Tag: philosophy

The Dangers of Selling Out

Football Outsiders went from a high-quality and influential site to extinction in barely 12 months thanks to selling out to some Canadian financial pirates:

Football Outsiders was founded in 2003 by Aaron Schatz. What began as his passion project grew into a fully fledged website for advanced football analytics and statistics such as DVOA (Defense-adjusted Value Over Average). Football Outsiders went on to strike partnerships with ESPN and became a popular source for hardcore football nerds and casual fans alike. In 2018, Schatz sold Football Outsiders to a company called EdjSports. He stayed on as editor-in-chief, and, according to longtime Football Outsiders writer Mike Tanier, the site continued to operate as normal.

Then, in September 2021, Champion Gaming, co-founded by Simmonds and Hershman, entered the picture. It acquired EdjSports, and Football Outsiders along with it, in late 2021 as part of a “reverse takeover,” a way for private companies to go public quickly without having to go through an Initial Public Offering. As part of the deal, Champion Gaming merged with a shell company called Prime City One Capital. According to a news report from the time, “the group closed a funding round of $3.65 million (CAD $4.62 million), giving it a roughly $12.3 million post-money valuation, and it is on track to begin trading in a few weeks.”

Champion Gaming had ambitions to expand beyond NFL coverage. It struck a licensing deal with Inpredictable, an NBA analytics website run by Mike Beuoy, and partnered with SharpRank, a sports betting resource. The terms and status of these partnerships are unclear; Beuoy and SharpRank did not respond to queries. Champion Gaming also brought on Chris Spagnuolo to oversee content (for a particular microgeneration of sports media consumers, Spagnuolo is best known as the guy who left Barstool Sports after writing a blog calling Rihanna fat), and hired ESPN’s Katie George to be a brand ambassador and create video content. Spagnuolo declined to comment. Defector was not able to reach George for comment.

By the summer after the takeover, changes at the top of the company were underway. In June 2022, Simmonds took over from Hershman as CEO; Wickham took over as CFO; and the company’s president, Chief Innovation Officer, and director all resigned. The company framed the changes as an exciting new chapter. Of Simmonds’s ascent to CEO, Hershman said in a press release, “Given his previous experience as a public markets CEO and his extensive background in online gambling, the board of directors and I determined that his leadership of the Company would be both ideal and appropriate to steer us going forward as we build a leading sports content and data intelligence business.”

But by the fall there were signs that the company was floundering. According to financial documents filed in November 2022, which are publicly available through Sedar, Canada’s securities filing system, the company had little cash flow and was carrying significant debt, especially relative to its revenues. In the first nine months of 2022, Champion Gaming reported $969,789 in revenue and $5,619,803 in losses. (All monetary figures cited in the filings are in CAD.) As of Sept. 30, 2022, the entire company had only $55,776 in cash, with even less coming in. As of the same date, the accounts receivable, meaning revenue the company accrued, but which they still needed to be paid, was only $13,911. On page six of the same filing, the company wrote: “These material uncertainties cast significant doubt as to the Company’s ability to continue as a going concern.”

We were never going to sell out, but rest assured we have learned our lesson about the importance of staying in your lane and focusing relentlessly on what you do best. My answer now to the people both within and without the community who tell me “you know, you should do X” is very short and unmistakably negative.

No short cuts. No outside assistance. No wild ambitions. Just the slow and organic growth that comes from steadily improving quality and value. Castalia History is the only sort of growth we want; it’s now very nearly as large as the Library subscription and all four of the first books have sold out whereas none of our competitors can say the same of most of their recent books with similar print runs.

DISCUSS ON SG

In Defense of Garden Gnomes

It’s not an argument that I’d hitherto contemplated, but anything that defends garden gnomes while attacking modern art is obviously correct in my book.

