout the sermon. Again, this is a sermon about men and marriage, and married men are Driscoll’s primary target. While he makes a short stop in Genesis for background, the inspiration for the sermon is one single verse, 1 Pet. 3:7
Likewise, husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered.
The disparaging of the men in the room goes on to the very end of the hour and seven minute sermon. I’ll repeat that I highly encourage you to read the transcript. There is simply too much to quote, as the stream of invective against the men in the room is non stop.
This guy is the epitome of the wolf in sheep’s clothing. He’s a wannabe cult leader, not a man of God. Reading his words, I can scent the stink of feminist-appeasing, neighbor’s-wife-seducing sulfur. The joke, the evil joke, is him.
No man who runs around posturing as “the only man in the room” in this manner is a Christian leader. He’s an Alpha male, a pathological seducer who can’t stand the fact that there are women in the room who prefer another man to him. I can just about guarantee you that he would react very, very badly to me if I merely walked into his church with Spacebunny and stared at him. His sort of Alpha absolutely hates Sigmas because a) we tend to marry attractive women and b) we see their bullshit for what it is.
Dalrock’s close was beautiful: “Miss Flowahs got Driscoll’s message, and no doubt so did the women in attendance.” His real message, not the fake sermon given as cover.
I never trust a man who pretends to be talking to God when he is actually talking to the people listening.
One of Wikipedia’s worst SJWs, the anti-GamerGate Ryulong, has been banned indefinitely for his all-too-typical thought-policing:
Ryulong banned
5.3) (Was 4.5) Ryulong (talk·contribs·logs·edit filter log·block log) is indefinitely banned from the English Language Wikipedia. They may request reconsideration of the ban twelve months after the enactment of this remedy, and every twelve months thereafter. Support:
(first choice) As always, banning someone is not something we should want to do, but sometimes it is the best thing for the project. Ryulong has acted very poorly in this topic area, and it is clear that previous sanctions and blocks have failed to have the desired effect of ending disruptive behavior. A revolving door of speedy topic bans, chasing the problem from area to another, is not the answer. This is. I sincerely hope that at some point in the future he will be able to return and be a productive member of this community again, but for now he needs to go. Beeblebrox (talk) 23:15, 19 January 2015 (UTC)
Will prioritise later if need be, Roger Daviestalk 23:38, 19 January 2015 (UTC) Equal first choice, Roger Daviestalk 11:31, 21 January 2015 (UTC)
Last Choice I would love to not do this but I don’t think anything else has a snowball’s chance of passing —In actu (Guerillero) | My Talk 01:15, 21 January 2015 (UTC)
Last choice of presented options (Right now). I think if we’re dealing with this on a purely pragmatic level this might be best for the project, but I do think that it would only be fair to attempt to apply some of the alternatives first, although I’m a bit concerned as to their potential efficacy, given the history. NativeForeignerTalk 07:26, 23 January 2015 (UTC) Nonetheless, support. NativeForeignerTalk 19:48, 27 January 2015 (UTC)
If the 1RR does not pass, then first choice of what’s left. Still oppose if the 1RR somehow moves back to passing. The more I look at the history here, the more I am sure the problems are far wider than just this single topic, as I see it, Ryulong doesn’t seem able to “hold his fire”, and not get into edit wars. This also, per his block log, is independent of topic areas. Without very, very strong measures to stop them from continuing to edit war throughout the encyclopedia, I don’t think we have any other choice. Also, even to this morning, I still see evidence of ongoing battleground mentality. I really, really don’t like this, but I can’t support their staying on the project without a strict 1RR and a topic ban at this point. And only one of those is going to pass. Courcelles 22:02, 26 January 2015 (UTC)
Oppose:
My mind is open on the other proposed remedies, but I will certainly not be supporting this. Newyorkbrad (talk) 03:41, 20 January 2015 (UTC)
Neither will I. Need to contemplate the rest of it, but this is not the solution. Courcelles 03:48, 20 January 2015 (UTC)
Excessive in the circumstances. I’m open to some alternative. DGG ( talk ) 05:33, 20 January 2015 (UTC)
I would like to try something else. —Guerillero | My Talk 07:53, 20 January 2015 (UTC)
I’ve decided to oppose this, albeit weakly. I’m hoping that the other remedies regarding Ryulong will end this situation, but I don’t quite think a siteban is the best course forward here. GorillaWarfare(talk) 02:32, 23 January 2015 (UTC)
Given the circumstances here, I don’t think this is called for. For clarity’s sake, though, this is very likely the absolute last chance. SeraphimbladeTalk to me 01:14, 24 January 2015 (UTC)
I find my view on this changing from day to day, so it would be fairer if I abstained. DGG ( talk ) 20:47, 22 January 2015 (UTC)
Comments:
Noting that I skipped this intentionally—still thinking on it and will come back soon. GorillaWarfare(talk) 17:23, 22 January 2015 (UTC)
@NativeForeigner: I tried to fix the numbering, but clarification of your exact meaning would be useful here. Courcelles 20:01, 27 January 2015 (UTC)
Of course, a perusal of the process tends to illustrate why Wikipedia is so hapless when it comes to policing outrageous behavior by its editors. Because it was started by an SJW-sympathetic individual and was rapidly taken over by SJWs of varying rabidity, the site remains hopelessly biased and largely worthless on anything of even moderate political contention.
