No Spoilers?

Bradford Walker discusses using spoilers as a method to avoid wasting time on crap.

In many cases, the summaries are sufficiently thorough that I can discuss the work in question with people who've consumed it and not miss a beat. (This is a reliable tell regarding the work in question, and often of its fandom.) Letting others talk has done far more to tell me that I was right to go with the spoiler and skip it than to convince me otherwise. Using spoilers as a screen allows me to avoid most of the crap.

At first I was surprised by the title, but realized that dammit, I do the same thing, almost.

I don't go out of my way to find spoilers unless the trailers and marketing have social justice/message fic "tells", but I certainly don't go out of my way to avoid them. Good movies, stories, and shows bear rereading or watching (say, The Usual Suspects) even after you know the "surprise" twist. "Twists" in social justice crap almost always involve exactly what one would think even if the exact method or lines of dialog are open to different verbiage.

As Walker implied, the works in question aren't really that imaginative, and the stories and themes are far more repetitive than anything Ms Grundy or the church ladies would impose.

The most egregious example being an episode of L&O:SJW (more commonly known as the longest running fantasy series "SVU") where on seeing the trailer I predicted a) this would be the one time a guy was falsely accused of rape (because he's black), they wouldn't punish the women, and the old white guy who was his manager / whatever would somehow turn out to be the bad guy. How did I know? Repeat after me... because if there's a straight white guy he's somehow responsible for everything, and if it looks like there's a black bad guy, he's not.

But I'd argue that Dune, while Excellent, is overrated, and I'd instead put Mote in Gods Eye (I know, I know, YMMV)

A Reminder - SJW's Lie

A bit on Cobert caught my attention for so egregiously slamming Trump, and Mika and Joe being on, and the level of "but I was only just", "but they were only just", and recasting what has happened - say, regarding judge Curiel, was astounding.

I could go on and on, but I won't.

But a reminder - they lie.

A smaller example. This is less for the "oh boy they lie, grr....." but to show you how totally and brazenly they'd lie, and because the videos by Peterson, like damn near everything of his, are well worth watching.

A week or two back I stupidly got stuck in a small flame back and forth over something that was a total tangent to the main point of the article. I'd mentioned that Jordan Peterson had illustrated why the philosophy of the left inevitably lead to the kind of violence the OP posted about, and a commenter started going on "enough about Peterson", "He's a troll", "he never read the law", "it doesn't mean what he says it means," and so forth.

While I allowed myself to get sucked into the tangent argument, compleat with the bullshit line that just because supporters misinterpret the law doesn't mean the law will be enforced like that, I figured he was lying. Even simply based on his later, shorter statements, having looked at the bill C-16 myself, and the law it modified, it was obvious he was spot on.

Having only seen Peterson's later, shorter, statements, I simply had no idea how completely this person had lied, though.

Here's the video that got Peterson in trouble. There's one immediately following it chronologically that goes into the re-education camp, er, "sensitivity training" that part of the campus administration was being mandated to take, as well, that I'm skipping over.

You have to wait a bit before he gets started, but he reads through and parses not only the law in detail, but then applies it to the existing law it modifies and reads that, and then applies it in accordance to how similar laws have already been applied. He spends nearly an hour going over the law and it's impact bit by little bit.

The social justice contingent among the students reply accordingly.

And then, as predicted, the University responds:

So.

He has read the law despite blatant lies that he "obviously has done no such thing", and parsed it in detail.

He applied the law in accordance with current cultural trends, and predicted the reply he actually got. It's worth noting that, as even Peterson remarks, the reaction by the university and students is possibly the strongest affirmation of how utterly correct he was that you could get.

The reply he got wasn't simply by some "ignorant supporters" but by the college administration, almost assuredly after consulting with their legal department.

The proof is there for anyone to see, but they won't see it, and if they can see it, they will not admit it.

In the end, here was his reply.

Gotta Love SJW's Who Forget How To Use A Browser

During gamergate, we got to some serious idiocy under "don't you know how a browser works?" Among others, we got to see people posting screenshots of "hate messages" sent to them - with the submit button waiting for the message to post still present, unsent.

So enter Kurt. Browsers have tabs. If you're going to screenshot something, yo umay want to make sure that you don't include other tabs, windows, your desktop, etc.

The latest piece of political theatre to grace the tubes has been the amusing non-event of Kurt Eichenwald, editor at Vanity Fair, writer for Newsweek, and virulent anti-Trumper, accidentally tweeting out a picture which revealed his interest in MILF themed hentai comics. 