It was only with the rise of the Avant Garde and specifically subsidies for those artists that this magical category of “Kitsch” comes about in which all the folk arts and lower-class aesthetic sensibilities as dismissed not by an aristocracy that feels noblesse oblige, but by ethnic and class enemies who need to discredit and exclude the productive national majority ethnicity from their own institutions, so that they, the capturing ethnicity and interests, might extract the tax dollars and institutional prestige the productive classes themselves generate.

Now you might say “that’s cute but do you really care about Garden Gnomes and dogs playing poker that much?”

No but I REALLY care about realistic historical depictions in art, and the national character and mythologization of my people. And the SECOND you let these parasites get in and declare the national majority’s folk art is somehow illegitimate or aesthetically bankrupt, something they’d never say about the absolute WORST minority art (No black, jewish, muslim, latino, queer, lesbian, communist, or any other EVER gets accused of kitsch no matter how inept, propagandistic, or downright dumb their art is), the second you give them that power, they use it in every single instance against any work that might moralize, uplift, or express the values of the ethnic majority or middle-class.

This is the reason your architecture is ugly, this is the reason sculptures only depict sexual degeneracy or political corruption, not heroism, this is the reason every approved artwork that isn’t a legacy holdover (which their paid activists destroy) exists in some way to actively offend, “challenge”, or “discomfort” the productive classes who actually make society run.

When’s the last time a museum curator proudly said they’re displaying a work to “Challenge” the black community? To “discomfort” the Jews? That offending the queer community is necessary to start a dialogue?

Never.

Because the purpose of art is not “contemplation” or “challenging assumptions” it’s aesthetic warfare to moralize or demoralize enemy peoples and communicate the dominance hierarchy, either through aesthetic mogging or humiliation.

That being said, I’ve never been a fan of that 70s macrame home art one would sometimes see on displayed on wooden walls or the classic velvet Elvis. But the idea that Thomas Kincaid’s pretty paintings are somehow less artistically worthy than Robert Mapplethorpe’s photographs is obviously and intrinsically false.

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Guilty as Charged

The sad little freaks on Reddit are claiming that I have used the Gaiman allegations to promote my views. And I suppose that’s true, to a certain extent.

Some prominent TERF and far-right commentators (notably Julie Bindel, Graham Linehan, Vox Day, and Jon Del Arroz; feel free to add more) have used the Gaiman allegations to promote their views. Bindel has even linked to this subreddit. Please scrutinize these sources before sharing them.

And what are these views that I’m promoting? They’re pretty straightforward.

  • Men who sexually assault women should be held accountable, both personally and professionally, for their actions, no matter who they are or how much you like them.
  • Celebrities who abuse and mistreat their fans should be called out and held accountable for their actions. This is especially true of celebrities who happen to have young fans.
  • Neil Gaiman is a literary mediocrity who substitutes research into folklore for genuine originality or creativity. While he has a modicum of writing ability, his primary talent is relentless self-promotion.
  • Neil Gaiman is merely one example of the manufactured “successes” in the publishing industry. John Scalzi is a lesser example. I consider their “success” in selling books to be as genuine as the even greater successes of L. Ron Hubbard, Katie Price, and Hilary Clinton.
  • Terry Pratchett wrote the only funny parts of Good Omens, and despite them it wasn’t a very good book.

I wouldn’t think those views are terribly controversial, given how they are quite easily confirmed, but then, these are people who struggle to discern the difference between a man and a woman.

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The Final Stages of Feminism

Feminism has always been an obvious self-negating political philosophy. I have repeatedly pointed that out in a few of my supposedly controversial statements that should not be controversial at all, because everything that I have said on the subject is observably and confirmably true in every respect.

  • 2012: Feminism is the only ideology that is more intellectually incoherent than communism and more societally suicidal than the Skoptsy.
  • 2014: Feminism is less coherent than communism and more murderous than National Socialism. That is because it is, quite literally, an ideology concocted by madwomen. Feminism is, quite literally, insane. Any woman who calls herself a feminist is identifying herself as a woman with mental health issues.
  • 2023: Feminism never made any sense. It was another seductive, but destructive Jewish ideology that was more incoherent than communism, more bloodthirsty than nazism, and more histrionic than fascism. Its eventual collapse was always inevitable.