That being said, it is good to see that Wikipedia is trying to clean up its act, even if it is going about it in a manner that makes Sisyphus look productive. But they simply refuse to see that the way they cherry-pick which sources are deemed reliable and which are not is what produces the intrinsic left-wing bias. The SJW editor who sits on the Wikipedia page about me and tries to publicize as much negative information as possible while minimizing any positive information shows how he evades the point on the Talk page there:
Many of the recent additions to this article seem to be the direct result of Mr. Beale’s recent blog post in which he commented that Wikipedia is unfairly and dishonestly excluding material on his views: “Does [the ‘Views section in the Wikipedia article] describe my views at all? Are the totality of my views really limited to little more than a feud with John Scalzi and my expulsion from SFWA? Do I have no opinions on economics, politics, philosophy, literature, and religion despite having written books on the former and the latter? It’s telling, too, to observe that if the so-called feud and the expulsion are the only significant aspects of my views, there is no mention of the connection between the former and the latter.”
Mr. Beale then gave a brief description of his views on economics — he feels that the Austrian School is currently the best explanation available, but is ultimately flawed for various reasons — and stated that “(t)hose are my actual views on the subject. That is the absolute truth. Post them on Wikipedia and they’ll be suppressed within 24 hours.”
This, I believe, is indicative of a general misunderstanding. Of course Mr. Beale has a great many more views than are provided in this article; for instance, he has expressed an appreciation for the writing of Frank Herbert and a dislike for that of Patrick Rothfuss. I’m certain he also has food preferences, and opinions on the best way to teach mathematics to children. He may even have discussed these views in posts to his blog. But the mere fact that Mr. Beale has a view on a subject does not indisputably lead to the conclusion that the view should be included in Wikipedia’s biography of him, not even if he has made a blog post in which he explicitly states that view. Rather, the views which are (or should be) included are those which have drawn significant independent external attention. I hope that this explanation will satisfy the readers of Mr. Beale’s blog, and possibly even Mr. Beale himself. DS (talk) 14:42, 8 August 2014
This is the height of absurdity. I misunderstand nothing. Nor do you, my readers. There is FAR MORE significant independent external attention that has been paid to my views on economics, religion, and the history of war than have ever been paid to my views on immigration or race, much less my “Feud with John Scalzi”. I have NEVER done an interview about the latter; Scalzi himself did only one. I did over thirty interviews, some on national radio, about economics subsequent to the release of THE RETURN OF THE GREAT DEPRESSION and more than twenty related to THE IRRATIONAL ATHEIST.
Transcripts and links to some of those interviews are available on my blog. My views are clearly expressed in them – again, on national radio shows, and even in one case, television – and yet every last trace of those views have been methodically scrubbed from Wikipedia by the likes of DragonFlySixtyseven.
Here is just one of many possible examples pulled from my email. There are over 75 similar emails from different media outlets ranging from Fox News to the Saturday Evening Post. But in the impartial eyes of the Wikipedia editors, the cumulative total of that independent external attention is less significant and notable than John Scalzi talking about himself on his blog that gets less than half the traffic of this one.
INTERVIEW CONFIRMATION NAME: Vox Day TOPIC: The Irrational Atheist DATE: Tuesday, October 21, 2008 INTERVIEW TIME: 11:15 – 11:55 am ET LENGTH OF INTERVIEW: 40 minutes MEDIA: Christian Radio Network – over 200 stations in 34 states, 19 affiliates and in Canada
I can’t speak to the accuracy of the rest of Wikipedia, but my page is mostly nonsense from start to finish. I mean, it actually says that I was born in Minnesota.
As always, a public apology only compounds the error by displaying weakness to those who are always hunting for it:
Devastated’, ‘a complete fool’ and ‘an idiot’; ‘thoughtless’, ‘inappropriate’ and ‘shaming’: that is how the actor Benedict Cumberbatch described himself and his actions this week in an elegantly worded but nonetheless grovelling apology.
It was fully 150 words of heartfelt self-flagellation, in which the actor all but stripped naked and covered himself in ashes before lashing himself to the mast of public opinion.
And all for what? A well-meaning slip of the tongue.
He used the term ‘coloured’ during an interview on an American chat show. Perhaps not the most politically correct racial terminology, but certainly not the most derogatory either.
At worst, perhaps, rather old-fashioned. The kind of thing your granny might say, and which might compel you to lean over and gently whisper in her ear: ‘No one says “coloured” any more, gran, it’s not the done thing.’ To which she might reply: ‘Really, dear? I had no idea.’
A term, moreover, contained in the very name of one of America’s leading African-American civil rights organisation, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People….
Of course, in today’s world the poor fellow had no choice but to apologise.
Not only does he inhabit the oh-so-progressive world of entertainment, where to deviate even slightly from the accepted nostrums of liberalism can mean instant alienation, he also has as an ancestor an 18th-century sugar plantation owner in Barbados which, in the eyes of some, practically makes him a slave-trader himself.
As a Person of Color myself, I should like to absolve Mr. Cumberbatch of any lingering guilt over his PR faux pas. And to advise him, as I have myself been reliably informed, that time is rapidly running out on the term “People of Color” and that the next politically approved appellation for individuals of African descent residing on the North American continent is still being discussed by the Grand Council of Racial Relations and will be announced to white people sometime in the next 18 months.
I understand “Basketball American” is the present frontleader, but the situation is fluid as “Shaded Americans” or “Shades” also has its advocates. As for we Native Americans, the correct form of address will be the individual’s tribe, with all of the onus being placed on the individual addressing the erstwhile Native American to correctly identify his tribe prior to addressing him. An incorrect tribal identification will, of course, be considered greatly offensive and will require a placatory offering of money, alcohol, or sexual favors to set straight.
