Tag: SSH

A Terrible Decision

While Walz was an even worse choice, I don’t doubt that President Trump is regretting his decision to choose JD Vance as his running mate.

Donald Trump is ‘lighting up’ his campaign staffers as he hunkers down at Mar-a-Lago after his ‘terrible’ decision to pick JD Vance as vice president, two former aides have claimed.

The former president’s reported meltdown comes from two staffers who worked in the White House under the former president and have since turned on him, as polls show the race with Kamala Harris is getting tighter by the day.

‘I think that he feels this election slipping away from him, and that’s where you’re beginning to see him spiral,’ Sarah Matthews, a former Trump spokeswoman told MSNBC.

Republicans and top donors are worried about Trump’s flailing strategy as he continues to launch vicious personal attacks on Harris and obsess over her personality instead of core policy issues such as the border, the economy and crime.

‘He picked Vance – he knows Vance was a terrible, terrible pick,’ Scaramucci said on the podcast The Rest is Politics.  ‘He’s lighting people up inside his campaign right now about picking Vance.’

Vance was a bad pick, regardless of what the political people said. SSH trumps all political considerations, and from the moment that I saw his fat face and fearful eyes, I knew that Vance was going to neither command admiration from men or attraction from women. This isn’t any ex post facto rationalization; I identified Vance as a probable Gamma from the get-go.

One area where Alphas regularly and reliably fail is the matter of succession. Usually, they fail by selecting a faithful Bravo to succeed them, in the hopes that their long mutual association will have resulted in the Bravo somehow picking up some of the Alpha’s vision and leadership abilities.

This never works. Bravos are not, and never will be, Alphas. The very skill set that makes them so compatible with Alphas, and so helpful to them, renders them incapable when forced to take the Alpha’s role at the top of the hierarchy. But Donald Trump, a definite Alpha, didn’t make the usual mistake in selecting his next Vice-President.

As it happens, he may actually have made a much worse one, at least in socio-sexual terms.

Throw in the fact that he’s a ticket-taker, and it’s such an obviously suboptimal selection as a running mate that it almost makes it look as if Trump is seeking to throw the election. Which assumes, of course, that the votes are even going to be counted with some semblance of accuracy.

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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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SSH Analysis of VP Choice

A look at JD Vance from a purely socio-sexual perspective, rather than an ideological or political frame, at Sigma Game.

Let’s have a look at Sen. JD Vance, Trump’s selection as a running mate for the 2024 US Presidential election. Senator. US Marine. Author. Married man with children. JD Vance almost looks like a leader of men here. Senator Vance has clearly done his best to improve his image and make himself look more masculine. But one principle of Sigma Game is that no matter what superficial and temporary changes a man makes to himself, his core behavioral patterns are always going to be there and will tend to resurface over time and under stress.

So, is this bearded, resolute visage the true face of JD Vance? Almost certainly not.

This could prove to be a fascinating test of the SSH as a predictive model if the conclusion turns out to have been correct.

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Go Away, Gamma

In case I haven’t made it entirely and absolutely clear, being “a longtime reader”, being a “supporter”, being a “subscriber”, being a “backer”, or even being “your biggest fan” cuts absolutely no ice with me. In fact, to the contrary, if you are any of those things, I have higher expectations of you than I do of some random drive-by commenter who knows nothing of me or of this community.

Today at Sigma Game, I asked women who had experience of raising, dating, or marrying Deltas to share their opinions concerning some of the pros and cons of Delta males. I also specifically told men to not share their own opinions or experiences, but to limit themselves to commenting on what the women were saying.

Needless to say, there were a few Gammas who were too emotionally incontinent to restrain themselves and simply let the women talk. One, in particular, didn’t hesitate to ignore my directions and go right off the deep end.

Elwin Ransom: Comments are interesting, but as I read them I can’t help feeling that many classifications by commenters are very likely skewed by perception and situational biases. I have long thought about a Myers-Briggs style test for SSH, but instead of just creating one and guessing what certain types will answer, thereby invoking the “this is what me the Alpha/Sigma would say” type response, a better proposal would be to create such a test, then administer it to a known set including all types, then correlate responses based on what the known set of answers. Hard part would be to find and agree upon the classification of the set of base answerees – but once complete, would be more quantitative way of self-assessment.

Man of the Atom: What does your husband do?

[Very long digression by a few commenters on why Man of the Atom, as a commenter, would attempt to keep the comments on track and on topic redacted.]

Elwin Ransom: He’s providing an unasked-for service, anonymously, on a comment board on the internet. That makes him a loser. Not Gamma on your part, and no further contemplation required.