He was arguing with Tucker Carlson at the time, worrying at the Fox News correspondent over the eternal threat of Antisemitism, unaware that he’d failed to close the tab in his browser which was opened on to the Bi-Chiku hentai.  Rather than admit his faux pas, he doubled down; claiming that he and his kids were trying to prove the existence of tentacle porn to his wife.

Aurini uses this to springboard into exactly how weaksauce the meme that started this whole kerfluffle was, and some R/K theory.

More on this at the Ralph Retort as well. Lots more. 

Free Speeches

A couple days back I posted a couple videos, one by Razorfist, the other by the inimitable Stefan, on two different cases of free speech.

One bothers me a lot more than the other. I'll go ahead and let on that the Kathy Griffin one bothers me more, and I'm sure any liberal types who come across here will immediately assume it's because I'm a racist.

Sasse set him up with the comment about working the fields, which, have you seen Nebraska? While my digging is limited, none of the clips I'd found yet give me context but I'm presuming that it wasn't in the context of slavery. Bill Maher then turns him down with the comment "I'm a house nigger."

OK. "Republicans are racist" so make a joke about working fields and turn it around? Either way I'm sure it was something similarly vapid and predictable that went through his head, and the "lawn gnome" certainly made a career of saying controversial stuff and offending people.

That said, it was intended and delivered as a joke, no matter how tasteless. It was even delivered in a self-deprecating manner. Now, I accept the argument that certain words and phrases can be insulting or acceptable depending on who is speaking, how they are speaking, and to whom it's being directed - the in-group can say things to each other that, from an outsider, would be tacky or outright insulting from others. That said, the counterpoint, if the word is that inherently offensive, why is it used so frequently within the black community, also has weight.

Of course, the useless crowd of the perpetually offended are up in arms. Apparently, this is a step way too far over the line of acceptable comedy.

And people have every right to be offended.

The problem?

Many of the people that are up in arms over Bill are - being leftists and hypocrites, but I repeat myself - defending Kathy Gifford's video and pictures as "comedy"

You know, holding the (simulated) bloody head of the US president up with a stone-cold stare. While several comedians have made careers in part on joking about racism, etc., ISIS-style beheadings are rarely the subject of mainstream humor. Something that she and many of her supporters would consider a death threat if posted about them, and that Kathy especially considers far beyond the pale directed at her or third parties given her comments about "target" icons on maps by republicans.

There's a huge difference between a deadpan delivery (think Steven Wright) or the over-the-top satire of "The Real Housewives of ISIS" and that dead, stone cold stare.

So yeah, libs would be screaming if a mainstream "conservative" had the balls to do it about a Dem politician - and I'm not sure I'd voice support for it either even if I didn't think the politician was worth the respect due the office. And of course they're hypocrites.

What stuns me even more though is how much the left is still in a bubble. Listen to an opening monologue by Colbert if you can stomach it, or any of the other night talk show hosts. As Stefan points out - how is it that out of everyone around her nobody said "hey, this might not be cool." This is also why I don't accept arguments of "lone wolf" teachers abusing their students by suspending them over pointing fingers like a gun. Everyone around that teacher and their chain of authority had to be of like mind.

Two Stupid Statements

We've had some doozies recently for dumb statements.

For example, Kathy Griffin and the whole "severed Trump head" thing. Stefan goes into some serious detail here:

Then there's the uproar over Bill Maher, which finds Razorfist going to bat for him. Sortof.

I'll leave you with these for now - but I'll be going into why, despite both having free speech, these cases are different.

Leftism's Strange, Procrustean Bed

I've mentioned before - socialism is evil. I'll go further. Leftism is a death cult of the mind, of the spirit, of thought, and finally, of bodies. Jordan Peterson can indeed argue that post-modernism didn't come about until the 70's - which explains why, even as murderous as they were, the leftism of Lenin, Stalin, and Mao were at least coherent, and so were their followers in the west - but I would argue that while it may not have gone off the rails until then, the seeds were there, and it was inevitable.

And as has been repeatedly noted: they eat their own.

First, Procrustes.

In the Greek myth, Procrustes was a son of Poseidon with a stronghold on Mount Korydallos at Erineus, on the sacred way between Athens and Eleusis. There he had a bed, in which he invited every passer-by to spend the night, and where he set to work on them with his smith's hammer, to stretch them to fit. In later tellings, if the guest proved too tall, Procrustes would amputate the excess length; nobody ever fit the bed exactly. Procrustes continued his reign of terror until he was captured by Theseus, travelling to Athens along the sacred way, who "fitted" Procrustes to his own bed

Leftism isn't a true Procrustean bed - they don't generally stretch people to fit. As long as your ideology, your beliefs fit within the current "bed" - you're safe. Woe betide thee if your beliefs don't fit - if an ideological limb hangs over. You better be able to curl up and keep those limbs over the mattress, never stretching out, or they'll be lopped off. In the real world, you're imprisoned, hammered down, and if a sufficient example needs to be made of you, killed. 

