Tag: philosophy

Unemployment is a state of mind

Crew commented, correctly, on the fact that many managers and executives are unwilling to hire people who are unemployed. Their reasoning is pretty straightforward: if you were any good, then surely in this time of near-universal incompetence, you would have a job.

And, let’s face it, more often than not, they are correct on the average, even if that is not true in the case of the special, highly skilled snowflake that all of the unemployed readers of this blog indubitably are.

This is nothing new. It has been this way for at least 25 years. So, one can either cry and complain about the situation, or one can accept it and figure out a way to utilize it to one’s advantage. Utilize it? Yes, precisely. Allow me to explain.

20-something years ago, one of my best friends was fired from the small, but elite law firm where he worked, because he had too tender a conscience to simply invent billable hours out of nothing, as they required of their associates. He spent over a year fruitlessly applying to various law firms around the city and got absolutely nowhere, as he ran into the same “if you don’t already have a job, we don’t want you” problem that presently plagues so many unemployed individuals today.

I advised him to get a job, any job at all, even if it was sweeping floors at a fast-food restaurant. When he asked, puzzled, how that would help him find a job as a lawyer, I told him that as a small business owner, if I see a lawyer who is willing to get his hands dirty and do whatever he needs to do in order to get by, that’s exactly the guy I want working for me.

So, still somewhat dubious, he took my advice. He got a job at CompUSA selling computers, mostly because he wanted to be able to talk computers on par with the rest of our social circle. Within six months, he was the store’s best expert on computers, and had become the go-to guy for all the other salespeople. He continued interviewing, to little avail, until a year after taking the CompUSA job, he interviewed with a growing technology consulting company. His legal background was unexceptional compared to all the other candidates, but they were blown away by his in-depth knowledge of computers, particularly when he was able to point out some strategic mistakes they were risking on the basis of their failure to understand where the consumer market was headed.

They were also impressed when they asked him about his strange resume, and he had a ready answer for them. He explained that after being let go, he had plenty of free time on his hands and figured that it was a good idea to get paid to learn something new.

He got the job. Then, when their company was bought by a much larger competitor, the acquiring company was so impressed with his performance in the negotiations and the contract-writing that they not only hired him, but named him the successor to their outgoing lead attorney. Following a second acquisition by an even bigger competitor, he was made a director and the head of the legal department of a $1.5 billion corporation.

Don’t quit. Don’t cry. Don’t complain. Do something, anything. Volunteer for an Open Source project. Become the volunteer IT guy at a local organization. Get a job doing anything. All of these things not only create the possibility of new opportunities, but send a very strong message that you are a professionally ruthless doer who isn’t afraid to work and is reliably going to get the job done.

Change or fall behind

Snidely Whiplash fails to understand why he’s not employed. Crew, who is not only of the Silicon Valley hiring class, but is the #2 Techstar and a member of the Infogalactic Star Council, is unable to set him straight.

Bob: The companies who try to move don’t succeed. They can’t convince their employees to move with them, and they can’t find the people they need in other locations.

Crew: I think this is not true. What you have in Silicon Valley is enormous numbers of H1Bs, some of whom have been laid off in the latest layoff rounds but they vary greatly in quality and putting together a good team can be very difficult.

Crew: Certainly, where I am we need people but we cannot find them and we are in the heart of Silicon Valley, so we do without and things just take longer to do. And the real problem is finding people who know how to balance short-term business needs (implementing what the customer wants to get their business) with longer-term company needs (doing it in a way that is supportable over the long term and doesn’t paint you into a corner.)

Crew: Despite that I still find time to work on Infogalactic and a couple of open source software projects. The reality is that people don’t go for those who have been laid off in most cases. Personally, I would prefer to employ Americans … but Silicon Valley has driven many of them out …

Snidely: And with pathetic attitudes like that, you’re helping to drive them out.

Jack: You still looking Snidely?

Snidely Whiplash: Sadly, yes, Jack. White, laid off, and over 50. Crew up there won’t hire me, no matter my skills or experience, because he’s an idiot.

