No Magic Dirt

While there is a form of diversity - that of available options and paradigms to analyze a problem and find a solution - that actually helps, there is little inherently superior in "diversity" that actually accomplishes that.

For that matter, while for the longest time an argument for Macs and Linux in the workplace has been diversity and not having everything go down to a single vulnerability, in practice, what's I've seen is the same thing that happens in the wilds. There may be one or two exceptions here or there, but largely you have clusters of windows, *nix, and Mac machines by department, with one or two occasional exceptions.

Think nations, tribes, people, animal populations and their territories.

Arbitrary diversity there, in practice, unless there's a damn good reason you need something different, means learning additional tools, having separate processes on tap to handle computer A than B, and so forth. You can sneer, with some justification, at the retarded Windows-only admin who's not willing to take on something different, but one cannot pretend honestly that there is not a cost.

So, people.

I believe that the historical norm of cross-pollination of ideas, merchants, traders, the occasional bride, etc. between populations will continue. But historically, this has not happened on large scales without one population displacing or absorbing the other. So while we'll never entirely rid ourselves of immigration, etc., I think we should take the default position of "why does this help us more than it hurts, in the long run" (because you can always make the argument "no-one else does that job", or try, in the short run).

But, muh sins of the parents! Law abiding (except for not being legally registered by established law)!

I want to tackle today though, "wants to be an American!"

So? Who cares?

There's an old joke about a man who propositions a woman to sleep with him for one million dollars. She blushes, but agrees. He then asks if she'll sleep with him for $1. Furious, she slaps him, asks him what kind of person he thinks she is. He calmly replies "we've already established you're a whore and now we're negotiating a price."

So.

What if we swapped the population of Los Angeles with the population of Yokohama since they're both around 3.7-3.8 million people - even though the population densities are vastly different.

Would the people living in what was L.A. be Americans?

They'd be on American soil, we could offer them paperwork that says they're perfectly legally able to reside there as citizens, with voting rights, etc.. We could give them time to find the local markets, industries, factories, and get to know how to work them.

But would they be Americans?

Would they speak the same language? Would they expect to use the local resources the same way, celebrate the same holidays, negotiate the same way, have the same assumptions and body language? Would they feel the need to assimilate with the surrounding cities or learn their neighbor's language? Could their neighboring towns have the same assumptions of the new LA that they would have in the past?

I'm sure some are tempted to answer "why yes," but the obvious answer is no, because if Japanese wanted to act like Americans, they already would be.

And they don't.

Granting them papers, giving them time to figure out where the stores and factories are, much less how to make movies or whatever else, would not suddenly make them like the Angelinos they replaced.

And the same holds true of our Americans in Yokohama. They will not be Japanese. They won't wander into the countryside and have the same attitude towards the shrines and mountains they find there as the natives they displaced.

There is no magic dirt. The remaining question is what level can be tolerated without destroying the culture accepting the immigrant?

It takes time to assimilate, and a desire or need to do so. A large culturally homogeneous population center develops its own inertia and may adapt to its neighbors, but won't assimilate. A large enough group will not assimilate, and a small group will still displace the culture around it, cause inherent friction as Putnam's study showed, just due to different assumptions and worldviews.

For that matter, how long does it take to assimilate? It may be a conservative assumption (in other words, too cautious), but we know culture and other personality factors imprint at a young age, that you carry them throughout your life, and that that manifests in following generations as well, though to a lesser degree. No genetics required, though that is also likely a factor. To support this, we often find that the second and third generation descendants of immigrants often become more radical as they react against the culture their parents tried to assimilate to. To push back against the conflicts internally engendered between two cultural outlooks.

If one assumes one generation is a "half life" - three half lives are needed to reach 80% of the final state (in this case, full assimilation with the surrounding culture. Or 80% of radioactive materials decayed, and so forth). Five are needed to achieve 95%.

We know two is definitely not enough, and have evidence that three, whether it's actually 80% of the way assimilated or less, isn't quite enough either, so I don't believe a generational half-life is too conservative. So we're talking four or five generations before they're fully integrated and no longer to a significant if small degree "strangers" to the culture.