But here's the rub. The size of the bed is determined by beliefs, procedures, policies that will supposedly bring utopia - an ideal society, where everyone is equal. But, equality is a myth - the best we can hope for is something close to an equality of opportunity. Give a hundred kids from the same socioeconomic background, age, gender, etc. a huge box of legos, and no two will build the same thing. Some will not play at all. Some will build houses, some will build bridges, and excepting maybe a copycat, they will all be different. Kids have different insights, different spatial awareness, different interests, different desires. 

So given the freedom to try anything they want, some will be doctors, some will be farmers, some will be gardeners, some will be plumbers. Some will never have the interest and intelligence to become programmers, to model the world in that fashion. Start factoring in the observable differences in interest between men and women,for example, and suddenly the demographic breakdown of any job in society is not going to look like the demographic breakdown of the region.

Add to that people change, and sometimes even still learn, as they grow. The desired outcome is not achieved. Obviously, either we have enemies of the people, or the policies, what's allowed, are not pure enough. In either case, the ideology is purified and made smaller. Words are redefined to attempt to make a tail a leg. 

The size of the bed shrinks. A more careful watch is kept for stray limbs to keep things that don't fit from corrupting the result. Suddenly, those who comfortably fit within the ideological bed while still keeping a conscience, still applying their own standards of what is true or not, find themselves at odds with the new outlook. What was fine yesterday, or a year ago, no longer is. At first, it's just shaming, but history shows it always ends in blood as those with the power to choose struggle to maintain more and tighter control.

Since people never will fit into assigned boxes very well, it will never stop.

The people we've seen recently pushing back on the left include a number who even ten years ago would have been comfortably ensconced in the "liberal" side of the spectrum, and unthinkingly accepting the leftist worldview that has poisoned our institutions. The constant redefinition, the attacks, and the changing standards have caused them to wake up in small part. No, many are still liberal, but they realize there is something deeply wrong with where the left is, even if they don't recognize it was inevitable. Dave Rubin comes to mind. The Bernie-voting professor mobbed by students angrily shouting for his resignation because he wasn't going to go along with a "day of absence" does as well. Despite the words of Reagan spotlighting this trend for decades, despite the history of multiple revolutions such as the French revolution, most didn't realize the left had changed until they themselves were attacked.

And so, day by day, as the left loses touch with reality and insists that the emperor is indeed wearing clothes, more and more see it for the vicious and deadly thing that it is. And though we should never trust a "moderate" or a recent convert with leadership of the fight against the left, the globalists, the left offers them no chance to stay out of it, indeed forces them to choose sides.

Their mask isn't just slipping, they are taking it off to scare us. 

be not afraid.

Know Your Enemy

We've all seen it before. The left, especially SJW's, like to call their enemies stupid, ignorant, bigoted, etc.. The old gag goes that "racist" is what a liberal calls you when he lost the argument, and Scott Adams certainly puts his own spin on it, and expands on it a bit.

The problem is that eventually, you start to believe it, and I certainly know a few people who sincerely believe Trump goes around grabbing pussies, etc., as if they never heard of groupies, or parsed the actual words.

So, again, the NY Times and David Brooks...

We've got this perverse situation in which the vast analytic powers of the entire world are being spent trying to understand a guy whose thoughts are often just six fireflies beeping randomly in a jar.

There's the Sun Tzu saw about if you don't know your enemy... well, not being aware of an enemy's strengths or actual weaknesses is not knowing one's enemy. The problem with narcissistic/borderline "splitting" is that once someone is bad, they're all bad, and there's no "good" or respectable traits - thery're all seen as defending the indefensible.

The literally cannot imagine Trump is smart, because he doesn't talk like them, despite having gone through Wharton school of business at U Penn in a day and age that it was absolutely, provably, a challenge.

On Identity

One could TL;DR with a snarky "well, duh, you can call a tail a leg but a dog still has five legs", but Eric Raymond is worth listening to. He had discussed a vapid SJW-infested article on identity where all sides were huffing unicorn paint, but more things came to light, so now there's a full length post.

There was a very silly news story recently about “Claire”, a transsexual “girl” with a penis who complains that she is rejected by straight guys for ‘having male parts’. Er, how was “she” expecting anything different? By trying to get dates with heterosexual teenage boys using a female presentation, she was making an offer that there is about her person the sort of sexual parts said boys want to play with. Since “she” does not in fact have a vagina, this offer was fraudulent and there’s no wonder the boys rejected it. 

