Lives of horror

The Anonymous Conservative explains The Dunham Horror:

The Lena Dunham saga is a good example of how amygdala development,
or lack of it, can produce a human’s nature. In it, you see a woman who
growing up had few if any instances of amygdala-developing stress, and
whose parents themselves seemed predisposed to amygdala atrophy. As a
result, she never developed boundaries on her behavior, because her
amygdala was never taught through adversity, “don’t do that.” Now, as an
adult, she will always seek the easiest, least stressful path, and will
lack the ability to map out the long term consequences of her actions.
Because she lacks the hardware, her brain actually sees a world without
any consequences, and because she isn’t adapted to hardship, any
hardship she walks into is traumatic beyond belief.

In many ways, her story is directly analogous to the broader issue of
leftism in America. She freely wrote a disturbing account of her
behavior with her little sister, one which could easily destroy the most
vital thing for a rabbit – her reputation and status. Yet her amygdala
could not map out the consequences of her actions, and now she is in a
perpetual amygdala hijack that she cannot escape.

Leftists are identical. They cannot map out the long-term
consequences of their actions. The amygdala hardware is just not there.
So they seek the pleasure of the moment, avoid any hardships – even
those which might yield benefit later if endured now. Eventually they
collapse the very governing structures they need to hide behind, to
shield themselves from reality. It is no surprise Dunham is a leftist
rabbit.

Although one can reasonably be skeptical about AC’s r/K psychological model, it is both rhetorically useful and practically testable. It will be certainly be interesting to see how the theory plays out in terms of the Dunham molestation scandal.

Call for translators

Castalia House has two very important books coming out early next year. One is the 4GW Handbook by William S. Lind and LtCol Gregory A. Thiele. The other is by an intellectual heavy-hitter who cannot yet be named since some of the details are still being worked out concerning the project. Castalia is paying its usual revenue share on both books, 25 percent, although keep in mind that some languages such as Baha Indonesia have sold very, very few copies as Amazon doesn’t even sell books in that language.

We absolutely require native speakers, (mere fluency is not enough) and prefer those with previous writing or translating experience. Previous Castalia translators will be given precedence, as we already know the quality of their work. Some, though not all, of these translations may appear in hardcover as well as in ebook format. Neither book is particularly long, the 4GW Handbook is around 50k words and the other one is 100k words.

If you are interested and able to commit to doing either or both of these translations, please send me an email with your native language in all caps in the subject.

Two more checks in the deflation box

Check one. When banks are charging their depositors to hold their money, this is strongly indicative of deflation:

Just three months ago, Mario Draghi (President of the European Central Bank) embarked on his own Quixotic folly by taking certain interest rates into NEGATIVE territory. Draghi convinced himself that he was saving Europe from disaster. And like Don Quixote, everyone else has had to pay the price for his delusions.

On November 1st, the first European bank has passed along these negative interest rates to its retail customers. So if you maintain a balance of more than 500,000 euros at Deutsche Skatbank of Germany, you now have the privilege of paying 0.25% per year… to the bank.

We’ve already seen this at the institutional level: commercial banks in Europe are paying the ECB negative interest on certain balances.And large investors are paying European governments negative interest on certain bonds.

Check two: When debtor nations are finding it harder and harder to pay interest on their outstanding loans despite historically low interest rates, this is also indicative of deflation.  Ambrose Evans-Pritchard describes the battle between the ECB and the Bundesbank over continuing the European version of quantitative easing:

The North is competitive. The South is 20pc overvalued, caught in a debt-deflation vice. Data from the IMF show that Germany’s net foreign credit position (NIIP) has risen from 34pc to 48pc of GDP since 2009, Holland’s from 17pc to 46pc. The net debtors are sinking into deeper trouble, France from -9pc to -17pc, Italy from -27pc to -30pc and Spain from -94pc to -98pc. Claims that Spain is safely out of the woods ignore this festering problem. 

We have been seeing some inflationary artifacts during the last five years of credit disinflation, but that is the result of the massive credit money pumping. According to mainstream economic theory, there should have been 10x or more inflation, but instead, all those efforts to monetarily refuel the global economy have uselessly run off, like gasoline poured over a stone. There has been some asset inflation, as can be seen in the stock market, but when the crash comes – and it will come – that will put a conclusive end to the inflation/deflation debate.