I suggest that Snidely’s difficulty has less to do with his skills, his experience, or Crew’s purported idiocy than his personality. I’m not at all surprised to hear that he’s unemployed. He complains that Crew wouldn’t hire him, but I wouldn’t be inclined to hire him either. It’s one thing to not play particularly well with others, it’s another thing altogether to pride yourself on your complete inability to do so; even his self-selected moniker is an indication of misplaced pride. It’s not an accident that someone who elects to call himself “snide” reliably goes out of his way to say unnecessarily negative things about almost everything and everyone.

Snidely, that’s your main challenge. Not anti-American discrimination in tech. The moment I hear that negative, superior tone in a man’s voice, I immediately cross him off the list, whether he’s a programmer, an artist, or a writer. Sure, he may be directing it at something we mutually despise now, but I know perfectly well he’s going to be directing it at a co-worker, at the project, or at me before long. My experience has taught that such individuals never prove to be worth their downside, no matter how talented they are.

I’ll give you an example of that negative communication style right in that same thread.

This is how a normal person expresses his opinion: “Hey, it would be great if you would release audio-only versions of the videos. I would prefer to listen to those.”

That is a helpful, positive way to express an opinion. It’s a good idea too. Why not be sure to release the videos in podcast form or make them otherwise available for audio download? I expect we will do just that.

Now, this is how Snidely communicated the same idea: “One thing I would encourage, as it’s probably a make-or-break for me, is to have just the audio portion. Frankly, you’re not that attractive, and both my money and my bandwidth are limited.”

Same idea, different delivery, and it inspires an entirely different reaction: What the Hell? Fuck that guy! One has to read it twice to even register what the relevant opinion is, so distracting is the negativity.

There are three problems in just two sentences. First, the tone is heavily negative (make-or-break, frankly, not that attractive, limited). Second, he twice tries to make the entire subject about him when it isn’t. Third, he insults my appearance, and even worse, he does it without any need to do so in order to make his case. It’s just egregious. Now, I could not care less what some 50-something man happens to think about my appearance, but that sort of comment is not going to go over at all well with the average individual who is vain enough to be making videos.

So, Snidely, why would you EVER say anything like that? You didn’t need to justify your preference for audio over video, because I was openly asking for everyone’s opinions. And why are you whining and complaining about who Crew hires or doesn’t hire? You not only haven’t given him any reason to consider hiring you other than empty public posturing, you’ve given him excellent cause to not even accept you as a volunteer for any of the high-profile projects he manages. That’s not intelligent. That’s self-sabotage.

Now, I understand that this is a very challenging labor environment. It’s stressful for everyone. Even those with seemingly secure jobs know that they could lose them at any time due to an untimely comment overheard by the wrong person, a corporate acquisition, or a corporate move. One friend of mine, long self-employed, was convinced by his wife to take a great job offer at one of the strongest, most successful Fortune 50 technology companies in the world, in the interest of stability. He was even assigned to a mission-critical project. I would have sworn he had some of the best job security on the planet.

Nine months later, the CEO announced that the corporation was shutting down all its activities in my friend’s state. Since my friend was mission-critical, he was given the opportunity to uproot his family and move across the country to a place they knew no one. He wisely declined. So much for stability and job security.

The point is that in this environment, you have to continually up your game. And whether your weakness is on the skills side, the experience side, or the personality side, you have to shore it up. As I mentioned in last night’s Darkstream, video was never my medium. It still isn’t my preferred one, but I have upped my video game, and I am going to continue to increase it because that is what I have to do if I am going to be at all relevant to the 90 percent of the population that is post-literate.

The times always change. We can either change with them or we can fall behind.

Overheard

At the post-dinner table:
Vox: The expression on the face of someone coming out of a Japanese toilet is 40 percent “I think I’ve just been raped”, 40 percent “I’ve never felt this clean in my life”, and 20 percent “I’m not sure if I liked that or not.”
Lucy: That sounds like my average Saturday night.

The Man in the Arena

This is a nice defense of yours truly by Rabbi B at Men of the West. I don’t ask for anyone to defend me, but I do appreciate those of every race, religion, and even creed who are willing to stand beside me, or even just hold their fire long enough to pay a modicum of respect.