More to the point, why is this “girl” treated as anything but a mental case? Leaving aside the entire question of how real transgenderism is as a neuropsychological phenomenon, “she” clearly suffers from a pretty serious disconnect with observable reality. In particular, those delusions about teenage boys… 

I can anticipate several objections to this transactional account of identity. One is that is cruel and illiberal to reject an offer of “I claim identity X” if the person claiming feels that identity strongly enough. This is essentially the position of those journalists from The Hill 

To which I can only reply: you can feel an identity as a programmer as strongly as you want, but if you can’t either already sling code or are visibly working hard on repairing that deficiency, you simply don’t make the nut. Cruelty doesn’t enter into this; if I assent to your claim I assist your self-deceit, and if I repeat it I assist you in misleading or defrauding others. 

It is pretty easy to see how this same analysis applies to “misgendering” people with the “wrong” pronouns. People who use the term “misgender” generally follow up with claims about the subject’s autonomy and feelings. Which is well enough, but such considerations do not justify being complicit in the deceit of others any more than they do with respect to “I am a programmer”. 

A related objection is that I have stolen the concept of “identity” by transactionalizing it. That is, true “identity” is nececessarily grounded not in public performance but private feelings – you are what you feel, and it’s somehow the responsibility of the rest of the world to keep up.

Language is a tool. If you ruin the utility of the tool by making a word meaningless except within the context of the moment, you ruin the tool. Sometimes shifting a definition is necessary, but different concepts should have different labels. Also, it is utterly chaotic to expect everyone around you to bow to your subjective reality as they expect you to do the same. First of all, because being subjective, it is subject to change on the whim of a moment or your perceptions, and not something that someone can learn in an objective sense and go on to other things.

We may never reach the platonic ideal of the labels we apply - as useful as binary logic is, the world is not binary - but if we, say, call a tail a leg, then we've conflated "leg" with "arbitrary body part" or "limb", when leg is supposed to be a more specific version of the above, and not only utterly loses its utility, but confuses those who learned "leg" as a particular type of limb.

We may also never entirely escape the subjective - we possess, after all, imperfect knowledge, memory, and senses - but if we are to communicate with others, there needs to be a degree of objective, common understandings to the words and phrases we use, otherwise meaning, communication, beyond raw emotion and body language become steadily more and more impossible.

This goes hand in hand with the destruction of truth, of it being disparaged as a western, white, male thing. We may never achieve perfect understanding of truth, a perfect vision of the platonic ideal, but without a dedication to staying in the same ballpark, all the things we depend on, which in turn depend on objective consistency, crumble away, not to be replaced by a people no longer willing to acknowledge that a bridge is, and either stands, or doesn't, no matter how you feel.

And already an update - an SJW-type tried to assert that she could assert any identity she wished, and Eric couldn't stop her. Implied - that other people had to accept it.

>As a trans woman, in fact, *I* do get to assert what my identity is 

Yes, you do, I agree. You get to “assert” anything you like. It doesn’t follow that anyone else has to accept that assertion. 

That is the failure of reasoning I am arguing against. Your feelings are not an entitlement. Your demand that other people conform to your self-belief doesn’t create any obligation that they do so. You can offer any identity you like; it is up to other people whether they accept.

Just Say "No" to Handmaids

Cataline Sergius throws himself on the grenade to watch the new version of the Handmaid's Tale.

I raise a glass to his sacrifice, so that the rest of us don't have to.

A Handmaid's Tale was cobbled together out of random bits of 1984 and Revolt in 2100 back in 1985, by noted crackpot and winner of the Extreme Canadian Award, Margret Atwood.

As I indicated the setting is stolen.  As is the plot and subtext.  The bad sex scenes are all Atwood's however.  She owns them.

For some reason when Feminists have decided they are feeling oppressed, like in the Eighties when Reagan was holding mass executions, they start passing this one around and saying, how important it is.  It's not of course but there's no telling insane Lefties that.

The book is about an extreme theocracy that takes over the United States and renames it Gilead.  This has to do with some kind of infertility plague, which isn't explained.  Anyway, fertile women are rounded up and put in a red robe to remind them of...sin?  Maybe Eve's?  Maybe their own?  I'd look it up but who the fuck cares?

In the meantime, his post on "Leaving Libertarian" echoes a lot of my experiences and reasons.  I will say that Libertarians are slightly less out of touch with reality than Marxists. Sure, we'd still need angels to make it work, they're stuck on materialism in a world that doesn't even need a supernatural creator to prove that insufficient, and so on, but at least it acknowledges the distributed decision making that occurs in the real world at many different scopes including ecologies, rather than worshipping at the altar of central control.