Gridlock is not the problem

Rush is concerned, rightly, at the noises that are coming out of the Republican hierarchy concerning the need to “work with the President”. That’s not what they were elected to do:

What I want to do here is cut to the chase. The result yesterday is exactly what I said it would be. The Republican Party now has one of the most important and unquestionable mandates a political party has ever had at its junction with American history, especially a political party which did not run on a national agenda. The Republican Party purposely stood mute nationally.

Now, if you go into the races, the House and Senate raises all over the country, you will find that many Republican candidates ran specifically against Obamacare, and that is an important note to make and an important thing for you to remember. Individual Republican candidates won, and they won big. They won in a wave landslide running against Obamacare. The national Republican brand or image didn’t say a word, which makes the mandate that they have all the more incredible.

It is rare that a political party running for office in a midterm election not standing for anything ends up with a mandate, and they have one, and it is the biggest and perhaps the most important mandate a political party has had in the recent era, and it is very simple what that mandate is. It is to stop Barack Obama. It is to stop the Democrats. There is no other reason why Republicans were elected yesterday. Republicans were not elected to govern.

If the Republicans go along with amnesty for supposed fear of gridlock, they will throw away everything they have gained here. Which is why it would probably be the safe bet that the Republican leadership will try to do it, thereby sparking a revolt among House Republicans. We’re already hearing a lot of “the adults are in charge now” talk, which in Washington terms means “go along to get along”.

Rush added: “As I listen to the wizards of smart — all the analysts of both parties,
all movements on TV last night and today — the thing I’m hearing from
everybody is that what the voters want is for Washington to compromise
and people to work together.”

That is nothing more than an attempt to spin the narrative, to rewrite history and recreate reality. Don’t put ANY credence in anyone, left or right, you hear saying it.

Perhaps he should read the book

It being November 5th, I’m assuming time is up and the ball is back in The Dunham Horror’s court. So to speak. The complete document can be found at The Hollywood Reporter:

November 1, 2014

CONFIDENTIAL LEGAL NOTICE
PUBLICATION OR DISSEMINATION IS PROHIBITED

Dear Mr. Horowitz, General Counsel, Editor-in-Chief, and Mr. Thomas:

This law firm is litigation counsel for Lena Dunham in connection with her substantial claims against each of you (collectively, “you” and “your”) regarding your story dated October 29, 2014, bearing the headline “Lena Dunham Describes Sexually Abusing Her Little Sister”, which alleges that my client states in her book Not That Kind of Girl that she supposedly:

1. “experiment[ed] sexually with her younger sister Grace”;;
2. “experimented with her six-year younger sister’s vagina”;; and
3. “use[d] her little sister at times essentially as a sexual outlet”.
(collectively herein, the “Story”)….

In light of the malicious and hurtful nature of this Story, our client intends to vigorously pursue all possible legal remedies available to her, should you fail to immediately comply with the foregoing demands.

Please confirm within twenty-four (24) hours that you will comply with the foregoing demands.

If The Dunham Horror is determined to sue someone who has shown “the obvious tendency to subject [her] to ridicule”, she should probably sue her lawyer. I mean, did Charles J. Harder, Esquire, even bother reading the book before drafting this letter?

Another nomination for Larry

The Hugo-nominated author Larry Correia is now up for another award, this one being the Horror category of the GoodReads Choice Awards. The book nominated is Monster Hunter Nemesis and you can vote for it here.

And to think he didn’t even campaign for it! How is that even possible?

In other book news, there were two interesting development on the Castalia front this week. First, we’ve been under a relentless hacker attack for the last 134 hours, which appears to be related to our public endorsement of #GamerGate. After some initial success tracking down our login URL due to our carelessness, we tightened up the security and have been letting the hacker fruitlessly bang his head against the locked door in an attempt to gather more information about him. He’s changed his tactics three times now, but we have traced his activity through several servers in the USA and we may even have found his genuine IP address. So, the hunter has become the hunted.

