If You Want Sigma

I’ve added a paywall to Sigma Game for those who are interested in what will be a very modest amount of subscriber-only content. One post per week will be at least partially-paywalled, as per the example of today’s post. I’m basically following the model of Simplicius here, who provides a substantial amount of free content with a dash of paywalled-content to essentially express appreciation for his backers.

Communication is an art, not a science. But we can nevertheless apply certain scientific principles to the practice of that art, which is to say that we can observe existing patterns, formulate hypotheses about the way those patterns reliably play out, and then test those hypotheses.

Being more a student of social interaction than a participant by nature and nurture alike, I have done this and I have determined that a considerable amount of social conflict is caused by the use of just two words.

The first conflict-inspiring word is “why”. While there is a school of thought that teaches a) there are no stupid questions, b) all curiosity is merited and must be assuaged, and c) all questions are innocent and posed in good faith, this is an objectively stupid school and all three of its assumptions are observably incorrect.

If you ever wonder why there isn’t just one single subscription to everything, it’s because I have learned the hard way over time that every project needs to be capable of standing alone on the basis of its own merits. Where one gets into trouble is misallocating resources from productive projects to an unproductive one, and keeping the streams separate is the best way to avoid the temptation to prop up something that really doesn’t have the support required to justify the time and effort required to keep it going.

But please note that there is absolutely no need for any VP reader to feel any pressure to back externalities like Sigma Game that are also offered for free. The community here is absolutely fantastic in its support for our various projects, and the paywall is primarily intended for those outside this community who are encountering the SSH and experiencing its utility for the first time to express their support for it.

“SSH awareness is an invaluable tool and what better place to come for the regular dose of it than straight to the source?”

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Burning the Village to Save the Village

Clown World is systematically destroying its own justifications for its right to govern the nations, as Simplicius observes in the aftermath of the fall of Syria and the failed presidential coup in South Korea:

The short-term obsessed West considers the various CIA-sponsored subversions of the democratic processes as “winning”: but have these people given any thought to what precedent they’re setting? They are burning their foundations, lighting their entire house on fire. In the hopes of smoking out a few ostensible ‘wasps’ they now stand to destroy their entire order within a generation.

The perception of the West’s miserable ‘Rules Based Order’ will never be repaired after this—the rest of the free world is watching and learning precisely how ‘Rule of Law’ hews to principle; the West will never regain their trust, and its institutions will forever carry the stench and stain of political interference and hidden hatred for true democracy—which has always been a token byword meant to excuse the Western order’s imperialistic overreach.

The Western order has turned into an odor, and the global south can’t pinch its nostrils hard enough.

Long concealed beneath the hypnotic glitz and glam of the hegemon’s ‘magic show’ was that the ‘indivisible’ idol of democracy has always been apportioned into ‘good’ and ‘bad’ forms, as necessity dictates. It was hidden well at one time, with Western leaders who at least made attempts at pretenses to maintain the fable. Now things have spiralled down the drain so quickly that desperate measures are required—with all precautions tossed out with the bath water, to reveal the ugly face of the Western political system kept buried in the ash of its conquests for so long.

In short: they don’t have the time to construct elaborate myths and schemes any longer, instead forced to merely act on instinct to save their foundering empire. But in doing so, they have hastened its decline by revealing just how illiberal and despotic it has been all this time.

It’s hardly news that the neo-liberal rules-based world order is neither liberal nor rules-based, but it is remarkable to see how “democracy” has been redefined to mean “whatever the ruling foreign elite demands” everywhere from Moldova to Ireland.

While this dropping of the democratic veil is a good sign that Clown World’s power and influence are on the wane, as the unexpected fall of the Assad regime in Syria shows, just because a beast is wounded does not mean that it is no longer dangerous.

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Worse Than Infidels

No matter how much you despise the Boomers, you don’t despise them enough. We keep seeing this sort of thing again and again and again.

My husband should have inherited the farm he grew up on. After our first child was born, my husband called his dad and asked if he could come home and help farm. The answer was No. The farm will be auctioned off to Blackrock. Four generations of land will die with the selfishness of the boomers.

And remember, no generation inherited as much wealth, or will leave a smaller percentage of that wealth behind, than the Boomers.

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The Word Descended

This is a very different sort of Christmas carol. It’s probably not at all to your taste, and certainly isn’t one you’ll hear any carolers ever sing, but it’s reflective of a Christmas sermon I heard many years ago by Greg Boyd, one which I’ve never forgotten, about the more somber aspects of Christmas. You can listen to it on UATV.