Uncoalesced

Have a couple posts mulling in my head that are not yet ready to be put down, nor to have a chunk broken off to post (usually later figuring out that's all I need to be said).

One topic is from several recent articles of SJW's in tech and a couple of old postings over at Eric Raymond's Blog. The second link is an article on Kafkatraps well worth reading on its own... and if you search for the articles, the usual suspects get their panties in a bunch.

Another relates to GM style, rules, and campaign worlds from a recent Jeffro discussion.

Oh, and still not tired of winning: Are Trump voters ruining America for all of us?: Tom Nichols

Crazy Cat Ladies R Us

On Saturday the Frisky Pagan reviewed a Hugo-nominated story called Our Talons can Crush Galaxies, by Brook Bolander. He was not kind.

I had no intention of reading it for myself to see if he was fair. First, the quotes he provides already make my skin crawl.

No, I'm not kidding.

I'm used to some grade-A solipsism and narcissism out of feminists, but rarely do I read things that, if the person writing them were in the room with me, I'd be looking for an escape exit and never, under any circumstances, be alone with them.

Some examples, you ask? Crap.

Let's start with the opener.

This is not the story of how he killed me, thank fuck

Yeah. Everything up through "me" would be an interesting opener, but no, we have to be edgy and curse and be vulgar.

Unfortunately, what it is a story of is even less pretty.

After starting out complaining how the heroes and the villains get all the attention, the victim doesn't even get a name, and so she won't tell you how she got killed...

So, no. You don’t get a description of how he surprised me, where he did it, who may have fucked him up when he was a boy to lead to such horrors (no–one), or the increasingly unhinged behavior the cops had previously filed away as the mostly harmless eccentricities of a nice young man from a good family. No fighting in the woods, no blood under the fingernails, no rivers or locked trunks or calling cards in the throat. It was dark and it was bad and I called for my sisters in a language dead when the lion–brides of Babylon still padded outside the city gates. There. That’s all you get, and that’s me being generous. You’re fuckin’ welcome.

No, it's not the story of that, and the victims are forgotten, but I'm still going to hint at how it went and you'll be grateful that I decided to hint at it when I said I wouldn't tell you.

So yes, as the Pagan has told us, we get to a set of bullet points as if in a power point presentation. And the very first point does indeed get contradicted later in the same story. "I meant nothing to him/he wanted to get her attention and she wouldn't even look at him." - but then borderlines I've been unfortunate enough to know wouldn't balk at such conflicts to their own vision of their righteousness.

I was playing at being mortal this century because I love cigarettes and shawarma, and it’s easier to order shawarma if your piercing shriek doesn’t drive the delivery boy mad. Mortality is fun in small doses. It’s very authentic, very down–in–the–dirt nitty–gritty. There are lullabies and lily pads and summer rainstorms and hardly anyone ever tries to cut your head off out of some moronic heroic obligation to the gods. If you want to sit on your ass and read a book, nobody judges you. Also, shawarma.

Yeah, petty. I'm sure some would defend it by pointing out how goods and spirits in Greek and other myths would interact with mortals for very mortal and small reasons - usually love, greed, jealousy, etc., but shawarma? How... hip. 

The thing is that this pettiness goes on.

I hatched anew. I flapped my wings and hurricanes flattened cities in six different realities. I was a tee–ninsy bit motherfuckin’ pissed, maybe.

Again with the vulgarity and the teen-speak. What a small-minded god. That's not the pettiest part though. Flattening cities in six realities because she's a tee-ninsy bit pissed?

Let's leave aside the collateral damage and mass death of innocents for the crimes of one - she can't even be grandly pissed? High righteous anger? Maybe we're aiming at cool hipster understatement here. Sorry babe, death in the Sandman comics did it far, far better. And took her job far more seriously. Even when this godlet does things that are grandiose, she cannot at least admit to grandeur.

I may have cried. You don’t get to know that either, though.

She's still playing head games with her audience because we don't deserve to know. 

We swept back onto the mortal plane with a sound of a 1967 Mercury Cougar roaring to life on an empty country road, one sister in the front seat and three in the back and me at the wheel with a cigarette clenched between my pointed teeth. You can fit a lot of wingspan in those old cars, provided you know how to fold reality the right way.

Speaking of Neil Gaiman, I think she learned all the wrong lessons. Still petty though, no steeds, no lightning, no winds, not a quiet approach on foot. Nope, a '67 cougar and fitting the wings if you can fold reality. 

I dearly suspect this woman has never meditated, really, really thought, of ancient myth. This feat she takes care to mention wouldn't be worth mentioning by a Greek god, or an angel, except to note the wings or other visible traits were folded away, hidden. Of course they'd know how.