The second thing was that as a result of working with a new author who will be announced shortly, his agent brought a second author to our attention, whose work actually promises to be very interesting. So, that’s another small step forward for the Blue SF/F revolution.

Republican House, Republican Senate

It would be nice if the Republicans would attempt to do more with their newly won Congressional power than they did the last time they held both House and Senate, but given their objectives, I have no expectation whatsoever that they’ll even do something as trivial as overturn Obamacare. Indeed, I rather expect them to dig the hole deeper. Consider the words of the new Senate Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell:

“This experiment in big government has lasted long enough. It’s time to go in a new direction,” McConnell boomed to supporters in his victory speech. But he sounded a conciliatory note as well, adding that while he and the president rarely see eye to eye, “we do have an obligation to work together on issues where we can agree.”

“It’s time for government to start getting results and implementing
solutions to the challenges facing our country, starting with our
still-struggling economy,” [House Majority Leader] Boehner added.

Translation: immigration amnesty and free trade. From the same article:

While Republicans are likely to cooperate on issues like tax reform, the
party will seek to breathe life into their stalled jobs bills, to gain
approval of the delayed Keystone XL pipeline, roll back some carbon
emission regulations and tweak Obamacare.

Well, that’s certainly an ambitious program that is all but guaranteed to completely turn things around, isn’t it? It’s fascinating how they’ve managed to completely evade addressing every single aspect of American decline.

And on a blog note, I can only observe that we need some saner trolls. It appears Ann Morgan is even less connected to objective reality than one would have assumed: “Hahahaha. Total democrat victory tonight proves my point is correct.”

Yeah, so, about that…. The constant laughter of the SJW isn’t, as they think it to be, the confident amusement of the superior being at the antics of his lessers. It’s the cackling of unhinged madness.

A game developer on #GamerGate

Earlier this month, The Escapist featured a very good interview with developer Daniel Vavra concerning #GamerGate. Vavra is a co-founder of Warhorse Studios:

What is your definition of “gamer”?

According Encyclopedia Britannica it’s “a person who regularly plays
games and especially video or computer games.” I am ok with that. But
while I am not saying that match-three games are bad, playing them over
breakfast doesn’t make anyone a gamer. It’s silly that the same
journalists who insist on calling people playing such casual games
‘gamers’ are not reviewing those games in their gaming magazines. The
line between a “true” game and “casual” game is thin, but I guess that
everyone can see the difference between somebody who owns several
consoles and plays very often and somebody who plays Bejeweled on his way to work. Those people aren’t the same and the games for them are produced by different industries.

What is the root cause of GamerGate? Do you see it as part of a larger “culture war”? 

Over the last decade, media were taken over by people who think that
their ideals, opinions and way of life are superior to others and so
they have the mission to tell others how to live, what to think and what
to do. Those people have learned that there is a very easy way of
manipulating others with guilt and fake goodwill. They will tell you
that you should be ashamed, because you are privileged. You are white,
you are healthy, you are rich and it’s your fault that there are others
who are not as lucky as you. So you must redeem those crimes by doing
what those social justice warriors think will please those who are not
privileged enough. And if you don’t, they will jump on you and give you a
hard time…. And that is the root cause
of Gamer Gate. People had enough of those hypocrites that started to
inject their ideology everywhere while they do exactly the opposite of
what they preach to others.

Read the whole thing. The total contempt he feels for the SJWs attempting to stick the camel’s nose into the game dev tent is palpable, and he is very, very far from alone in the game industry. The key phrase is: “the games for them are produced by different industries”.

For some reason, none of the SJWs are concerned that there aren’t enough men playing Kim Kardashian Hollywood. Why are there no articles demanding that the developers of Kim Kardashian Hollywood add elements to the game that will make it more appealing for white male players? We all know that these demands for “inclusivity” in the hardcore market are nothing more than another SJW entryist attack.

#GamerGate is doomed… again

This may or may not be genuine, but it is supposed to be a note from Gawker Media’s Nick Denton. [UPDATE: despite the overly dramatic language, it is confirmed to be real.] I’m a little skeptical, but it is in line with SJW entryist tactics as well as some of the recent attempts at “tone-policing” we’ve seen – and ignored – within #GamerGate. And then there is this:

8chan.co @infinitechan
#GamerGate has no leaders, so you don’t have to trust me. I don’t confirm things lightly: what @Kingofpol has is 100% true.