In light of that, I'd be willing to have a second-tier permanent residence status that makes you a non-voting citizen for at least several generations. Why? because the children and grandchildren may begin fitting in, but they won't have the deep, subconscious understanding of the multi-generational natives of the culture. They can still work to convince others, but they don't have the long term skin in the game to make binding decisions for it.

And yes, that means I wouldn't be able to vote.

The Filters They Wear

Vox posts a note from a not-crazy techie and his astonishment at stereotypes of the right, the south, etc. as seen by the left.

I must also relate a story. I recently had dinner with a silicon valley startup dude (I say "dude", because he was allegedly a founder, but not particularly successful) regarding the possibility of Silicon Valley startups outsourcing to other parts of the US (particularly the deep south and rust belt). I pointed out that low ping times, similar timezones and laws, and better optics around outsourcing might eventually make the numbers work well enough for at least some companies to try it out. It was at this point that I was subjected to an extended rant about how his company would never do that as (summarized) "we don't want to hire people who are going to be bringing racism into the office and wanting to take time off in the fall to duck hunt and f#$% their sisters". This individual stated this, loudly, in front of numerous witnesses without a hint of fear of consequences. It is this sort of behavior and the cucking I described in the previous paragraph that makes me believe that the alt-tech revolt is just getting started - I know dozens already who are hopping mad about this sort of thing and I send them to your blog. I certainly am motivated to help grease the skids for it.

The comments are also worth reading, but matches up with my experience. Worse, I'm in the southeast, but for various reasons in a very blue area, and the attitudes I've seen...

New Yorkers and other bluetards with no fucking clue that the reason the place is so much nicer to move to is that we don't do it like you do wherever the hell they came from. "Isn't selling confederate flags illegal?"

Their kids, going to only the very best private schools (which here ain't much better than the better than average public schools, which is why the first homeschoolers I ever got to know were wiccans) talking about wanting to get out of such a bigoted, redneck state, unironically using 'murica as a putdown, reacting to Trump posters with "make america racist again", and so forth.

All of them talking trash about southerners, and the inhabitants of their state, as if they of course were above all of that, above their fellow citizens living not ten, fifteen miles away. When I give them a pointed look I get the condescending "but not you, you're one of the smart ones..." - and don't understand why that doesn't mollify me, given that if they'd just look beyond the "educated" markers they'd realize a lot of those rednecks aint dumb.

There are none so blind...

Anyway, Vox also referred to a post on, and discussed the faults of the latest season of GoT - which I could generally not care about as I couldn't stomach the thought of starting the second book. He also listed the best epic fantasy series, in his opinion -

1. JRR Tolkien
2. Stephen Donaldson (Covenant)
3. Margaret Weis & Terry Hickman (Dragonlance)
4. David Eddings (Belgariad)
5. Glen Cook
6. Steven Erikson
7. Raymond Feist
8. George RR Martin
9. Joe Abercrombie
10. CS Friedman
11. Tad Williams
12. Daniel Abraham
13. Brandon Sanderson
14. R. Scott Bakker
15. Mark Lawrence
16. Terry Brooks
17. Robert Jordan
18. Terry Goodkind

Interesting. A lot of interesting discussion ensued.

JRR Tolkien   Obviously

Stephen Donaldson (Covenant)   OK, not quite stomach-churning but Covenant is an unpleasant as hell character, and the rape early on because he doesn't believe the world is real? It will stretch your vocabulary almost as much as Gene Wolfe, though for various reasons I actually preferred the Gap series. Still dark as hell but more inclined to reread it.

Margaret Weis & Terry Hickman (Dragonlance)   Weirdly, saw them often, never read them

David Eddings (Belgariad)   OK, loved this in high school. Was severely disappointed by the next series. Haven't checked to see how well it held up but a number of people who's taste I trust - and who also considered the following series not up to snuff, still recommend it.

Glen Cook   Have to get around to this one.

Steven Erikson   OK, who?

Raymond Feist   Never read the riftwar, but may have to

George RR Martin   I liked the first "Tuff" story, and the Sank Kings was OK, but barely finished the first ASoIaF book while holding in my gorge and never picked up the second.

Joe Abercrombie   From what I can tell I have to add this to my reading list.

CS Friedman   Never read it

Tad Williams   Saw the stuff in B&N, never got around to it

Daniel Abraham   Who?