Always the Horizon points out how feminism is already entering its end stages:

Feminism in its modern form exists due to two primary driving influences.

  • The boredom of housewives in the 1950s and 1960s
  • A corporate interest in doubling the workforce thereby halving pay for workers

Both are coming to a head as feminism in its modern form has been nothing but detrimental for the general population. Women’s empowerment became a trade of slaving away in for your family to slaving away for your boss in the corporate office. The contract between genders has effectively been scrapped and women are suffering from severe mental illness while many men have given up on relationships entirely.

Feminist ideology has been evil from the very start, but the fruits of its destruction are now plainly visible to every one. In a world where women can’t work, a lot of women will protest for the right to work. In a world where almost all women must work to survive and can’t afford the time for a family of their own, you can bet that there’s going to be a backlash…

Here stand we now, at the conclusion of the first quarter of the 21st century bearing witness to all of the fantastic achievements of modern feminism. Women can vote. Women are expected to slave away for their boss in an office. Women displace men at universities on behalf of equity over equality. Racial relations are worse than they’ve been in nearly 30 years and angry old hags screech about female objectification while young girls dye their hair purple and objectify themselves on OnlyFans for a quick buck. The gender contract is broken and dating is worse than it’s ever been. Women are more mentally ill now then ever before in history, and men are more disengaged in our society since we started measuring. Truly the feminist golden age… The 2020s express a complete victory of that ideology.

We are already starting to the beginning of the popular cultural revolt. There’s an entire trend on short-form-video where young women express their exhaustion with modern work and dating culture. Go to school. Go into debt. Get a white collar job. Become a Girl Boss [TM]. Then get married, have kids if you want to. Slave away for your employer for 30 years barely-paying-the-bills and retire.

In a world where working full time barely pays for a small apartment, much less a family, selling young women on going into the work force is getting a lot harder. The equity push is also not providing a whole lot of benefits as young women learn that being a man is hard and being expected to do that for 40 or 50 years is pretty miserable. Especially for young women that want to start a family, or build an actual home and community for themselves.

More importantly, women aren’t bored any more. The rise of social media is itself going to be the end of feminism whether women choose to admit it or not. Whether feminists choose to admit it or not. One of the main drivers of women entering the work force was, let’s be honest, suburban boredom. It was one thing when women had to work in the home as much as men had to work out of the home to stay alive. It was one thing when women were able to form communities and entertain themselves with petty local drama while the men were away doing survival things… With the rise of social media, both men and women are finding new outlets for their personal needs. 

As one of the building blocks of Clown World, feminism was always one of its Achilles heels. And as with other rhetorical Clown World concepts such as “freedom” and “democracy”, the lies inherent in the concept are now so obvious to everyone that the historical allure has been replaced by disdain, confusion, and a very reasonable fear of missing out on the good things in life on the part of every woman who is capable of paying attention to the world around her.

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There is No “Imposter Syndrome”

People are often advised to “fake it until you make it”, but speaking as a publisher, I see a surprising number of people who never quit faking it even after they achieved a modicum of success. The main reason for “imposter syndrome” is that there are a lot of imposters out there.

Not all self-doubt is unwarranted. And to paraphrase Garrison Keillor, the urge to perform is not a reliable indicator of talent.

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A Backhanded Compliment

There is no question that Chris Langan is smarter than I am. Nor is there any question that he’s genuinely as intelligent as he claims to be. And while we’re all familiar with being damned by faint praise, this may be one unusual example of being praised by faint damns:

As far as Germany is concerned, everyone is forever knocking the so-called “nazi stud farms” of the 1930’s and 40’s. But before one can even dream of doing this in any meaningful way, one must consider the alternatives available in the present reproductively degenerate environment … and we’re not just talking about genocidally replacing indigenous Europeans with maladaptive foreigners. As I say, the situation here is nearly as bad. As one of the premier bouncers in New York, if not the best-known of all, I was nothing if not accessible to women. That I didn’t get any reproductive play on Eastern LI, where rich and pampered women abound, and that I simultaneously watched these decadent party girls having out-of-wedlock children by a succession of dunces, creeps, and minority players, is really quite informative when you come right down to it. Truly, the Caucasian genome is in freefall.