In any event, this was supposedly leaked directly from a source at Gawker:

First and foremost I would like to say “Thank You!” to myself and for those who are more than willing to accept a bit of financial compensation in exchange for causing a disruption. I couldn’t have done it without you and I appreciate all your hard work.

For those of you that might be quite puzzled at the moment I will clarify. As you may have noticed over the last couple months. there has been a
group of individuals eager to ruin my business endeavors at every turn for the sake of “ethics”. I would go as far as to use their preferred banner name. but afler the work of my new colleagues. I don’t see it continuing on much longer. Yes. the circus will finally be leaving town and business will continue as usual.

Over the past few weeks I had tasked my employees for finding a means to destroy that which has been rather resilient. You cannot simply “attack” their leader when they have none. nor could you shun the group as a whole without them using their rainbow coalition to mitigate any claims. Fortunately for myself. I figured it out. I found a way to, as they would put it, “Kill the Batman”.

It was there all along and oh so very simple. infiltrate the group and kill
them from the inside. The media parade that has been going on for weeks
now hasn’t done anything worth a damn. Time and effort thrown out the
window with needless articles over this shit show. None of it has made a damn bit of difference until now. Everyone is eager to throw themselves at mainstream outlets. but none of them are eager to spend the money they are already using to fix this problem the right way. So I had someone send out feelers looking for people to work on a “special project” for me. Those that made it through screening have been taking part in an effort to police the group from the inside, causing a wedge to be driven amongst them. Today serves as evidence of money well spent. they have begun to crack and their influential people are beginning to part ways with the group.

Eventually there will be such a small minority that it will just blow over and nobody will care.

It feels good and I am proud of myself. I am slaying a giant and there is
nothing they can do about it. How does one separate themselves from
people claiming to be “doing what is right for the group” by tone policing? You can’t and it will continue to be the dagger that kills this silly group of entitled brats.
-N. Denton

I’m sort of curious who are supposed to be these “influential people” who are beginning to part ways with #GamerGate. From what I’ve seen, more people than ever are lining up behind it as it becomes increasingly obvious that #GamerGate is not about harassing women given the fact that there hasn’t been any harassment beyond that supposedly directed at LW1, LW2, and LWu back in August.

#GamerGate concerns one thing and one thing only. People designing, developing, and playing the games they want to design, develop, and play. Everything else flows from that.

The thing is, it doesn’t actually matter if this is fake, real, or a real plant meant to sow discord. The lesson for #GamerGate is the same. Ignore the moderates, ignore the placators, ignore the tone-police, and keep doing what you’re doing. The only thing a 4GW organization has to do in order to keep succeeding is a) don’t stop, and, b) don’t centralize.

Election Day

I trust by now that anyone reading this blog has been sufficiently disabused of the notion that freedom has any causal relationship with voting. As the New York Times made clear today to even the slowest midwits, voting is not, and has never been, a Constitutional or human right. Women, like men, can be denied the privilege, it merely cannot be denied by “by the United States or by any State” on the sole basis of sex.

The 19th Amendment states “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied
or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.”

Which raises the question, what right of the citizens of the United States to vote? It is not numbered amongst the unalienable rights listed by Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence. It does not appear in the Bill of Rights. The Constitution “left the boundaries of suffrage undefined” and the only directly elected body specified was the House of Representatives, for which “voter qualifications were explicitly delegated to the individual states.”

In any event, as millions of voters exercise their privilege across the USA today, it is very, very unlikely that the replacement of a Democratic majority in the Senate with a Republican one, and the strengthening of the Republican majority in the House is going to signify much in the grand scheme of things. The federal government will continue its deficit spending, the banks will continue to loan out credit money they create ex nihilo, Wall Street will continue to dictate policy to Washington, the U.S. military will continue to intervene in the affairs of sovereign nations around the world, and the flow of diverse and semicivilized immigrants will continue unabated.

So enjoy the show, but understand it is merely rote and ritual, a piece of kabuki theater to which we all know the steps and the lines.