Brandon Sanderson   I think I'm kinder than Vox, but even he rates Sanderson as better than Jordan, so it's no surprise that many found his book to be a better-Jordan-than-Jordan finish to the WoT. I really did enjoy the Mistborn books, but the degree of angst in the Stormlight books is just.... no. Even without the TORcott I can't see myself getting the third one.

R. Scott Bakker   Doesn't ring a bell

Mark Lawrence   Who?

Terry Brooks   We laughed at Shanarra, and I never got around to it.

Robert Jordan   I was underway, finished all my books, and anything else I hadn't read in teh ship's library, and still couldn't finish one of these.

Terry Goodkind   I got further than a lot of people, but yeah, the writing, and over-the-top plotting by supposed prophesy wore even me down from completing it.

Interestingly, there's a lot of stuff on that list I never read, despite long ago losing count of just how much I've read, still having a wall of books, and that being the small portion that survived multiple moves, nevrmind extensive library borrowing and a long list of ebooks.

Ongoing Projects

I refuse to let a weekday go by without a post, or as in eclipse week, a pre-post, but I will have a minimum of five a week.

That said, today has been light on the writing, as I've been busy digging up a new host to replace blogger, likely going with something WP-based running on one of several hosts. The hardest issue, actually, is staying fairly anonymous.

Sure, I can use bitcoin or even prepaid debit cards to keep the payment paper trail an effective dead end, but moving my site will be no good if, since I have to have a domain name at that point (I'm using protonmail for the contact point so that doesn't come back to me), I can be doxxed by anyone looking up my information via whois/etc. after looking up my registrar.

Yeah, I know, despite promises to the contrary, I'm sure I can be traced back by anyone with sufficient privileges at Goolag. Good thing I use a sandboxed *nix VM and always ensure the VPN is up and running to a random address before opening up the browser tabs. That said, even that can eventually be backtraced, correlated, something, by someone with their resources.

But if I'm moving off of Goolag I don't want to make it even easier to pull back the covers in the process.

The other thing is that Vox recently posted another article on intelligent people and communications difficulties. That, and a  number of comments, left me thinking. I'll likely posting something based on that.

In the meantime, suggestions on a good anonymous registrar that can be trusted (the name on the registration is the legal owner, technically, no matter who is paying it), and low-friction ways to get money over to bitcoin that can then be used to pay for hosting, and good hosts, would be appreciated.

So far I've got:

• prq - registrar and hosting
• Njalla - registrar only
• Dreamhost - hosting
• Orangehost - hosting

A little Music For Monday

Whilst the Didact has been posting more epic Manowar (seriously, my cousin was listening to it back in the 80's or 90's but somehow I completely missed it even as I got into Yngwie, Maiden, etc. and ended up listening to lots of Dragonforce alongside my Sabaton and Nightwish habits...) I was on the road for the weekend. Good and bad stuff, but on the way back the rental had XM, and I had it tuned to the 90's channel.

OK. There's a LOT of good, and popular stuff from the 90's, how much fucking salt-n-peppa or N'Sync or whatever do we have to listen to to get a drab of something cool?

I'd mentioned my tastes are eclectic. Well....

Late 80's into early 90's:

Yeah, pop, but some very slick and well done pop. Didn't hurt that the lead singer looked like this:

OK, pixie cuts were in.

Anyway.

If there was ever a song fitting for the obsessive so-called "romantic" story of Romeo and Juliet, even if it was in a stupid "modernized" adaptation...

A little KMFDM never hurts, especially if it's on the soundtrack for Mortal Kombat:

On the more pretentious side (no, not Skinny Puppy)...

Then I took a few detours with the Cherry Poppin Daddies, Big Bad Voodoo Daddy (better band, IMO), and such, and always found this song immensely fun.

While we're at it:

and

And we'd be remiss without a little punk. I wish I'd gotten red-pilled by these guys earlier, but...

Girl Friday

You know the drill...

Odds and Ends

First, courtesy of Peter Grant, I concur. Couldn't have have happened to a nicer bunch of guys:

Looks that way. From the organizers of BAMN to the organizers of Refuse Fascism, to just your typical Antifa member has allegedly been doxxed. 8chan has released the first and last names of all of them and promises to be releasing the personal info of all of them.