The Word Descended
God made real
A child is born
For his ordeal
A cleansing flame
The sacrifice
To free Mankind
He paid the price

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Defuse Mode Activated

The mainstream media is suddenly in full defuse mode as public awareness of the Six Bidens and the Three Trumps is beginning to confuse the NPCs.

The US President Elect has a history of being flexible with the truth, and his vital statistics are seemingly no exception. Donald Trump, 78, has always claimed to be a towering 6ft 3″ in height…but his meeting with Prince William at the re-opening of Notre Dame in Paris this weekend suggested a little shrinkage may have taken place.  

The incoming US leader and the Prince William appeared to have a cordial exchange as they shook hands inside the Parisian cathedral. Later the pair posed for photos at the residence of the British ambassador in the French capital, with Trump calling the Prince of Wales a ‘good man’.  On both occasions, William, 42, cut a statuesque figure – the royal is 6ft 3″ or 191cm – and Trump didn’t quite match him in the height stakes. 

That’s the official line. Trump is lying and he is also shrinking. Never mind the fact that at his first inauguration, he was taller than his 5’11 wife, the former professional model, who was wearing heels, which is consistent with all of their historical pictures together.

The one explanation they never touch is the obvious one in line with the conclusion that Ockham’s Razor dictates: the pictures are not of the real President Trump, but of some other individual who is shorter than the Donald Trump.

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Clown World Takes Syria

In an effective demonstration of its global influence, Clown World’s jihadist proxies managed to take Syria in less than two weeks.

Hayat Tahrir-al-Sham (HTS) jihadists and other anti-government militias entered Damascus on Saturday, taking control over the Syrian capital. Flight data websites show that President Bashar Assad’s plane has left the city. Syrian Prime Minister Mohammad al-Jalali has already offered cooperation “with any leadership chosen by the people,” also claiming that he remains in his home.

HTS, a group led by a former Al-Qaeda commander and previously known as Jabhat al-Nusra, launched a surprise offensive from the opposition-held province of Idlib in northern Syria just last week. Jihadists have already driven the Syrian Army from the cities of Aleppo, Hama, Homs, and Al-Qusayr at the border with Lebanon.

Other opposition and militant groups operating in Syria also seized several parts of the country. The US-sponsored Free Syrian Army (FSA) has taken control of the ancient site of Palmyra, while the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) also backed by the US have seized Deir ez-Zor.

This is a reminder of Moshe Dayan’s explanation of Israel’s military success: they fight Arabs. Russia didn’t offer much assistance; as Andrei Martyanov pointed out, there is no point in assisting those who will not fight for themselves, a lesson that Americans and Europeans should keep in mind as they meekly submit to the invasion of their various countries.

This is obviously an attempt to secure a bargaining chip in the aftermath of the failure of the Kursk invasion, and Russia’s inaction makes sense in light of its attempt to avoid the full-blown hot war with the West that Clown World is seeking to ignite prior to January 20th. Even so, it is a moderately astonishing shuffle of the deck that no one was expecting.

It also shows the unpredictability of the Turks, who were seemingly cozying up to BRICS and moving away from NATO, but apparently whatever price they were demanding for their cooperation was finally deemed worth paying. Presumably they will be rewarded with the Syrian territory they have been craving in order to completely control Kurdistan, as part of what is described as “a devil’s bargain”.

A truly seismic change in the Middle East appears to be happening very fast. At its heart is a devil’s bargain – Turkey and the Gulf States accept the annihilation of the Palestinian nation and creation of a Greater Israel, in return for the annihilation of the Shia minorities of Syria and Lebanon and the imposition of Salafism across the Eastern Arab world.

This sort of thing is why it is totally pointless to attempt to predict geopolitics. There are always additional factors and variables that one does not know to enter into the equation.

UPDATE: The Russians have confirmed a) Assad has been deposed and b) Russia is maintaining its military bases in Syria.

The Russian Foreign Ministry has confirmed that Bashar Assad has stepped down as Syrian president and left the country following negotiations with armed opposition groups after the fall of Damascus to Islamist forces. In a statement issued on Telegram on Sunday afternoon, officials clarified that Moscow was not involved in the talks but acknowledged Assad’s decision to transfer power “peacefully.” “Russian military bases in Syria are on high alert. At present, there is no serious threat to their security,” the statement read.

In the unlikely event that you haven’t understood that WWIII began in February 2022, the conquest of Syria should make it clear that this is, indeed, the case.

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The Shadow Cannot Maintain

The Dark Herald explains why the IP holders of the D&D property are destroying the appeal of the Drow, and even more so, the character of the Drow renegade, Drizzt Do’Urden

The problem is that Drizzt was intriguing to D&D players because he was the only good member of a race that was well-known for being unspeakably evil. You hated running into even a single Drow if you were in a low-level campaign.