There is an old saying that it’s the pioneers who take the arrows. This is most certainly true of Vox Day and perhaps ironically so, considering his Native American heritage. I think many would agree that Vox has certainly taken his fair share of arrows lately. Now, this may not qualify him as the undisputed leader of the Alt-right (and Vox is quite loathe to exalt or proclaim himself as a leader of anything), but I would argue that it certainly qualifies him as one of its unsung heroes.
Vox is simply a person who is committed to the truth; always has been and always will be, period. In Jewish parlance, he is a mensch. In an age where the truth is spun, disparaged, and cast to the ground to be trampled underfoot, Vox is not content to stand by and do nothing. Vox, to put it plainly, is a man who is valiant for the truth.
We find ourselves in a time where the end justifies the means and the truth be damned, and so Vox is not only going to be misunderstood and misrepresented due to his superior intellect for which many are simply no match, but even more so on account of the truths which he tirelessly expresses, champions, and defends day in and day out.
Because of his staunch commitment to the truth, he is inevitably going to make some enemies along the way and, consequently, he is going to be forced to endure and withstand a steady barrage of attacks from every quarter: the Left, the Right, the center, the cuckservatives, the neo-cons, the libertarians, the Alt-right, the Alt-lite, the you-fill-in-the-blank. There is no shortage of those who oppose the truth and who are unafraid and brazen enough to relentlessly attack the valiant vessels of the truth. Vox just happens to be such a vessel for a time such as this.

The thing that I always try to keep in mind is that the truth is what it is, regardless of what you, or I, or anyone else, happen to think. Now, we see as through through a glass, darkly. So, be as ruthlessly honest with yourself as you can, and all the rest will tend to fall in line on its own.
I don’t expect everyone to agree with me. I don’t expect ANYONE to agree with me on everything. How could I, when I don’t always agree with my own ideas from five or ten years ago? What I expect is the aforementioned arrows, some merited, some not so much.
I don’t really care about labels and parties and movements and such. What I care about is the underlying ideas that they represent, in some cases accurately, in some cases not accurately at all. Because ideas are how we understand the truth, and whatever small fragments of the Truth that we are capable of comprehending.

Irony

To be a National Socialist in the West today, you have to be so mentally retarded that Hitler would have euthanized you under the Lebensunwertes Leben principle.
That, my friends, is irony.

Mailvox: the Pope of the Alt-Right

WS complained about my detached and contemplative approach.

Maybe Vox figures he’s the Pope Benedict of the Alt-Right: the one who leads a contemplative life and assures us of his thoughts and prayers as we’re getting the snot beaten out of us.

I found it mildly amusing that she thought I was thinking about them at all. There is a reason why I didn’t know who Jason Kessler was until yesterday. It was because I paid absolutely no attention to the rally in Charlottesville, despite apparently having been invited to speak there, until it made the news.
Neither Clausewitz nor van Creveld ever commanded in the field. Karl Marx was considerably more influential as an author than as a labor organizer. And it seems unlikely that Alexander the Great’s astonishing military success was entirely unrelated to the fact that he happened to have the greatest thinker in Man’s history as his personal tutor.
In light of the surprising discovery that the front man for the so-called “Unite the Right” rally was a left-wing Obama voter, I’ve been giving some thought to the assertions of some of the petty self-proclaimed national socialists that they are too of the right. In this vein, I thought it would be profitable to consult Leon Trotsky on the matter. His thoughts, expressed in the dramatically titled, but perceptive essay “The Fascist Danger Looms in Germany” are thought-provoking, if less useful than one might have assumed.

In order that the social crisis may bring about the proletarian revolution, it is necessary that, besides other conditions, a decisive shift of the petty bourgeois classes occurs in the direction of the proletariat. This gives the proletariat a chance to put itself at the head of the nation as its leader.
The last election revealed — and this is where its principle symptomatic significance lies — a shift in the opposite direction. Under the blow of the crisis, the petty bourgeoisie swung, not in the direction of the proletarian revolution, but in the direction of the most extreme imperialist reaction, pulling behind it considerable sections of the proletariat.
The gigantic growth of National Socialism is an expression of two factors: a deep social crisis, throwing the petty bourgeois masses off balance, and the lack of a revolutionary party that would be regarded by the masses of the people as an acknowledged revolutionary leader. If the communist Party is the party of revolutionary hope, then fascism, as a mass movement, is the party of counter-revolutionary despair. When revolutionary hope embraces the whole proletarian mass, it inevitably pulls behind it on the road of revolution considerable and growing sections of the petty bourgeoisie. Precisely in this sphere the election revealed the opposite picture: counter-revolutionary despair embraced the petty bourgeois mass with such a force that it drew behind it many sections of the proletariat….
Fascism in Germany has become a real danger, as an acute expression of the helpless position of the bourgeois regime, the conservative role of the social democracy in this regime, and the accumulated powerlessness of the Communist Party to abolish it. Whoever denies this is either blind or a braggart….
The danger acquires particular acuteness in connection with the question of the tempo of development, which does not depend upon us alone. The malarial character of the political curve revealed by the election speaks for the fact that the tempo of development of the national crisis may turn out to be very speedy. In other words, the course of events in the very near future may resurrect in Germany, on a new historical plane, the old tragic contradiction between the maturity of a revolutionary situation, on the one hand, and the weakness and strategical impotence of the revolutionary party, on the other.