Quintus Curtius takes a look at how creating something is only the beginning.

Even though this would not be the end of Bell’s legal troubles (he would face hundreds more frivolous suits in the years ahead), it was a watershed moment.  The lesson was hammered home to him that it was not enough just to invent something:  what mattered even more, perhaps, was fending off the jackals who would steal the meat right from his jaws.  Eli Whitney, the inventor of the cotton gin, supposedly received very little compensation from his invention; it was relatively easy to duplicate and he was perhaps not as aggressive as he might have been in defending his intellectual property.  It is true that patent law was in its relative infancy in the United States in 1794 (the year Whitney patented his invention); but it is clear that Whitney did not understand how to deploy his machine in a way that would protect his interests. 

It is not enough to innovate; one must also learn to defend.  Creation is nothing without preservation.

Now, I think the current patent and copyright system has gotten out of hand, but with responsibility should come power, not just the other way around. Once an idea is out there it's fairly easy to copy. While inventors would often toil at their work anyway, getting recognition for this, and the ability to leverage the work, is the least we can do.

Getting onto a different topic, the first successful sub attack was the Hunley. For years, even after it was found and dug up, it was speculated as to exactly what had caused it to sink.

Lance and her fellow researchers determined that, based on the pressure wave generated by the explosion, the crew of the Hunley likely died from the effects of the blast within their tight confines. "The blast produced likely caused flexion of the ship hull to transmit the blast wave," Lance and her co-authors wrote, "[and] the secondary wave transmitted inside the crew compartment was of sufficient magnitude that the calculated chances of survival were less than 16% for each crew member."

Meanwhile, Jeffro expounds more on Nerds at the Gym.

It’s surprising to me, though. Normal people are actually pretty nice. They find out I’m into biking and weightlifting and if they’re into it, too, they get so excited. They have to tell me about this thing that they did or some advice that they have. It’s like I’m instantly part of their tribe or something. 

Now, I have never in my life given much thought to appearance. But there’s something about that moment when you catch your reflection somewhere and you fail to recognize yourself that can change that real fast. I know you’ve seen it happen with a girl you knew. Maybe you took her for granted because she just wasn’t that good looking. Then one day she shows up with her hair fixed up and a nice outfit and you can’t stop looking at her. You know the whole story… but your head just swivels around reflexively anyway. 

My impression of nerds in general is that they don’t get that that sort of thing can really work in their favor, too. A lot of them got smacked down pretty hard in their school days and they’re stuck with this assumption that nothing they do can make a difference. Or maybe they just pretend like they’re not trying on purpose so they don’t have to feel bad about failing.

Is Free Speech Compatible With Civilization

One of the greatest weaknesses I've found in free speech, as much as I stand by it, is that fact that it is absolutely a double-edged sword, picked up by our enemies to be used against us.

It's not a perfect solution, but I think I have at least a partial one, and it is rooted, like some of my other recent thinking, in the golden rule: Treat others as you would be treated. Taken to a deeper context, do not allow others to abuse you or you state, through your actions, that such abuse is allowable.

In short - the moment the left, CAIR, muslims, BLM, the black lobby, feminists decided that "hate speech" was a thing, that the would not reciprocate and grant us the same rights - no, privileges in their eyes - that they demanded for themselves, to bring up problems we see and not be shouted down and run out by those with more power, is the moment they lost the protections of free speech.

Much like war crimes and reprisals. The second someone shoots at you from a hospital, hospitals are no longer exempt from being targeted.

More Eclipse Shots

Saw the eclipse. It was a unique experience, but I'm not the one who brought a nice camera, or a telephoto lens for their iPhone. A friend did. It was dicey, with clouds in every direction, and the sun not always visible through the cloud layer, but a hole opened up about 15 minutes before totality, and it all looked good through and beyond.

Eclipse Shots

I may not post tomorrow, so I'm putting this up today.

In looking up a few things related to eclipses (and finding a set of shades that haven't been refunded to me because amazons retailers didn't source their stuff right despite it supposedly being a brand that was on the NASA list - damned chinese knock-offs), I stumbled into a rather unique video.

It turns out that the timing and dates of most eclipses are such that they don't occur over snow-covered mountains suitable for skiing, but one a few years back would just happen to cross a small patch of land in a desolate part of Norway.