It was the fundamental dichotomy of his character that drew people to him. A child of the spider goddess who followed a path of light was somebody you wanted to find out more about.

What made him choose the life of a complete outcast? A traitor to be tortured and murdered by his own people but hated and feared by all else because he was a member of that race. His character archetype is that of the Renegade Hero* and it is their rebellion that fascinates an audience.

The problem is that retards like the people who write for Screenrant are so wrapped up in their Delulu Land paradigm that they can’t be made to understand that turning the Drow into just a bunch of subterranean indigenous people with BLACK skin and cultural differences that white colonizers from Greyhawk or the Wherever Realms can’t acknowledge as being valid utterly destroys the character of Drizzt.

It’s his rebellion against the fundamental evil of his own race that drew his audience to him. His evil race is the very foundation of his character. Take that away from him and he’s just some loner.

We all know that the shadow cannot create. But we’re learning that it cannot even successfully maintain what it holds. It inevitably destroys everything it touches over time.

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Good King Metal

Last night I introduced two new Christmas carols on the Darkstream, one original and one a very different take on a very traditional classic. Both are very much in line with what Owen and I discussed three years ago about the decades-long secular subversion of Christmas music and our desire to do something about that. They’ll be released to the public later this month, but UATV subscribers can download high-quality MP3s now.

Now roads are clear of snow
The world has changed completely
Yet there is one thing we know
A son was born uniquely
It’s Jesus Christ we celebrate
His coming is the reason
Everyone around the world
Welcomes Christmas season!

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The Beginning of a Failure Cascade

This may be one of the worst technological developments for humanity since gunpowder:

This is the type of AI that all leading experts have warned us about. German defense firm Helsing has announced it will provide Ukraine with 4,000 HX-2 “Karma” kamikaze drones this month. Germany’s Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said he had been “very pleased that the delivery of these drones equipped with artificial intelligence (AI) technology is already underway.”

With a top speed of 137 mph, these drones are capable of traveling up to 62 miles and can be loaded with various warheads for maximum destruction against armored vehicles, buildings, or platoons. The company states that these drones do not need a human operator, rather, they will be programmed to “search for, re-identify, and engage targets, even without a signal or a continuous data connection.” A human operator may “stay in the loop,” per the company’s messaging, but these weapons are designed to act autonomously.

“With HX-2, we have created a new smart effector that combines mass, autonomy and precision. Individual HX-2s can reliably engage armored targets in highly contested environments. When deployed along borders at scale, HX-2 can serve as a powerful counter invasion shield against enemy land forces,” Helsing’s co-founder Niklas Köhler stated. The other co-founder, Gundbert Scherf, said that NATO in particular has been eager for this technology. On one hand, the company says that these drones will retain human oversight, but on the other hand, the entire purpose of their design is to be autonomous.

Forget all the Skynet possibilities. Begun the Hacker Wars have. The easiest and most effective way to combat AI-controlled drone swarms is by putting a backdoor in the manufacturing process and giving yourself the ability to take control of them. And the utility of these autonomous killer drones in repressing civilian populations is obvious; combined with facial recognition technology it could be used to deny any movement to persons deemed undeniable.

It is informative that while knives are being banned by governments, this sort of lethal weaponry continues to be legally developed. Of course, civilians are going to acquire it too, which should make for a very interesting arms race.

But if they’re actually being used on Russian troops, I definitely wouldn’t want to be working in a Helsing factory. Or at their corporate HQ. I can’t imagine they would not be a priority on the Russian target list.

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The EU’s Fake Democracy

If the people vote wrong, just make them vote again until they vote correctly:

Romania’s Constitutional Court has annulled the results of the first round of the national presidential election after independent candidate Calin Georgescu clinched a surprise win last month. The decision comes amid accusations that Russia had allegedly assisted Georgescu’s campaign, claims Moscow has dismissed as “absolutely groundless.”

Georgescu, a religious nationalist, is critical of both NATO and the EU, and has criticized Romania’s role in the Russia-Ukraine conflict. He has also promised to end all military and political assistance to Kiev if elected into office.

During the first round of voting in November, Georgescu secured 22.94% of the ballots, beating out the liberal leftist candidate Elena Lasconi, who received 19.18%. The two were scheduled for a runoff on Sunday. However, on Friday, the country’s constitutional court issued a ruling annulling “the entire electoral process regarding the election of the President of Romania” and announced that the whole process will be resumed in its entirety at a later date.

It’s becoming increasingly obvious that the only thing worse than mob rule is rule by constitutional courts. The separation of powers doctrine is just the latest Enlightenment concept to prove a complete failure, in this case due to the combination of legislative cowardice, executive corruption, and judicial tyranny.

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