Now, there is without question a social crisis across the West. A severe social crisis of historic proportions, arguably more serious than the one of the previous century. But in every case, the big bourgeoisie is allied with government bureaucracies and the ur-communists in revolutionary hope while both the petty bourgeoisie and the proletariat are increasingly inclined towards counter-revolutionary despair. Moreover, the class metric is largely irrelevant, because the dividing lines are far more clearly identified on identity grounds than on class grounds.
In other words, from the Trotskyite perspective, we’re in new territory here, and more sophisticated philosophical tools are required for useful analysis and prediction. But it is already clear that neither simple identity metrics nor conventional ideological metrics will alone suffice.

In defense of the dark lord

John C. Wright reminds everyone that we are on the same side:

In any case, I wanted to take the opportunity to calm frazzled nerves, and to emphasize in how few matters Vox Day and I disagree.
First, we both voted for Chuck Tingle for a Hugo Award. Love is real!
Second, we both support a permanent ban on further immigration into the United States, but would settle reluctantly for a fifty year ban. We both would prefer immigrants, if they must come, to be from civilized nations, and persons who clearly offer more to the nation than the likely burden their coming imposes.
Third, we both believe Mohammedanism is incompatible with Western Civilization. Koranic Law allows neither for the Rights of Man nor any republican form of government.
Fourth, neither of us believes coerced integration of the races is desirable nor possible. There is nothing wrong with a man seeking out his own kind.
Fifth, we both regard the ‘open borders’ and ‘New World Order’ and ‘One World Government’ type talk as treason against the United States and against the West.
Sixth, we both think feminism is cancer. Woman are happier and society is healthier when brides are young, and families are large.
Seventh, we both reject the strategy embraced by GOP politicos and pundits that noble defeat is better than crass victory. The Culture War is real, it is a war, and our side has suffered decades of humiliating defeats. A gentleman does not use the Marquis of Queensbury rules with a guttersnipe, a cur, a blackguard, or when facing a mob.
Eighth, we both call Western Civilization, the legacy of the Christian religion, Roman law, and Greek philosophy, the peak of human glory. It is worth defending; indeed, it is the only thing on this world worth defending. Everything else is cruelty, fatalism, superstition, and injustice.
Ninth, we are both nationalist, and both anti-globalist: there is no moral wrong with a nation existing nor with a nation prioritizing its own interests.
Tenth, he and I both believe that every race, nation, people, tongue and tribe has its own unique strengths and weaknesses, and possesses the sovereign right to dwell unmolested in the native culture it prefers. We both reject the subjugation of one ethnic group by another.
Eleventh, he and I hold similar views on war: imposing democracy by force, or imposing conversion by the edge of the sword, is both cruel and foolish.
Finally, he and I are both Christians, which means, we are both beloved sons of God living in a universe whose Creator has fashioned objective laws of logic, objective imperatives of morality, objective standards of truth and beauty, and also fashioned the human soul to crave and seek and be able to find these things.
The insane atheist world of moral subjectivism and cultural relativism, of deconstruction, postmodernism, and nihilism, he and I both see to be the work of darkness.