So the skiers and photographers set out, and in the process captured a literally once-in-a-lifetime series of shots requiring not only a rare event - total eclipses in general, but one going over suitable terrain - but cooperation of the weather during the event.

Girl Friday

Enjoy the weekend, and get some sun before it goes away on Monday (if only for a little while)

On Rallies

Free Northerner examines political rallies, with some of the pretty euphemisms torn off.

Voting is a display of legitimacy. Voting is the statement: ‘I believe the person I vote for has legitimate authority over me.” This is why naked dictators have hold elections where they win with 120% of the vote. It reinforces their legitimacy. 

It is also a display of power. It is a ritualistic counting of heads; who would outnumber whom if political disputes needed to be resolved by violence. ‘I have 65 million people who believe I have legitimate authority and who would fight for me if violence began. You have fewer and would lose. Surrender peacefully’

Food for thought, at least.

Axes and the Axis

A few more things tumbled out after the fallout from Charlottesville and my previous post. 

Namely, the far right.

Unfortunately, Vox already did an excellent post following up on a point he made during a darkstream. 

The most common error is to postulate a Communist left-wing extreme opposed by an extreme Nazi right wing. Not only does this leave out a substantial body of political and philosophical thought, but the construction falls apart the moment the two socialist ideologies are compared. Any reasonable comparison inevitably forces the confused advocates of such a definition to assert that the spectrum is actually a circle, in which case the terms left and right, much less left-wing and right-wing, are wholly nonsensical.

This is one of Vox's dialectic posts - we're not going to convince anyone that Dems R the real Nazis, or Nazis are really Dems (though ragging on how Antifa and commies hate Nazis because only killing 20 million makes them posers is fun...)

The funny part is that no matter how you define left-right by modern standards - either by nationalism vs globalism, or by authoritarianism vs not, we are, indeed, the far right.

Sure, multi-axis charts have been done before, but I believe it was Col. Kratman who noted that if you plotted most philosophical leanings on said charts, you'd end up with a very stretched ovoid distribution with a few outliers skewed diagonally through the chart.

And if one considers that the inherent decentralization of nationalism vs globalism requires less authoritarianism to some small degree, if only in total scope of humanity rather than how perniciously it extends through any subjects life, even that axis maps, roughly, to a very small part of the state-individual axis.

As I alluded to in discussing moderates, the commie big lie of the far right is that it posits the Nazis as the rightmost anchor, and totalitarianism and socialism (but I repeat myself) as a given.

That is a ground assumption that can be challenged, as well as the kindness of socialism. "One hundred million isn't enough, we need to aim for two?"

Or not - I'm not a good rhetorician, though I've gotten better.

In either case, it doesn't matter if you use the european axis the left likes to use, or the US one, we are, indeed, the far right. 

Well beyond it in fact.

Miscellaney

First - not the first time it's been observed, most notably perhaps by Orwell, who's 1984 the left appears to have embraced as an operating manual rather than a warning, but still, the left loves to erase them some history. 

“New Orleans is tearing down its Confederate monuments, but the South has plenty of others” 

Look at that title. The whole purpose is to eradicate the South’s identity. A people without a past cease to be a people. The Marxist can put in their own statues and claim only Marxist heroes have done anything. 

It’s already starting. As real American historical figures are pulled down, the Marxists are defending a Lenin statue. 

“Sure, Lenin the Man endorsed the use of mass terror against his enemies, created the Soviet Union’s secret police, and implemented policies that caused millions of peasant farmers to starve to death. But Lenin the Public Artwork is a beautifully crafted sculpture, and a catalyst for healthy discourse.” 

Got that, plebes? One of the greatest murders of all time, his statue is a catalyst for healthy discourse.

Over at Superversive, they take a look at Passengers:

The ship design is breathtaking. This is the ship I’d want to take to the stars. The ship is not just a colony ship. It’s a luxury liner with a huge swimming pool, plenty of recreation facilities, sports and entertainment, bars and restaurants, and luxury suites. I can’t tell you how refreshing this was. Personally, I’m done with stories where humans are living in squalor, wallowing in their own filth because while we retain the technology to travel between stars or planets we must show humans as victims of science and technology who’ve lost the ability to fix the plumbing or take out the garbage. 