Did he cry? Oh yeah. Like a fuckin’ baby.

Yeah. Petty, sadistic pleasure at the suffering of the victim. This isn't justice. That said, note the focus. Not that the transgressor was punished, but that the transgressor suffered, cried.

Our talons can crush galaxies. Our songs give black holes nightmares. The edges of our feathers fracture moonlight into silver spiderwebs and universes into parallels. Did we take him apart? C’mon. Don’t ask stupid questions.

Yeah, playing head games with the audience again.

Anyway. Like I said way back at the start, this is not the story of how he killed me. It’s the story of how a freak tornado wrecked a single solitary home and disappeared a promising young man from a good family, leaving a mystery for the locals to scratch their heads over for the next twenty years. It’s the story of how a Jane Doe showed up in the nearby morgue with what looked like wing stubs sticking out of her back, never to be claimed or named. It’s the story of how my sisters and I acquired a 1967 Mercury Cougar we still go cruising in occasionally when we’re on the mortal side of the pike. 

 Except it's not most of those things. It's coyly dancing around the story of how she was killed, but certainly not avoiding it either. It is not the story of a freak tornado but of how they covered their actions in the story. Since she supposedly didn't tell us how she died, it's not the story of how a Jane Doe ended up in the morgue - the author barely hints at what happened, opens by saying she won't tell us even, before dancing around it. And why should I care about the car? They didn't acquire it! There's not story of how the went about getting it, they just manifested it, like they could have manifested a 68' Corvette or a Mercedes G-series.

You may not remember my name, seeing as how I don’t have one you could pronounce or comprehend. The important thing is always the stories—which ones get told, which ones get co–opted, which ones get left in a ditch, overlooked and neglected. This is my story, not his. It belongs to me and is mine alone. 

Still the superiority and head games. It's her story, and it will be there till the end of time with her. No other story matters.

Now. 

You can't diagnose someone from their writing - I dread someone digging up some of what I wrote in high school - but what I see of the author, in what they idealize, even though I'm perfectly well aware of the rule of not confusing an author's belief's with a character's, scares me. Why?

Because it's full of head games. It's about petty, nasty pleasures of the moment, petty, nasty, personal revenge over the equivalent of a mosquito bite - their talons crush galaxies, after all - about how she's sooooo much better than anyone else, about head games, about her utter unconcern for others who did her no harm and how she uncaringly destroys them across multiple realities because she's pissed, and ultimately, about how her story is the only one that really matters.

Weaponized Autism

Vox Day had recently posted on the controversial teaching methods of a certain college professor who has some rather controversial teaching methods involving anti-free speech rioting and bike locks. It was noted how it was the 4chan guys at /pol/ that tracked down the professor from various images of the event.

Two comments I found interesting.

/pol/ = weaponized autism

I f*cking love these guys.

Their ongoing persecution of the Le Barf fool, and the ease with which they've run rings around him, is just ... delicious.

May they never grow up.

This is of course referring to the earlier exploits involving "actor" Shia LaBeouf who had created a livestreaming "art" project centered around how Trump "will not divide us."

It was promptly crashed by various alt-right and alt-white types, some of the funniest being non-white minorities. In response, our intrepid "actor" had taken to hiding his installation. At one point in the middle of some field with the camera point straight up.

So /pol/ used a combination of real-time shots of the starfield and airline schedules cross-referenced to planes observed in the FOV to pinpoint the location of the camera.

Weaponized autism.

Then:

Autism has been weaponized for a long time, it's just we used Ivory Towers and Monastaries before the internet. Remember, the old polite term for it is "touched by god".

A core premise of the novel Anathem is that the monasteries were created to keep the "odds" and geniuses isolated and undistracted by real-world concerns. It's not just to keep them safe from society, but to also keep society safe from them and the consequences of what they discover. Not only are they restricted in how much they can "own", but very restricted in the kinds of modern, especially nano-based, technology they have access to.

As it turns out, that wasn't as much of a limitation as would have been hoped. Weaponized autism will find a way.

BURN BABY BURN!

Hey, my apologies for referencing a disco song, but as much as I like Yngwie Malmsteen, I won't subject you to "Now Your Ships Are Burned."

Anyway, Jon Del Arroz writes on blacklists, the need to make others aware of them, and more importantly , the need to, as Vox would put it, to develop alternate platforms.

More to the point, to forge forth and not look back.

It all comes down to blackballing again. And here’s where I call to you writers: burn the ships and don’t look back.