Vox Day: It’s fascinating how the Gammas always identify themselves so quickly. Do you simply not have any idea how transparent all your little machinations are to everyone, ESPECIALLY women, who play those games much better than you do?

Man of the Atom: You still haven’t told us what your husband does.

Elwin Ransom: He shuts the fuck up when no one asked for his opinion, that’s what he does.

Vox Day: You didn’t. Why should he? Also, you’re permanently banned. I don’t wish to turn this into a no-Gammas zone, but it’s probably going to end up that way over time.

But wait, there’s more! Because of course there is. Within 11 minutes of my banning Mr. Ransom from Sigma Game, I received an email which led to the following exchange.

“Elwin Ransom” (real name redacted): The commenter on your Sigma Game thread that you just banned was me. I have been a reader for close to two decades, and subscriber to both Castalia series since they started. No longer.

Vox Day: Excellent. You clearly learned nothing over those two decades. Your behavior was unwanted, disrespectful, vulgar, and you should be embarrassed for yourself. But you won’t be, because you’ll just fire up your Gamma delusion bubble and convince yourself that you were justified. We’ll be pleased to refund you for any books you haven’t received yet. Just email [the usual address] to make the request.

So, for those who didn’t subscribe early enough, if it turns out there is an extra Thucydides, we’ll let you know.

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Tell Me You’re Low Status

Without actually telling me you’re low status. The Educated Hillbilly attempts to psychoanalyze a bitter success:

Imagine knowing you’re better than everyone else & having to share a school bus with them. A lunch table. A class room. The rage builds for 18 years.

This idea has never made any sense to me. What sort of person is angry about their own perceived self-superiority? I’ve never seen a woman who knows she is prettier than everyone else being angry about it. She’s perhaps a little standoffish due to being preemptively labelled a bitch or worse by all the women on the mere basis of her appearance, but she isn’t angry. I’ve never known anyone who is genuinely smarter than everyone else being angry about having to put up with the relentless retardery that is necessitated by human contact, it’s just a quotidian reality that has to be endured with stoicism lest one slip into existential despair.

What athlete is angry about being forced to compete on the athletic field with his sporting inferiors? Isn’t that the whole point of winning? So, who imagines that intrinsic superiority is a source of anger?

The answer, of course, is the gamma male. Now, this is not to say that the Educated Hillbilly is a gamma male now, but the evidence suggests that he may have been in his youth. Perhaps he has graduated to delta, perhaps he is still a gamma, it really makes no difference because this isn’t about him, but rather, his diagnosis of the Columbia professor.

Now, I was fortunate in my choice to attend an elite Ivy League reject school rather than an Ivy, which is why I a) actually had a good time in college and b) remain capable of meeting people without informing them of where I received my university education in the first thirty seconds of conversation. While in retrospect I would have done better to attend either a) Stanford or b) Arizona State, it was a reasonable, if suboptimal, decision. However, even at an Ivy reject school, there was a fair amount of the “ex nihilo” population, most of whom had one chip or another on their shoulder about their backgrounds, and all of whom were varying degrees of bitter about not getting into their top choice of schools. Some, like my freshman year roommate, were defensively proud of their deprived backgrounds, others went in the opposite direction and began speaking like characters out of Monte Python and dressing like characters out of PG Wodehouse.

The professoressa in question was clearly more inclined to the latter, although not so much so that she invented a new and more impressive family history for herself in preference to the real one. Instead, she tries to ingratiate herself into her new and preferred surroundings by expressing her disdain for her humble background in a way that will no more impress the New York Brahmins than a pencil-neck dork talking down Aaron Rodgers will impress the jocks.

What drives this woman is not anger, but rather insecurity, combined with a very reasonable feeling of betrayal. First, her insecurity about her own superiority; if she was that confident in it, she wouldn’t have feared her potential inability to escape her original surroundings or being mistaken in any way for being one of those inferior beings. Second, her well-placed insecurity about her place in her new surroundings; she will never be a high-status WASP, Jew, or media celebrity, no matter how many academic credentials she collects.

A credential is piece of paper that aspirational failures are awarded as participation trophies in lieu of genuine accomplishments.

All of her complaints and ever-more-elaborate fictions serve no purpose except to remind her betters that she is not, and never will be, one of them. She would have done much better to never, ever, speak of her unfortunate roots; then she might, possibly, have had a chance of passing, at least among those who met her later in life. The Great Gatsby addresses this very subject; F. Scott Fitzgerald’s entire life and his literary career were shaped by his love-hate relationship with his Midwestern background and his failure to graduate from Princeton.