Some of the people on the Avalon are passengers who’ve paid full fares. Others are people with valued skill-sets (blue-collar people like mechanics, gardeners, and midwives) who are getting a discounted trip in exchange for a percentage of their future earnings. Most of these people are going on a one-way trip. They are true pioneers seeking adventure, open spaces, and the opportunity to do things like build a home with their own hands. I loved this “unique” concept of competent, hard-working people willing to pull themselves up by their bootstraps and get to work. 

This movie showed, rather well, that you don’t have to have a post-apocalyptic setting, the worst elements of human nature, wars, or refugees to tell a good science fiction story.

Okay, it drove me nuts when the ship stopped spinning when the drive shut down, but overall, I think the movie doesn't deserve much of the hate directed at it, even if I'm not a fan of whats-her-name.

And Peter Grant takes a look at "glamping."

OK, it aint camping, but I've been "guilty" of renting a cabin for a few days near a national park so I could avoid hotels, tourist traps, and restaurants, while being near enough to hike, etc.

Finally, Taleb rakes Mary Beard over the coals for defending the BBC's stupidity, and doubling down.

Background: The BBC cartoon showed a subsaharan African as part of a “typical” Roman Brit in the name of diversity. The UK “bien pensant” establishment now has a binary classification“white” and “other” that is, “nonwhite”, whatever that means, a classification that encompasses anything that is not Northern European and, if Mediterranean, comes from a “diversity country”, that is from a non EU-member. One nonwhite can substitute for another. If that’s not racial supremacism, what is?

Who Are You, and What Do You Want?

One of my favorite all-time SF TV shows is not Star Trek, and hasn't been for years (Wrath of Khan is a movie). Instead, it is an odd, often nearly-canceled series about a space station that is at a crossroads between empires, Babylon 5.

Yes, it was idealistic - the station was supposed to provide "diplomatic" solutions. Yet Michael J Straczynski was far too clever to write anything anywhere near as utopian as Rodenberry wished for, and got in ST:NG.

Leaving aside the utter awesomeness of the space battles in episodes like Severed Dreams where Earth attempts to retake a seceding station, and many other great moments that rely on the well-played characters, the show was unique in having an ongoing story arc with a beginning, middle, and end. Events in season 2, for example, had an impact in seasons three and four.

One of the main themes in the show though was the two warring elder races. From infogalactic:

The conflict between two unimaginably powerful older races, the Vorlons and the Shadows, is represented as a battle between two competing ideologies, each seeking to turn the humans and the other younger races to their beliefs. The Vorlons represent an authoritarian philosophy: you will do what we tell you to, because we tell you to do it. The Vorlon question, "Who are you?" focuses on identity as a catalyst for shaping personal goals; the intention is not to solicit a "correct" answer, but to "tear down the artifices we construct around ourselves until we're left facing ourselves, not our roles." The Shadows represent another authoritarian philosophy cloaked in a disguise of evolution through fire (as shown in the episode in which Sheridan goes to Z'ha'dum and when he refuses to cooperate, Justin tells him: "But we do what we're told... and so will you!"), of sowing the seeds of conflict in order to engender progress. The question the Shadows ask is "What do you want?" In contrast to the Vorlons, they place personal desire and ambition first, using it to shape identity, encouraging conflict between groups who choose to serve their own glory or profit. The representation of order and chaos was informed by the Babylonian myth that the universe was born in the conflict between both. 

Anyone familiar with Jordan Peterson's work, especially anyone who's listened to or watched his Maps of Meaning lectures, will find the above damned familiar. They also would not be surprised to discover that, per Strazynski, the theme is played out such that neither question is sufficient.

This makes sense. Both are authoritarian. One is order, and awareness of what one is in and of themselves, the other is chaos, and desire. Incidentally, the traits are actually two different axes.

How order leads to authoritarianism is easy to figure out. How chaos does - well - ever dealt with an addict? Their life is chaos, and inflicts the same on everyone around them. With nothing to channel that chaos, they are slaves to their desires. The shadows offer people the illusion of choice, getting what they want, until, drunk with power, compromised, they cannot give it up, and serve their masters.