For my part, I do not concern myself in the slightest with what John thinks. As with Martin van Creveld and Steve Keen, he is one of those rare talents who is to be cherished for that talent alone; everything else is noonday shadows in comparison.
And don’t forget, John showed himself to be loyal even before we were acquainted. As writer and editor, we know each other in a manner that is uniquely, and and at times even alarmingly, intimate. It’s hard to describe to someone who is not a novelist, but to write fiction is, to a certain extent, to bare the soul, especially to those who know how to read deeply and see the individual revealed in the textual creation.
John is a better man than I am. I admire and respect him, and not only for his incredible literary talent. I do not expect anyone to agree with me about all things, indeed, I do not know anyone who does, including myself from only a few years ago. Remember: the man who is a failure always manages to find disagreement with others, but the man who is successful will always find a way to find common ground with his friends and allies.

Brains vs credentials

It was rather amusing witnessing a brief Twitter encounter between NN Taleb and the British historian Mary Beard. I commented on it.

Supreme Dark Lord @voxday
It’s hilarious to watch @nntaleb  steamrolling the pretentious know-nothing @wmarybeard.  It’s what happens when brains meet credentials.

mary beard @wmarybeard
Call me many thing. Pretentious may be No nothing, no. What is your view prof taleb?

Supreme Dark Lord‏ @voxday
It’s all relative. The point is that you are resorting to rhetoric and attempting to debate via posturing. That doesn’t cut it with Taleb.

mary beard @wmarybeard
They really are nice these guys

Supreme Dark Lord‏ @voxday
What part of “Supreme Dark Lord” do you find hard to understand? I am literally on the list of Very Bad People SJWs use for fund-raising.

Jo Pearce‏ @JosPearce
hilarious – they clearly feel threatened.

Supreme Dark Lord‏ @voxday  6m6 minutes ago
By what? She might wave her credentials again in lieu of saying anything intelligent or convincing? I quiver.

patty l lane‏
Go back to your games you twit

Supreme Dark Lord‏ @voxday
Go back to your cats, you sad lonely woman.

Jude Evans‏ @onlyonejude
 Actually, just try being civil??

Supreme Dark Lord‏ @voxday
This is me being civil.

No substitute for effort

Peter King relates an interesting story that explains Bruce Springsteen’s unusual work ethic:

“Have you read the Springsteen book?” Garrett said the other day in a lengthy conversation before practice. (“Born To Run,” an autobiography, 2016, Simon & Schuster.) “He’s 20 years old, everybody at the Jersey Shore loves him, but he’s unknown nationally, and a good friend and adviser tells him, ‘If you really want to be great, you’ve got to get off the Jersey Shore.’ And so they pile everything in a couple vehicles and head west to this sort of open mike night in San Francisco.

As Springsteen wrote, the band was part of a four-band showcase; one band would get the chance to move on and perhaps get a recording contract. The Jersey guys went third and thought they killed it. The fourth band, though not as energetic, was very good. Via “Born To Run:”

“They got the gig. We lost out. After the word came down, all the other guys were complaining we’d gotten ripped off. The guy running the joint didn’t know what he was doing, blah, blah, blah.”


That night, Springsteen reflected, sleeping on a couch in his transplanted parents’ home in the Bay Area. “My confidence was mildly shaken, and I had to make room for a rather unpleasant thought. We were not going to be the big dogs we were back in our little hometown. We were going to be one of the many very competent, very creative musical groups fighting over a very small bone. Reality check. I was good, very good, but maybe not quite as good or exceptional as I’d gotten used to people telling me, or as I thought … I was fast, but like the old gunslingers knew, there’s always somebody faster, and if you can do it better than me, you earn my respect and admiration, and you inspire me to work harder. I was not a natural genius. I would have to use every ounce of what was in me—my cunning, my musical skills, my showmanship, my intellect, my heart, my willingness—night after night, to push myself harder, to work with more intensity than the next guy just to survive untended in the world I lived in.”

That’s how we approach publishing at Castalia. Yes, we may be smart. Yes, we’ve got some advantages, and, of course, some disadvantages as well. But the one thing we absolutely know is that no one in the publishing industry is going to outwork us.

I was particularly satisfied this weekend, although I was turning in even later than I normally do – I’m usually irritated with myself when that first glow of sunrise is beginning to appear and I realize that I’ve stayed up too late again – because I managed to complete the edits on two books that night, both of which will be published this month.

I very much appreciate the near-fanatic levels of support we receive from you guys. It is an integral part of Castalia’s success. And you can rest assured that we will never take it for granted or coast on our past accomplishments.