That smart people do suffer is simply true, and I do not envy anyone except the great men of the past; I feel like an alien in this world and wish I had never been born or at least in a century with refined manners. Call Oswald Spengler a gamma all you want: he was a genius superior to the Vox Days and van Crevelds.

To quote Nils M. Holm from this unfinished book “Bridging the Gap” (t3x.org):

“Having a job that pays the bills helps to find your way in this world, and having a jobs that allows for some extras, like a new car, vacations in foreign countries, or maybe an own appartment, is seen as the ultimate goal by many. However, this can be a stale experience when you are always on your own. You may find a partner, but never feel any connection to them, because they do not share your interests, your values, your empathy, your sensitivity, etc. Many relationships of high-IQ people are uneasy compromises at best. The alienation they first felt at home and then at school and in later life extends also to their closest connections.”

I don’t think that it’s just intelligence that is to blame here, although it’s obviously harder for Langan, who has essentially no intellectual peers outside of books, than it is for me. This is where I think the SSH really comes into play; Langan strikes me as a Delta, which would explain why his sense of alienation and inability to fit neatly into the various hierarchies of his life plague him in a way that it simply doesn’t bother a Sigma like me.

Langan’s historical failure to score with decadent party girls has nothing to do with his intelligence, in my opinion. I suspect that his problem was that he was looking for a unicorn in a cattle ranch; if he’d simply accepted what the urban cattle had to offer and been content with that, he probably would have cleaned up. I’ve had perfectly happy relationships with girls who couldn’t add 2 + 2 and come within an order of magnitude of 4; the difference between a woman with an IQ of 75 and an IQ of 120 is almost entirely irrelevant once you’re beyond the 2SD communications gap.

I think it would behoove smart men to understand that conflating a romantic relationship with an intellectual relationship is a fundamental category error. Once a woman has a child, her children are going to be her primary, secondary, and tertiary interests anyhow, so looking to her to fulfill your desire for intellectual discourse is very likely to prove disappointing even if she’s smarter than you are and shares your interests.

  • Every man thinks alone.
  • Philosophy is not a team sport.
  • Learn to enjoy the solitude.

This is why you should never envy your intellectual superiors. Because, at the end of the day, you have no idea what their gifts have cost them.

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Sociopaths Play Nice Guys

My wife and I visited a winery this week where the owner gave a tour—good looking young dude, charismatic, great speaker and storyteller. Everyone in the group seemed to be fawning over him. But something in his story, and something about him, felt very off to me.

Sure enough, when I got home some quick online searching (oddly, his last name is scrubbed from any mention on on winery website) and some texting with a few friends—we are usually only 2-3 degrees of separation, it’s a small world—turned up that a number of years ago he had cheated on his wife in a different state and been involved in a massive fraud scheme in education, misappropriating public funds (he was a ”public school teacher”, he told us). He had fled the state and turned up in a new one, now running a multi-million dollar winery and presenting himself as morally superior to every other wine maker in the region.

Did you notice the tell? Con men of every stripe always present themselves as nice people. This is why I roll my eyes when obvious creeps like Neil Gaiman are unmasked and everyone somehow manages to be surprised; of course he acted super nice to everyone in public, unless you’re a rock star, you don’t get young women fawning over you if you don’t present a warm and welcoming mask to everyone. But the comparison between the art and the artist was incongruous, ergo there was a problem lurking underneath.

But there are lots of nice people and sociopaths work very hard to imitate them. The dead giveaway is the posturing at being morally superior. Normal people don’t do that; if anything, they tend to exaggerate their flaws. Always be very leery of any man or woman who is conspicuously nice, and then tells you why they are better than the average individual. And definitely keep one hand on your wallet.

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