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Testimonials to the Power

The Socio-Sexual Hierarchy is such a powerful predictive model that casual observers are sometimes tempted to suspect they’re being put on. From the comments at Sigma Game, When the Secret King Wins Again:

  • This is so textbook it appears to be fake. But that’s the amazing thing about gammas, their mindset is so distorted that they parody themselves. One almost feels sorry for him, almost.
  • If it was any blogger other than Vox, you’d swear that they’d set up an alternate account in order to make the most QED reply of all time.
  • You are what you are and your basic underlying framework cannot be changed. As pointed out quite well by other commenters, this person displayed the predicted SSH behavior of the Gamma so well that it almost beggars belief. Again, I tip my hat to Vox for recognizing these behavior patterns. They’re so obvious yet they completely eluded modern psychiatry all these years.
  • Not a single clue, not even a fragment of a clue. One of my sons is a gamma and gets all kinds of feedback from his siblings (and me, and his dad) about his egregious behaviour. The other kids call it “resetting to factory defaults”. Whatever feedback he receives, if it doesn’t align with his delusion bubble he flushes it, resets and then carries on gamma-ing. It is painfully hard for him to learn anything productive that might help him.
  • SSH proves to be one of the greatest predictor of behaviour ever devised. In the future in addition to the usual IQ and personality testing, an SSH test will be a mandatory routine practice in the hiring process.

It’s a strong testimonial to the predictive power of the SSH that when one observes it in action, the repetition of the behavioral patterns is often so precise and so reliable that one is tempted to suspect that the anticipated behavior is somehow scripted or faked. But behavioral patterns exist for a reason; they persist because it is very, very difficult and requires a high level of self-discipline to surmount the emotional channels and instinctive reactions that are carved into one’s psyche during the formative years.

At any rate, no matter what happens, no matter what you think you saw, no matter how many iron-clad refutations and mathematical proofs you observed being provided, there can only ever be one result in the end. The Secret King will win again!

He did it again! And everyone applauded…

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Attack of the Cat Ladies

That was fast. The feminists have clearly sent out the cat signal in reaction to Sigma Game.

Imagine how they’re going to react to the SSH book itself. Last Friday, I answered a woman’s question about female solipsism.

Female solipsism can therefore be described thusly: the female tendency to perceive all things solely as they relate to and affect her.

1st Man: Did you hear that Russia has invaded Ukraine!
2nd Man: Oh, wow, I wonder if they’re going to go for Kiev or Odessa first?
Woman: I had a Ukrainian hairdresser once. She took off way too much so I didn’t tip her.

This female tendency toward self-centric perception is readily observable in casual conversation, so you can easily test it for yourself. Throw in a new topic at random at any point and see how fast the woman being addressed is able to discover a tangent and utilize it in a manner that allows them to turn the conversation back to themselves.

1st Man: Is there a female version of the Socio-Sexual Hierarchy?
2nd Man: Maybe. I don’t know.
Woman: There definitely is! This one time, at band camp, a popular girl was mean to me! I used to play the clarinet. I just love music!

Among other things, this led to a long and unprofitable descent into the philosophical navel-gazing of what some would like to be able to call a “Female SSH”, but that’s neither here nor there. What’s more interesting is the fact that some women from outside the community, clearly sensing the danger inherent to perceptive men accurately discussing their observable behavior in a manner that might inspire other men to knock them off their pedestals, have already leaped into incompetent, and even oxymoronic, action.

This was easily the most amusing attempt at an ad hominem critique, as it revealed the way in which the would-be critic doesn’t even understand the concept she’s trying to criticize, much less the way that concept renders her repeated attempt to attack the author impossible. She was so impressed with her discovery of the concept of “projection” that she underlined her own oxymoronics by repeating it three different times in three different comments.

KAT HIGHSMITH: He’s engaging in pure projection. Males have been projecting their bullshit on women for years. Everything they’ve been saying about us is actually about them because they’re self-obsessed and lack the ability to be embarrassed at their stupid behavior (“trans” is the epitome of this male behavior). Men are crazy, and they’re about to start WWIII as they insist how rational they are.

VD: It struck a little too close to home, obviously. And since you’re too retarded to grasp the obvious, I’ll spell it out for you: One cannot project solipsism, by definition. You are far too short for this intellectual ride.

You’d think people would stop trying to use rhetoric, especially inept and oxymoronic rhetoric, on the individual who wrote what presently passes for the modern book on the subject. But you’d be wrong.