By which I mean get rid of these middlemen and gatekeepers who have this mentality. You don’t need them. You don’t need the contract they offer you to be legitimate in the world today. Amazon, evil corporate monopoly that it is, has leveled the playing field and gotten rid of all barriers to entry. A “real” publisher won’t market you anyway — they don’t spend resources on new writers, only established brands. You’ll be left in the wind there as much as you are on your own, but without control of your own product, and receiving a lower percentage on every sale for your work. There is literally no benefit to these middlemen’s existence. They are only there to tell you what you’re allowed to write and what readers are allowed to read. Their opinions might not even match up with readers at all.

You are a real writer. If you’re getting good feedback on your work, don’t hesitate. Put it out there. That’s the only way to get ahead: especially if you’re white, male, Christian, conservative, any or all of those things. They gatekeepers hate you for who you are, and it doesn’t matter how good your work is. Stop giving those Christaphobic racist, sexist bigots validation by seeking yours through them.

And if I can't in good conscience subject you to that one particular track off of Rising Force, maybe I can give you a decent substitute:

In Case of Social Justice Break Glass

And pull out some wrongthink. (Hat tip to Brian Niemeier)

The Wrongthink Sci-Fi Giveaway is about showcasing authors who have been marginalized by the gatekeepers of the sci-fi publishing industry for the sin of not complying with progressive social justice dogma. From Sarah Hoyt, who was accused of racism and ”internalized misogyny” for her association with the Sad Puppies campaign to reform the Hugo Awards, to Nick Cole, who lost a publishing contract for daring to write a story about an artificially intelligent computer who is troubled by abortion, these authors have faced smear campaigns, boycotts and blacklisting for failing to toe the progressive line.

Far from being discouraged by the social justice crybullies, however, these authors have thrived by continuing to focus on writing great stories that connect with readers. And now they are teaming up to help spread the word about each other’s books.

The real winner in all this is you, the avid sci-fi reader. We’re holding a huge giveaway and giving away seven kickass sci-fi titles just for entering. In addition, three winners will each receive seven MORE books.

Just for entering, you’ll get:

Curious to know what's in it? How to enter? Well -head to the site and find out.....

There Is No-one So Blind As a Man Who Will Not See.

Google recently put out its methodology for determining wages and pay to address allegations that they are systematically underpaying female staff and programmers.

The verge of course has the expected response (web archive). Let's start with the headline:

Google releases pay methodology in attempt to prove no gender gap exists

Subtle, I tell ya. Reeeeeaaal subtle. 

The statement once again denies that any pay gap exists within the company, explaining the “gender-blind” way the company makes its salary calculations, which it says is based on “role, job level, job location as well as current and recent performance ratings.”

Nice scare quotes you've got around "gender-blind."

In case you're too dense to get the hint the Verge editors are trying to apply with a two-by-four, immediately above the giant, flaming, eye-searing pink pull quote "GOOGLE USES A SUPPOSEDLY ‘GENDER-BLIND’ METHOD TO WORK OUT PAY" you see:

Google’s expressed methodology would seem to iron out imbalances in wages, but Naughton notes that before pay details are run through the equity model, they can be adjusted by an employee’s line manager — “providing they cite a legitimate adjustment rationale.”

And we know those schemers are trying to find any rationale they can. Right?

It doesn't matter how converged you are - if you have any dedication to quality, to getting the job done consistently, right, and well, SJW's will get on your case for the inevitable side effects of not having the current desired distribution of "minorities".

Diversity and SF Sales

We are repeatedly assured that we need "diverse" characters (of uniform belief) so that women, and other minorities than while males (women are not a minority) can see themselves in the characters to better appreciate the story and the role model.

I'm going to ignore for the moment the whole "content of character" not being the same as "color of skin/shape of genitals" thing, and take them for their word.

If we need people who represent us - let's leave aside stories with alien protagonists, etc. that we've enjoyed, we're not dealing with reality but SJW-world - then stories who's protagonists are female will not appeal to men by the same logic that male protagonists supposedly don't appeal to women.

If stories with white protagonists cannot be understood or appreciated by blacks, then, in the US, writing a black protagonist excludes roughly 80% or more of the population.

If stories with straight characters cannot be appreciated by gay people, then the inverse is that the 90+% of the world, more likely 97+%, that isn't LGBTBBQWHATEVER will never appreciate it or gain insight from it.

Instead of believing in a universal human experience that can be, at times, touched even by people who don't share them, we instead eliminate large swathes of the potential market (and if you argue that straight people can appreciate LGwhatever-protag fiction, what's the problem with the opposite, again?).

As I mentioned with computers - in this day and age, and even with the gatekeepers given how eager they were for the "correct" kinds of authors and views, the only thing keeping "minorities" and minorities from publishing to their available audience, even if you agree on it being so self-limiting, is their own desire to do so.