I find the other dichotomy more interesting. Knowing oneself is great, but if one desires nothing, has no ambitions, wants nothing, one will never act - and the Vorlons rarely, if ever, acted. Our wants though, I already mentioned addiction. If we follow the whim of the moment without order and logos imposed on it, without discipline, we never build anything.

It also relates to the framing problem. Purpose and goals are necessary to act, to even be able to classify the things in our environment. A yardstick can also be a convenient thing-to-get-stuff-out-I-dropped-behind-the-desk, depending on your needs and wants of the moment.

Knowing who you are helps guide those needs - do they really serve your goals, and are they in tune with who you are?

I'll have to go back and watch the damn series over again, now that I've caught up on Peterson.

Update: You can see some of what I'm talking about just in this compilation of intros. Yes, Bruce "Tron" Boxleitner took over as the captain in season two, while the first season's captain made later, separate appearances. The also rushed the original 5-year arc to a close at season four out of cancellation fears, resulting in season 5 being somewhat disjointed - I've never bothered finishing it.

Things Have Gotten Real, Things Have Gotten Serious, Alt-Reichtards

In the recent periscope by Vox Day discussing the fallout from the rally in Virginia, he focused again on the stupidity of Nazi imagery, the Alt-Reich, and issues of "are we just cucking" in not embracing Nazi imagery.

So - if they're calling us Nazis anyway, why not, right?

Right?

OK. Are we Nazis? I'm not. I'm certainly not German, I'm certainly not a German supremacist much less a white one, I have no desire to rule the world, and I want no part of a leftist, collectivist ideology even if it's dressed up in nationalist colors.

If they insist on thinking of themselves as Nazis, then the alt-reichtards are "right" in the same way that Nazis were - because of the communist big lie, and because they, like most of Europe, fell for the delusion that the problem with National Socialism was the nationalism they shared with everyone else.

And if they want to adopt the ideology (edit- LR) of a failed bunch of leftist collectivists with delusions of imperial grandeur, they are not of the right.

So - the left, antifa, the media, the cluckservatives will all call me Nazi anyway?

So what? We. Don't. Care.

The point of "they'll call you a Nazi anyway" is that I should not be scared to do what I see is right, should not stop doing what I intend to do, because someone calls me a Nazi.

The point is not that I should go ahead and put on the uniform and the armbands, become a Nazi, much less LARP as one like a poser, since they'll apply the label.

Because I'm not a fucking socialist. I'm not a progressive. I'm not a fascist. I'm not a communist, a Trotskyite, or anything else like that.

And since that is not what I am, I sure as hell won't start acting like it just to placate some ignorant morons, or give the left the optics they wish.

If you insist that being part of the right means we should LARP as Nazis, then I agree with Vox - you're not interested in saving western civilization.

You also are more interested in playing dress-up games than winning.

Girl Friday - Frazetta edition

That time of week again, guys.

More Being Evil

Two interviews with Damore - one with Peterson, one with Molyneux

He seems smart, sincere, and like he expected some trouble but, not having understood the evils of socialism, communism, and having watched it play out as post-modern thought, feminism, etc., he had no idea the level of irrational hate there was.

Moly had to restrain himself a bit to keep from stepping all over him, Peterson gave him some very good advice regarding not apologizing.

Also

Google - Be Evil Edition

A few memes and other stuff for your pleasure, related to the latest google issues:

Dire Straights: Love Over Gold: Telegraph Road

About the rise, and fall, of Detroit.

On Body Language and Hatefacts

Recently read and finished The Definitive Book of Body Language by Alan and Barbara Pease.

For what it's worth, it's a worthwhile and useful read, with a lot of solid info. But this isn't a review.

This is also not a rant about the blatant usage of republicans/conservatives for the "dumb" illustrations, and Clintons, leftists, etc. for the "smart" ones.

Instead, given the recent kerfluffle at Google, it's an observation of the book as a time capsule, in that I am sure one day it will be on the SJW hatefact list for even noticing differences between men and women, and worse, while not actively promoting them as inborn, not ascribing them to socialization either.

Which is funny, because along with the not terribly Hillary and Bill pedastalization, the numerous differences between men and women and how they tend to behave are almost always skewed to say "women are better at".

Girl Friday

That time again...