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Castalia Library on Substack

In the aftermath of the extremely successful launch of the Sigma Game substack, I brought up the idea of a substack devoted to Castalia Library with the idea that it might help those who somehow miss out on a) blog posts, b) the monthly emails, c) Gab and SocialGalactic announcements, and d) LibraryThing posts keep tabs on the current state of things with the various Castalia Library books, including Library, Libraria, History, the Junior Classics, and the various one-off editions.

The response was overwhelmingly positive, and since Castalia Library is nothing if not responsive to its subscribers, I duly set up a Castalia Library substack. Those who sign up for a free subscription will be kept up to date on the latest production schedules with regular emails, and it should even be possible to allow new subscribers to sign up through the paid subscription option at some point.

It should be noted that this substack is absolutely not a substitute for anything else or any other platform. Rather, it is an attempt to cast a wider net, as the primary challenge facing Castalia Library at the moment is that the vast majority of book collectors, and therefore, the vast majority of its potential subscribers and customers, have never heard of it. So even if you’re on the mailing lists and receiving the monthly emails, it’s probably not a bad idea to widen your net before you get caught in a bounce and your email is scrubbed by the mail service.

And speaking of the Sigma Game substack, I would be remiss if I neglected to mention today’s post on my thoughts concerning a female SSH and the various attempts to construct it. No offense intended to the various men and women who have thus far attempted to formulate one, but the fact is that most of those who do appear to be more interested in relating various anecdotes about their personal experiences than in an objective analysis of the complexities of female social interaction.

Not that it’s my concern or my interest, but I would point out that anyone who fails to take into account either the fat factor or the sexual availability and experience factor in what purports to be a “socio-sexual” hierarchy can’t reasonably be considered to be serious about the task. And due to the female discomfort in honestly addressing both of those issues, to say nothing of the male ignorance, and inability to grasp the details, of female competition, I find it difficult to believe that anyone will succeed in describing a functional female SSH any time soon.

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A Team of Leaders

A team of leaders is not a team. And throwing in the occasional Sigma doesn’t help. I explore the possibility that an application of SSH may help explain the difficulties in group cooperation historically evidenced by the ideological Right at Sigma Game.

It always struck me as strange that the opinion leaders of the ideological Right have never, for many decades, ever been able to successfully cooperate the way the apparent leaders of other groups, many of whom are considerably less intelligent, are observably able to work together, despite the obvious advantages that accrue to those who do. Instead, they’ve usually been more inclined to engage in internecine conflict on the rare occasions that they’re not simply ignoring each other and going about their own respective activities...

I suspect the answer to this lies in the cold realities of the socio-sexual hierarchy. If you look at the New Atheists, their demi-successors in the Intellectual Dark Web, or the endless continuum of post-Tupac rappers, it is very clear that none of these groups are comprised of high-status men. They might be rich, they might be famous, but their situational roles notwithstanding, their behavioral profiles tend to be in the lower range. And their success, almost to a man, is far more dependent upon their ability to kowtow before the ticket-makers than upon any genuine talent or intellectual abilities.

UPDATE: 104k views in only 14 days! Sigma Game is clearly off to a good start; hopefully it will provide a strong launching pad for the forthcoming SSH book. Thanks to everyone who has subscribed to it and joined the discussion there.

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Science Sans SSH

The scientific evidence for the IQ Communications Gap is very nearly as thin as the scientific evidence for high average Jewish IQ. And, in fact, combining the material evidence concerning the success of the two relevant populations will tend to lead the observer to tangential conclusions which have nothing to do with the linked Sigma Game post, and which I will leave to the SocialGalacticians to elucidate for themselves. And yes, this is precisely the sort of thing I consider to be too obvious to even bother articulating, much less attempting to convince anyone else, let alone argue about.

As for the linked post, I should first mention that Kirkegaard did an excellent job of tracing the scientific history, scanty as it proved to be. However, the point is not whether one can talk to another individual across the IQ Communications Gap, much less whether one can genuinely enjoy their company, but rather if one can expect to be substantially understood on a regular basis. Psychological and personal elements such as enjoyment, satisfaction, social isolation, and loneliness are not really relevant to the topic.

I happen to prefer speaking with cheerful people of below average intelligence than midwits with something to prove or morose high-IQ individuals who live for the chance to provide pedantic criticism. Sure, the conversation will be limited to sports and the activities of mutual acquaintances, and while the latter can be tedious to the point of pain, it’s still vastly preferable to inept interpretations of theology or incorrect “corrections” of evolutionary mathematics.

But your mileage may vary, which is why I don’t regard it as being relevant in a scientific sense.

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