But if you buy this "must be representative" drivel, and a publisher can only put out , say, 20 books a year, even if the percentage of minorities enjoying SF were the same as for the bemoaned "white men" demographic, then every book published targeting 10% or less of the available audience will exclude everyone else who doesn't fit, and not sell as well.

And then they wonder why the market share for SJW-themed comics and books is falling off a cliff.

Victim Blaming

QuQu does another (as usual excellent) video on Internet Harassment.

I've personally been banned from sites/conversations, the first time of which was because I pointed out (early in Gaga's fame, after someone had gushed about a recent single) that yeah, that one was OK, but I really had a problem with the song "just dance" because the behavior of the viewpoint character was horribly irresponsible.

Think about it - drunk off her gourd, lost her phone, purse, wallet, etc., separated from her friends.

Yes, I was driven out for "victim blaming" - especially after I pointed out that, yes, a mugger is responsible for his decision to mug me, but that doesn't mean it's wise to walk through the bad part of town (as most clubs are) drunk, alone, and holding out a wad of cash.

Also see the response Larry Correia and a certain beauty pageant winner have gotten for suggesting women should learn to defend themselves from potential rapists.

You Know That Shortage of Battered Mens Shelters?

The one that made Erin Pizzey persona non grata with feminists?

Meet the solution:

In Canada this week, a Kelowna homeless shelter for women kicked two female clients out and then permanently banned them. The problem? They were uncomfortable sharing a room with a man who identifies as a woman and is in the midst of transitioning.

“He wants to become a woman. I mean that is his choice, but when a man comes into a women’s shelter, who still has a penis and genitals, he has more rights than we do,” Tracey, one of the women who was thrown out, said.

After sharing their tale with the media, the two women were permanently banned.

“They told me sorry, if a person identifies themselves with female, then we have to go with that,” Tracey added.

The other woman, Blaine, was also staying at the shelter. As a victim of an abusive relationship with a man, she felt very uncomfortable sharing a room with a man, even if he is transgender. The shelter is described as a women’s only facility.

GamerGate, Sad Puppies, the Rise and Fall

OK. I finally caught up and listened to this video through - one of the longest single productions I've listened to outside of D6G podcasts, and no, it wasn't one sitting.

So.

There's a lot in here. GG and SP history, personalities, and so forth. I think one note does need to be added.

They almost alluded to the crowd in GG that was all about the "ethics in journalism", and how a number of the moderates/etc. then went away. They also discussed how Brad Torgerson, basically a likable guy, and the fourth Sad Puppies campaign, basically undercut themselves by getting into the disavowal game on one hand, and on the other accepting works like Ancillary Justice - an example of the type of message fic which was the very reason Sad Puppies started in the first place.

The thing that is overlooked is this. Leaving aside the dynamics of "sociopaths" entering a community or scene, the large chunks of #Gamergate only in it for the ethics and the shoddy behavior  as opposed to being anti-SJW didn't realize that the ethics and shoddy behavior were a direct, inevitable result of them being SJW's, and that opposing one manifestation of SJW entryism wasn't enough.

And Despite the Oscars Going to the Most SJW-friendly Topic it Could Find...

SJW's of course still find something to bitch about because they are never satisfied (I know it's the archive link, but it's the Verge. Waiver all claims to retaining sanity before reading their articles in full...).

This year at the Oscars, much like every year at the Oscars, men were honored for the movies they made.

Outside of the women-only acting categories, almost no women were nominated for anything, and almost no women won. Casey Affleck won. Mel Gibson was not only there, but in the third row and often on camera. No one seemed to care, and the entire four-hour ceremony passed without any indication that the women in attendance, or at home, should have anything to be upset about.

A man won Best Director in a field of all male nominees. A man also won Best Film Editing, Best Original Screenplay, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Original Score, Best Original Song, Best Sound Editing, Best Sound Mixing, Best Visual Effects, Best Makeup and Hairstyling, Best Animated Feature, and of course Best Cinematography, which has not been won by a woman even one time in 89 years, because no woman has ever been nominated.

Remember when I said that Manchester could never win best film because white male being masculine? Well...

Casey Affleck, who settled two sexual harassment lawsuits out of court in 2010, also won his first Oscar for Kenneth Lonergan’s Manchester by the Sea, a film that asked him to really stretch his range by pretending to be sad and have a Boston accent. Fittingly, the harassment lawsuits were filed by two women who were working on a film with him — I’m Still Here producer Amanda White and cinematographer Magdalena Gorka.

Well, I have more interesting things to worry about, even within the context of popping popcorn over SJW shitshows, so that will likely be it.